Chinatown на английском
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m_schChinatown
(M. Scherbakov)
No uppercase – there’s only a minor,
Plain letter, for payment, for evasion.
No beginning – just a block of China,
China of a block, in the Caucasian
States of North America. I also
Will grow into it. End of quotation.
That’s how, almost – not exactly, closely,
In a shop of souvenirs and trinkets,
Made of wax, skin, stone and faience mostly,
Some assiduous foreigner may think it’s
Meant to go. Too rangy for an Asian,
For an Aryan, a little thickset,
In a sort of restless dance, he’s pacing
With his alien feet beside the counters;
Rakes with hands belonging to an alien,
In the nosebags filled with skulls, with potsherds;
Meanwhile, he’s composing something, setting
To the beat, his lips moving in concert.
Once he’s done, immediately forgetting
Everything, and knowing he’ll forget it,
Will not write it down, though he already
Knows he’ll be the first one to regret it;
So he walks, monotonous, unchanging,
Lulls the wakeful, and rouses the torpid;
On occasion, stares in the avenging
Dark behind the window, with his swimming
Alien eyes, and as his eyes are searching,
Solemnly declaims regarding brimming
Cups of pigeon’s milk or aqua regia
Or hot tea, the simple goblets flaming.
On the broad canal outside, an angel
Steers the boat. And as it’s getting darker,
The assiduous alien rubs the aging
Bronze; inspects the flambeaus made of copper.
He’s not here right now. He may be closer
To his school, his library, the locker,
Closer to the palimpsest, the codex,
To the copper angel with a trumpet.
Fading specks seem closer to his thoughts than
Two of us; we’re not within his ambit.
Closer to River Styx than canal, he
Takes his steps, his dancing feet are stomping;
No beginning – there’s fire in the flambeau,
There’s a nameless stranger in the distance
Of dark Chinatown; inside a tempo,
In the shop of vagaries; an instance
Of a lost man, from a minor letter
Prolongating some unknown existence.
Wretch, who says that you’ll do any better?
Translated by Genia Gurarie
(M. Scherbakov)
No uppercase – there’s only a minor,
Plain letter, for payment, for evasion.
No beginning – just a block of China,
China of a block, in the Caucasian
States of North America. I also
Will grow into it. End of quotation.
That’s how, almost – not exactly, closely,
In a shop of souvenirs and trinkets,
Made of wax, skin, stone and faience mostly,
Some assiduous foreigner may think it’s
Meant to go. Too rangy for an Asian,
For an Aryan, a little thickset,
In a sort of restless dance, he’s pacing
With his alien feet beside the counters;
Rakes with hands belonging to an alien,
In the nosebags filled with skulls, with potsherds;
Meanwhile, he’s composing something, setting
To the beat, his lips moving in concert.
Once he’s done, immediately forgetting
Everything, and knowing he’ll forget it,
Will not write it down, though he already
Knows he’ll be the first one to regret it;
So he walks, monotonous, unchanging,
Lulls the wakeful, and rouses the torpid;
On occasion, stares in the avenging
Dark behind the window, with his swimming
Alien eyes, and as his eyes are searching,
Solemnly declaims regarding brimming
Cups of pigeon’s milk or aqua regia
Or hot tea, the simple goblets flaming.
On the broad canal outside, an angel
Steers the boat. And as it’s getting darker,
The assiduous alien rubs the aging
Bronze; inspects the flambeaus made of copper.
He’s not here right now. He may be closer
To his school, his library, the locker,
Closer to the palimpsest, the codex,
To the copper angel with a trumpet.
Fading specks seem closer to his thoughts than
Two of us; we’re not within his ambit.
Closer to River Styx than canal, he
Takes his steps, his dancing feet are stomping;
No beginning – there’s fire in the flambeau,
There’s a nameless stranger in the distance
Of dark Chinatown; inside a tempo,
In the shop of vagaries; an instance
Of a lost man, from a minor letter
Prolongating some unknown existence.
Wretch, who says that you’ll do any better?
Translated by Genia Gurarie
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-20 10:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-21 06:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-21 07:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-21 07:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-23 07:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-28 04:29 pm (UTC)(M. Svetlov)
We rode slowly – we raced through the battles in steppes,
The song Little Apple held tight by our lips;
Ah, that song of courage to this day it keeps,
That young weed of fields, malachite of the steppes.
But then in his saddle, straggling along,
My comrade was bearing a different song.
He sang, looking over his own native parts –
Grenada, Grenada, Grenada my heart.
He knew it by heart, and he sang it from truth.
But where did this fellow get his Spanish blues?
Respond, Alexandrovsk, and Kharkov, respond:
When did you start singing in Spanish, so fond?
O tell me, Ukraine, is it not in this rye
Your Taras Shevchenko’s Ukrainian shirt lies?
Where’s your song from, comrade? Where did it start?
Grenada, Grenada, Grenada my heart.
He’s slow with his answer, that daydreaming look:
My brother… Grenada I found in a book.
It’s such a high honor – a beautiful name –
A Grenada Province somewhere in Spain.
I left my dominion, my home and my hearth,
To give back to Grenada peasants their earth.
Goodbye, my loved family, it’s time that we part.
Grenada, Grenada, Grenada my heart.
We plunged forward, all the while dreaming to plumb
The language of battle, the fusillade’s tongue;
The sunrise was lifting and falling again –
The horses had wearied to leap on those plains.
That song Little Apple the squadron was playing
Upon the times’ fiddles with bows of great pain.
But where is your song, comrade? How does it start?
Grenada, Grenada, Grenada my heart.
The man’s shot-through body slid down to the ground:
A way out of his saddle for the first time he’d found.
I saw the moon shine on his corpse from afar,
And his dying lips still breathing “Grena…”
To the distant reach of the skies, far and long,
My comrade departed, and with him that song.
Since then, the song was never heard in these parts…
Grenada, Grenada, Grenada my heart.
The squad didn’t notice the death of my friend.
It sang Little Apple all the way to the end,
And quietly later would slide and appear
On the sunset’s velvet – the rain’s abject tear.
Life has created so many new songs;
Let’s not weep, my fellows – weeping is wrong.
Let’s not, my dear friends, should not do it, must not!
Grenada, Grenada, Grenada my heart.
Translated by Genia Gurarie
no subject
Date: 2007-10-01 07:43 pm (UTC)мне перевод сильно понравился, но может потому что мне оригинальная песня очень нравится, а английский вариант очень близок (как мне кажется) по фонетике.