Владимир Набоков - Комментарии к «Евгению Онегину» Александра Пушкина

   Adrian waves,
   O Brenta! Nay, I'll see you
   and, filled anew with inspiration,
 4 I'll hear your magic voice!
   'Tis sacred to Apollo's nephews;
   through the proud lyre of Albion
   to me 'tis known, to me 'tis kindred.
 8 In the voluptuousness of golden
   Italy's nights at liberty I'll revel,
   with a youthful Venetian,
   now talkative, now mute,
12 swimming in a mysterious gondola;
   with her my lips will find
   the tongue of Petrarch and of love.

   Will the hour of my freedom come?
   'Tis time, 'tis time! To it I call;
   I roam above the sea,10 I wait for the right weather,
 4 I beckon to the sails of ships.
   Under the cope of storms, with waves disputing,
   on the free crossway of the sea
   when shall I start on my free course?
 8 'Tis time to leave the dull shore of an element
   inimical to me,
   and sigh, 'mid the meridian swell, beneath the
   sky of my Africa,11
12 for somber Russia, where
   I suffered, where I loved,
   where I buried my heart.

   Onegin was prepared with me
   to see strange lands;
   but soon we were to be by fate
 4 sundered for a long time.
   'Twas then his father died.
   Before Onegin there assembled
   a greedy host of creditors.
 8 Each has a mind and notion of his own.
   Eugene, detesting litigations,
   contented with his lot,
   abandoned the inheritance to them,
12 perceiving no great loss therein,
   or precognizing from afar
   the demise of his aged uncle.

   All of a sudden he indeed
   got from the steward
   a report that his uncle was nigh death in bed
 4 and would be glad to bid farewell to him.
   Eugene, the sad epistle having read,
   incontinently to the rendezvous
   drove headlong, traveling post,
 8 and yawned already in anticipation,
   preparing, for the sake of money,
   for sighs, boredom, and guile
   (and 'tis with this that I began my novel);
12 but when he reached apace his uncle's manor,
   he found him laid already on the table
   as a prepared tribute to earth.

   He found the grounds full of attendants;
   to the dead man from every side
   came driving foes and friends,
 4 enthusiasts for funerals.
   The dead man was interred,
   the priests and guests ate, drank,
   and solemnly dispersed thereafter,
 8 as though they had been sensibly engaged.
   Now our Onegin is a rural dweller,
   of workshops, waters, forests, lands,
   absolute lord (while up to then he'd been
12 an enemy of order and a wastrel),
   and very glad to have exchanged
   his former course for something.

   For two days new to him
   seemed the secluded fields,
   the coolness of the somber park,
 4 the bubbling of the quiet brook;
   by the third day, grove, hill, and field
   did not engage him any more;
   then somnolence already they induced;
 8 then plainly he perceived
   that in the country, too, the boredom was the same,
   although there were no streets, no palaces,
   no cards, no balls, no verses.
12 The hyp was waiting for him on the watch,
   and it kept running after him
   like a shadow or faithful wife.

   I was born for the peaceful life,
   for country quiet:
   the lyre's voice in the wild is more resounding,
 4 creative dreams are more alive.
   To harmless leisures consecrated,
   I wander by a wasteful lake
   and far niente is my rule.
 8 By every morn I am awakened
   unto sweet mollitude and freedom;
   little I read, a lot I sleep,
   volatile fame do not pursue.
12 Was it not thus in former years,
   that in inaction, in the [shade],
   I spent my happiest days?

   Flowers, love, the country, idleness,
   ye fields! my soul is vowed to you.
   I'm always glad to mark the difference
 4 between Onegin and myself,
   lest a sarcastic reader
   or else some publisher
   of complicated calumny,
 8 collating here my traits,
   repeat thereafter shamelessly
   that I have scrawled my portrait
   like Byron, the poet of pride
12 —  as if we were no longer able
   to write long poems
   on any other subject than ourselves!

   In this connection I'll observe: all poets
   are friends of fancifying love.
   It used to happen that dear objects
 4 I'd dream of, and my soul
   preserved their secret image;
   the Muse revived them later:
   thus I, carefree, would sing
 8 a maiden of the mountains, my ideal,
   as well as captives of the Salgir's banks.
   From you, my friends, at present
   not seldom do I hear the question:
12 “For whom does your lyre sigh?
   To whom did you, among the throng
   of jealous maidens, dedicate its strain?

   Whose gaze, while stirring inspiration,
   with a dewy caress rewarded
   your pensive singing? Whom did your
 4 verse idolize?”
   Faith, nobody, my friends, I swear!
   Love's mad anxiety
   I cheerlessly went through.
 8 Happy who blent with it the fever
   of rhymes: thereby the sacred frenzy
   of poetry he doubled,
   striding in Petrarch's tracks;
12 as to the heart's pangs, he allayed them
   and meanwhile fame he captured too —
   but I, when loving, was stupid and mute.

   Love passed, the Muse appeared,
   and the dark mind cleared up.
   Once free, I seek again the concord
 4 of magic sounds, feelings, and thoughts;
   I write, and the heart does not pine;
   the pen draws not, lost in a trance,
   next to unfinished lines,
 8 feminine feet or heads;
   extinguished ashes will not flare again;
   I still feel sad; but there are no more tears,
   and soon, soon the storm's trace
12 will hush completely in my soul:
   then I shall start to write a poem
   in twenty-five cantos or so.

   I've thought already of a form of plan
   and how my hero I shall call.
   Meantime, my novel's
 4 first chapter I have finished;
   all this I have looked over closely;
   the inconsistencies are very many,
   but to correct them I don't wish.
 8 I shall pay censorship its due
   and give away my labors' fruits
   to the reviewers for devourment.
   Be off, then, to the Neva's banks,
12 newborn work! And deserve for me
   fame's tribute: false interpretations,
   noise, and abuse!

   The country place where Eugene
   moped was a charming nook;
   a friend of innocent delights
 4 might have blessed heaven there.
   The manor house, secluded,
   screened from the winds by a hill, stood
   above a river; in the distance,
 8 before it, freaked and flowered, lay
   meadows and golden grainfields;
   one could glimpse hamlets here and there;
   herds roamed the meadows;
12 and its dense coverts spread
   a huge neglected garden, the retreat
   of pensive dryads.