Корделия (“Cordelia, you are a fool! Would it have been…”) by Marina Boroditskaya

Cordelia, you are a fool! Would it have been
that hard to yield to the old man?
To say to him, ‘I, too, O darling Daddy,
love you more than my life.’ Piece of cake!
You wanted him to work it out on his own –
who was the best of his daughters. Proud fool!
And now he’s dead, you too, everyone’s dead.
And Gloucester! Oh the bloody horror –
his eye-sockets – the scene of the blinding –
fingers leafing quickly through the pages
as if through plates of red-hot iron… Here,
read it now. I’ll turn away. You weren’t there
in that Act, were you? Go on, read it,
look what you’ve done, you stupid little fool!
OK, OK, don’t cry. Of course, the author
is quite a character, but next time
make sure to be more stubborn, and resist:
Viola, Rosalinda, Catherine,
they managed – why wouldn’t you? Like a puppy,
pull him by the leg of his pants with your teeth
into the game, into comedy! The laws
of the genre will lead us out into light… Here,
wipe your nose and give me back the hanky.
I still have to wash and iron and return it
to a certain careless blonde Venetian
in the next volume. Sorry I told you off.
Best regards to your father. Remember: like a puppy!

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by Мари́на Я́ковлевна Бороди́цкая
(Marina Yakovlevna Boroditskaya)
(c. 2003)
translated by Ruth Fainlight
Published in the Journal of Foreign Literature, Number 8, 2014

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Below is the original Russian version of the poem in Cyrillic.

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Корделия

Корделия, ты дура! Неужели
Так трудно было старику поддаться?
Сказать ему: “Я тоже, милый папа,
Люблю вас больше жизни”. Всех-то дел!
Хотела, чтобы сам он догадался,
Кто лучшая из дочерей? Гордячка!
Теперь он мертв, ты тоже, все мертвы.
А Глостер? О, кровавый ужас детства —
Его глазницы — сцена ослепленья —
Как будто раскаленное железо
Пролистывали пальцы, торопясь:
На вот, прочти. Я отвернусь. Тебя же
В том акте не было? Читай, читай,
Смотри, что ты наделала, дуреха!
Ну ладно, не реви. Конечно, автор —
Тот фрукт еще, но в следующий раз
Ты своевольничай, сопротивляйся:
Виола, Розалинда, Катарина
Смогли, а ты чем хуже? Как щенок,
Тяни его зубами за штанину —
В игру, в комедию! Законы жанра
Нас выведут на свет. На, вытри нос.
Давай сюда платок. Его должна я
Перестирать, прогладить и вернуть
Одной венецианской растеряхе
В соседний том. Прости, что накричала.
Отцу привет. И помни: как щенок!

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Extra information: Marina Boroditskaya was born on June 28, 1954 in Moscow. In 1976 she graduated from the Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages ​​named after Maurice Torez. She worked as a guide-translator and taught in a school. In 1978 she made her debut as a translator in Russia’s Иностранная литература (Foreign Literature) magazine.

Since 1990 she has been a member of the Writers’ Union, and since 2005 she has become a member of the Мастера литературного перевода (Masters of Literary Translation) guild.

Marina Boroditskaya works as a presenter on the radio show Литературная аптека (translated as Literary Pharmacy’, ‘Literary First Aid Box’or ‘Literary Drugstore’ depending on your source) on Радио России (Radio Russia). She is convinced that the book is the best medicine.

A Public Service Announcement for Theatre Lovers

During the current period three YouTube Channels are broadcasting entire theatrical shows for free. They generally start at 7PM BST on certain weeknights but the videos will remain on the channels for 7 days afterwards before being taken down as something else is uploaded.

Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre: Performances of Shakespeare’s plays, at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre in London, done in the theatrical style used in his time.

So far: Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, The Two Noble Kinsmen.

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The Show Must Go On: Performances or film versions of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musicals.

So far: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The Phantom of the Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar, Love Never Dies, Phantom 25^th Anniversary concert, By Jeeves.

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National Theatre Live: Usually you have to pay to see these broadcasts in the cinema. Performed by the Royal National Theatre in London.

So far: Twelfth Night, Jane Eyre, Treasure Island, Frankenstein (both versions with Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller alternating the roles of Victor Frankenstein and the Creature), Anthony and Cleopatra.

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The lists I’ve provided, of what have been shown so far, are by no means conclusive. They are only the ones I know have been shown recently. There are many clips on the channels if you wan to check out other productions by the organisations and, at least for the National Theatre, interesting ‘behind the scenes’ videos about the production process.

The organisations offer these broadcasts, for free, in hope of donations to support the theatre community.

‘She came in out of the frost’ by Alexander Blok

She came in out of the frost,
her cheeks glowing,
and filled my whole room
with the scent of fresh air
and perfume
and resonant chatter
that did away with my last chance
of getting anywhere in my work.

Straightaway
she dropped a hefty art journal
onto the floor
and at once
there was no room any more
in my large room

All this
was somewhat annoying,
if not absurd.
Next, she wanted Macbeth
read aloud to her.

Barely had I reached
the earth’s bubbles
which never failed to entrance me
when I realized that she,
no less entranced,
was staring out of the window.

A large tabby cat
was creeping along the edge of the roof
towards some amorous pigeons.
What angered me most
was that it should be pigeons,
not she and I,
who were necking,
and that the days of Paolo and Francesca
were long gone.


by Александр Александрович Блок
(Alexander Alexandrovich Blok)
(1908)
translated by Robert Chandler

Additional information: ‘The earth’s bubbles’ in this poem references a line from Act I, scene 3 of Shakespeare’s play Macbeth “The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, / And these are of them.” which Banquo says to Macbeth when the witches disappear after their encounter. Between 1904 and 1905 Blok wrote a poem cycle he titled ‘Bubbles of the Earth’, incorporating motifs from folk magic. In 1907 he wrote of Shakespeare, ‘ I love him deeply; and perhaps, most deely of all – in the whole of world literature – Macbeth’.

Paolo and Francesca refers to the affair between Francesca and her brother-in-law Paolo Malatesta, both of who were married, but fell in love nonetheless. Their tragic adulterous story was told by Dante in his Divine Comedy, Canto V of the Inferno, and was a popular subject with Victorian artists and sculptors, especially with followers of the Pre-Raphaelite ideology, and with other writers.

Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare

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)

Capel Calvin by Idris Davies

There’s holy holy people

They are in capel bach –

They don’t like surpliced choirs,

They don’t like Sospan Fach.

 

They don’t like Sunday concerts,

Or women playing ball,

They don’t like William Parry much

Or Shakespeare at all.

 

They don’t like beer or bishops,

Or pictures without texts,

They don’t like any other

Of the nonconformist sects.

 

And when they go to Heaven

They won’t like that too well,

For the music will be sweeter

Than the music played in Hell.

 

by Idris Davies