The Poisoned Tunic (Part Four) Translated from the Russian by Simon R Gladdish

PART FOUR


Eunuch:

I met
The Tsar of Trabzon, when
This hall he left at midday,
And though I hadn’t eaten,
He took my hand and led me
Towards Saint Sofia’s Cathedral.
He was silent, only once he asked me,
Whether by a Scythian tradition
A body had been buried beneath the temple's base
So that the walls stay firmly put
And the majestic columns will not split;
I crossed myself and answered,
‘Why, this superstition is unworthy of
Either the Emperor or Byzantium.’
He smiled and again
Fell silent.
You know this temple;
On narrow, shaky ladders, planked footways,
Among monstrous timbers like the edges
Of a Levi fan or hippopotamus,
We climbed to where the architect thinks
From clay pots he will raise a dome.
My companion stood at a terrible height
With his face turned south, gilded by the sun,
Like an uncertain spirit, he began to speak.
I listened, clinging to the handrail.
He spoke that this city -
Its buildings, palaces and roadways,
As all words, wills and thoughts,
Which own a person,
Are a heritage to the living from the dead.
That there are two worlds, between themselves unequal:
In one, extensive, there are geniuses, heroes,
Filling the universe with glory,
But we their pitiable descendants occupy the other,
The slaves of necessity and fate.
Then he said it wasn't so terrible to die,
If Hercules and Julius Caesar have died,
If Maria and Jesus Christ have died,
And suddenly, having said Christ's name,
He stepped forward, from the wall's edge, where there is air
Penetrated by the midday flame …
And it seemed to me that he was standing
Above a chasm, having conquered terrestrial gravity;
In a horrible confusion I closed my eyes
For an instant, or a half of one;
When again I opened them, in front of me –
O, misfortune! - I saw nobody.


How I descended on the planked footway, I do not remember …
There, behind the wall, people already mingled,
Crowding around a heap of meat and bones
Without a human image or likeness.
Our masons are severe: their
Favourite entertainments are animal fights,
Fisticuffs and night-time drunkenness,
But the weather-beaten faces trembled,
Tears shone in their gloomy eyes
When I cried before them,
That it was the body of the Tsar of Trabzon.
They loved him for his cheerfulness
For his courage, and his beauty,
As I loved him for his high spirits
And his ability to withstand torture.
And even – dare I say? - I heard
Some whispered curses
As they stared at the imperial palace;
They everywhere suspect betrayal.

The Poisoned Tunic (Part Three)

Theodora

Now you are safe with me,
A hermit cannot talk
Much less a dead one. The time has come
To frankly speak the truth.
I have always hated you -
For your thin hands, for your sad sight
And for the calmness, as though through tiredness
Of your movements and your speech.
You have lived like a bird of an
Extinct breed, and about you
Even the slaves spoke with alarm.
There is ancient Roman blood in you;
My blood is plebian and all the better for it.
You were just a girl yesterday,
Over whom an angel was inclined.
I know about taverns and brothels,
Where knives flash because of women, where
By drunken sailors I was comforted.
But I am purer than you and in front of you
I stand with horror and disgust.
The dirt of palaces, the defects of your ancestors,
The treachery and meanness of Byzantium
Flow in your ignorant and childish body,
Alive now, as sometimes death lives
In the plants of a plague cemetery.
You think you are a woman, but you
Represent a poisoned wedding tunic
And each of your steps - destruction,
And your sight - disease,
And your touch - disaster!
The Tsar of Trabzon has died and Imr will die,
But you are alive, smelling sweetly of decay.
Pray! But I am afraid of your prayers,
To me they are a blasphemy!

The Poisoned Tunic (Part Two) Translated from the Russian by Simon R Gladdish

PART TWO


Imru

There were Pleiades in the sky, as on a woman’s dress,
Diamonds, full of fire.
Her brothers walked patrols,
And every one of them wanted to destroy me.
But I sneaked into her like a serpent.
Already she was undressed for bed
And said: " I won't be yours,
Why won’t you meet me openly? "
But anyway gave into me, we used
A counterpane to cover up the traces.
So we came there where calyxes of white lilies
Stand proudly in the middle of the water.
There I took her head in my hands and
She threw her arms around my torso.
How hot her mouth was, her shining breasts
Could only be compared to mirrors,
Her eyes were timid, as the eyes of a gazelle
With her young calf,
And since then the stupefying smell
Of musk in my bed is ineradicable.
… But what’s the matter? Why you are crying?







A Fragment from Gumilev (Part One)

Translated from the Russian by Simon R Gladdish



The whole night I saw strange and wonderful images.
All night long my soul was on an execution rack.
An eagle was turning in unknown skies,
And its scream was like the clash of steel swords.
But frequently in the shriek of steel
A shrill and inconsolable cry was breaking,
There were some lights shining …
And crying … and my heart was jumping like a ball.
There was a dark shame, inevitable as death,
Which weighs heavier than death …
After the woman, so loved,
The shame came creeping in dark lanes.
I awoke … The morning was so clear,
And the air was impregnated by roses.
But I know, that it was not in vain
This dreadful and beautiful dream.