Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. Book I Stanzas 57

PUSHKIN'S POEMS

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EUGENE ONEGIN

(In this edition he is called Yevgeny Onegin).

BOOK 1 STANZAS 57-59

The Russian text is printed both in image format, and as plain Russian script. Errors in the Image version I hope have been corrected in the plain text below. Two or three stanzas are printed on each page, with the English translation alongside.

Замечу кстати: все поэты -
Любви мечтательной друзья.
Бывало, милые предметы
Мне снились, и душа моя
Их образ тайный сохранила;
Их после Муза оживила:
Так я, беспечен, воспевал
И деву гор, мой идеал,
И пленниц берегов Салгира.
Теперь от вас, мои друзья,
Вопрос нередко слышу я:
"O ком твоя вздыхает лира?
Кому, в толпе ревнивых дев,
Ты посвятил её напев?

LVII

All poets - I note here, for it is pertinent -
Are friends of imaginary loves.
It was my custom and my bent
To dream of such subjects brought from above.
My soul preserved their mystery.
The muse afterwards enlivened them all.
And so, in rapture free I sang,
The mountain maid, my heart's ideal,
Or the captive of Salgira's banks.
But now from you, my friends I hear
A frequent question in my ear:
"For whom does your lyre now sigh and moan?
To which of the girls in the jealous throng
Have you dedicated its latest song?

Чей взор, волнуя вдохновенье,
Умильной лаской наградил
Твое задумчивое пенье?
Кого твой стих боготворил?"
И, други, никого, ей-богу!
Любви безумную тревогу
Я безотрадно испытал.
Блажен, кто с нею сочетал
Горячку рифм: он тем удвоил
Поэзии священный бред,
Петрарке шествуя вослед,
А муки сердца успокоил,
Поймал и славу между тем;
Но я, любя, был глуп и нем.

LVIII

Whose glance, disturbing your inspiration
Has rewarded with its sweet caress
Your thought-heavy song and incantation?
Whom has your verse created goddess?
My friends, no one! Really and truly
The pangs of love, wild and unruly
I suffered without hope or joy.
Happy is he who can create from such trouble
A burning rhyme, for thus he would double
The sacred flame of his poems madness,
And following then in Petrarch's footsteps
His heart's suffering he could allay,
And fill the cup of fame as well;
But I, in loving, was stupid and dull.

Прошла любовь, явилась Муза,
И прояснился тёмный ум.
Свободен, вновь ищу союза
Волшебных звуков, чувств и дум;
Пишу, и сердце не тоскует,
Перо, забывшись, не рисует,
Близ неоконченных стихов,
Ни женских ножек, ни голов;
Погасший пепел уж не вспыхнет,
Я всё грущу; но слёз уж нет,
И скоро, скоро бури след
В душе моей совсем утихнет:
Тогда-то я начну писать
Поэму песен в двадцать пять.

LIX

So love sped by and the muse appeared,
And my mind, fettered in darkness, awakened.
Now released, I strive to blend again
The magic of sounds with thought and emotion.
I write, and my heart is not in pain;
The pen distractedly does not wander
To sketch some female legs or faces
Beside some half forgotten lines;
The flame does not flare up from the ashes,
And, though I am sad, yet my eyes are dry,
And soon, the trace of the storm flown by
In my deepest soul will be totally quenched.
Then definitely I shall start to compose
An epic poem of twenty five cantos.