med_cat: (JB as Hamlet)
Nechama Chaya ([personal profile] med_cat) wrote2010-01-16 04:29 pm

Hamlet/ГАМЛЕТ

One of my favourite poems; my translation follows (the best I can; much to my regret, I cannot rhyme)
Cat

ГАМЛЕТ
Гул затих. Я вышел на подмостки.
Прислонясь к дверному косяку,
Я ловлю в далеком отголоске,
Что случится на моем веку.

На меня наставлен сумрак ночи
Тысячью биноклей на оси.
Если только можно, Aвва Oтче,
Чашу эту мимо пронеси.

Я люблю твой замысел упрямый
И играть согласен эту роль.
Но сейчас идет другая драма,
И на этот раз меня уволь.

Но продуман распорядок действий,
И неотвратим конец пути.
Я один, все тонет в фарисействе.
Жизнь прожить - не поле перейти.

Борис Пастернак
1946

Hamlet

The crowd has fallen quiet.
I've walked onto the stage ladder,
Leaning against the doorframe.
I want to hear in the faraway echo
What will happen in my lifetime.

The darkness of night is aimed at me
Like a thousand focused opera-glasses.
If it is at all possible, God the Father,
Let this cup pass from me.

I like your stubborn creative plan
And have agreed to play this role,
But this time, a different drama is on,
And this time, pray excuse me.

But the sequence of acts is thought out,
And the end of the road is inevitable.
I am alone; everything is drowning in Phariseeism.
To live a life is far more difficult than to cross a field.

(Boris Pasternak, 1946).

[identity profile] petrusplancius.livejournal.com 2010-01-18 03:08 pm (UTC)(link)
He wisely doesn't attempt to use rhyme. The transaltions in this volume read very well (though I unfortunately don't read Russian so cannot compare them with the originals; I have yet to come across any readable translations of Pasternak's earlier poems, perhaps because they are untransaltable, even to to the extent that any poetry is translatable.

[identity profile] petrusplancius.livejournal.com 2010-01-20 09:44 am (UTC)(link)
Yes, this book, entitled 'In the Interlude', contains Pasternak's poems from 1945 to 1960; I don't usually like to read poetry in translation, but this is good.