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


Listless Cytherean princess1, sing
No more. Begone out of my view! 
But you, great scourge of tsar and king, 
Proud Muse of Freedom, where are you? 
Come rip my laurels off. Bring stones 
And crush this coddled lyre. Let me 
Sing to the world of Liberty 
And shame the scum that sit on thrones. 

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, flighty Fortune's favored knaves, 
Tremble, O Tyrants of the Earth! 
But you: take heed now, know your worth 
And rise as men, O fallen slaves! 

I cannot cast my gaze but see
 
A body flayed, an ankle chained, 
The useless tears of Slavery, 
The Law perverted and profaned. 
Yea, everywhere iniquitous 
Power in the fog of superstition 
Ascends: Vainglory's fateful passion, 
And Slavery's gruesome genius.  

Heavy on every sovereign head
 
There lies a People's misery, 
Save where the mighty Law is wed 
Firmly with holy Liberty, 
Where their hard 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. 
O Monarchs, you are 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 commonweal
 
Where it is blithely slumbering, 
Where Law itself is forced to kneel 
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 royal 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 Law stands mute, the People too. 
And down the criminal axe-blade flies 
And lo! A ghastly purple5 lies  
Upon a Gaul enslaved anew. 

You autocratic psychopath,6

You and your throne do I despise! 
I watch your doom, your children's death 
With hateful, jubilating eyes. 
Upon your forehead they descry 
The People’s mark of true damnation. 
Stain of the world, shame of creation, 
Reproach on earth to God on high! 

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. 
O shame! O terror of our time!  
Those Janissary beasts burst in9
And slash, the Criminal Sovereign 
Is slaughtered by unholy crime.  

O Tsars, henceforward learn ye 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. 
Вольность: Ода
Александр Пушкин



Беги, сокройся от очей, 
Цитеры слабая царица! 
Где ты, где ты, гроза царей, 
Свободы гордая певица? — 
Приди, сорви с меня венок, 
Разбей изнеженную лиру… 
Хочу воспеть Свободу миру, 
На тронах поразить порок. 

Открой мне благородный след 
Того возвышенного галла, 
Кому сама средь славных бед 
Ты гимны смелые внушала. 
Питомцы ветреной Судьбы, 
Тираны мира! трепещите! 
А вы, мужайтесь и внемлите, 
Восстаньте, падшие рабы! 

Увы! куда ни брошу взор — 
Везде бичи, везде железы, 
Законов гибельный позор, 
Неволи немощные слезы; 
Везде неправедная Власть 
В сгущенной мгле предрассуждений 
Воссела — Рабства грозный Гений 
И Славы роковая страсть. 

Лишь там над царскою главой 
Народов не легло страданье, 
Где крепко с Вольностью святой 
Законов мощных сочетанье; 
Где всем простерт их твердый щит, 
Где сжатый верными руками 
Граждан над равными главами 
Их меч без выбора скользит, 

И преступленье с высока 
Сражает праведным размахом; 
Где не подкупна их рука 
Ни алчной скупостью, ни страхом. 
Владыки! вам венец и трон 
Дает Закон — а не природа; 
Стоите выше вы народа, 
Но вечный выше вас Закон. 

И горе, горе племенам, 
Где дремлет он неосторожно, 
Где иль народу иль царям 
Законом властвовать возможно! 
Тебя в свидетели зову, 
О мученик ошибок славных, 
За предков в шуме бурь недавных 
Сложивший царскую главу. 

Восходит к смерти Людовик, 
В виду безмолвного потомства, 
Главой развенчанной приник 
К кровавой плахе Вероломства. 
Молчит Закон — народ молчит, 
Падет преступная секира….. 
И се — злодейская порфира 
На галлах скованных лежит. 

Самовластительный Злодей!, 
Тебя, твой трон я ненавижу, 
Твою погибель, смерть детей 
С жестокой радостию вижу. 
Читают на твоем челе 
Печать проклятия народы, 
Ты ужас мира, стыд природы, 
Упрек ты богу на земле. 

Когда на мрачную Неву 
Звезда полуночи сверкает, 
И беззаботную главу 
Спокойный сон отягощает, 
Глядит задумчивый певец 
На грозно спящий средь тумана 
Пустынный памятник тирана, 
Забвенью брошенный дворец —, 

И слышит Клии страшный глас 
За сими страшными стенами, 
Калигуллы последний час 
Он видит живо пред очами, 
Он видит — в лентах и звездах, 
Вином и злобой упоенны 
Идут убийцы потаенны, 
На лицах дерзость, в сердце страх. 

Молчит неверный часовой, 
Опущен молча мост подъемный, 
Врата отверсты в тьме ночной 
Рукой предательства наемной…. 
О стыд! о ужас наших дней! 
Как звери, вторглись янычары!…, 
Падут бесславные удары… 
Погиб увенчанный злодей. 

И днесь учитесь, о цари: 
Ни наказанья, ни награды, 
Ни кров темниц, ни алтари 
Не верные для вас ограды. 
Склонитесь первые главой 
Под сень надежную Закона, 
И станут вечной стражей трона 
Народов вольность и покой. 

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.


9 comments:

  1. Wow its amazing! This is amazing blog ever.

    Translation Company

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great Post! This blog is ever amazing. Thanks

    Adventure

    awesome post........

    ReplyDelete
  3. You are very talented! The pronunciation of each language is perfect! and the translations themselves are so beautiful))

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you.

    I should note that it usually takes several re-recordings to get the pronunciation right. I'm rather compulsive about that: if a single consonant is off, if I notice a vowel slightly improperly articulated, I can't help but rerecord it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. then you are very patient too)))

    ReplyDelete
  6. I very much like this Ode and your versatile translation. I would like to publish it in my edited LAW ANIMATED WORLD (see my blog: http://lawanimatedworld.blogspot.com/ ) in the last page (poetry page). Hope you will have no objection. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Mallikarjuna SharmaJune 15, 2012 at 8:52 AM

    I liked this Ode to Liberty and your versatile translation very much. I would like to publish it in my edited LAW ANIMATED WORLD, in the last page (poetry page). Please visit our weblog: http://lawanimatedworld.blogspot.com/ to know more about our journal. Hope you will have no objection to my publishing the same in our journal. Please reply to mksharma55@gmail.com at the earliest. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete