Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0005467, Mon, 4 Sep 2000 13:20:02 -0700

Subject
Fw: VN and Tyutchev's poems
Date
Body
EDITOR's NOTE. Galya Korovina is an independent scholar whose articles and
photographs have appeared in many Russian-language publications. (See
ZEMBLA for some of her photographs.) I believe that she may still have
available several copies of the first and second issues of the occasional
journal NABOKOVSKII VESTNIK published by the Petersburg Nabokov Museum.

> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (55
lines) ------------------
> From Galya Korovina
> gorod New York
> Gkorovina@aol.com
>
> VN's splendid verse translations of Tyutchev are published under a title
> "Three Russian Poets" by New Directions in 1945. VN included his
> translations of Tyutchev's poems in his letters to his beloved younger
sister
> Elena Sikorskaya, "Silentium" in the letter dated December 17th, 1945, and
> "The Last Love" in the letter dated February 24th, 1946. VN's
correspondence
> with Elena Sikorskaya was published in Russian by Ardis in 1985 as
"Perepiska
> s sestroi".
>
> Silentium
>
> Speak not, lie hidden and conceal
> the way you dream, the things you feel.
> Deep in your spirit let them rise
> akin to stars in crystal skies
> that set before the night is blurred:
> delight in them and speak no word.
>
> How can a heart expression find?
> How should another know your mind?
> Will he discuss that quickens you?
> A thought once uttered is untrue.
> Dimmed is the fountainhead when stirred:
> drink at the source and speak no word.
>
> Live in your inner self alone.
> Within your soul a world has grown,
> the magic of veiled thoughts that might
> be blinded by the outer light,
> drowned in the noise of day, unheard ...
> Take in their song and speak no word.
>
> The Last Love
>
> Love at the closing of our days
> is apprehensive and very tender.
> Glow brighter, brighter, farewell rays
> of our last love in its evening splendor.
>
> Blue shade takes half the world away:
> through western clouds alone light is slanted,
> O tarry, or tarry, declining day,
> enchantment, let me stay enchanted!
>
> The blood runs thinner, yet the heart
> remains as ever deep and tender
> O last belated love, thou art
> a blend of joy and hopeless surrender.
>
> From Nabokov's 1946 Wellesley course on Russian Literature in Translation:
> "Real verse music is not the melody of verse. Authentic verse music is
that
> mystery which brims over the rational texture of the line."