Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845

Circumstances, therefore, of paramount importance and irresistible force, compelled Marlborough to fix the war in Flanders, and convert it into one of sieges and blockades. In entering upon such a system of hostility, sure, and comparatively free from risk, but slow and extremely costly, the alliance ran the greatest risk of being shipwrecked on the numerous discords, jealousies, and separate interests, which, in almost every instance recorded in history, have proved fatal to a great confederacy, if it does not obtain decisive success at the outset, before these seeds of division have had time to come to maturity. With what admirable skill and incomparable address Marlborough kept together the unwieldy alliance will hereafter appear. Never was a man so qualified by nature for such a task. He was courtesy and grace personified. It was a common saying at the time, that neither man nor woman could resist him. "Of all the men I ever knew," says no common man, himself a perfect master of the elegances he so much admired, "the late Duke of Marlborough possessed the graces in the highest degree, not to say engrossed them. Indeed he got the most by them, and contrary to the custom of profound historians, who always assign deep causes for great events, I ascribe the better half of the Duke of Marlborough's greatness to those graces. He had no brightness, nothing shining in his genius. He had most undoubtedly an excellent plain understanding, and sound judgment. But these qualities alone would probably have never raised him higher than they found him, which was page to James the Second's queen. But there the grace protected and promoted him. His figure was beautiful, but his manner was irresistible, either by man or woman. It was by this engaging, graceful manner, that he was enabled, during all his war, to connect the various and jarring powers of the Grand Alliance, and to carry them on to the main object of the war, notwithstanding their private and separate views, jealousies, and wrongheadedness. Whatever court he went to (and he was often obliged to go to restive and refractory ones) he brought them into his measures. The pensionary Heinsius, who had governed the United Provinces for forty years, was absolutely governed by him. He was always cool, and nobody ever observed the least variation in his countenance; he could refuse more gracefully than others could grant, and those who went from him the most dissatisfied as to the substance of their business, were yet charmed by his manner, and, as it were, comforted by it."18

PÚSHKIN, THE RUSSIAN POET

No. II

Specimens of his Lyrics

TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL RUSSIAN, BY THOMAS B. SHAW, B.A. OF CAMBRIDGE, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE IMPERIAL ALEXANDER LYCEUM, TRANSLATOR OF "THE HERETIC,"&C. &C.

In offering to the public the following specimens of Púshkin's poetry in an English dress, the translator considers it part of his duty to make a few remarks. The number and extent of these observations, he will, of course, confine within the narrowest limits consistent with his important duty of making his countrymen acquainted with the style and character of Russia's greatest poet; a duty which he would certainly betray, were he to omit to explain the chief points indispensable for the true understanding, not only of the extracts which he has selected as a sample of his author's productions, but of the general tone and character of those productions, viewed as a whole.

The translator wishes it therefore to be distinctly understood that he by no means intends to offer, in the character of a complete poetical portrait, the few pieces contained in these pages, but rather as an attempt, however imperfect, to daguerreotype – by means of the most faithful translation consistent with ease —one of the various expressions of Púshkin's literary physiognomy; to represent one phase of his developement.

That physiognomy is a very flexible and a varying one; Púshkin (considered only as a poet) must be allowed to have attained very high eminence in various walks of his sublime art; his works are very numerous, and as diverse in their form as in their spirit; he is sometimes a romantic, sometimes a legendary, sometimes an epic, sometimes a satiric, and sometimes a dramatic poet; – in most, if not in all, of these various lines he has attained the highest eminence as yet recognised by his countrymen; and, consequently, whatever impression may be made upon our readers by the present essay at a transfusion of his works into the English language, will be necessarily a very imperfect one. In the prosecution of the arduous but not unprofitable enterprise which the translator set before himself three years ago – viz. the communication to his countrymen of some true ideas of the scope and peculiar character of Russian literature – he met with so much discouragement in the unfavourable predictions of such of his friends as he consulted with respect to the feasibility of his project, that he may be excused for some degree of timidity in offering the results of his labours to an English public. So great, indeed, was that timidity, that not even the very flattering reception given to his two first attempts at prose translation, has entirely succeeded in destroying it; and he prefers, on the present occasion, to run the risk of giving only a partial and imperfect reflection of Púshkin's intellectual features, to the danger that might attend a more ambitious and elaborate version of any of the poet's longer works.

Púshkin is here presented solely in his lyrical character; and, it is trusted, that, in the selection of the compositions to be translated – selections made from a very large number of highly meritorious works – due attention has been paid not only to the intrinsic beauty and merit of the pieces chosen, but also to the important consideration which renders indispensable (in cases where we find an embarras de richesses, and where the merit is equal) the adoption of such specimens as would possess the greatest degree of novelty for an English reader.

The task of translating all Púshkin's poetry is certainly too dignified a one, not to excite our ambition; and it is meditated, in the event of the accompanying versions finding in England a degree of approbation sufficiently marked to indicate a desire for more specimens, to extend our present labours so far, as to admit passages of the most remarkable merit from Púshkin's longer works; and, perhaps, even complete versions of some of the more celebrated. Should, therefore, the British public give the fiat of its approbation, we would still further contribute to its knowledge of the great Russian author, by publishing, for example, some of the more remarkable places in the poem of "Evgénii Oniégin," the charming "Gypsies," scenes and passages from the tragedy of "Bóris Godunóff," the "Prisoner of the Caucasus," "Mazépa," &c. &c.

With respect to the present or lyrical specimens, we shall take the liberty to make a few remarks, having reference to the principles which have governed the translator in the execution of the versions; and we shall afterwards preface each poem with a few words of notice, such as may appear to be rendered necessary either by the subject or by the form of the composition itself.

Of the poetical merit of these translations, considered as English poems, their writer has no very exalted idea; of their faithfulness as versions, on the contrary, he has so deep a conviction, that he regrets exceedingly the fact, that the universal ignorance prevailing in England of the Russian language, will prevent the possibility of that important merit – strict fidelity – being tested by the British reader. Let the indulgent, therefore, remember, if we have in any case left an air of stiffness and constraint but too perceptible in our work, that this fault is to be considered as a sacrifice of grace at the altar of truth. It would have been not only possible, but easy, to have spun a collection of easy rhymes, bearing a general resemblance to the vigorous and passionate poetry of Púshkin; but this would not have been a translation, and a translation it was our object to produce. Bowring's Russian Anthology (not to speak of his other volumes of translated poetry) is a melancholy example of the danger of this attractive but fatal system; while the names of Cary, of Hay, and of Merivale, will remain as a bright encouragement to those who have sufficient strength of mind to prefer the "strait and narrow way" of masterly translation, to the "flowery paths of dalliance" so often trodden by the paraphraser.

In all cases, the metre of the original, the musical movement and modulation, has, as far as the translator's ear enabled him to judge, been followed with minute exactness, and at no inconsiderable expense, in some cases, of time and labour. It would be superfluous, therefore, to state, that the number of lines in the English version is always the same as in the original. It has been our study, wherever the differences in the structure of the two languages would permit, to include the same thoughts in the same number of lines. There is also a peculiarity of the Russian language which frequently rendered our task still more arduous; and the conquest of this difficulty has, we trust, conferred upon us the right to speak of our triumph without incurring the charge of vanity. We allude to the great abundance in the Russian of double terminations, and the consequent recurrence of double rhymes, a peculiarity common also to the Italian and Spanish versification, and one which certainly communicates to the versification of those countries a character so marked and peculiar, that no translator would be justified in neglecting it. As it would be impossible, without the use of Russian types, to give our readers an example of this from the writings of Púshkin, and as they would be unable to pronounce such a quotation even if they saw it, we will give an illustration of what we mean from the Spanish and the Italian.

The first is from the fourth book of the Galatea of Cervantes —

"Venga á mirar á la pastora miaQuien quisiere contar de gente en genteQue vió otro sol, que daba luz al diaMas claro, que el que sale del oriente," &c.;

and the second from Chiabrera's sublime Ode on the Siege of Vienna—

"E fino a quanto inultiSian, Signore, i tuoi servi? E fino a quantoDei barbarici insultiOrgogliosa n'andrà l'empia baldanza?Dov'è, dov'è, gran Dio, l'antico vantoDi tua alta possanza?" &c. &c.

In the two passages here quoted, it will be observed that all the lines end with two syllables, in both of which the rhyme is engaged; and an English version of the above verses, however faithful in other respects, which should omit to use the same species of double termination, and content itself with the monosyllable rhyme, would indubitably lose some of the harmony of the original. These double rhymes are far from abundant in our monosyllabic language; but we venture to affirm, that their conscientious employment would be found so valuable, as to amply repay the labour and difficulty attending their search.

We trust that our readers will pardon the apparent technicality of these remarks, for the sake of the consideration which induced us to make them. In all translation, even in the best, there is so great a loss of spirit and harmony, that the conscientious labourer in this most difficult and ungrateful art, should never neglect even the most trifling precaution that tends to hinder a still further depreciation of the gold of his original; not to mention the principle, that whatever it is worth our while to do at all, it is assuredly worth our while to do as well as we can.

The first specimen of Púshkin's lyric productions which we shall present to our countrymen, "done into English," as Jacob Tonson was wont to phrase it, "by an eminent hand," is a production considered by the poet's critics to possess the very highest degree of merit in its peculiar style. We have mentioned some details respecting the nature and history of the Imperial Lyceum of Tsarskoë Seló, in which Púshkin was educated, and we have described the peculiar intensity of feeling with which all who quitted its walls looked back upon the happy days they had spent within them, and the singular ardour and permanency of the friendships contracted beneath its roof. On the anniversary of the foundation (by the Emperor Alexander) of the institution, it is customary for all the "old Lyceans" to dine together, in the same way as the Eton, Harrow, or Rugby men are accustomed to unite once a-year in honour of their school. On many of these occasions Púshkin contributed to the due celebration of the event by producing poems of various lengths, and different degrees of merit; we give here the best of these. It was written during the poet's residence in the government of Pskoff, and will be found, we think, a most beautiful and touching embodiment of such feelings as would be suggested in the mind of one obliged to be absent from a ceremony of the nature in question. Of the comrades whose names Púshkin has immortalized in these lines, it is only necessary to specify that the first, Korsákoff, distinguished among his youthful comrades for his musical talents, met with an early death in Italy; a circumstance to which the poet has touchingly alluded. Matiúshkin is now an admiral of distinction, and is commanding the Russian squadron in the Black Sea. Of the two whom he mentions as having passed the anniversary described in this poem (October 19, 1825) in his company, the first was Pústchin, since dead, and the second the Prince Gortchakóff, whom he met by accident, travelling in the neighbourhood of his (the poet's) seclusion. Our readers cannot fail, we think, to be struck with the beautiful passage consecrated to his friendship with Délvig; and the only other personal allusion which seems to stand in need of explanation, is that indicated by the name Wilhelm, towards the end of the poem. This is the Christian name of his friend Küchelbecher, since dead, and whose family name was hardly harmonious enough to enter Púshkin's line, and was therefore omitted on the Horatian principle – "versu quod dicere nolim." We now hasten to present the lines.

October 19, 1825The woods have doff'd their garb of purply gold;The faded fields with silver frost are steaming;Through the pale clouds the sun, reluctant gleaming,Behind the circling hills his disk hath roll'd.Blaze brightly, hearth! my cell is dark and lonely:And thou, O Wine, thou friend of Autumn chill,Pour through my heart a joyous glow – if onlyOne moment's brief forgetfulness of ill!Ay, I am very sad; no friend is hereWith whom to pledge a long unlooked-for meeting,To press his hand in eagerness of greeting,And wish him life and joy for many a year.I drink alone; and Fancy's spells awaken —With a vain industry – the voice of friends:No well-known footstep strikes mine ear forsaken,No well-beloved face my heart attends.I drink alone; ev'n now, on Neva's shore,Haply my name on friendly lips has trembled…Round that bright board, say, are ye all assembled?Are there no other names ye count no more?Has our good custom been betray'd by others?Whom hath the cold world lured from ye away?Whose voice is silent in the call of brothers?Who is not come? Who is not with you? Say!He is not come, he of the curled hair,He of the eye of fire and sweet-voiced numbers:Beneath Italia's myrtle-groves he slumbers;He slumbers well, although no friend was there,Above the lonely grave where he is sleeping,A Russian line to trace with pious hand,That some sad wanderer might read it, weeping —Some Russian, wandering in a foreign land.Art thou too seated in the friendly ring,O restless Pilgrim? Haply now thou ridestO'er the long tropic-wave; or now abidest'Mid seas with ice eternal glimmering!Thrice happy voyage!.. With a jest thou leapedstFrom the Lyceum's threshold to thy bark,Thenceforth thy path aye on the main thou keepedst,O child beloved of wave and tempest dark!Well hast thou kept, 'neath many a stranger sky,The loves, the hopes of Childhood's golden hour:And old Lyceum scenes, by memory's power,'Mid lonely waves have ris'n before thine eye;Thou wav'dst thy hand to us from distant ocean,Ever thy faithful heart its treasure bore;"A long farewell!" thou criedst, with fond emotion,"Unless our fate hath doom'd we meet no more."The bond that binds us, friends, is fair and true!Destructless as the soul, and as eternal —Careless and free, unshakable, fraternal,Beneath the Muses' friendly shade it grew.We are the same: wherever Fate may guide us,Or Fortune lead – wherever we may go,The world is aye a foreign land beside us;Our fatherland is Tsárkoë Seló!From clime to clime, pursued by storm and stress,In Destiny's dark nets long time I wrestled,Until on Friendship's lap I fluttering nestled,And bent my weary head for her caress…With wistful prayers, with visionary grieving,With all the trustful hope of early years,I sought new friends with zeal and new believing;But bitter was their greeting to mine ears.And even here, in this lone dwelling-placeOf desert-storm, of cold, and desolation,There was prepared for me a consolation:Three of ye here, O friends! did I embrace.Thou enteredst first the poet's house of sorrow,O Pústchin! thanks be with thee, thanks, and praiseEv'n exile's bitter day from thee could borrowThe light and joy of old Lyceum-days.Thee too, my Gortchakóff; although thy nameWas Fortune's spell, though her cold gleam was on thee,Yet from thy noble thoughts she never won thee:To honour and thy fiends thou'rt still the same.Far different paths of life to us were fated,Far different roads before our feet were traced,In a by-road, but for a moment mated,We met by chance, and brotherly embraced.When sorrow's flood o'erwhelmd me, like a sea;And like an orphan, houseless, poor, unfriended,My head beneath the storm I sadly bended,Seer of the Aonian maids! I look'd for thee:Thou camest – lazy child of inspiration,My Délvig; and thy voice awaken'd straightIn this numb'd heart the glow of consolation;And I was comforted, and bless'd my fate.Even in infancy within us burn'dThe light of song – the poet-spell had bound us;Even in infancy there flitted round usTwo Muses, whose sweet glamour soon we learn'd.Even then I loved applause – that vain delusion! —Thou sang'st but for thy Muse, and for thy heart;I squander'd gifts and life with rash profusion,Thou cherishedst thy gifts in peace apart.The worship of the Muse no care beseems;The Beautiful is calm, and high, and holy;Youth is a cunning counsellor – of folly! —Lulling our sense with vain and empty dreams…Upon the past we gaze – the same, yet other —And find no trace. – We wake, alas! too late.Was it not so with us, Délvig, my brother? —My brother in our Muse as in our fate!'Tis time, 'tis time! Let us once more be free!The world's not worth this torturing resistance!Beneath retirement's shade will glide existence —Thee, my belated friend – I wait for thee!Come! with the flame of an enchanted storyTradition's lore shall wake, our hearts to move;We'll talk of Caucasus, of war, of glory,Of Schiller, and of genius, and of love.'Tis time no less for me … Friends, feast amain!Behold, a joyful meeting is before us;Think of the poet's prophecy; for o'er usA year shall pass, and we shall meet again!My vision's covenant shall have fulfilling;A year – and I shall be with ye once more!Oh, then, what shouts, what hand-grasps warm and thrilling!What goblets skyward heaved with merry roar!Unto our Union consecrated beThe first we drain – fill higher yet, and higher!Bless it, O Muse, in strains of raptured fire!Bless it! All hail, Lyceum! hail to thee! —To those who led our youth with care and praises,Living and dead! the next we grateful fill;Let each, as to his lips the cup he raises,The good remember, and forget the ill.Feast, then, while we are here, while yet we may:Hour after hour, alas! Time thins our numbers;One pines afar, one in the coffin slumbers;Days fly; Fate looks on us; we fade away;Bending insensibly to earth, and chilling,We near our starting-place with many a groan…Whose lot will be in old age to be filling,On this Lyceum-day, his cup alone?Unhappy friend! Amid a stranger race,Like guest intrusive, that superfluous lingers,He'll think of us that day, with quivering fingersHiding the tears that wet his wrinkled face…O, may he then at least, in mournful gladness,Pass with his cup this day for ever dear,As even I, in exile and in sadness,Yet with a fleeting joy, have pass'd it here!

In the following lines, the poet has endeavoured to reproduce the impressions made upon his mind by the mountain scenery of the Caucasus; scenery which he had visited with such rapture, and to which his imagination returned with undiminished delight. It has been our aim to endeavour, in our translation, to give an echo, however feeble and imperfect, of the wild and airy freedom of the versification which distinguishes these spirited stanzas. The picture which they contain, rough, sketchy, and unfinished, as it may appear, bears every mark of being a faithful copy from nature – a study taken on the spot; and will therefore, we trust, be not unacceptable to our readers, as calculated to give an idea not only of the vigorous and rapid handling of the poet's pencil, but also of the wild and sublime region – the Switzerland of Russia – which he has here essayed to portray. Of the two furious and picturesque torrents which Púshkin has mentioned in this short poem, Térek is certainly too well known to our geographical readers to need any description of its course from the snow-covered peak of Dariál to the Caspian; and the bold comparison in the last stanza will doubtless be found, though perhaps somewhat exaggerated, not deficient in a kind of fierce Æschylean energy, perfectly in character with the violent and thundering course of the torrent itself: —

Caucasus

Beneath me the peaks of the Caucasus lie,

My gaze from the snow-bordered cliff I am bending;From her sun-lighted eyry the Eagle ascendingFloats movelessly on in a line with mine eye.I see the young torrent's first leap towards the ocean,And the cliff-cradled lawine essay its first motion.Beneath me the clouds in their silentness go,The cataract through them in thunder down-dashing,Far beneath them bare peaks in the sunny ray flashing,Weak moss and dry shrubs I can mark yet below.Dark thickets still lower – green meadows are blooming,Where the throstle is singing, and reindeer are roaming.Here man, too, has nested his hut, and the flocksOn the long grassy slopes in their quiet are feeding,And down to the valley the shepherd is speeding,Where Arágva gleams out from her wood-crested rocks.And there in his crags the poor robber is hiding,And Térek in anger is wrestling and chiding.Like a fierce young Wild Beast, how he bellows and raves,Like that Beast from his cage when his prey he espieth;'Gainst the bank, like a Wrestler, he struggleth and plyeth,And licks at the rock with his ravening waves.In vain, thou wild River! dumb cliffs are around thee,And sternly and grimly their bondage hath bound thee.

To those who measure the value of a poem, less by the pretension and ambitiousness of its form, than by the completeness of its execution and the skill with which the leading idea is developed, we think that the graceful little production which we are now about to present to the reader, will possess very considerable interest. It is, it is true, no more important a thing than a mere song; but the naturalness and unity of the fundamental thought, and the happy employment of what is undoubtedly one of the most effective artifices at the command of the lyric writer – we mean repetition – render the following lines worthy of the universal admiration which they have obtained in the original, and may not be devoid of charm in the translation: —

To * * *Yes! I remember well our meeting,When first thou dawnedst on my sight,Like some fair phantom past me fleeting,Some nymph of purity and light.By weary agonies surrounded,'Mid toil, 'mid mean and noisy care,Long in mine ear thy soft voice sounded,Long dream'd I of thy features fair.Years flew; Fate's blast blew ever stronger,Scattering mine early dreams to air,And thy soft voice I heard no longer —No longer saw thy features fair.In exile's silent desolationSlowly dragg'd on the days for me —Orphan'd of life, of inspiration,Of tears, of love, of deity.I woke – once more my heart was beating —Once more thou dawnedst on my sight,Like some fair phantom past me fleeting,Some nymph of purity and light.My heart has found its consolation —All has revived once more for me —And vanish'd life, and inspiration,And tears, and love, and deity.

The versification of the following little poem is founded on a system which Púshkin seems to have looked upon with peculiar favour, as he has employed the same metrical arrangement in by far the largest proportion of his poetical works. So gracefully and so easily, indeed, has he wielded this metre, and with so flexible, so delicate, and so masterly a hand, that we could not refrain from attempting to imitate it in our English version; for we considered that it is impossible to say how much of the peculiar character of a poet's writings depends upon the colouring, or rather the touch– if we may borrow a phrase from the vocabulary of the critic in painting – of the metre. Undoubtedly a poet is the best judge not only of the kind, but of the degree of the effect which he wishes to produce upon his reader; and there may be, between the thoughts which he desires to embody, and the peculiar harmonies in which he may determine to clothe those thoughts, analogies and sympathies too delicate for our grosser ears; or, at least, if not too subtle and refined for our ears to perceive, yet far too delicate for us to define, or exactly to appreciate. Moved by this reasoning, we have always preferred to follow, as nearly as we could, the exact versification, and even the most minute varieties of tone and metrical accentuation. Inattention to this point is undoubtedly the stumbling-block of translators in general; of the dangerous consequences of such inattention, it is not necessary to give any elaborate proof. How much, we may ask, does not the poetry of Dante, for instance, lose, by being despoiled of that great source of its peculiar effect springing from the employment of the terza rima! It is in vain to say, that it is enormously difficult to produce the terza rima in English. To translate the "gran padre Alighier" into English worthily, the terza rima must be employed, whatever be the obstacles presented by the dissimilarities existing between the Italian and English languages.