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Zhukovsky's Poem Mysterious Visitor

Vasily Andreyevic Zhukovsky (1783-1852) was the leading pioneer of Russian poetry’s golden age.

translating Zhukovsky's Mysterious Visitor

Many of Zhukovsky’s poems are translations of famous European poems, translations that can be better than their originals, but the man also became the leading proponent of Karamzin’s ‘sentimentalism’, introducing the other-worldly nostalgia of Romanticism into Russia. {1-3}

Zhukovsky reformed the diction and metre of Russian poetry. Indeed, he created a new poetical language, in which the originating feelings have been wholly subsumed by artistic expression, and which, when taken further by Lermontov, became the model for Russian nineteenth-century verse. {2} (Modernism has reversed this process of artistic expression, of course, but this earlier poetic language is the one employed by nineteenth-century Russian poets, and so retained in these translations.)

Russian Text

Таинственный Посетитель

Кто ты, призрак, гость прекрасный?
К нам откуда прилетал?
Безответно и безгласно
Для чего от нас пропал?
Где ты? Где твое селенье?
Что с тобой? Куда исчез?
И зачем твое явленье
В поднебесную с небес?

Не Надежда ль ты младая,
Приходящая порой
Из неведомого края
Под волшебной пеленой?
Как она, неумолимо
Радость милую на час
Показал ты, с нею мимо
Пролетел и бросил нас.

Не Любовь ли нам собою
Тайно ты изобразил?..
Дни любви, когда одною
Мир для нас прекрасен был,
Ах! тогда сквозь покрывало
Неземным казался он...
Снят покров; любви не стало;
Жизнь пуста, и счастье — сон.

Не волшебница ли Дума
Здесь в тебе явилась нам?
Удаленная от шума
И мечтательно к устам
Приложивши перст, приходит
К нам, как ты, она порой
И в минувшее уводит
Нас безмолвно за собой.

Иль в тебе сама святая
Здесь Поэзия была?..
К нам, как ты, она из рая
Два покрова принесла:
Для небес лазурно-ясный,
Чистый, белый для земли;
С ней все близкое прекрасно,
Все знакомо, что вдали.

Иль Предчувствие сходило
К нам во образе твоем
И понятно говорило
О небесном, о святом?
Часто в жизни так бывало:
Кто-то светлый к нам летит,
Подымает покрывало
И в далекое манит.

1824

Poem structure

The poem is in iambic tetrameters, rhymed AbAbCdCd:

Кто ты, при́зрак, гость прекра́сный?    4A
   К нам отку́да прилета́л?    4b
Безотве́тно и безгла́сно    4A
   Для чего́ от нас пропа́л?    4b
Где́ ты? Где твоё селе́нье?    4C
   Что с тобо́й? Куда́ исче́з?    4d
И заче́м твоё явле́нье    4C
   В поднебе́сную с небе́с?    4d


A TTS (text to speech) recording is:



Other Translations

Ruverses have an unrhymed version by M. Denner, I. Kutik and A. Wachtel. I give their first stanza:

Spirit, lovely guest, who are you?
Whence have you flown down to us?
Taciturn and without a sound
Why have you abandoned us?
Where are you? Where is your dwelling?
What are you, where did you go?
Why did you appear,
Heavenly, upon the Earth?

Mysterious Visitor

It's probably wise to do the translation in two phases. First to convey the sense and rhyme pattern:

Who are you? Ghost or lovely guest?
From whence are you come down to us?
Taciturn, in silence dressed:
say why is it you’ve gone from us?
Where are you? What’s your dwelling place?
And what is wrong? Why did you go?
Why do you show celestial grace
of that high heaven here below?

Are you then that youthful hope
from time to time who will prevail,
that comes from lands of unknown scope
beneath a supernatural veil?
That nonetheless and for an hour
in sweetest joy will yet appear
miraculous in its power,
but then flew by and left us here.

And so inherent love for us
which you in secret would disclose:
days loving and generous,
world in her loveliest clothes?
But through a veil meant looking on
on things unearthly, only seem.
The veil removed, that love was gone;
and life was empty, bliss a dream.

Is not thought the sorceress
appearances can not eclipse?
Remote from noise, in peacefulness,
with dreaming finger at the lips,
does not that finger, softly point
to what we both are looking on:
how much the past will reappoint;
and to the silent days now gone.

You have the saint herself in you,
for Poetry’s a sweet-hued youth
It was from paradise she drew
that useful double veil in truth.
She made the azure of the skies,
and the earth in clearest white,
she made things lovely in our eyes,
brought far off things to brighter sight.

So did some premonition greet
us, that was fading in your guise?
Something clear but incomplete
but holy, heavenly and was wise?
How often we’re to chance assigned,
some incident where brilliance shone,
which we must rise to meet, and find
a further distance bears us on

And then smooth out the wrinkles, making the rendering more natural and a little closer to the Russian:

So are you ghost or beauteous guest?
From whence have you come down to us?
Impassive and in silence dressed,
why would you disappear from us?
Say where you are, what dwelling place?
What troubles you? Why did you go?
Why would you show high heaven's face
in your appearance here below?

Perhaps you are that hope of youth,
which will from time to time prevail
in lands unknown to common truth
beneath a supernatural veil?
Which nonetheless and for an hour
in greatest joy will yet appear.
Or would you only show your power
to fleet on past and leave us here?

A love for us that by itself
you would in secrecy portray:
the world alive to love's true wealth,
to make more beautiful the day?
But through a veil and looking on
unearthly things can only seem.
With veil removed, that love is gone;
and life is empty, bliss a dream.

Is not such thought a sorceress
that you may claim but not eclipse:
who, far from noise, in peacefulness,
has dreaming finger at the lips?
You place that finger and allow
us sometime travel to the past:
and then at once those days endow
us with a lifeless, silent cast.

In you is not our saint the same
as that true Poetry living here?
Like us, from paradise she came,
and through a double veil we peer.
She gave us azure of the skies,
and had the earth more clearly shown:
that near things lovely through her eyes,
are with the distant also known.

Or did some premonition flee
that had your image nonetheless,
that spoke to us and so would be
a thing of Heavens' own holiness.
How often is this world inclined
to show us where some brightness shone —
a veil we rise to meet, and find
a further distance draws us on.

References

1. Wachtel, M. The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Poetry (CUP 2004) 83-5.

2. Mirsky, D.S. A History of Russian Literature (Knopf 1926/Vintage 1958) 75-84.

3. Bristol, E.B. A History of Russian Poetry (O.U.P. 1991) 94-97.

Russian poem translations on this site: listing.