Pushkin: Ode to Liberty (From Russian)

This poem was, at the time of writing, held to be subversive and revolutionary in Russia. It had a talismanic significance for many a young revolutionary. Manuscript copies of it were often confiscated upon arrest. One, for example, was among the "disloyal writings possessed by officers of the Kiev Grenadier Regiment." Tsar Alexander's reaction to the popularity of this poem was that "Pushkin must be exiled". Capo d'Istrias wrote in his capacity as head of the Foreign Office :

"Некоторые поэтические произведения, а в особенности Ода на свободу, привлекли внимание правительства на г. Пушкина. Среди великих красот замысла и слога это последнее стихотворение свидетельствует об опасных началах, почерпнутых в современной школе, или, лучше сказать, в системе анархии, недобросовестно именуемой системой прав человека, свободы и независимости народов"
"Some pieces of verse and most of all an ode to liberty directed the government's attentions toward Mr. Pushkin. Among the greatest beauties of conception and style this latter piece gives evidence of dangerous principles drawn from the ideas of our age, or, more precisely, that system of anarchy dishonestly called the system of human rights, of freedom and the independence of nations."

 

Here's me reciting the original Russian followed by the English


Ode to Liberty
By Alexander Pushkin
Translated by A.Z. Foreman


Go shrinking from my eyes and sing
No more, Cythera's¹ frail queen. Flee.
Where are you, scourge of Tsar and King, 
Proud Muse of Freedom? Come to me. 
Come now and tear my laurels down  
And smash the pampered lyre tonight.  
Let Freedom be my song to smite  
The scum that capers in a crown. 

Reveal to me the noble path 
Where that exalted Gaul² once strode, 
When you in storied Days of Wrath 
Inspired in him a dauntless Ode. 
Now, favored little pets of fate, 
You Tyrants of the Nations, tremble! 
But you, Slaves, hearken and assemble. 
Be men. Arise now and be great. 

Wherever my eyes fall, they see 
A body flayed, an ankle chained, 
The powerless tears of Slavery, 
The Law perverted and profaned. 
Everywhere an iniquitous 
Power in the fog of superstition 
Ascends: Vainglory's fateful passion, 
And Slavery's grisly genius.  

The only sovereigns with a head 
Free of the Nations' misery, 
Rule where the mighty Law is wed 
Steely with holy Liberty, 
Where their firm shield is spread for all, 
Where in a Nation's faithful hand 
Among mere equals in the land 
The sword can equitably fall³

To smite transgression from on high 
With one blow, righteously severe 
In fingers uncorrupted by 
Ravenous avarice or fear. 
Kings, you are throned and crowned by will 
And law of Man, not Nature's hand. 
Though you above the people stand, 
Eternal Law stands higher still. 

But woe betide the nation now 
Where it is blithely slumbering, 
Where Law itself is forced to bow 
Before the Masses, or the King. 
Here is the Man: witness he bears 
To his forebears’ infamous error 
And in the storm of recent Terror 
Laid down kingly neck for theirs. 

King Louis to his death ascends⁴ 
In sight of hushed posterity, 
His crownless, beaten head he bends: 
Blood for the block of perfidy.  
The Laws hush and the People too. 
The lawless guillotine-blade falls. 
And over freshly fettered Gauls⁵
A ghastly purple starts to spew. 

You psychopathic autocrat,⁶
You and your throne I do despise! 
You and your children die. To that  
I turn with joyous loathing eyes. 
Upon your brow the Peoples read 
The signature of stamped damnation. 
Stain of the world, shame of creation, 
Reproach on earth to God in deed! 

When on the dark Neva the star 
Of midnight makes the water gleam,  
When carefree eyelids near and far  
Are overwhelmed with peaceful dream, 
The poet, roused with intellect, 
Sees the lone tyrant's statue loom 
Grimly asleep amid the gloom, 
The palace now a derelict,⁷ 

And Clio's⁸ awesome call he hears 
Behind those awesome walls of power. 
Vivid before his sight appears 
The foul Caligula's last hour. 
In stars and ribbons he espies 
Assassins drunk with wine and spite 
Approaching, furtive in the night 
With wolfish hearts and brazen eyes. 

And silent stands the faithless guard, 
The drawbridge downed without alarm, 
The gate in dark of night unbarred 
By treason’s mercenary arm. 
The shame! The terror of our time!  
Those Janissary beasts burst in⁹
And slash. The Criminal Sovereign 
Is butchered by unholy crime.  

Now Monarchs, this lesson well:  
No punishment, no accolade, 
No altar and no dungeon cell 
Can be your steadfast barricade. 
The first bowed head must be your own 
Beneath Law's trusty canopy 
Then Peoples' life and liberty 
Forevermore shall guard your throne. 

Notes:

¹ I.e. Venus Aphrodite, associated in antiquity with the Ionian island of Cythera.

²The identity of this "exalted Gaul" is one of the many quarrels with which scholars of Pushkinian minutiae have busied themselves. Possibilities range from Nabokov's suggestion of the minor poet Ponce Denis Ecouchard Le Brun, to the sadly underrated (by modern critics) poet André Chénier who died on the guillotine at the age of 31, to Jacques de Molay- last grand master of the Knights Templar. For a variety of reasons Chénier seems the most likely, or rather, the only likely choice. But obviously this is a question of interest to historians and the appreciator of poetry doesn't, or at least shouldn't, care.

³ C.f. Guillaume Thomas Raynal's Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes where he writes:

La loi n'est rien, si ce n'est pas un glaive qui se promène indistinctement sur toutes les têtes, et qui abat ce qui s'élève au-dessus du plan horizontal sur lequel il se meut. La loi ne commande à personne ou commande à tous. Devant la loi, ainsi que devant Dieu, tous sont égaux.
The law is nothing, unless it be a sword passing indiscriminately over all heads, and smiting all that rise above the horizontal plane in which it moves. The law governs none, or governs all. Before the Law as before God, all are equal

⁴King Louis XVI, guillotined in 1793 during the reign of Terror.

⁵i.e. Napoleonic purple.

⁶ i.e. Napoleon. Yeah, I know, "psychopath" wasn't a word in the early 19th century.

⁷ The Tyrant here referred to is Tsar Paul I, father of the then-current Tsar Alexander I. The poem was written in the Turgenevs' apartment which looked out across the canal at the Mikhailovsky Castle, the scene of Paul's assassination in 1801- an event envisioned in the subsequent two stanzas. In Pushkin's time, Paul was considered and depicted as a royal psychopath who ignored the will of his subjects.

⁸- Clio: the muse of History.

⁹ Janissaries: i.e. assassins fierce and ruthless as Turkish troops. 

Вольность: Ода
Александр Пушкин

Бѣги, сокройся отъ очей

Цитеры слабая Царица. 

Гдѣ ты? — Гдѣ ты? — Гроза Царей,

Свободы гордая Пѣвица! 

Приди, сорви съ меня вѣнокъ;

Разбѣй изнѣженную Лиру. 

Хочу воспѣть Свободу міру,

На Тронахъ поразить порокъ. 

Открой мнѣ благородной слѣдъ

Того возвышеннаго Галла;

Кому сама средь славныхъ бѣдъ,

Ты Гимны смѣлыя внушала. 

Питомцы вѣтренной Судьбы,

Тираны Мира! Трепещите! 

А вы мужайтесь и внемлите,

Возстаньте падшіе рабы. 

Увы!.. Куда не брошу взоръ;

Вездѣ бичи, вездѣ железы.

Народа гибельный позоръ,

Неволи немощныя слезы. 

Вездѣ неправедная Власть. 

Въ сгущенной мглѣ предразсужденій,

Возсѣла — Рабства грозный Геній,

И славы роковая страсть. 

Лишь тамъ надъ Царскою главой

Народовъ не легло страданье,

Гдѣ крѣпко съ Вольностью святой

Законовъ мощныхъ сочетанье; 

Гдѣ всѣмъ простертъ ихъ твердый щитъ,

Гдѣ сжатый вѣрными руками

Гражданъ надъ равными стенами

Ихъ мечь безъ выбора скользитъ. 

И преступленье съ высока

Сражаетъ праведнымъ размахомъ,

Гдѣ не подкупна ихъ рука

Ни алчной скупостью ни страхомъ.

Владыки!.. Вамъ венецъ и Тронъ

Даетъ Законъ, а не Природа:

Стоите выше вы народа;

Но вѣчной выше васъ Законъ.

И горе, горе! Племенамъ

Гдѣ дремлетъ онъ неосторожно,

Гдѣ иль Народу, иль Царямъ

Закономъ властвовать возможно.

Тебя въ свидѣтели зову

О, мученикъ ошибокъ славныхъ!

За предковъ въ шумѣ бурь недавнихъ

Сложивший Царскую главу.

Восходитъ къ смерти Людовикъ,

Въ виду безмолвнаго потомства.

Главой развѣнчанной приникъ

Къ кровавой плахѣ вероломства.

Молчитъ Законъ. Народъ молчитъ.

Падетъ преступная секира...

И се — злодѣйская Порфира

На Галлахъ скованныхъ лежитъ.

Самовластительной Злодѣй!

Тебя, твой Тронъ я ненавижу.

Твою погибель, смерть дѣтей

Съ жестокой радостію вижу.

Читают на твоемъ челѣ

Печать проклятія народы.

Ты ужасъ Мира, стыдъ Природы;

Упрекъ ты Богу на землѣ. 

Когда на мрачную Неву

Звѣзда полуночи сверкаетъ,

И беззаботную главу

Спокойной сонъ отягощаетъ,

Глядитъ задумчивый Пѣвецъ

На грозно спящій средь тумана

Пустынный памятникъ Тирана,

Забвенью брошенный Дворецъ. 

И Кліи слышитъ страшный гласъ

Надъ сими страшными стѣнами,

Калигулы послѣдній часъ

Онъ видитъ живо предъ очами.

Онъ видитъ въ лентахъ и звѣздахъ

Виномъ и Злобой упоенны,

Идутъ убійцы потаенны.

На лицахъ дерзость, въ сердце страхъ. 

Молчитъ невѣрной часовой,

Опущенъ молча мостъ подъемной,

Врата отверсты въ тьмѣ ночной

Рукой предательства наемной.

О, стыдъ! О, ужасъ нашихъ дней!

Какъ звѣри вторглисъ янычары,

Падутъ безславныя удары;

Погибъ увенчанный Злодѣй! 

И днесь учитеся Цари:

Не наказанья, ни награды;

Ни кровъ темницъ; ни алтари,

Не вѣрныя для васъ ограды. 

Склонитесь перьвые главой

Подъ сѣнь надежную Закона,

И станутъ вѣчной стражей Трона

Народовъ Вольность и Покой.