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Headless Horseman
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Speaking of "Headless Horseman" (on Antiterra, a poem by Pushkin that took ten-year-old Van less than twenty minutes to learn by heart: 1.28), here is an English translation of Pushkin's poem The Delibash* (1829) that I quoted in Nab-l last May:
With the hostile camp in skirmish
Our men once were changing shot,
Pranced the Delibash his charger
'Fore our ranks of Cossacks hot.
Trifle not with free-born Cossacks!
Nor too o'er foolhardy be!
Thy mad mood thou wilt atone for--
On his pike he'll skewer thee!
'Ware friend Cossack! Or at full bound,
Off thy head, at lightning speed
With his scimitar he'll sever
From thy trunk! He will indeed!
What confusion! What a roaring!
Halt! thou devil's pack, have care!
On the pike is lanced the horseman--
Headless stands** the Cossack there!
Note that "The Delibash" consists of sixteen lines, while "The Bronze Horseman" has some 480 lines.
*Turk., daredevil; cf. sorvigolova, Russian for "daredevil"
**The Cossack can not possibly "stand" because he, too, is on horseback. Another detail lost in translation is the red color of the delibash.
Alexey Sklyarenko
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With the hostile camp in skirmish
Our men once were changing shot,
Pranced the Delibash his charger
'Fore our ranks of Cossacks hot.
Trifle not with free-born Cossacks!
Nor too o'er foolhardy be!
Thy mad mood thou wilt atone for--
On his pike he'll skewer thee!
'Ware friend Cossack! Or at full bound,
Off thy head, at lightning speed
With his scimitar he'll sever
From thy trunk! He will indeed!
What confusion! What a roaring!
Halt! thou devil's pack, have care!
On the pike is lanced the horseman--
Headless stands** the Cossack there!
Note that "The Delibash" consists of sixteen lines, while "The Bronze Horseman" has some 480 lines.
*Turk., daredevil; cf. sorvigolova, Russian for "daredevil"
**The Cossack can not possibly "stand" because he, too, is on horseback. Another detail lost in translation is the red color of the delibash.
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/