[Glenn Wright]

Osip Mandelstam was a Russian poet associated briefly with the Acmeist poets. He was romantically linked to Anna Akhmatova and Marina Tsvetayeva, whose poems have been recently translated in this Forum. He was a victim of Stalinist persecution.

I Tremble from the Cold

by Osip Mandelstam

I tremble from the cold,
wanting to say nothing!
But in the sky is dancing gold—
It orders me to sing.

Be tortured, stressed musician,
love, weep, and recall,
and from a planet, dim, forgotten,
catch the soft-thrown ball!

So this is it — a certain
link to the world so weird!
What a painful yearning,
what trouble has occurred!

What if over a chic shop
twinkling ever apart
suddenly a star would drop
like an icepick through my heart.

————————
Edits:
S2L1: Languish, fearful musician, > Be tortured, anxious musician, > Be tortured, stressed musician,
S2L2: love, remember, bawl, > love, weep, and recall,
S2L4: pick up the soft-thrown ball. > catch the soft-thrown ball.
S3L1: So here it is — a certain > So this is it — a certain
S3L4: a stiletto into my heart. > a stiletto through my heart. > like an icepick through my heart.

————————
Original (Интернет Библиотека Алексея Комарова)

Я вздрагиваю от холода

Осипа Мандельштама

Я вздрагиваю от холода —
Мне хочется онеметь!
А в небе танцует золото —
Приказывает мне петь.

Томись музыкант встревоженный,
Люби, вспоминай и плачь,
И, с тусклой планеты брошенный,
Подхватывай легкий мяч!

Так вот она — настоящая
С таинственным миром связь!
Какая тоска щемящая,
Какая беда стряслась!

Что, если, над модной лавкою
Мерцающая всегда
Мне в сердце длинной булавкой
Опустится вдруг звезда?

1912
————————
Edits:
S3L4: стряслось > стряслась
————————
Crib:

I Tremble from the Cold

by Osip Mandelstam

I tremble from the cold —
I want to be mute/numb!
But in the sky gold dances —
It orders me to sing.

Waste away, anxious musician,
love, remember, and weep,
and from a dim, abandoned/forsaken planet,
pick up/catch the easily-thrown ball!

So here it is — a real
connection with the mysterious world!
What painful yearning,
what trouble happened!

What if, above the stylish shop,
twinkling forever
a star drops [like] a long pin
suddenly into my heart.

[Carl Copeland]

Hi, Glenn. Cameron infected me with his love for Mandelstam, and there was a spate of translations in the year before you showed up. Not this one, though.

I’m intrigued by the Russian meter, which is regular, except for the final quatrain, but also unusual: iamb, anapest, iamb + 2 unstressed syllables at the end of every other line—like an imitation of a classical meter. Mikhail Gasparov calls it a “three-ictus dolnik with an amphibrachic anacrusis and dactylic and masculine endings”! Did you consider trying that? I probably would have, though I’m not confident I would have pulled it off. Gasparov, btw, sees this as one of a pair of “star-hating poems,” along with “I hate the light of the monotonous stars” (1912). M’s poems often came in pairs.

Here are some first thoughts:

I tremble from the cold,
wanting to say nothing!

You’ve lost the connection between “cold” and “mute/numb.” The direct sense is that he’s ordered to sing, though he’d rather not, but there’s also, I think, a sense of wanting to be too numb to shiver. A translation can’t capture everything, of course.

Languish, fearful musician,
love, remember, bawl,

“Languish” seems too passive, though the verb (with its Romantic-era feel) does often mean that. He’s already languishing—losing strength—from the cold, but the stars are demanding that he actively feel, remember, cry. That’s my take, anyway.

“Fearful” is a plausible interpretation, though the crib’s “anxious” would be more literal. His anxiety could indeed be fear of living more fully.

“Bawl” seems too colloquial to my ear. Could you rhyme “ball” with “recall”?

and from a planet, dim, forgotten,
pick up the soft-thrown ball!

I think what you want is “catch” rather than “pick up,” especially since “брошенный” doesn’t refer to the planet, but to the “thrown” ball.

I like “soft-thrown,” though literally it’s the ball that’s soft. Americans will get the sense of “being thrown a softball,” but I can’t claim that’s misleading, as I have no idea why M used this descriptor.

So here it is — a certain
link to the world so weird!

Would “So this is it” express a little more surprise? The sense, I think, is one of sudden realization.

The second “so” is a little fillery, but that can’t always be avoided.

“Weird” seems either too commonplace or too creepy for the crib’s “mysterious” world.

what trouble has occurred!

There’s a mistake in the Russian here—“стряслось” should be “стряслась”—but that doesn’t affect your translation. The phrase is apparently quoted from a 1906 play by Blok.

What if over a chic shop
twinkling ever apart
suddenly a star would drop
a stiletto into my heart.

I was going to suggest ending the first two lines with commas, but I see you’re following M’s own minimal punctuation in this stanza. He apparently added the commas when he corrected these lines in the manuscript 25 years later:

Что, если, вздрогнув неправильно,
Мерцающая всегда,
Своей булавкой заржавленной
Достанет меня звезда?

M didn’t publish the later version (couldn’t have in 1937), and the one you translated has always been the best known, so I see no problem with that.

I like the dramatic “stiletto,” though “hatpin,” as someone else translated it, fits in nicely with “chic shop.” (Ok, stiletto heels, but I just don’t see those in a chic shop of the time.)

Thoroughly enjoyed, Glenn!

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Glenn Wright

He was romantically linked to Anna Akhmatova and Marina Tsvetayeva

Mandelstam has been romantically linked to Akhmatova, but I don’t think there’s any evidence that they were more than good friends, whereas he and Tsvetaeva did have a passionate romance. That was several years before Mandelstam met his brilliant future wife, Nadezhda, but I don’t think she ever cared much for Tsvetaeva. She got along famously with Akhmatova.

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Carl—

I always look forward to your responses with eager anticipation. It is worth doing a translation from Russian, a language I studied forty years ago and never mastered, just to get you to open your treasure chest of fascinating information and perceptive suggestions. Your comments for this poem are especially helpful. I used many of your suggestions, which I think improved the translation a great deal. I kept “weird” simply because I could not come up with an alternative for the rhyme, and I’m justifying “soft-thrown ball” as a transferred epithet (hypallage).

I wondered why a feminine singular noun like беда was taking a neuter verb. I thought maybe беда was one of those oddball neuter nouns like время or имя. But they all end with -мя. I should have checked.

I am thoroughly intimidated by your explanation of M’s meter. I have no doubt that you could pull it off, but when I read the poem aloud in Russian, it sounded almost ballad-like. I accented the last syllables of the odd-numbered lines (холода, золото, and the adjective endings), which are under secondary stress, so with a little massaging I got something like alternating tetrameter and trimeter. In my English translation, I used trimeter for lines 1, 2, and 4 of each quatrain, and tetrameter for line 3 (except in S3).

I thought the bit about M’s “star hating” was very interesting. It explains the sinister personification of the star as a femme fatale, wielding a hat pin (or stiletto) as a concealed weapon and the cruelty of the golden stars dancing in S1. I stuck with “stiletto” because I liked the malevolence and sneakiness of it. My other thought was “ice pick” to pick up on the cold imagery in the first quatrain. Anything rather than “long pin.”

I always learn so much from your posts, Carl. Thanks again for all your help and encouragement.
Glenn

[John Riley]

I admire both of you for knowing and working in Russian. I’ve been enthused by Russian literature since I was a teenager but never had the moxy to learn the language.

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, John—

Carl is the expert. As you can see from this thread, I depend on him to catch all my goofs.

[Carl Copeland]

A few more thoughts:

“Be tortured, stressed musician,” may still need some work. For one thing, “being stressed” sounds too today to me, though I could be wrong.

Originally Posted by Glenn Wright

when I read the poem aloud in Russian, it sounded almost ballad-like. I accented the last syllables of the odd-numbered lines (холода, золото, and the adjective endings), which are under secondary stress, so with a little massaging I got something like alternating tetrameter and trimeter.

I also got a ballad feel from the poem, so I think that’s a reasonable way of approaching it in translation, though a Russian would never stress those final syllables.

Originally Posted by Glenn Wright

I thought the bit about M’s “star hating” was very interesting. It explains the sinister personification of the star as a femme fatale, wielding a hat pin (or stiletto) as a concealed weapon and the cruelty of the golden stars dancing in S1.

Yeah, M’s stars tend to be piercing and painful and controlling. The only problem with that femme fatale image—and I only just noticed this—is that M’s star doesn’t wield anything; the star itself is imagined as dropping into his heart “like a hat pin/stiletto.”

[Glenn Wright]

Oh, yes! I misread the last line. I see that длинной булавкой is in the instrumental case, not the accusative. I guess I’ll have to say до свидания to my stiletto and use either “hat pin” or “icepick.” Как жаль.

I think I prefer “icepick” to return to the cold imagery that seems to emanate from the stars.

[Julie Steiner]

Mention of long pins made me think of hatpins. I like the notion of stars as pinheads better than stars as icepicks or stillettos (knife or shoe). But do what you will.

I have a hard time seeing "NO-thing" and "SING" as a rhyme pair.

Thanks for introducing me to the poem.