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Sep. 19th, 2023 at 4:14 AM
Времена не выбирают,
В них живут и умирают.
Большей пошлости на свете
Нет, чем клянчить и пенять.
Будто можно те на эти,
Как на рынке, поменять.
We can't choose the times we live in,
People live and die during the times they got.
There's nothing more vulgar in the world
Than begging and complaining about it,
As if one could trade these times for those other times,
As if one were trading in a marketplace.
Что ни век, то век железный.
Но дымится сад чудесный,
Блещет тучка; я в пять лет
Должен был от скарлатины
Умереть, живи в невинный
Век, в котором горя нет.
Every era is an iron era.
But there's smoke rising above a wondrous garden,
And a cloud sparkles; I should've
Died of scarlet fever when I was five years old
Had I lived in the innocent age
Without any grief in it.
Ты себя в счастливцы прочишь,
А при Грозном жить не хочешь?
Не мечтаешь о чуме
Флорентийской и проказе?
Хочешь ехать в первом классе,
А не в трюме, в полутьме?
You'd like to be one of the lucky ones,
But how would you like to live when Ivan the Terrible ruled the country?
You're not dreaming of the Florentine plague
And leprosy, are you?
You would want to travel in first class,
And not in the cargo hold, in semi-darkness?
Что ни век, то век железный.
Но дымится сад чудесный,
Блещет тучка; обниму
Век мой, рок мой на прощанье.
Время - это испытанье.
Не завидуй никому.
Every century is an iron century.
But there's smoke rising above a wondrous garden,
And a cloud sparkles; I will embrace
My century, my fate, in farewell.
The times are meant to be a trial.
Don't envy anyone else.
Крепко тесное объятье.
Время - кожа, а не платье.
Глубока его печать.
Словно с пальцев отпечатки,
С нас - его черты и складки,
Приглядевшись, можно взять.
The embrace is tight indeed.
The times are skin, not clothing.
Their impress runs deep.
Just like prints from the fingers,
If one looks closely at us,
One can get its features and folds from us.
1978
Александр Кушнер / Alexander Kushner
This was set to music in the 1980s:
Comments
I'll have to look up Kushner's other poems
[Edited to add:] Have done and was rather disappointed ;)
You might like the top one here too
https://greatpoetry.dreamwidth.org/
Edited 2023-09-19 01:18 pm (UTC)