Scatter to the wind


Что бежал заюшка по белу свету,
По белу свету да по белу снегу.
Он бежал, косой, мимо рябины дерева,
Он бежал, косой, рябине плакался.
As a hare was running about the wide world,
About the wide world, over the white snow,
He ran, the lop-eared hare, past a rowan tree,
Past a rowan tree, and complained to it:


У меня ль, у зайца, сердце робкое,
Сердце робкое, захолончивое.
Я робею, заяц, следу зверьего,
Следу зверьего, несыта волчья черева.
Have I not, he said, a timorous heart,
A timorous heart, so faint and weak?
I am frightened, he said, of the wild beast’s tracks,
Wild beast’s tracks, the wolf’s hungry belly.


Пожалей меня, рябинов куст,
Что рябинов куст, краса рябина-дерево.
Ты не дай красы своей злому ворогу,
Злому ворогу, злому ворону.
Pity me, O rowan bush!
O rowan bush, O fair rowan tree!
Do not give thy beauty to the wicked enemy,
The wicked enemy, the wicked raven.


Ты рассыпь красны ягоды горстью по ветру,
Горстью по ветру, по белу свету, по белу снегу,
Закати, закинь их на родиму сторону,
В тот ли крайний дом с околицы,
Scatter thy red berries to the wind,
To the wind, over the wide world, over the white snow.
Fling them, roll them to my native town,
To the far end of the street, the last house,


В то ли крайнее окно да в ту ли горницу,
Там затворница укрывается,
Милая моя, желанная.
Ты скажи на ушко моей жалёнушке
Слово жаркое, горячее.
The last house in the street, the last window, the room
Where she has shut herself in,
My beloved, my longed-for love.
Whisper to my grieving love, my bride,
A warm, an ardent word!


Я томлюсь во плену, солдат-ратничек,
Скучно мне, солдату, на чужбинушке.
А и вырвусь я из плена горького,
Вырвусь к ягодке моей, красавице.
I, a soldier, languish in captivity,
Homesick, I am, poor soldier, kept in foreign parts.
I’ll break from durance bitter,
I’ll go to my red berry, to my lovely bride

Boris Pasternak: Doktor Zhivago, 12.6. translated by Max Hayward
photos: Irina Makushina


8 comentarios:

MOCKBA dijo...

With the European jays and bullfinches, the name rowan-tree makes a perfect match. With our local blue jays, it would have been called mountain-ash. We leave some for the birds but couldn't resist using some for a berry brandy with a touch of honey. Cheers!

Studiolum dijo...

How do you prepare the berry brandy: out of the berry or by pouring the brandy on the berry+honey?

walter dijo...

I was about to question the rowan, decided it would be churlish, then saw the asterisk! Exceptional photographs.

MOCKBA dijo...

Sorry guys, that's rowan, fairly frost- and wind-bitten and thus loosing many berries from their bunches, and discoloring some of the rest... but no hawthorn. And there is absolutely no confusion between the two species in Russian. Crataegus momogyna is Боярышник, generally not considered to be an edible berry in Russia, and completely devoid of the the poetic aura of the much-beloved rowan-tree.

Bitter, falling-leaf accents of rowan in liquor make it, IMVHO, a "bottled fall season", if you allow me a poetic license from Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine. Of course my berry brandy isn't distilled; just infused with the berries.

Studiolum dijo...

Unfortunately there are no leaves on the photos which would help to unambiguously distinguish the two trees, and our rowan fruits never get this frost-bitten, while hawthorn yes (we have them both in the garden). But you are the expert in more than one way, so if you tell so, I cancel the comment.

MOCKBA dijo...

It's immodest but I think I may actually call myself an expert in identifying trees by their winter branches, by the shape of the twigs and their junctions, of buds and striations of the bark, etc. It's strangely overlapping with the topic of my very first post here. The Biology Olympiads for Moscow grade school students were held in the Palace of Pioneers. There, a contestant would have to choose a subset of quiz rooms, to earn points in each. My least fav quiz was id'ing formalin-soaked dead fish. The most favored one was the id of winter branches (the Olympiad was held in February and so we couldn't do any field botany with live green wild plants!). As a preteen kid I kept getting top prizes at this Olympiad, in part because I love my winter trees :)

Studiolum dijo...

Believe or not, this kind of prehistory did come across my mind when mentioning your expertise. As I wanted to become a biologist until the last years of high school, I also regularly went to the pioneers’ olympiads, and I remember well this sort of quizʻs (I think they were centrally determined all over the empire, as most of the books we used for the preparations came from the Soviet Union). My favorite were animals’ footprints in the snow (the olympiad was regularly held in the zoo of Budapest).

walter dijo...

Apologies, you're right. Softer fruit, I think. I see a fully laden hawthorn from my window, for which the local suburban birds (far less colorful) have absolutely no interest - yet.