Sunday Akhmatova Blogging

I've been reading around on the internet and trying to understand what was going on in Akhmatova's mind and heart that led her to write what she wrote. The web is an interesting way to learn about a new subject; there's a ton of information out there, but it's disjointed, disorganized, in disarray.

She followed her heart very willingly, did Akhmatova, marrying poets and Assyriologists and loving (and being loved by) many others.

Bopping around on the web, I came across several different translations of a poem of hers called Song of the Last Meeting. Comparing them helps me to understand what she may "really" have been saying, since I can't read her in the original Russian. Which do you prefer?


FIRST TRANSLATION:

Song of the Last Meeting (1911)

My breast grew helplessly cold,
But my steps were light.
I pulled the glove from my left hand
Mistakenly onto my right.
It seemed there were so many steps,
But I knew there were only three!
Amidst the maples an autumn whisper
Pleaded: "Die with me!
I'm led astray by evil
Fate, so black and so untrue."
I answered: "I, too, dear one!
I, too, will die with you..."
This is a song of the final meeting.
I glanced at the house's dark frame.
Only bedroom candles burning
With an indifferent yellow flame.

SECOND TRANSLATION

Song of the Last Meeting

My breast was chilled through, oh so helpless,
But my steps were still very light.
I picked up the glove for the left hand
And put it by chance on the right.
It seemed like the steps were so many,
But I knew there were only three!
Fall's whisper, with maple-trees blending,
Requested: "Now die with me!

I'm deceived by this my specious
Fate far too fickle, untrue."
I replied: "My precious, my precious!
Me too. I shall die with you..."

'Tis the song of our very last meeting.
I glanced at the house now all dark.
Only candles in the bedroom were burning
With a nondescript yellowish spark.

English verse translation © John Woodsworth
Ottawa (Canada)
20 January 2002

THIRD TRANSLATION

Song of the Last Meeting
by Anna Akhmatova

I was help less and my breast was freezing
But I walked and my footsteps were light.
And the glove that was meant for my left hand
I unthinkingly put on my right.
And it seemed that there were so many steps then,
But I knew there were only three!
In the maple trees there where the whisper
Of autumn that said, 'Die with me.

For I've been deceived by a whimsy
Called Fate-sad, wicked, untrue.'
I answered, 'I've been deceived also,
My dear, and I'll die with you.'

This: the song of our last meeting...
I looked back at the dark house's frame;
In the bedroom the candles were burning



HECATE'S ATTEMPT TO CHERRY-PICK THE BEST OF THE ABOVE THREE TRANSLATIONS:

The Song of Our Last Meeting

My breast was chilled through; I was helpless,
But my steps were still very light.
Unthinking, I pulled my left-hand glove
Mistakenly onto my right.
It seemed there were so many steps then,
But I knew that there were only three!
In the maple trees there was a whisper
Of Autumn that said, 'Die with me.

For I've been deceived by Fate's whimsy
And Fate's been sad, wicked, untrue.'
I answered, 'I've been deceived also,
My dear, and I'll die with you.'

This is the song of our very last meeting.
I glanced at the house, now all dark.
Except the bedroom candles were burning
With a nondescript yellowish spark.

*****************

In the end, I'm struck by what may have been only a sense-impression or a throw-away line for Akhmatova: "Except that the bedroom candles were burning with a nondescript yellowish spark." She's leaving him not only because the rest of the house was dark but because, in the end, the sex just wasn't that good. So, translating various translations may be a poor way to learn what a poet was saying, kind of like trying to understand a painting by painting a copy of a copy reflected in a mirror. But it helps me, I think, to access Anna.

Why do I care? What makes it worth the effort? I can't thrive -- hell, I don't think I could live -- without poetry. Thriving isn't something that happens to us; it's something we do. What must you have to thrive? How much time do you spend doing it? If not, why and if not now, when? If we allow ourselves to wind down, to quit thriving, then John Ashcroft and Dick Cheney have won.