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Jun. 14th, 2015 at 6:52 AM
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Наслаждайтесь: все проходит!
То благой, то строгий к нам,
Своенравно рок приводит
Нас к утехам и к бедам.
Чужд он долгого пристрастья:
Вы, чья жизнь полна красы
На лету ловите счастья
Ненадежные часы.
Не ропщите: все проходит,
И ко счастью иногда
Неожиданно приводит
Нас суровая беда.
И веселью и печали
На изменчивой земле
Боги праведные дали
Одинакие криле.
1834
Comments
Enjoy : everything goes !
What good , then strict with us
Willfully causes rock
We have to pleasures and troubles .
He is a stranger to long passions:
You , whose life is full of beauty
On the fly catch happiness
Unreliable watch.
Do not complain : everything passes ,
And sometimes to happiness
Surprisingly leads
We have severe trouble .
And fun and sadness
On changing earth
The gods gave the righteous
The same krill .
.... I like how surprisingly it ends with krill, although I'm not sure that isn't just an idiosyncrasy of the translator-bot.
Krill--we used to eat it in a salad, with rice and eggs and mayo :P (no veggies)
But yes, it's a translator bot idiosyncrasy; the word in Russian is the archaic form of 'wings'.
I'll do a better translation of the poem tomorrow/Tues. :)
here you are :)
Now beneficent, now stern to us,
Willfully the fate leads us
Towards joys and troubles.
Fate is a stranger to being partial to anyone for long:
You, whose life is filled with beauty,
Catch the unreliable hours
Of happiness as they fly past.
Do not repine: everything passes,
And sometimes, a severe trouble
Unexpectedly leads us
To happiness.
Both to merriment and to sadness
On this changeable earth
The righteous gods have given
Identical wings.
:)
(I had to change some of the word order, etc., for it to sound right in English)
The author is Baratynskiy, a friend of Pushkin's; Pushkin had called him "a singer of feasts and of languorous melancholy"
Re: here you are :)
I still like the translator-bot's version of it too, though - not just for the krill, but for 'He is a stranger to long passions' and 'We have severe trouble/ And fun and sadness'. Robot poetry is always so poignant. ^^
Re: here you are :)
'Wings' makes a lot more sense in context, but the image of the gods giving the righteous the same krill everybody else gets is a striking and amusing one. It makes me picture the Afterlife as a mess-hall, everybody filing through the line the same, whether wearing halos or horns, and being served the same bowl-full of murky green krill soup.
The krill we had were white; it's just very small shrimp, rice-grain size, compacted together in a can like a tuna fish can, but smaller
I don't think he's well known outside of Russia. A minor 19th-century poet, a contemporary and friend of Pushkin's. A rather wistful and melancholy strain pervades his poetry; many elegies, odes to the northern countries, etc.
I'll see if I can find some shorter pieces to post which might be of interest, as time permits :)
http://greatpoets.livejournal.com/tag/e.a.%20baratynsky
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2B8-pEGhN4
Glinka is one of the famous 19th-century composers; his work tend to the patriotic...I'll find some other pieces by him to post in the near future.
Thanks for your link; that one is a famous romance, too ;)