Osip Mandelshtam

James Greene's acclaimed translations of the poetry of Osip Mandelshtam, now in an extensively revised and augmented edition.

Foreword

xiii

Nadezhda Mandelshtam

Foreword

xv

Donald Davie

Translator's Preface

xix

Introduction

xxv

Donald Rayfield

From STONE (1913, 1916, 1923 And 1928)

The careful muffled sound

3

(1)

Suddenly, from the dimly lit hall

3

(1)

To read only children's books

3

(1)

On pale-blue enamel

4

(1)

What shall I do with the body I've been given

4

(1)

A sadness beyond words

5

(1)

Words are unnecessary

5

(1)

Silentium

6

(1)

Ear-drums stretch their sensitive sail

7

(1)

Like the shadow of sudden clouds

7

(1)

I grew, rustling like a reed

8

(1)

Sultry dusk covers the couch

8

(1)

How slowly the horses move

9

(1)

Light sows a meagre beam

10

(1)

The sea-shell

11

(1)

I hate the light

12

(1)

In the haze your image

12

(1)

No, not the moon, but a bright clock-face

13

(1)

The traveller

13

(1)

The casino

14

(1)

The Lutheran

15

(1)

Hagia sophia

16

(1)

Notre Dame

17

(1)

Poisoned bread, satiated air

18

(1)

Horses' hooves... The clatter

19

(1)

There are orioles in the woods

19

(1)

Nature is Roman, and mirrored in Rome

20

(1)

Sleeplessness. Homer. Taut sails

20

(1)

Herds of horses gaily neigh or graze

21

(1)

Unpublished in the Struve/Filippov editions

Newly reaped ears

22

(1)

Two poems first published by Struve/Filippov, 1964

The hunters have trapped you

22

(1)

The old men of Euripides, an abject throng

22

(3)

From TRISTIA (1922)

How the splendour of these veils and of this dress

25

(1)

We shall die in transparent Petropolis

26

(1)

This night is irredeemable

26

(1)

Disbelieving the miracle of resurrection

27

(1)

Out of the bottle the stream of golden honey poured so slowly

28

(1)

Spring's transparent-grey asphodels

29

(1)

Tristia

30

(1)

Sisters: heaviness and tenderness bear the same insignia

31

(1)

Return to the incestuous lap

32

(1)

When Psyche - life - descends among shades

33

(1)

I have forgotten the word I wanted to say

34

(1)

For the sake of delight

35

(1)

Here is the pyx, like a golden sun

36

(1)

Because I had to let go of your arms

37

(1)

When the city moon looks out on the streets

38

(1)

When, on my lips a singing name, I stepped

39

(1)

I like the grey silences under the arches

40

(3)

From POEMS (1928)

I was washing at night in the courtyard

43

(1)

To some, winter is arrack and a blue-eyed punch

43

(1)

Rosy foam of fatigue on his sensual lips

44

(1)

As the leaven swells

45

(1)

I Climbed into the tousled hayloft

45

(1)

My time

46

(1)

Whoever finds a borseshoe

47

(3)

1 January 1924

50

(5)

TWO POEMS PUBLISHED IN NOVY MIR (1931 AND 1932)

Armenia

55

(1)

Batyushkov

56

(3)

POEMS PUBLISHED POSTHUMOUSLY

Self-portrait

59

(1)

I was only in a childish way connected with the estabilished order

60

(1)

Help me, O Lord, to get through this night

61

(1)

For the resounding glory of ears to come

61

(1)

I drink to the blossoming epaulette

62

(1)

Impressionism

63

(1)

Ariosto

64

(1)

We exist, without sensing our country beneath us

65

(1)

The body of King Arshak is unwashed

66

(1)

Your narrow shoulders are to redden under scourges

67

(1)

Black earth

67

(1)

Yes, I'm lying in the earth, moving my lips

68

(1)

You took away my seas and running jumps and sky

68

(1)

My country conversed with me

68

(1)

For those hundred-carat ingots, Roman nights

69

(1)

A wave advances - one wave breaking another's backbone

69

(1)

I shall perform a smoky rite

69

(1)

I shall not return my borrowed dust

70

(1)

I can't make sense of today

70

(1)

Like a belated present

71

(1)

I would sing of him who shifted the axis of the world

71

(1)

You still haven't died, you're still not alone

72

(1)

I look the frost in the face, alone

72

(1)

Oh, these suffocating, asthmatic spaces of the steppes

73

(1)

Plagued by their miraculous and all-engulfing hunger

73

(1)

Don't compare: anyone alive is matchless

74

(1)

What has contended with oxide and alloys

74

(1)

The mounds of human heads disappear into the distance

74

(1)

Listening, listening to the early ice

75

(1)

A little boy, his red face shining like a lamp

75

(1)

Where can I put myself this January?

76

(1)

Like Rembrandt, martyr of light and dark

77

(1)

Breaks of the rounded bays, shingle, blue

77

(1)

I sing when my throat is damp, my soul dry

78

(1)

Eyes once keener than a sharpened scythe

78

(1)

Armed with the eyesight of narrow wasps

79

(1)

I am plunged into a lion's den, a fort

79

(1)

If our enemies take me

80

(1)

Life's reticulations loosen, madness looms

81

(1)

This is what I want most of all

82

(1)

This azure island was exalted by its potters

83

(1)

As if words were not enough

84

(1)

I raise this greenness to my lips

85

(1)

With her delightful uneven way of walking

86

(1)

Notes and Acknowledgements

87

(11)

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