Zenkevich, “The earth was radiant …” (1918)
 

The earth was radiant, the faded
stubble illumined by the moon.
An otherworldly, lunar maiden,
you lived a life not all your own.
The day’s terrain became a wonder,
a ghostly distance drew my gaze,
the wormwood steppe (or was it water?)
was glimmering in smoky haze.
And you, ethereal and slender,
in moondust of a milky blue,
arose, so genuine, so tender,
and I walked close, so close to you.
Your eyes, with just their lashes, said it:
This is no place to recklessly
indulge in passions; my intended
is waiting for his bride-to-be.
I listened calmly, but inside me,
I felt the golden-smoldering day’s
enjoyments silently subsiding
beneath your moon-resplendent gaze.
And ever since, in my affliction,
I’ve tried to make the sun—in vain—
burn out that silver apparition:
the moon still beaming in my brain.


Edits
L14-L16: italics added
L18: smold’ring > smoldering


Crib

The earth radiated, reflecting
with faded stubble the moon’s luster.
You were lunar, alien/foreign
and not your own master.
And everything that was the day’s became wondrous,
and there seemed to be a ghostly distance,
and something under smoky haze glistened,
whether wormwood steppe or water.
And, like a slender shade arising,
all in milky light blue dust,
so tender, simple,
you walked alongside closely-closely.
With a movement of (eye)lashes alone
making it understood: here is no place
for passions and excess; I am a bride(-to-be),
and my fiancé is already waiting for me.
I listened as if calm,
but there in my soul, soundlessly
the joyful golden-sultry day was fading/going out
beneath the luster of your lunar eyes.
Since that time, I’ve been melancholy every day
and can’t, by means of the sun, burn out
the silver apparition
of the moon shining in my brain.


Original

Земля лучилась, отражая
Поблекшим жнивом блеск луны.
Вы были лунная, чужая
И над собою не вольны.
И все дневное дивным стало,
И призрачною мнилась даль
И что под дымной мглой блистало —
Полынная ли степь, вода ль.
И, стройной тенью вырастая,
Вся в млечной голубой пыли,
Такая нежная, простая,
Вы рядом близко-близко шли.
Движением ресниц одних
Понять давая — здесь не место
Страстям и буйству, я невеста,
И ждет меня уже жених.
Я слушал будто бы спокойный,
А там в душе беззвучно гас
День радостный золотознойный
Под блеском ваших лунных глаз.
С тех пор тоскую каждый день я
И выжечь солнцем не могу
Серебряного наважденья
Луны, сияющей в мозгу.

Hi, Carl—

I’m developing a taste for Zenkevich. His poems have a surrealistic quality that makes the reader wonder whether the scenes he describes are real or dreams. It was interesting to read this against Julie’s translation of Rueda’s “Las Bodas Del Mar,” since both use moonlight as an important image.

I like your handling of the rhyme, using strict rhyme for the even-numbered lines and looser, slantier rhymes for most of the odd-numbered lines. I noticed that Zenkevich uses ABAB rhymes, as you do, except in lines 13-16, where he uses ABBA. These lines correspond to the words “spoken” (telepathically, apparently) by the girl (whose existence I could not help but doubt with all the hazy shadow and ghostly moon dust).

Line 11, Такая нежная, простая, reminded me of the phrase from Pushkin’s “Я вас любил:”
. . .так искренно, так нежно. . .
I wondered if you thought this was a deliberate echo. The situation, in which a girl promised to another is deflecting a proposal by a man who loves her, revealing her own regret, struck me as similar, too.

The reference to “wormwood” puzzled me. Is wormwood a common plant in the Russian steppes? It grows in the Alaskan tundra, but is not really common. I did a bit of research and discovered that wormwood is used in absinthe, which may contribute to the hallucinatory feeling. Its scientific name is Artemisia, from Artemis, the goddess of the moon.

Nice work!

Glenn

Thanks, Glenn!

Yeah, feminine rhymes are scarcer in English than in Russian and French, so when I try to preserve the alternation, it helps to give them more slack.

I found it easier to ignore that variation in the rhyme scheme, but I hadn’t really thought of it as setting off the words of his companion. That’s a nice observation. I personally don’t doubt her existence, though I can see why you would.

Pushkin is always everywhere in Russian poetry, so this seems convincing.

Thanks especially for this nit. I didn’t do enough homework on wormwood. The Russian “полынь” is translated variously as “mugwort,” “wormwood” and “sagebrush”—all species of Artemisia. “Sagebrush” is specifically American, but “mugwort” seems to be a much broader term than “wormwood,” so it’s probably the word I should be using. Is mugwort familiar to you?

The moon reference you found in Artemisia is fascinating, though I don’t know how much of a botanist Zenkevich was. BTW, Wikipedia tells me that “‘vermouth’ is the French pronunciation of the German word Wermut for wormwood that has been used as an ingredient in the drink over its history.” The online dictionary I use suggests “vermouth steppe,” but that’s surely a confusion.

I had never heard of mugwort before. American nurseries and garden centers often sell Artemisia, however, as a bedding plant. It often has whitish markings and what looks like white powder on it, which may be referred to as the пыли in line 10.

I notice a consistent pattern of imagery in Zenkevich’s poems. Daylight, summer, heat, and the sun seem to be oppressive and associated with reality, reason, and the mundane. Night, darkness, moonlight, coolness, and the moon have positive associations with imagination, creativity, and romance. Additionally he often links references to blood, the color red, and femininity. His speakers often seem to be schzoid, unable to form real romantic relationships, but obsessed with idealized, unattainable women or girls, sometimes becoming psychotic. The poem about the child murderer reminds me of Robert Browning’s dramatic monologues like “Porphyria’s Lover” or “My Last Duchess.”

Glenn, I’ve found that Artemisia vulgaris, which I suspect to be the shrub in question, is called mugwort, but sometimes also “wild wormwood,” so I think I’ll stick with wormwood. There are many species of Artemisia, and the non-scientific names for them don’t seem very precise.

That’s excellent. I’ve had some of the same thoughts, but without formulating them so clearly. In this poem, day is “joyous” (радостный) rather than a torment, but the attractions of night are stronger. We’ll see if the pattern continues.

Hi, Carl! I've been reading this for a few days now, letting it sink in. I very much enjoy what you're doing with the feminine slant rhymes in the odd-numbered lines, which preserves a nice, incantatory feel.

A few thoughts:


     An otherworldly, lunar maiden,
     you lived a life not all your own.

I had trouble figuring out what that meant, especially since "all" seemed emphatic due to its position in the meter. After seeing the crib's

     You were lunar, alien/foreign
     and not your own master.

it became somewhat more clear to me, but most readers won't have the benefit of the crib.


"The wormwood steppe (or was it water?)" might be, at least partially, a Biblical reference:
But the more common Russian word for one Artemisia species seems to be чернобы́ль, chernobyl, so maybe it's just that.

(A brief digression: At the time of the April 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, some Bible-thumpers of my acquaintance proclaimed that this was clearly a sign of the end times, due to the town name's association with Wormwood. The Challenger disaster had been a few months earlier (January 1986), which they had also attributed to a falling star or angel or something in the Book of Revelations. Pretty much anything can be made to fit the Book of Revelations and seen as a warning that The End Is Near, if you squint hard enough.)

(As long as I'm digressing, C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters is an epistolary novel composed of correspondence from a senior demon to his nephew, Wormwood.)

(And another digression — the Greek for wormwood is ἄψινθος, apsinthos, from which we apparently get English absinthe, although the Perseus Greek Word Study Tool has about the least informative entry for it I've ever seen. Probably because the word doesn't seem to be used prior to this passage of the New Testament.)


I'd like to see italics to indicate the direct speech here:

     Your eyes, with just their lashes, said it:
     This is no place to recklessly
     indulge in passions; my intended
     is waiting for his bride-to-be.


     I felt the golden-smold’ring day’s >> I felt the golden-smoldering day’s

No need for elision. It's 2024, not 1824, and a little anapestic substitution never killed anyone.


Lovely work, Carl.

Thanks, Julie!

You zeroed in on the bit that I struggled with the longest. I finished the translation in about a day and half—fast for me—except for L4, which took another brain-wracking day. And I’m still not sure what’s meant. Is she not her own master because she’s engaged? Because her “lunar” allure affects the N and his earthly surroundings in ways that she can’t control? Both, perhaps.

Great research, Julie! I didn’t know it, but chernobyl (“black stem”) is indeed a name for Artemisia vulgaris, the species I suspect is meant in the poem. But I think Russians more commonly use the blanket term “polyn” for all Artemisia species, including mugwort, sagebrush and wormwood, and that’s the word used in the Russian Bible (“pelyn” in Church Slavonic).

Ok, done.

I was waiting to get flack for that. Right you are. Done.