Selected Poetry (Penguin)
Page 13
Resplendent motley raggedness,
Children’s and old men’s nakedness,
The barks and howls of dogs, the music
Of bagpipes, axles under stress –
80All of it so rudely rustic
And random, but so live and strong,
So foreign to our empty leisure,
So foreign to the life of pleasure,
Monotonous as prison song!
*
The young man fixed a doleful eye
Upon the now abandoned plain;
The reason for his melancholy
He could not fathom or explain.
Beside him was dark-eyed Zemfira,
90And he the world’s free citizen;
Merrily the midday sun
Shone down from heavens never clearer;
What was the burden that oppressed him?
What was the sorrow that obsessed him?
God’s little bird knows neither
Labour nor unrest,
Doesn’t make an effort
To build a lasting nest;
At sunrise, after sleeping
100Soundly all night long,
It hears the voice of God,
Wakes and sings its song.
After spring in glory,
Sultry summer is here,
Then comes cruel weather,
Autumn of the year,
Comfortless for man;
Off flies the bird, to be
Warm until the spring
110Over the dark blue sea.
Like that bird without a care
He too, a migrant on the wing,
Couldn’t settle anywhere,
Couldn’t get used to anything.
The way to anywhere he took,
Anywhere his night’s abode;
His every day, when he awoke,
He offered to the will of God,
Life’s tribulations never shook
120The torpor of his heart and mind.
Sometimes that distant comet, fame,
Would stir him with its magic flame,
Or unsought pleasure he might find;
Many a time the gathered thunder
Crashed above his lonely head –
Come fair or foul, still he would slumber
Careless as ever on his bed.
Innocent of human thrall
To blind and cunning destiny
130He lived … But once – how brutally
The passions had besieged his soul,
Had seethed in his tormented breast!
When, how long though, laid to rest?
They will awaken: wait and see!
*
ZEMFIRA
Tell me, my love, do you not pine
For what you’ve chosen to renounce?
ALEKO
What is it I have left behind?
ZEMFIRA
You know – your countrymen, and towns.
ALEKO
Those towns! You can’t imagine … where
140No one is free in anything,
No one breathes the morning air,
The scent of meadowland in spring;
Where love is shame, and so are brains,
They barter with their liberty
And revel in idolatry,
And all they want is gold and chains!
What have I left behind? Betrayal,
Relentless hounding by the crowd,
Judgement passed by minds gone stale,
150Disgrace – which only makes one proud!
ZEMFIRA
But those great stately chambers, those
Gorgeous rugs and carpets, those
Revels and banquets, those rich clothes!
ALEKO
What is the point of those enjoyments?
If there’s no love, then there’s no pleasure.
Those girls … But you – without adornments
And finery – you are far better!
Do not change; you’re dear and good!
I only wish to be with you
160And have you share my solitude;
And you shall always find me true!
OLD MAN
You are fond of us, although you come from
A people used to wealth and ease.
But freedom doesn’t always please
Those who have lived a life of comfort.
I have heard tell, an emperor
Banished a subject, who then came
To live with us, a southerner
(I can’t remember his strange name).
170By then he was no longer young,
But young and vigorous in his soul –
He had the magic gift of song,
And in his voice you heard the fall
Of waters – he was popular;
He lived beside the Danube here
And did no harm to anyone;
His tales enchanted everyone;
Life’s needs he little understood,
He had a child’s timidity,
180His frame was weak, his livelihood
Hung on strangers’ charity –
When the swift river was iced over
And blizzards raged and winter wind,
People from all around would cover
The saintly man with furry skins;
The life, however, of the poor
Was one to which he couldn’t take;
He wandered, pale, thin as a rake,
An angry god pursued him, for
190A crime, he said, was on his hands …
He waited for deliverance.
The unhappy man was always grieving;
Beside the Danube he would roam,
Remembering his distant home,
And bitter was that old man’s weeping;
Dying, he made a last request
His yearning bones be taken south,
For never could they be at rest
Here on alien soil in death!
ALEKO
200A son of yours, and come to this,
O Rome, O city of glorious name!
Singer of love and deities,
Can you tell me, what is fame?
The voice of praise, an endless knell,
A sound that runs from age to age?
The tale a gypsy has to tell,
A smoke-filled tent for all his stage?
*
A year goes by … another year.
The gypsies in their peaceful throng
210Wander on, and everywhere,
Wherever they settle, they belong.
Spurning the chains of civilisation,
Aleko spends, as free as they,
His each and every roaming day
Without regrets or agitation.
He and his hosts remain the same;
He gives no thought to former days,
He has grown used to gypsy ways.
He loves their new-found nightly home,
220Their language, poor but sonorous,
The rapture of pure idleness.
His shelter’s shaggy guest, the bear,
A vagrant from its native lair,
Roves the Moldavian villages,
Performs its clumsy dancing, gnaws
Its irritating chain, and roars
Before the wary villagers;
The bent old man is not averse
To beating on a tambourine,
230Aleko leads the bear and sings,
Zarema goes about to glean
The voluntary offerings.
Night falls; the three together make
Their meal of unreaped millet grain;
Soon the old man is nodding … then
The tent is tranquil in the dark.
*
The old man warms in springtime sun
Blood already growing cold;
His daughter, with her little one,
240Sings. Aleko hears, appalled:
ZEMFIRA
Old husband, dread husband,
Stab your
wife, burn your wife:
Firm I stand – I don’t fear
Fire or the knife.
I hate you, despise you,
Another I love;
He has all my heart,
I shall die for my love.
ALEKO
This is a song I will not hear,
250Enough – wild songs are not for me.
ZEMFIRA
Oh, not for you? That’s as may be,
This one I don’t intend to share.
Stab your wife, burn your wife,
I shall say nothing –
Old husband, dread husband,
Huffing and puffing!
Fresh as the spring he is,
Hot as high summer;
How young and bold he is!
260Ah! what a lover!
How I caress him
Deep in the night!
How we both laugh at you,
Grizzled old fright!
ALEKO
Zemfira! That’s enough for me …
ZEMFIRA
You understand my song is true?
ALEKO
Zemfira!
ZEMFIRA
Rage at me, you’re free,
The subject of my song is you.
(Goes away singing the song.)
OLD MAN
I know that song – it’s long been sung,
270It was composed when I was young:
On winter nights my Mariyule
Would rock our daughter by the fire,
Out on the steppes of the Kagul,
And sing it, she would never tire.
These days I’ve left the past behind;
That song, though, never leaves my mind.
*
Night, and all is quiet. The moon
Adorns the azure southern sky;
Zemfira wakens the old man:
280‘Father! Aleko frightens me.
Look at him now, he’s soundly sleeping;
But listen: how he’s groaning, weeping.’
OLD MAN
You mustn’t touch him. Not a sound.
The Russians say: from midnight on
A household spirit hovers round
And cramps a sleeper’s breath; by dawn
That evil spirit will be gone.
Come and sit with me.
ZEMFIRA
‘Zemfira!’
I heard him whisper!
OLD MAN
You are his troth
290Even in sleeping; you are dearer
Than all the world to him.
ZEMFIRA
I loathe
His love. How bored I am! I long
For freedom – I am already … No,
Not out loud … Do you hear him now?
Another name is on his tongue …
OLD MAN
What name?
ZEMFIRA
Just listen! How he chews
And groans! … It’s terrible to hear it! …
I’ll wake him.
OLD MAN
It will be no use,
You mustn’t chase away the spirit –
300It leaves you when the time is right …
ZEMFIRA
He called to me … he’s turned his head …
Now he’s starting from his bed –
I’ll go to him – sleep now, good night.
ALEKO
Where have you been?
ZEMFIRA
Sitting with father.
Some spirit has been cruelly
Lashing your soul, making you suffer
During your sleep; you frightened me,
Your teeth were grinding in your mouth;
You called me.
ALEKO
You were in my dream –
310And it was this: I saw us both …
Terrible things were in my dream!
ZEMFIRA
Dreams and nightmares are deceiving.
Don’t believe them.
ALEKO
I believe in
Nothing at all, not dreams, nor sweet
Endearments – no, not even your heart.
*
OLD MAN
Why do you sigh, young hothead? Here
People are free, the sky is clear,
Our women’s beauty is above
All others’. Grief destroys. So leave
320This melancholy: do not grieve.
ALEKO
Father, I have lost her love.
OLD MAN
Be consoled; she is a child.
You are downcast unwarrantably;
Your love is labour, grief and bile;
A woman loves light-heartedly.
Look at the free moon in the sky;
Her beams shine down indifferently
On nature as she passes by.
She comes to a cloud and lights it up,
330And moves to another; she’ll not stop.
Who shall place her in the skies
And tell her where she has to stay!
To a young girl’s heart, who is to say:
Love just once, let that suffice!
Be consoled.
ALEKO
Ah, how she loved me!
In the silence of the steppe,
When all the world was fast asleep,
How tenderly she leant towards me!
Full of childlike happiness,
340How often she would put to flight
The lonely stretches of the night
With whispers or a passionate kiss! …
But now Zemfira – what to do?
Now my Zemfira is untrue!
OLD MAN
Listen: I will relate to you
A sad event I well recall.
The Danube – it was long ago –
Was still unknown to the Moskàl;
The Sultan held us all in thrall;
350From the high towers of Akkerman
A pasha ruled the Budzhak plain –
In those days I was young; my soul
Was light, my head still showed no sign
Of grey. Among the beauties, one
I admired and worshipped like the sun,
And in the end I called her mine …
Ah, how soon my youth flashed by –
As swiftly as a shooting star!
But then the time of love passed by
360More swiftly still: a single year
Maryula gave me, that was all.
Once we were skirting the Kagul
And met another gypsy band;
They pitched their tents alongside ours,
And on that wild and hilly ground
They spent the next two nights with us.
The third night came, and they had gone –
Maryula left her little daughter
And me in her hotfoot departure.
370I slept in perfect peace; at dawn
My loved one was no longer there!
I searched and called – no trace of her.
Zemfira wept and pined, and I
Wept with her – nowadays I shun
All women in the world, my eye
Will never rest with any pleasure
On one of them, my peaceful leisure
Is never shared with anyone.
ALEKO
If I’d been you, I would have gone
380Straight after her, my faithless wife –
Put her, her captors, to the knife.
OLD MAN
Why? Youth is freer than a bird;
You’ll try to hold back love in vain;
Happiness comes to all in turn,
And what has been won’t come again.
ALEKO
I could not live like that. No foe
Could take my rights from me – ah no!
I would at least enjoy revenge.
And if I found my enemy
390High on a cliff above the sea
Asleep, I swear I’d never blench –
My foot woul
d send that dog to hell
Over the cliff, down to the surf;
His sudden terror as he fell
Would fill me with unholy mirth –
How I would laugh to hear him howl!
*
YOUNG GYPSY
One more kiss … One more, just one …
ZEMFIRA
My husband has a jealous eye.
YOUNG GYPSY
Longer … One more! … to say goodbye.
ZEMFIRA
400Well, goodbye then – quick, he’ll come.
YOUNG GYPSY
Next time – when will it be safe?
ZEMFIRA
When the moon goes up tonight –
There, past that mound, beside the grave …
YOUNG GYPSY
She’ll not come! She’s pretending!
ZEMFIRA
Hide!
He’s coming! … Here I am, my love.
*
Aleko sleeps. But in his mind
A dreadful vision is played out.
He wakes in darkness with a shout
And reaches with a jealous hand;
410A hand, however, that grows shy
Clutching a chill-grown coverlet –
His loved one is no longer by …
He sits up trembling on the bed …
Silence all around him – rent
By sudden fear, he listens, then,
Hot and cold, he leaves the tent
To wander, terrible of mien,