Translations

Marina Tsvetaeva translated by Paul Magee

Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva was born in 1892. She left Russia in 1922, returned in 1939, and was to die two years later. She is celebrated as one of the greatest Russian poets of the Twentieth Century. Her first book was entitled Evening Album.

 

 

 
 

Сад

За этот ад,
За этот бред,
Пошли мне сад
На старость лет.

На старость лет,
На старость бед:
Рабочих — лет,
Горбатых — лет...

На старость лет
Собачьих — клад:
Горячих лет —
Прохладный сад...

Для беглеца
Мне сад пошли:
Без ни-лица,
Без ни-души!

Сад: ни шажка!
Сад: ни глазка!
Сад: ни смешка!
Сад: ни свистка!

Без ни-ушка
Мне сад пошли:
Без ни-душка!
Без ни-души!

Скажи: довольно мýки — нá
Сад — одинокий, как сама.
(Но около и Сам не стань!)
— Сад, одинокий, как ты Сам.

Такой мне сад на старость лет...
— Тот сад? А может быть — тот свет? —
На старость лет моих пошли —
На отпущение души.

Jardin

To cope with this underworld
you’ve sent me, and madness,
make it a garden
for the years that age.

For the years that age,
for the griefs I’ve to live through,
the years of work coming
and the groanings in my back.

For the years that age.
Bone for that dog.
For the hell-burnt years.
A garden in the breeze

for their refugee.
Bless me with a garden
and nobody there,
a soulless place.

Garden no one steps in.
Garden no one looks in.
A laughterless garden,
a no whistling there
garden

Earless,
bless me with a garden.
Nothing has a scent there,
not a soul.

Speak: you’ve tortured enough.
A garden on its own.
But don’t come near me here or there.
Yes, he says, it’s as alone as me.

That’s your garden for me and the years
I age. That. Or your paradise?
Bless me in the years that age.
Deliver me from here.

 

 
 
Paul Magee is author of Stone Postcard (2014), Cube Root of Book (2006) and the prose ethnography From Here to Tierra del Fuego (2000). Paul majored in Russian and Classical languages, and has published translations of Vergil, Catullus, Horace and Ovid. He is currently working on a third book of poems, ‘The Collection of Space’. Paul is Associate Professor of Poetry at the University of Canberra.