The bronze Horseman / Медный всадник. Книга для чтения на английском языке

The bronze Horseman / Медный всадник. Книга для чтения на английском языке
Александр Сергеевич Пушкин

Русская классическая литература на иностранных языках (Каро)
Предлагаем вниманию читателей сборник произведений А. С. Пушкина в переводе на английский язык. В книгу вошли поэмы «Медный всадник», «Руслан и Людмила» и «Бахчисарайский фонтан».

Alexander Pushkin / Александр Пушкин

The Bronze Horseman / Медный всадник. книга для чтения на английском языке

© КАРО, 2018

The Bronze Horseman

(A Petersburg Tale)

Foreword

‘The occurrence related in this tale is based on fact. The details of the flood are taken from the journals of the day. The curious may consult the information collected by V. I. Berkh’.

Introduction

There, by the billows desolate, He stood, with mighty thoughts elate, And gazed, but in the distance only
A sorry skiff on the broad spate Of Neva drifted seaward, lonely.
The moss-grown miry bank with rare
Hovels were dotted here and there
Where wretched Finns for shelter crowded;
The murmuring woodlands had no share
Of sunshine, all in mist beshrouded.
And thus
He mused: “From here, indeed
Shall we strike terror in the Swede?
And here a city by our labor
Founded, shall gall our haughty neighbor;
“Here cut” – so Nature gives command —
“Your window[1 - Algarotti has somewhere said: “Petersburg est la fenê-tre, par laquelle la Russie regarde en Europe” (Pushkin’s note).] through on Europe; stand
Firm-footed by the sea, unchanging!
Ay, ships of every flag shall come
By waters they had never swum,
And we shall revel, freely ranging.”

A century – and that city young,
Gem of the Northern world, amazing,
From gloomy wood and swamp upspring,
Had risen, in pride and splendor blazing.
Where once, by that low-lying shore,
In waters never known before
The Finnish fisherman, sole creature,
And left forlorn by stepdame Nature,
Cast ragged nets, – today, along
Those shores, astir with life and motion,
Vast shapely palaces in throng
And towers are seen: from every ocean,
From the world’s end, the ships come fast,
To reach the loaded quays at last.
The Neva now is clad in granite
With many a bridge to overspan it;
The islands lie beneath a screen
Of gardens deep in dusky green.
To that young capital is drooping
The crest of Moscow on the ground,
A dowager in purple, stooping
Before an empress newly crowned.

I love thee, city of Peter’s making;
I love thy harmonies austere,
And Neva’s sovran waters breaking
Along her banks of granite sheer;
Thy tracery iron gates; thy sparkling,
Yet moonless, meditative gloom
And thy transparent twilight darkling;
And when I write within my room
Or, lampless, read, – then, sunk in slumber,
The empty thoroughfares, past number,

Are piled, stand clear upon the night;
The Admiralty spire is bright;
Nor may the darkness mount, to smother
The golden cloudland of the light,
For soon one dawn succeeds another
With barely half-an-hour of night.
I love thy ruthless winter, lowering
With bitter frost and windless air;
The sledges along Neva scouring;
Girls’ cheeks – no roses so bright and fair!
The flash and noise of balls, the chatter;
The bachelor’s hour of feasting, too;
The cups that foam and hiss and spatter,
The punch that in the bowl burns blue.
I love the warlike animation
On playing-fields of Mars; to see
The troops of foot and horse in station,
And their superb monotony;
Their ordered, undulating muster;
Flags, tattered on the glorious day;
Those brazen helmets in their luster
Shot through and riddled in the fray.
I love thee, city of soldiers, blowing
Smoke from thy forts: thy booming gun;
– A Northern empress is bestowing