Poems Found In Translation: “Pushkin: Stanzas from Eugene Onegin (From Russian)”

My Note: I don't know why the Russian original comes in this whacky form-- this is the way I received it via e-mail--sorry, I wish I could provide the real original Russian!

Pushkin: Stanzas from Eugene Onegin (From Russian)

Posted: 11 May 2014 01:21 AM PDT

Below are translations of a few individual stanzas from from Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. I dream of someday creating a complete translation of the whole book, but I lack the time and sustained energy to do so. For now, I have the first handful of stanzas from Canto 1, plus a couple others parts that I enjoyed. When and if I translate more from Onegin, the stanzas in question will be added in their proper place on this page, and the page itself bumped back up to the most recent entry slot with a note as to what has been updated. And of course if there's a particular passage from Onegin (or anything else for that matter) that you would especially like to see me translate, by all means please make a donation and request it.

Stanzas From Eugene Onegin
By Alexander Pushkin
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

1.I

"My uncle, man of true conviction...
By falling genuinely sick
He's won respect for his affliction
And could have planned no better trick.
His is a strategy worth trying;
But, God will it be stultifying
To attend a patient night and day
And never move a step away!
And oh, what shameful machination
To humor one so nearly dead,
Fluff out the pillows for his head,
Morosely bring his medication
And think, with every practiced sigh,
'Get on with it already. Die!'"

1.II

Thus one wild-mannered playboy muses
As he trots on by post through dust,
The scapegrace Zeus Almighty chooses
As heir to his familial trust.
Companions of Ruslan's* adventure,
Without preamble, let me venture
To introduce upon the scene
My novel's hero: one Eugene
Onegin, gracious friend and brother
Began life where the Neva** runs,
Where you perhaps, Dear Reader, once
Shone brilliantly some way or other.
There I myself once lived and strolled
Until I caught that northern cold***.

Notes: *"Ruslan and Ludmila", a previous and wildly successful verse tale of Pushkin's
** Neva. i.e. along the Neva river, which is to say in St. Petersburg.
*** i.e. a reference to Pushkin's banishment

1.III

A noble man who'd served sincerely,
His father lived by borrowing,
He entertained with three balls yearly
And finally squandered everything.
Fate handled my Onegin gently
Madame first cared for him intently
Till someone else took on from her
The nice, if boisterous, boy: Monsieur
L'AbbÃ©e, a feckless wretch from Paris
Taught the boy everything in jest,
Kept moral strictures slight at best
Lest he should bother or embarrass.
He'd punish pranks with one remark
And then a stroll in Summer Park*

* "Summer Park" - the Royal "LÃ©tny Sad" built near the imperial Palace.

1.IV

But when our young man reached the morrow
Of adolescence and ado,
The time of hope and tender sorrow,
Monsieur was made to say Adieu.
Eugene's at large now. Taking care to
Display the latest voguish hairdo,
And dressed like a London Dandy, he
At last saw high society.
In French which he had quite perfected
He could express himself and write,
And when he danced, his step was light
His bow completely unaffected.
What's more to want? The verdict ran:
A witty, charming, gentle man.

1. V

We've all received some education
In something, somehow, have we not?
So thank the Lord that in our nation
Playing the thinker takes no thought.
Eugene was in the view of many
(Judges as strict and fair as any)
LearnÃ¨d, if prone to pedantry.
He had the happy ability
For free and easy conversation.
For handling any grave dispute
With an air of learning and astute
Silence in lieu of confrontation,
And lighting up a lady's gaze
With sudden fiery turns of phrase.

1. VI

Lately the Latin fad's receded.
But I'll give him his due and note
He had the smattering one needed
To puzzle out a Latin quote,
Cite Juvenal in French translation,
Add "vale" as a a salutation.
There was a line (on good days, two)
By Virgil that he nearly knew.
He had no scholar's predilection
To delve through diachronic dust
Of the world's histories caked with must.
There was, though, quite a large collection
Of anecdotes he could recite
From Troy's destruction to last night.

1.XLVI

He who has lived and thought can never
Look on mankind without disgust,
He who has felt is plagued forever
By ghosts of days forever lost.
Gone are enchantment and affection.
In him the snake of recollection
And sick repentance eats the heart.
All this will oftentimes impart
A savory charm to conversations.
Though first unsettled and confused
By Eugene's tongue, I did get used
To his abrasive disputations,
His blend of bile and comedy,
His somber, vicious repartee.

8.XXIX

To love all ages must surrender.
But to young hearts its tumults bring
A gale as plentiful and tender
As tempests to the fields of spring
They freshen under passion's shower
Renew themselves, and come to flower,
As potent life takes fertile root
To bring rich blooms and yield sweet fruit.
But when our age has left us older,
That barren turning of our years,
Dead passion's traces just bear tears-
So autumn stormwinds just blow colder,
Make swamps of meadows everywhere
And leave the forests stripped and bare.