To Pushkin

                                                                                                    1

                                                                                     What is translation? On a platter
                                                                                     A poet's pale and glaring head.
                                                                                     A parrot's screech, a monkey's chatter,
                                                                                     And profanation of the dead.
                                                                                     The parasites you were so hard on
                                                                                     Are pardoned if I have your pardon,
                                                                                     O, Pushkin, for my stratagem:
                                                                                     I travelled down your secret stem,
                                                                                     And reached the root, and fed upon it:
                                                                                     Then, in a language newly learned,
                                                                                     I grew another stalk and turned
                                                                                     Your stanza patterned on a sonnet,
                                                                                     Into my honest roadside prose -
                                                                                     All thorn, but cousin to your rose.

                                                                                                       2

                                                                                     Reflected words can only shiver
                                                                                     Like elongated lights that twist
                                                                                     In the black mirror of a river
                                                                                     Between the city and the mist.
                                                                                     Elusive Pushkin! Persevering,
                                                                                     I still pick up Tatiana's earring,
                                                                                     Still travel with your sullen rake.
                                                                                     I find another man's mistake,
                                                                                     I analyze alliterations
                                                                                     That grace your feasts and haunt the great
                                                                                     Fourth stanza of your Canto Eight.
                                                                                     This is my task - a poet's patience
                                                                                     And scholiastic passion blent:
                                                                                     Dove-droppings on your monument.

A copy from the original manuscript:*

Dec. 1953, Ithaca, N.Y:
this is the rhyme-scheme of "Onegin"

for Dmitri

To Pushkin

What is translation? On a platter

a poet's pale - and glaring - head;

a fool's mistake; a monkey's chatter -

and profanation of the dead.

The parasites you were so hard on

are pardoned if I have your pardon,

O, Pushkin, for my stratagem:

I travelled down to your secret stem,

and reached the root, and fed upon it;

Then, in another tongue, I grew

another stalk away from you,

and turned your stanza from a sonnet

into a metaphrase in prose -

all thorn, but cousin to your rose

* Dmitri Nabokov [off-List to JM]: "I think it might interest people to see both the P&P version and the holograph, with my note. Incidentally, the poem will also appear in a poetry collection I am preparing for publication by Penguin (UK) in November of next year."

All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.

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