Have you heard the word compassion
Said the wise man to the fool
I doubt you know the meaning
If you never went to school.
The fool, he started crying
And the wise man walked away
A simpleton, the fools best friend
Said, come, you’ll be ok.
By Norma Phillips
(1992)
12th century
Mountain snow, everywhere white;
A raven’s custom is to sing;
No good comes of too much sleep.
Mountain snow, white the ravine;
By rushing wind trees are bent;
Many a couple love one another
Though they never come together.
Mountain snow, tossed by the wind;
Broad full moon, dockleaves green;
Rarely a knave’s without litigation.
Mountain snow, swift the stag;
Usual in Britain are brave chiefs;
There’s need of prudence in an exile.
Mountain snow, hunted stag;
Wind whistles above the eaves of a tower;
Heavy, O man, is sin.
Mountain snow, leaping stag;
Wind whistles above a high white wall;
Usually the calm are comely.
Mountain snow, stag in the vale;
Wind whistles above the rooftop;
There’s no hiding evil, no matter where.
Mountain snow, stag on the shore;
Old man must feel his loss of youth;
Bad eyesight puts a man in prison.
Mountain snow, stag in the ditch;
Bees are asleep and snug;
Thieves and a long night suit each other.
Mountain snow, deer are nimble;
Waves wetten the brink of the shore;
Let the skilful hide his purpose.
Mountain snow, speckled breast of a goose;
Strong are my arm and shoulder;
I hope I shall not live to a hundred.
Mountain snow, bare tops of reeds;
Bent tips of branches, fish in the deep;
Where there’s no learning, cannot be talent.
Mountain snow; red feet of hens;
Where it chatters, water’s but shallow;
Big words add to any disgrace.
Mountain snow, swift the stag;
Rarely a thing in the world concerns me;
To warn the unlucky does not save them.
Mountain snow, fleece of white;
It’s rare that a relative’s face is friendly
If you visit him too often.
Mountain snow, white house-roofs;
If tongue were to tell what the heart may know
Nobody would be neighbours.
Mountain snow, day has come;
Every sad man sick, half-naked the poor;
Every time, a fool gets hurt.
by Anonymous
(12th century)
translated by Tony Conran
Like a jester complaining of the cruel weight
of his hump – let me tell about my orphaned state.
Behind the devil there’s his horde, behind the thief there’s his band,
behind everyone there’s someone to understand
and support him – the assurance of a living wall
of thousands just like him should he stumble and fall;
the soldier has his comrades, the emperor has his throne,
but the jester has nothing but his hump to call his own.
And so: tired of holding to the knowledge that I’m quite
alone and that my destiny is always to fight
beneath the jeers of the fool and the philistine’s derision,
abandoned – by the world – with the world – in collision,
I blow with all my strength on my horn and send
its cry into the distance in search of a friend.
And this fire in my breast assures me I’m not all
alone, but that some Charlemagne will answer my call!
by Марина Ивановна Цветаева (Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva)
(March 1921)
translated by Stephen Capus
Fun facts: This poem was a favourite of Varlam Shalamov, according to Irina Sirotinskaya (she was a close friend of his and the holder of his works’ publication rights). It’s very likely he may have referenced this work in his poem Roncesvalles.
Tsvetaeva is referencing the romanticised tale of the historical figure Roland‘s death as retold in the eleventh-century poem The Song of Roland, where he is equipped with the olifant (a signalling horn) and an unbreakable sword, enchanted by various Christian relics, named Durendal. The Song contains a highly romanticized account of the Battle of Roncevaux Pass and Roland’s death, setting the tone for later fantastical depiction of Charlemagne’s court.
And, yes, he is ‘that’ Roland – the one who Stephen King references in his Dark Tower series though it was chiefly inspired by him via the poem “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” by Robert Browning.
Original Russian cyrillic version:
Как нежный шут о злом своем уродстве,
Я повествую о своем сиротстве…
За князем — род, за серафимом — сонм,
За каждым — тысячи таких, как он,
Чтоб, пошатнувшись,— на живую стену
Упал и знал, что — тысячи на смену!
Солдат — полком, бес — легионом горд.
За вором — сброд, а за шутом — все горб.
Так, наконец, усталая держаться
Сознаньем: перст и назначением: драться,
Под свист глупца и мещанина смех —
Одна из всех — за всех — противу всех! —
Стою и шлю, закаменев от взлету,
Сей громкий зов в небесные пустоты.
И сей пожар в груди тому залог,
Что некий Карл тебя услышит, рог!
A recital of the original Russian language version
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no, it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
by William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616)
Part Black Sea merchant, part milord,
a half-baked sage and halfwit fool,
a semi-scoundrel – but there’s hope
his scoundrelhood may soon be full.
by Александр Сергеевич Пушкин (Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin)
a.k.a. Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin
(1824)
translated by Robert Chandler
Fun fact: The subject of this epigram poem is Count Mikhail Vorontsov (1782-1856) the Governor General of ‘New Russia and of Bessarabia’, which consisted of most of southern Russia. Vorontsov was Pushkin’s boss during much of his southern exile.
Rambling At The Bridge Head 
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