For, think, the head she brought with her
Bore not the shape of human skull,
Was like a wolfs... You see, the kind
She is! With cheating lies like these
She thought to trick and gull her child:
Now, shame on her to torture me!
And why? That I might courage lack
With thee, my love, this night to flee:
Can people be so base?
In dread,
Her lover looks on her wild face;
But she, distempered fancy’s slave,
Quick whispers: “I remember all,
The field... the folk in dresses gay...
The crowd... the bodies warm, but dead...
I went with her to see the show...
But where wert thou?... And why, alone,
Apart from thee, at night, I fled?
But let us quick return, ‘tis late!...
But ah! My head is ill, my brain
Is racked with empty, idle dreams;
Strange! I took thee for another...
Nay, nay, I pray thee, touch me not!
Thy glare is cruel, cold as ice,
And ugly! But he was beautiful:
His eyes were soft with kindest love,
His words were fair and gracious,
His beard was whiter than the snow:
But thine is clotted with dry blood!”
And with a shriek of laughter mad,
And swifter than the hunted deer,
She wildly burst his hold, ran forth,
And in the silent waste was lost.
The last thin shades of night disperse,
The east begins to redden bright;
In Cossack tents the fires burn clear,
And busy hands the meal prepare.
Along the banks the body guards
The steeds unbridled lead to drink,
And Charles awakes. “‘Tis time!” he cries,
“Arise, Mazeppa, dawn is near!”
But long the Hetman has not slept;
His heart is drear, the choking grief
Mounts high, his breath comes thick and hard:
Silent he sets the saddle right,
And he and Charles pursue their flight.
At last they cross the border-point;
The Hetman’s eyes are dimmed with tears,
As home and country fade from view.
THE BRONZE HORSEMAN
A POEM IN TWO CANTOS.
Translated by Charles Edward Turner
Written in 1833 while Pushkin was staying on his family’s estate at Boldino, this famous ballad concerns the equestrian statue of Peter the Great in Saint Petersburg. It is widely considered to be the poet’s most successful narrative poem, having a lasting impact on Russian literature. Due solely to the influence of the poem, the statue is now simply known as the ‘Bronze Horseman’.
Owing to censorship, only the Prologue was allowed to be published during the poet’s lifetime, appearing in 1834 under the title Petersburg. An extract from a poem. The narrative poem was first published in full in 1837, immediately following Pushkin’s death. The Bronze Horseman was printed in the journal Sovremennik, which Pushkin had established the year before. Even then, the censors demanded certain alterations to the text.
Divided into three sections, with a short introduction and two cantos, The Bronze Horseman opens with a part-fictional history of Saint Petersburg. In the first two stanzas, Peter the Great stands at the edge of the River Neva in an uninhabited area, where he conceives the idea of a city that will threaten the Swedes and open a ‘window to the West’.
The Bronze Horseman, Saint Petersburg
CONTENTS
THE BRONZE HORSEMAN. PROLOGUE.
THE BRONZE HORSEMAN. CANTO THE FIRST.
THE BRONZE HORSEMAN. CANTO THE SECOND.
Peter the Great envisioning Saint Petersburg by the River Neva
THE BRONZE HORSEMAN. PROLOGUE.
On the waste shore of raving waves
He stood, with high and dread thoughts filled,
And gazed afar. Before him rolled
The river wide, a fragile bark
Its tortuous path slow making.
Upon the moss-grown banks and swamps
Stood far asunder smoky huts,
The homes of Finnish fishers poor;
Whilst all around, a forest wild,
Unpierced by misty-circled sun,
Murmured loud.
Gazing far, he thought:
From hence we can the Swede best threat;
Here must I found a city strong,
That shall our haughty foe bring ill;
It is by nature’s law decreed,
That here we break a window through,
And boldly into Europe look,
And on the sea with sure foot stand;
By water path as yet unknown,
Shall ships from distant ports arrive,
And far and wide our reign extend.
A hundred years have passed, and now,
In place of forests dark and swamps,
A city new, in pomp unmatched,
Of Northern lands the pride and gem.
Where Finnish fisher once at eve,
Harsh nature’s poor abandoned child,
From low-sunk boat was wont his net
With patient toil to cast, and drag
The stream, now stretch long lines of quays,
Of richest granite formed, and rows
Of buildings huge and lordly domes
The river front; whilst laden ships
From distant quarters of the world
Our hungry wharfs fresh spoils supply;
And needful bridge its span extends,
To join the stream’s opposing shores;
And islets gay, in verdure clad,
Beneath the shade of gardens laugh.
Before the youthful city’s charms
Her head proud Moscow jealous bends,
As when the new Tsaitza young
The widowed Empress lowly greets.
I love thee, work of Peter’s hand!
I love thy stern, symmetric form;
The Neva’s calm and aueenly flow
Betwixt her quays of granite-stone,
With iron tracings richly wrought;
Thy nights so soft with pensive thought,
Their moonless glow, in bright obscure.
When I alone, in cosy room,
Or write or read, night’s lamp unlit;
The sleeping piles that clear stand out
In lonely streets, and needle bright,
That crowns the Admiralty’s spire;
When, chasing far the shades of night,
In cloudless sky of golden pure,
Dawn quick usurps the pale twilight,
And brings to end her half-hour reign.
I love thy winters bleak and harsh;
Thy stirless air fast bound by frosts;
The flight of sledge o’er Neva wide,
That glows the cheeks of maidens gay.
I love the noise and chat of balls;
A banquet free from wife’s control,
Where goblets foam, and bright blue flame
Darts round the brimming punch-bowl’s edge.
I love to watch the martial troops
The spacious Field of Mars fast scour;
The squadrons spruce of foot and horse;
The nicely chosen race of steeds,
As gaily housed they stand in line,
Whilst o’er them float the tattered flags;
The gleaming helmets of the men
That bear the marks of battle-shot.
I love thee, when with pomp of war
The cannons roar from fortress-tower;
When Empress-Queen of all the North
Hath given birth to royal heir;
Or when the people celebrate
Some conquest fresh on battle-field;
Or when her bonds of ice once more
The Neva, rushing free, upheaves,
The herald sure of spring’s rebirth.
Fair city of the hero, hail!
Like Russia, stand unmoved and firm!
And let the elements subdued
Make lasting peace with thee and thine.
Let angry Finnish waves forget
Their bondage ancient and their feud;
Nor let them with their idle hate
Disturb great Peter’s deathless sleep!
It was a day of fear and dread,
In book of memory still writ.
And now, for you, my friends, the tale
Of that day’s woe 1 will begin;
And mournful will my story be.
THE BRONZE HORSEMAN. CANTO THE FIRST.
O er Peter’s cloud-wrapt city hung
November’s autumn cold and mist.
With noisy splash of angry wave
The Neva chafed her granite fence,
As one, confined to bed with pain,
Will peevish toss from side to side.
The hour was late, and it was dark,
The rain beat hard on window-pane,
The wind with mournful howl roared loud,
When young Evjenie bade his friends
Adieu, and homeward turned his steps.
Evjenie is our hero’s name,
A name that lightly falls in verse,
And one my pen is used to write.
No interest his surname has,
Though in the olden times gone by,
May be, it was in high repute;
We meet with it in Karamsin,
Like other once familiar names;
But now ‘tis lost and all unknown.
In district called Kolumna lived
Our hero, who in office served.
His chiefs he feared, but patient bore
Death of relations dear and near,
Or world s neglect of service past.
Evjenie reached his home, uphung
His cloak, undressed, and went to bed.
But long it was before he slept;
A host of cares possessed his brain.
He thought... of what? That he was poor
And hard must toil, if he would bare
Existence get, in freedom live,
Or have his neighbour’s good repute.
Wished that God had but endowed him
With greater wit, or better, wealth;
For in our world are those who have
No wit, and never think to work,
And still contrive to live in ease;
Whilst he must drudge and slave, or starve.
And then, our hero heard the storm,
With fury lashed, still louder rage,
And thought the bridges soon across
The Neva wide would be removed.
And he for two or three whole days
Could of Parasha have no news.
Such were his thoughts. And all that night
His heart within him ached. He prayed
he dreary wind would cease to howl,
The rain not beat on window-pane
So angrily.
At length sleep closed
His heavy eyes. And now, the last
Dark scattered clouds of night began
To pale, as dawned the day of doom
And woe.
All night the Neva wild
Had sought escape in open sea,
Till ‘gainst the storm’s mad rage to strive
She ceased, her strength completely broke.
At morn, along the river’s shores,
The people thronged and watched with awe
The angrily splash, the high-tossed foam,
And crested tops of heaving waves.
But stronger roared, with scream and wail,
The furious blast that river forced
Retreat, and break its confines low,
And drown the isles beneath its waves.
More fiercely still the storm-winds raged,
Insulted Neva shrieked with pain,
Its waters boiled and thundered high,
And, like wild beast escaped from cage.
Its ruin wide o’er city spread.
Before it fled the crowds, and all
Was one waste sea. The waters poured,
And forced their way through cellar-caves,
Beat down the rails of each canal,
Till Petropol, like Triton, stood
Plunged deep, breast-high, in ocean’s storm.
As in a leaguered town, the waves,
Like thieves, through windows burst, and sterns
Of boats in shivers broke the panes;
The awnings frail of fish-barks drenched,
The roofs and wreck of ruined homes,
The shopman’s unsold stores and stock,
The year’s hard savings of the poor,
The bridges from their moorings wrenched,
And coffins loose from churchyards torn,
Swam down the streets.
The maddened folk
In ruin’s work God’s wrath beheld,
And, trembling, ills yet greater waited,
For all was lost, nor could they hope
Fresh homes, or food, or help to find.
In that year of woe and horror,
Tsar Alexander ruled in fame.
From palace window, sick at heart
And grieved, he looked, and muttered low:
“Before dread Nature, might of Tsars
Is naught and vain!” And long he sate,
And, sobbing, watched the ruin spread.
The city squares were changed to lakes,
The streets in broad streams swam, and like
Abandoned isle the palace stood.
I then spake the Tsar.... From point to point,
Along the near and distant streets
Two tried and trusty lords, in boat
Began to make their dang’rous way
To save the wretches lost in fear,
And drowning in their battered homes.
Meanwhile in Petroff’s gloomy square,
Where the new, huge building rises,
And where, on either side of porch,
There stands, on pedestal high reared,
With upraised paw, as large as life,
A lion guardian, on the watch:
Upon the brute’s wide marble back,
Without a cap, hands clasped round mane,
Evjenie sate, all pale and still.
And if his cheeks were wan with fright,
It was not l’or himself he feared.
He had not seen the thirsty waves
Loud howling rise above his feet;
Nor felt the torrents lash his face;
Nor heard the sharp, grim shriek of wind,
That caught and tossed his cap away.
His eyes despairingly were fixed
On one far spot, where mountain-high
From deep abyss the waters climbed,
And, dashing down, before them bore
The floating wrecks of waste and spoil.
Great God! ‘twas where they strove most fierce,
The central point of their blind force,
On brink of widely swollen gulf,
An old house stood, with willow-tree
Before and wooden fence, the home
Of widow poor and daughter fair,
His life’s one hope.... Or did he rave,
And was it all mere fancy’s trick?
Or is our life an empty dream,
The toy and sport of jesting fate?...
And there, as bound by some strong spell,
Or chained to marbled lion’s back,
He sate, and could not stir. Around
Was water, water, nothing else.
And all the while, face turned from him,
Supreme on safe, defiant height,
Above the stir of troubled waves,
Sat
e, with his royal hand outstretched,
The giant on his steed of bronze.
THE BRONZE HORSEMAN. CANTO THE SECOND.
At length, with work of ruin tired,
Her mutiny the Neva ceased,
And to her former course returned,
In mere revolt her pleasure found,
And careless left her prey behind.
As on an unprotected town
Armed brigands fall, and rob and kill,
And naught is heard but cries of grief
And rage, vain threats, and panic shrieks,
Whilst havoc uncontrolled prevails,
Till glut of spoil and fear of law
Disarm the thieves, who home retreat
And half their booty leave in fright.
The waters fell, the vanished roads
Once more appeared. With sinking heart,
Evjenie, half in hope, in fear
And anguish, neared the scarce calmed gulf.
Proud of their strength, its sullen waves
Muttered and surged, as f beneath
Some angry fire still smouldered deep;
And fast they rolled in foaming rage,
And heavily the Neva breathed,
Like panting steed that flies the field.
Evjenie looks, and boat discerns,
And runs as to a treasure found;
In haste he calls the boatman near,
Who, bargaining, consents to bring
Our hero o’er the storm-tossed stream.
And long with tempest-driven waves
The skilful oarsman battling strove,
And oft the boat is sinking lost,
And hurled beneath the cloud-capped crests,
As oft upbounds... until at length
It toucned the shore.
The well-known street
And friendly spot are eager sought.
But dazed he looks, for all is changed,
And awful is the sight revealed.
A mass of ruins lies before,
In part thrown down, in part waste blank,
Houses falling, or laid quite prone,
Whilst some are scattered by the waves,
Like corpses left on battle-field
To rot. Headlong, Evjenie sped,
Scarce knowing why or where he rushed,
And ill forebodings weighed his heart.
And now he comes where fate awaits,
As with sealed letter n her hand.
The intervening space is passed,
With hastened step he nears the house:
But what is this he sees?
He stopped...
Retreated... and once more returned..
Bewildered gazed... went on... looked back.
Here is the place their house once stood,
And there the willow-tree. The gates
Here entrance barred. But where the house?