Selected Poetry (Penguin)
Page 21
In this unrhymed skazka Pushkin contrives a three-stress anapaestic metre with the feel of folk verse, also used in the first of the lyric poems ‘Songs of Stenka Razin’ (1826) and most of the ‘Songs of the Western Slavs’ (1834), neither of these groups being represented in the present selection. The tale was first published in the widely circulated monthly Library for Reading in 1835.
On a shore of the dark blue sea
Lived an old man and his wife;
They had lived in their tumbledown hut
For all of thirty-three years.
The old man caught fish with his sweep-net,
The old woman sat spinning her yarn.
One day the old man cast his sweep-net –
Back it came bearing nothing but slime.
Once more he cast out his sweep-net –
10Back it came bearing nothing but weed.
A third time he cast out his sweep-net –
Back it came bearing one little fish,
No ordinary fish, but a golden one.
The little golden fish, how it begged!
In a human voice it begged him:
‘Put me back in the sea, good father!
I shall pay you a very fair ransom –
You may ask whatever you want.’
The old man was astounded and frightened:
20For thirty-three years he’d been fishing
And not heard of a talking fish.
He put it back in the sea
And gently spoke to it:
‘Golden fish, may God go with you!
I have no need of you;
You can swim wherever you wish
In the dark blue sea, golden fish.’
The old man went home to his wife
And described this wonder to her:
30‘I caught a little fish today,
Not an ordinary fish, but a golden one.
The little fish spoke in our language;
It begged to go back to the sea,
It offered to pay a high ransom,
Whatever it was I wished.
I didn’t dare take a ransom from it,
It went back in the dark blue sea.’
The old woman fairly flew at her husband:
‘You numbskull! Where are your brains?
40You didn’t dare take a ransom,
Dare ask for a brand-new washtub!
Our one is cracked all over!’
Back by the dark blue sea
The old man saw a ripple in the water.
He called to the little golden fish;
The fish swam up to him and asked:
‘What is your desire, good father?’
The old man bowed low, and answered:
‘O mighty little fish, forgive me;
50My old wife has been scolding me,
She will not leave me in peace;
You see, she wants a new washtub,
Our one is cracked all over.’
And the little golden fish replied:
‘Do not worry, for God shall be with you.
So be it, you shall have a new washtub.’
The old man went back to his wife,
And there was a brand-new washtub.
But worse than before his wife swore at him:
60‘You numbskull, you imbecile!
What is this you have got us – a washtub!
Where will a washtub get us?
Go back to the fish, you numbskull,
And ask it for a proper house.’
Back by the dark blue sea
(And the dark blue sea was restless)
The old man called to the fish;
And the golden fish swam to him and asked:
‘What is your desire, good father?’
70The old man bowed low, and answered:
‘O mighty little fish, forgive me,
My old wife has been scolding me dreadfully,
She won’t leave her old husband in peace:
It’s a proper house she wants now.’
And the little golden fish replied:
‘Do not worry, for God shall be with you;
So be it, a house you shall have.’
And the old man went back to his hovel –
But no trace of it could be seen;
80In its place stood a two-storeyed house,
With a chimney of whitewashed brick
And a patterned oak gate. At the window
The old woman sat cursing her husband:
‘You numbskull, you’ve mislaid your brains!
You’ve got us an ordinary house!
Now go to the golden fish;
I’ll not be a common peasant,
I want to be a lady of rank.’
Back by the dark blue sea
90(And the dark blue sea was troubled)
The old man called to the fish,
And the golden fish swam to him, and asked:
‘What is your desire, good father?’
The old man bowed low, and answered:
‘O mighty little fish, forgive me!
My wife is scolding worse than ever,
She will not leave me in peace:
She’ll not be a common peasant now,
She wants to be a lady of rank.’
100And the little golden fish replied:
‘Do not worry, for God shall be with you.’
The old man went back to his wife.
And what did he see? – A tall tower,
And his old wife standing in the porch;
She was wearing a rich-woven headdress
And a costly sable gown;
Her neck was laden with diamonds
And her fingers with jewelled gold rings,
On her feet were crimson shoes.
110About her ran hard-working servants,
Whom she beat and pulled by the hair.
Thus the old man spoke to his wife:
‘Greetings, most honourable ladyship!
Is your dear soul now contented?’
The old woman shouted abuse at him
And put him to work in the stables.
A week went by and another;
The old woman made even more fuss,
Sent her husband again to the fish:
120‘Go back to the golden fish:
I’ll not be just a lady of rank,
I want to be a reigning queen.’
The old man was astounded and terrified,
Tried to get her to change her mind:
‘Old woman, you must have gone mad!
You can’t walk, you can’t talk like a queen!
You’ll be the laughing stock of the land.’
The old woman threw a tantrum
And struck her old spouse on the cheek:
130‘You peasant! How dare you defy me?
I’m a person of noble class!
Off to the sea with you – or else,
This I swear, you’ll be sent there by force.’
The old man set off for the sea
(And the dark blue sea had grown darker).
He called to the little golden fish.
The fish swam up to him and asked:
‘What is your desire, good father?’
The old man bowed low and answered:
140‘O mighty little fish, forgive me!
My wife’s giving even more trouble:
She’ll not be just a lady of rank,
She wants to be a reigning queen.’
And the little golden fish replied:
‘Do not worry, for God shall be with you!
So be it, a queen she shall be.’
The old man returned to his wife.
What did he see? – A fine palace,
And his wife seated there at table,
150A powerful reigning queen;
She was tasting spicy gingerbread,
And being served by noble guests
With rare and precious wines;
Around her stood threatening guards
Holding hatchets over their shoulders.
The old man was filled with terror;
He bowed low at the old woman’s feet.
‘Greetings,’ said he, ‘mighty queen,
Now is your dear soul contented?’
160With not so much as a glance at him,
She ordered him out of her sight.
Nobles and courtiers ran up to him
And bundled the old man away.
At the doorway the guards surrounded him,
They’d have hacked him down with their hatchets.
Outside, the people jeered at him:
‘Serves you right, you bumpkin!
This will teach you a lesson:
You should sit in the sledge that belongs to you!’
170A week went by and another;
The old woman, beside herself now,
Sent her courtiers to fetch her husband,
And back to the palace they brought him.
And the old woman said to her husband:
‘Go back to the golden fish.
I’m tired of being just a queen,
I wish to be empress of the seas,
And live in my ocean home,
With the golden fish to serve me
180And be always at my command.’
The old man did not dare to object,
Not a word did he say to oppose her.
He went to the dark blue sea,
And the waters had risen in fury;
How they rushed, how they crashed, how they roared,
While the black storm thundered around them.
The old man called to the fish;
The fish swam up to him and asked:
‘What is your desire, good father?’
190The old man bowed low and answered:
‘O mighty little fish, forgive me!
What to do with the cursed old woman?
She’s tired of being just a queen,
She wants to be empress of the seas,
And live in her ocean home,
And have you, golden fish, to serve her
And be always at her command.’
The little golden fish said nothing
But just smacked its tail on the water
200And swam off in the dark blue sea.
The old man waited and waited,
He waited in vain for an answer,
In the end he went home to his wife –
And see, there was the hovel before him,
And there sat his wife in the doorway
With the tub that was cracked all over.
1833
The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Champions
This skazka is based partly on a synopsis Pushkin made of a folk tale told to him by his childhood nanny Arina Rodionovna, but his major source is the Grimms’ story ‘Snow White’. Pushkin pares and enhances the Grimms’ storyline. He limits the disguised evil stepmother’s attempts to kill Snow White to her single appearance with the poisoned apple and conceals (or considers it superfluous to reveal) her true identity; he omits the Grimms’ gruesome details of the stepmother’s death. As in his Russian source, the brothers are not dwarves but, like the hero of The Tale of Tsar Saltan, termed bogatyri, the warrior-champions of Russian folklore; Pushkin makes the prince the bridegroom at the outset, and gives him a name, Yelisey; he creates a small but striking role for the brothers’ brave house-dog; he adds the episode of Prince Yelisey’s search for his bride. The princess cleans and tidies up the empty house she enters instead of taking food and drink from each of the absent brothers’ table settings as in the Grimms’ tale. The brothers’ joint declaration of love for the princess and respectful acceptance of her prior betrothal are also Pushkin’s inventions.
Pushkin achieves a folk tale’s simplicity that abounds in diminutives – a feature of colloquial Russian. This translation removes the first stressed syllable of his rhymed trochaic tetrameter (the same original metre as in The Tale of Tsar Saltan and The Tale of the Golden Cockerel) to make an iambic trimeter and limits rhyme to every four lines (once in a while two lines apart) in order to lessen the constraints on due attention to other aspects of the poem.
The Dead Princess has attracted fewer translations than Pushkin’s other skazki, perhaps because the storyline is so familiar. A Russian critic, however, has considered it ‘the most lyrical and poetic of all Pushkin’s verse folk-tales […] containing passages […] that belong among the finest poetry that Pushkin ever wrote’ (S. M. Bondi in A. S. Pushkin, vol. 3, p. 529, note). He instances the account of the Princess’s ‘burial’ (lines 369–400) and the Wind’s reply to Prince Yelisey (lines 470–80).
Completion of this skazka dates from November 1833, a few days after that of The Bronze Horseman. It was first published the following year in the popular monthly Library for Reading.
A king went on a journey
And bade his queen farewell;
She sat down by the window
To watch for his return.
Alone she sat and waited
And watched the empty plain
From white dawn up to nightfall,
Her eyes began to burn;
No sign of her dear husband!
10All she could see was snow,
The whirling of the blizzard,
White upon all the world.
Nine months went by; her vigil
Was kept without a break.
And on the night of Christmas,
God gave the queen a girl.
Early that very morning
At last the king and sire,
Long days and nights awaited,
20Came back to her, his bride.
Setting eyes upon him
She sighed the deepest sigh,
She could not bear such rapture;
Towards morning mass she died.
Long grieved the king, a twelvemonth
Passed like an empty dream;
But he was only human,
And so once more he wed.
Truth to tell, the maiden
30Was every inch a queen,
Tall and fair and graceful;
She also had a head,
Though prone to obstinacy,
And pride, and jealousy.
Now in the young queen’s dowry
There was a looking-glass
With one especial virtue:
The power of human speech.
Only before this mirror
40Could she be at ease;
She’d primp and preen and banter,
The mirror she’d beseech:
‘Mirror, mirror, tell me,
And mind you speak the truth:
Am I not the fairest,
The fairest in the land?’
And then would come the answer:
‘No doubt of it, O Queen,
Indeed you are the fairest,
50The fairest in the land.’
The queen would give a chuckle,
And stretch and squeeze her shoulders,
And throw a glance slit-eyed,
And swiftly snap her fingers,
And turn with arms akimbo,
And view herself with pride.
Meanwhile, the king’s young daughter
Quietly grew and bloomed,
A fair-skinned, black-browed beauty,
60A kind and gentle soul.
A suitor came to see her,
The young Prince Yelisey.
The king gave his agreement;
Her dowry was in all
A hundred and forty towers
And seven market towns.
The day before the marriage,
Before the bridal ball,
The queen was at her mirror
70And spoke to it once more:
‘Am I not the fairest,
The fairest in the land?’
‘Indeed,’ the mirror answered,
‘Fair you are, O Queen;
The princess, though, is fairest,
The fairest in the land.’
Up leapt the queen in thunder,
She raged and waved her hands,
And swearing she’d destroy it
80She beat upon the glass …
‘Ah, you wicked mirror!
You’re lying out of spite.
How could you admire her –
I’ll teach that silly ass!
Look what she’s grown into!
No wonder she’s so pale:
Carrying her, her mother
Just sat and watched the snow!
How can she, I ask you,
90Be compared with me?
Find me in all our kingdom –
The world! – my equal; no,
Of course I am the fairest.’
The mirror on the wall:
‘The princess is the fairest,
The fairest one of all.’
The queen, with blackest hatred,
Flung the glass to the floor;
Her servant-girl, Chernavka,
100She ordered to contrive
A long walk with the princess
Into the deepest wood,
Then bind her to a fir-tree
For wolves to eat alive.
The Devil cannot answer
A woman in a rage.
Chernavka led the princess
To wildwood so far off
She feared the worst intentions.
110Seized by mortal dread,
‘Upon my life,’ she pleaded,
‘What am I guilty of?
If you do not kill me,
One day, when I am queen,
Be sure I shall reward you.’
The girl was fond of her;
She didn’t kill or bind her,
But bade her not be sad,
And saying, ‘God be with you,’
120She then abandoned her …
‘So where is our young beauty?’
The queen desired to know.
‘I left her in the forest,’
Chernavka made reply,
‘Bound firmly by the elbows,
She’ll not survive for long;
If some wild beast gets at her,
The sooner she will die.’
Now all the people knew it:
130The young princess was lost!
While the poor king was grieving,
The brave Prince Yelisey,
With many a fervent prayer,
In search of his princess,
His beautiful beloved,
Set forth upon his way.
Meanwhile, in deepest forest
His young bride walked till dawn;
On and on she wandered,
140And came upon a tower.
A dog ran towards her, barking,
But then began to play;
She walked straight through the gateway;