Subject
Oka, Palm Bay & Kuroslep in Ada
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'On the other hand,' said Van, 'one can well imagine a similarly bilingual Miss Rivers checking a French version of, say, Marvell's Garden -'
'Oh,' cried Ada, 'I can recite "Le jardin" in my own transversion - let me see -
En vain on s'amuse a gagner
L'Oka, la Baie du Palmier...'
'...to win the Palm, the Oke, or Bayes!' shouted Van.
'You know, children,' interrupted Marina resolutely with calming gestures of both hands, 'when I was your age, Ada, and my brother was your age, Van, we talked about croquet, and ponies, and puppies, and the last fete-d'enfants, and the next picnic, and - oh, millions of nice normal things, but never, never of old French botanists and God knows what!' (1.10)
Darkbloom ('Notes to Ada'):
en vain. etc.: In vain, one gains in play
The Oka river and Palm Bay...
As a little girl, Marina Tsvetaev spent the summers near Tarusa (a town in the Province of Kaluga), on the banks of the Oka rivier:
Детство до десяти лет — старый дом в Трёхпрудном переулке (Москва) и одинокая дача Песочная, на Оке, близ города Тарусы Калужской губернии. ("The Autobiography," 1940)
In Oka (a cycle of five poems included in Volshebnyi fonar', "The Magic Lantern," 1912) Marina Tsvetaev speaks of the old garden behind their old house, with an overgrown croquet-ground:
В светлом платьице, давно-знакомом,
Улыбнулась я себе из тьмы.
Старый сад шумит за старым домом…
Почему не маленькие мы?
Почернела дождевая кадка,
Вензеля на рубчатой коре,
Заросла крокетная площадка,
Заросли тропинки на дворе…
Не целуй! Скажу тебе, как другу:
Целовать не надо у Оки!
Почему по скошенному лугу
Не помчаться наперегонки?
Мы вдвоём, но, милый, не легко мне, -
Невозвратное меня зовёт!
За Окой стучат в каменоломне,
По Оке минувшее плывёт…
Вечер тих, — не надо поцелуя!
Уж на клумбах задремал левкой…
Только клумбы пёстрые люблю я
И каменоломню над Окой.
The author (who loves only variegated flower-beds and a quarry above the Oka) asks her lover not to kiss her near the Oka.
In her poem Pervoe puteshestvie ("The First Voyage," included in Vecherniy al'bom, "The Evening Album," 1910) Marina Tsvetaev mentions the Palm of Peace:
Мы плыли мимо берегов,
Где зеленеет Пальма Мира,
Где из спокойных жемчугов
Дворцы, а башни из сапфира.
We sailed past the shores
where grows the green Palm of Peace...
In the same poem (the seventh one in the cycle Detstvo, "The Childhood") Marina Tsvetaev mentions the green eyes (Van's and Ada's half-sister Lucette is green-eyed) of someone who looks at her and her companion:
Под пёстрым зонтиком чудес,
Полны мечтаний затаённых,
Лежали мы и страх исчез
Под взором чьих-то глаз зелёных.
Detstvo is dedicated to Marina Tsvetaev's and Andrey Bely's friend Ellis (Lev Kobylinski, Baudelaire's Russian translator whose name comes from kobyla, "mare").
Andrew Marvell's The Garden begins:
How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays...
"Bays" means "laurels." In her poem Mayakovskomu ("To Mayakovski," 1930), on the poet's suicide, Marina Tsvetaev mentions the poets' "laurels:"
А певчая стая?
— Народ, знаешь, тёртый!
Нам лавры сплетая,
У нас как у мёртвых
Прут. Старую Росту
Да завтрашним лаком.
Да не обойдёшься
С одним Пастернаком.
In Marina Tsvetaev's poem VN's "late namesake" speaks to Esenin (the poet who had committed suicide four and a half years before) and mentions Pasternak (the author of Doctor Zhivago, 1957, known on Antiterra as Les Amours du Docteur Mertvago, a mystical romance by a pastor, 1.8, and Mertvago Forever, 2.5). Marina Tsvetaev's essay on Pasternak is entitled Svetovoy liven' ("The Shower of Light," 1922).
Marina Tsvetaev is the author of Derev'ya ("The Trees"), a cycle of nine poems (1922-23). In the cycle's second poem Marina Tsvetaev calls the oak "a theomachist:"
Дуб богоборческий! В бои
Всем корнем шествующий!
Ивы-провидицы мои!
Берёзы-девственницы!
Вяз — яростный Авессалом,
На пытке вздыбленная
Сосна — ты, уст моих псалом:
Горечь рябиновая…
The poet mentions the bitter taste of rowan-berries. The red berries of a rowan-tree play an important role in Doctor Zhivago. In "The Poems of Yuri Zhivago" the opening poem is Hamlet.
'Yes, indeed,' began Marina, 'when I was playing Ophelia, the fact that I had once collected flowers -'
'Helped, no doubt,' said Ada. 'Now the Russian word for marsh marigold is Kuroslep (which muzhiks in Tartary misapply, poor slaves, to the buttercup) or else Kaluzhnitsa, as used quite properly in Kaluga, U.S.A.' (1.10)
In the first poem of Oka Marina Tsvetaev (the author of "Ophelia to Hamlet" and "Ophelia in Defence of the Queen," 1923) mentions the flowers of kurinaya slepota (another name of kuroslep, "marsh marigold"):
Волшебство немецкой феерии,
Томный вальс, немецкий и простой…
А луга покинутой России
Зацвели куриной слепотой.
Милый луг, тебя мы так любили,
С золотой тропинкой у Оки…
Меж стволов снуют автомобили, -
Золотые майские жуки.
In the closing lines Marina Tsvetaev compares the golden may-beetles to automobiles.
Marina Tsvetaev is the author of a mildly "incestous" poem Brat ("Brother," 1923) in the closing quatrain of which Cesare Borgia and his sister Lucretia are mentioned:
Где-то, вдоль звёзд и шпал,
— Настежь, без третьего! -
Что по ночам шептал
Цезарь — Лукреции.
According to the poet, her brother was given her by Ad (Hell):
Брат без других сестёр:
Нaпрочь присвоенный!
По гробовой костёр —
Брат, но с условием:
Вместе и в рай и в ад!
Раной — как розаном
Соупиваться! (Брат,
Адом дарованный!)
Speaking of bayronka (an open short that Marina's late brother Ivan wears in a picture taken by Sumerechnikov, 2.7): Marina Tsvetaev is the author of Bayronu ("To Byron," 1913) in which she compares young Byron to a demon:
Я думаю об утре Вашей славы,
Об утре Ваших дней,
Когда очнулись демоном от сна Вы
И богом для людей.
I think about the morning of your glory,
About the morning of your days too, when
Like a demon you from sleep had stirred
And were a god for men.
(transl. Ilya Shambat)
Alexey Sklyarenko
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'Oh,' cried Ada, 'I can recite "Le jardin" in my own transversion - let me see -
En vain on s'amuse a gagner
L'Oka, la Baie du Palmier...'
'...to win the Palm, the Oke, or Bayes!' shouted Van.
'You know, children,' interrupted Marina resolutely with calming gestures of both hands, 'when I was your age, Ada, and my brother was your age, Van, we talked about croquet, and ponies, and puppies, and the last fete-d'enfants, and the next picnic, and - oh, millions of nice normal things, but never, never of old French botanists and God knows what!' (1.10)
Darkbloom ('Notes to Ada'):
en vain. etc.: In vain, one gains in play
The Oka river and Palm Bay...
As a little girl, Marina Tsvetaev spent the summers near Tarusa (a town in the Province of Kaluga), on the banks of the Oka rivier:
Детство до десяти лет — старый дом в Трёхпрудном переулке (Москва) и одинокая дача Песочная, на Оке, близ города Тарусы Калужской губернии. ("The Autobiography," 1940)
In Oka (a cycle of five poems included in Volshebnyi fonar', "The Magic Lantern," 1912) Marina Tsvetaev speaks of the old garden behind their old house, with an overgrown croquet-ground:
В светлом платьице, давно-знакомом,
Улыбнулась я себе из тьмы.
Старый сад шумит за старым домом…
Почему не маленькие мы?
Почернела дождевая кадка,
Вензеля на рубчатой коре,
Заросла крокетная площадка,
Заросли тропинки на дворе…
Не целуй! Скажу тебе, как другу:
Целовать не надо у Оки!
Почему по скошенному лугу
Не помчаться наперегонки?
Мы вдвоём, но, милый, не легко мне, -
Невозвратное меня зовёт!
За Окой стучат в каменоломне,
По Оке минувшее плывёт…
Вечер тих, — не надо поцелуя!
Уж на клумбах задремал левкой…
Только клумбы пёстрые люблю я
И каменоломню над Окой.
The author (who loves only variegated flower-beds and a quarry above the Oka) asks her lover not to kiss her near the Oka.
In her poem Pervoe puteshestvie ("The First Voyage," included in Vecherniy al'bom, "The Evening Album," 1910) Marina Tsvetaev mentions the Palm of Peace:
Мы плыли мимо берегов,
Где зеленеет Пальма Мира,
Где из спокойных жемчугов
Дворцы, а башни из сапфира.
We sailed past the shores
where grows the green Palm of Peace...
In the same poem (the seventh one in the cycle Detstvo, "The Childhood") Marina Tsvetaev mentions the green eyes (Van's and Ada's half-sister Lucette is green-eyed) of someone who looks at her and her companion:
Под пёстрым зонтиком чудес,
Полны мечтаний затаённых,
Лежали мы и страх исчез
Под взором чьих-то глаз зелёных.
Detstvo is dedicated to Marina Tsvetaev's and Andrey Bely's friend Ellis (Lev Kobylinski, Baudelaire's Russian translator whose name comes from kobyla, "mare").
Andrew Marvell's The Garden begins:
How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays...
"Bays" means "laurels." In her poem Mayakovskomu ("To Mayakovski," 1930), on the poet's suicide, Marina Tsvetaev mentions the poets' "laurels:"
А певчая стая?
— Народ, знаешь, тёртый!
Нам лавры сплетая,
У нас как у мёртвых
Прут. Старую Росту
Да завтрашним лаком.
Да не обойдёшься
С одним Пастернаком.
In Marina Tsvetaev's poem VN's "late namesake" speaks to Esenin (the poet who had committed suicide four and a half years before) and mentions Pasternak (the author of Doctor Zhivago, 1957, known on Antiterra as Les Amours du Docteur Mertvago, a mystical romance by a pastor, 1.8, and Mertvago Forever, 2.5). Marina Tsvetaev's essay on Pasternak is entitled Svetovoy liven' ("The Shower of Light," 1922).
Marina Tsvetaev is the author of Derev'ya ("The Trees"), a cycle of nine poems (1922-23). In the cycle's second poem Marina Tsvetaev calls the oak "a theomachist:"
Дуб богоборческий! В бои
Всем корнем шествующий!
Ивы-провидицы мои!
Берёзы-девственницы!
Вяз — яростный Авессалом,
На пытке вздыбленная
Сосна — ты, уст моих псалом:
Горечь рябиновая…
The poet mentions the bitter taste of rowan-berries. The red berries of a rowan-tree play an important role in Doctor Zhivago. In "The Poems of Yuri Zhivago" the opening poem is Hamlet.
'Yes, indeed,' began Marina, 'when I was playing Ophelia, the fact that I had once collected flowers -'
'Helped, no doubt,' said Ada. 'Now the Russian word for marsh marigold is Kuroslep (which muzhiks in Tartary misapply, poor slaves, to the buttercup) or else Kaluzhnitsa, as used quite properly in Kaluga, U.S.A.' (1.10)
In the first poem of Oka Marina Tsvetaev (the author of "Ophelia to Hamlet" and "Ophelia in Defence of the Queen," 1923) mentions the flowers of kurinaya slepota (another name of kuroslep, "marsh marigold"):
Волшебство немецкой феерии,
Томный вальс, немецкий и простой…
А луга покинутой России
Зацвели куриной слепотой.
Милый луг, тебя мы так любили,
С золотой тропинкой у Оки…
Меж стволов снуют автомобили, -
Золотые майские жуки.
In the closing lines Marina Tsvetaev compares the golden may-beetles to automobiles.
Marina Tsvetaev is the author of a mildly "incestous" poem Brat ("Brother," 1923) in the closing quatrain of which Cesare Borgia and his sister Lucretia are mentioned:
Где-то, вдоль звёзд и шпал,
— Настежь, без третьего! -
Что по ночам шептал
Цезарь — Лукреции.
According to the poet, her brother was given her by Ad (Hell):
Брат без других сестёр:
Нaпрочь присвоенный!
По гробовой костёр —
Брат, но с условием:
Вместе и в рай и в ад!
Раной — как розаном
Соупиваться! (Брат,
Адом дарованный!)
Speaking of bayronka (an open short that Marina's late brother Ivan wears in a picture taken by Sumerechnikov, 2.7): Marina Tsvetaev is the author of Bayronu ("To Byron," 1913) in which she compares young Byron to a demon:
Я думаю об утре Вашей славы,
Об утре Ваших дней,
Когда очнулись демоном от сна Вы
И богом для людей.
I think about the morning of your glory,
About the morning of your days too, when
Like a demon you from sleep had stirred
And were a god for men.
(transl. Ilya Shambat)
Alexey Sklyarenko
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/