54
Осип Мандельштам
Осип Мандельштам
Отравлен хлеб, и воздух выпит:
Как трудно раны врачевать!
Иосиф, проданный в Египет,
Не мог сильнее тосковать.
Под звездным небом бедуины,
Закрыв глаза и на коне,
Слагают вольные былины
О смутно пережитом дне.
Немного нужно для наитий:
Кто потерял в песке колчан,
Кто выменял коня,- событий
Рассеивается туман.
И, если подлинно поется
И полной грудью, наконец,
Всё исчезает - остается
Пространство, звезды и певец!
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54
Osip Mandelstam
Poisoned bread, not a drop in the air,
wounds that no one can treat:
Joseph, sold to the land of Pharaoh,
at the farthest boundary of grief.
In the starlight the Bedouin compose
wild epics on how they survived
the day's dangers, eyes now closed
up there on the horses they ride.
Out on the sand, a quiver was lost,
a horse-deal done — little
is needed to set the muse off,
so the mist of events will lift.
Even though all that will vanish,
if the song is true in the lungs,
there are things that remain: the expanse,
the stars and the voice that has sung.
1913
Translated by Alistair Noon
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54
Osip Mandelstam
Air sucked dry, bread turning to mould.
Hard even to doctor a sore!
Joseph to Egypt, after he had been sold,
Could hardly have grieved more.
On horseback under the starry sky
The bedouin closes his eyes and sings
A loose rambling balladry
Of the day's vague happenings.
His themes are ready to hand:
Somebody bartered a steed
Or lost a quiver in the sand—
The hazy events recede;
And if the song is sung truly
With a whole heart, all else disappears
And nothing remains, but only
The singer, space and stars.
1913
Translated by Robert Tracy
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54
Osip Mandelstam
The bread's poisoned, the air's drained.
How hard to bind up wounds!
Sold into Egypt, Joseph
was never more miserable!
Bedouins under starry skies
close their eyes and ride,
composing loose ballads
about days vaguely experienced
Inspiration is easy:
one dropped a quiver in the sand,
another traded his horse—a mist
of events fades away,
And when it's honestly sung,
lungs and heart full, in the end
everything disappears—all there is
is space, the stars, and the singer!
1913
Translated by Burton Raffel and Alla Burago
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54
Osip Mandelstam
gif in die brood, uitgedrink die leë lug
swaar om die wonde te heel
josef uitverkoop in egipte
het nie met groter bitterheid verlang nie
bedoeïene onder die sterre
sit toe-oog op perde
en maak liedere
uit die sleepsels van die dag
geen gebrek aan stof nie:
iemand het 'n pyl in die sand verloor
nog een het 'n perd verkwansel
die aandmis dryf met stories weg
en as die lied ook uit die middel
van die hele hart gesing is, verdwyn alles;
niks bly oor nie, net die stukkie ruimte,
die sterre, die singer
1913
Vertaling deur Petra Müller
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54
Osip Mandelstam
The bread is poisoned and the air's drunk dry,
How difficult to doctor wounds!
Joseph sold into Egypt
Could not have grieved so much for home!
Bedouin tribesman with closed eyes
Compose wild legends as they ride
Beneath a star-studded sky,
About the troubled day gone by.
So little is needed for inspiration:
An arrow-quiver lost in the sands
Or a horse that someone has traded—
The fog of events is dispersing.
And if a song's properly sung
With a full heart, then at last
All disappears; there remain
Just the singer, space and the stars!
1913
Translated by Bernard Meares
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Night Song
Osip Mandelstam
The bread is blight and the air's acetylene,
Wounds impossible to doctor.
Joseph, by his own blood bartered
Off to Egypt, grieved for home no harder.
Unslaked sky. Sleetlight of stars.
And the stallioned Bedouins, avatars
Of the day's vagueness, and the pain
Of vagueness, close their eyes and improvise
Out of nothing more than the mist
Of events through which they've passed:
Coarse wind, a horse traded for grain, small wars
With sand in which an arrow was lost.
And if the song's in search of earth, and if the song's
Ensouled, then everything vanishes
To void, and the stars by which it's known,
And the voice that lets it all be and be gone.
1913
Translated by Christian Wiman
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