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PUSHKIN The Gypsies (3)
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ЦЫГАНЫ
(continued)
Прошло два
лета. Так же бродят
Старый муж, грозный муж,
Режь меня,
жги меня; Он свежее
весны, Как ласкала
его Алеко Молчи,
Земфира! я доволен...
Земфира
Так понял
песню ты мою?
................................................................ Старик
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THE GYPSIES
(cont.)
Two years pass by. The gypsy clan Roam the plains in their peaceful throng And to them all places, as before, belong, Offering hospitality and rest. Despising the shackles of modernity Aleko, like them, is also free. Without regrets or anxiety He spends his nomadic days at ease. He is still as he was, the family is the same, He obliterates all his former days, Being accustomed now to the gypsies' ways. He loves their sheltered camps at nightfall, And the joy of idleness eternal, And their language, poor, but sonorous. Within his tent, a shaggy guest, The tame bear, an exile from its home, Is taken around the villages That scatter the higway, and in a yard His antics are watched by a wary crowd, Heavily he dances and fiercely roars While the imprisoning chain he angrily gnaws. The old man leans on his walking cane And beats lethargically his drum again. Aleko leads the bear round and sings While Zemfira collects the small offerings Which the peasants happily present. Then night descends; the three in the tent Prepare their meal of unreaped grain. The old man slumbers - all is at rest, The dark tent becomes a peaceful nest. In the spring sunshine the old man sits Warming the blood which old age has chilled; By the cradle his daughter a love song sings. Aleko listens and grows pale. Ancient husband, hideous brute, Burn me and slash me in your ire I care not a jot and I have no fear Of you, or your knife, or your fire. I loathe you utterly, I despise you completely, It is for another that I sigh, And loving him forever I will die. Be quiet. That song is tedious. I don't like songs that are crude. You don't like it? I care not. It is for myself I sing this song. Burn me and slash me He is fresher than spring, How I caressed him at night, Aleko So then you understood my song? Aleko Rage as you wish. The song I sing is for you alone. She leaves singing 'Ancient husband, hideous brute,' as she goes. Yes I remember, I remember, That song in the old time was composed And oft in the gatherings round the embers It was sung to amuse both young and old. And over the steppes as we wandered slow Around Kagúl, my Mariula Would sing it in the firelight glow, Rocking the cradle of Zemfira. But the passing years, in my old mind, From hour to hour all fade away, But this song is of another kind, In my memory it is etched and will surely stay. .............................
Don't touch him. Keep quiet and still. I heard a Russian superstition: In the middle of night a household goblin Hampers the breathing of one who sleeps; Before dawn he leaves, so sit with me.
His love for me is like ice on my heart.
There is no need,
Not sweet assurances, not dreams, Not even the heart that lies in you. ................................................................ What is it now, you foolish fellow What is it that makes you ever to sigh so? Here we are free, the heavens are blue, Our women are renowned far for their beauty. Weep not. This sorrow will destroy you. Console yourself; she's but a child. Your misery is quite meaningless. You love so gloomily and with distress, But a woman's love is light and wild. Look how in the heavens above us The maiden moon strolls carelessly; On all of nature, without fuss She pours her light abundantly. She looks upon some cloud or other And brightens it with radiance, But then she turns towards another And adorns that one with a brief glance. Who will direct her to one place Saying 'Stay here, and do not range'. Who to a young girl's heart and face Would say 'Love one, and never change'. Console yourself . Leaning over me, oh so tenderly, In the spacious silence of the steppes She whiled the nighttime hours away. Full of a childish happiness How often with her whispering Or rapturous, adoring kissing, My dark and thoughtful gloominess In a trice she banished far away! And what then? She is My own Zemfira is cold and untrue. Listen. A story I will tell you, A story about myself, you'll see. Long, long before old Muscovy Threatened the Danube with its might ( You see, I am remembering Aleko, an old, sad, distant plight) For then we mostly feared the Sultan, And a pasha over Budjak ruled From the high towers of Akkerman - Young was I then, and unschooled My soul was, passionately seething. And of my hairs not a single curl Was whitened with the frost of age. Among all the beauties there was one girl Just one.... For long I was her page. I worshipped her just like the sunshine, And in the end I called her mine. Ah swiftly did my youth fly past, A falling star, which cannot last! But you, the time of love, so dear, Much faster still. For only a year My Mariula's love shone clear. Once near the waters of Kagúl We met a stranger gypsy camp. Close to ours, beneath the hill, They pitched their tents and lit their lamp. Two nights we both together stayed And on the third they left, and Mariula, Abandoning her baby daughter, Went with them. Slumbering I laid At rest, peacefully, till the dawn came. I woke, my wife, my love, she'd gone! I searched, no trace, I called her name. In grief Zemfira howled and cried, And I cried too, and from that time All girls wherever in the whole world wide Were repellent to me, my eyes never Upon them fell to choose a lover, Or friend, and solitarily My tedious life I drag on drearily. After the ungrateful girl, and when Her and and that trickster you had found With a dagger in the heart make a fatal wound? But why? Youth is more free than the birds above, And who has the power to imprison love? To all in turn is given joy and pain, And what has been cannot be again. None of my rights will I renounce! Or in revenge I'll take delight. Even upon the cliff top's height Above the sea, if my enemy lay Sleeping, I swear my knife would slay Him unsparingly, the villain I'd trounce. In the waves of the sea, without a frown Quite mercilessly I'd push him down, The sudden horror of his awakening And for a long time the sound of his fall Would be droll, sweet music to my soul. |
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