(Pindaric fragment) (Osip Mandelstam, 1923) We look at the forest and we say: “This wood is fit for shipbuilding, for masts, Rose-colored pines, Up to their tips unbound by woolly burden, They could as well be creaking in a storm, Solitary stone-pines In wrathful treeless air; The salty footstep of the gale won't shake the plumbline, fixed to the dancing deck, And then the seafarer, Caught in the unbound thirsting of the blue expanse, Bearing through watery pits the fragile tool of the geometer, Will confront the coarse-grained surface of the seas With the pull of the terrestrial womb.” And breathing in the smell Of tarry tears, penetrating through the cladding of the ship, Enjoying the planks Joined together, crafted into bulkheads Not by the peaceful carpenter from Bethlehem, but by the other one-- The father of voyages and the sailor's friend,-- We say: “And they stood on firm ground, Unyielding like the backbone of an ass, With their tips forgetting their own roots, Upon the famous rocky cliff, And rustled in freshwater rains, Fruitlessly asking the heavens to barter for a small pinch of salt Their noble and worthy load.”Where to begin? Everything's quaking and creaking, The air trembles with similes, One word is no worse than another, The earth buzzes with metaphors, And lightsome phaetons, Hitched to gaudy flocks of birds dense-packed with strain, Are torn into pieces As they race against hippodrome darlings. Thrice-blessed is he who will draw a name to the song; A song bedecked with a name Will live longer amidst the rest-- She alone of her friends bears the mark of the headband, It can cure a faint, a too-strong Mind-clouding odor - The close scent of a man, Or the fur of a powerful beast, Or simply a stalk of wild thyme, rubbed in between the palms. Sometimes air is dark, like water, and everything living Swims in it like a fish, Fins moving, pushing aside its sphere, Dense and firm, filled with a subtle warmth,-- A crystal in which wheels move and horses take fright. The damp, fertile soil of Neaera, every night broken anew By pitchforks, tridents, hoes, and plows. The air is mixed as densely as the soil-- It's difficult to enter, impossible to leave. A rustle runs through the trees, a verdant ball-game: Children play knucklebones with the vertebrae frombeasts gone extinct, The brittle time of our era comes to an end. My thanks for what's happened: I was mistaken, thrown off, I lost count. The era rang like a sphere of gold, Hollow, cast metal, supported by no one. At every touch it answered “yes” and “no.” Thus a child answers:“I will give you an apple” or “I won't give you an apple.” His face a precise imprint of the voice that pronounces these words. The sound yet rings, though the cause of the sound's disappeared. A stallion lies in the dust and roars, its hide in lather, But the sharp turn of its neck Still preserves the memory of a gallop legs flying free,- When there were not four of them, But as many as the stones in the road. Renewed in four shifts, As many times as the hot-breathing ambler lifted himself off the ground. Thus He who finds a horseshoe Blows the dust from it And polishes it with wool till it gleams. Then He hangs it upon the doorway, So that it may rest, And for it there will be no more striking sparks from the flint. Human lips that have nothing left to say Preserve the shape of the last word spoken And a feeling of heaviness remains in the hand Though half the pitcher has spilled while they carried it home. It is not I who says what I am saying now. It is dug from the earth, like grains of petrified wheat. Some depict on their coins a lion, Others a head. Many different pancakes, of copper, of bronze, and of gold, Lie in the earth, in equal dignity all;Trying them for a bite, the century leaves upon them an imprint of teeth. Time clips my edges, like a silver penny, And I no longer have enough of myself. | (Пиндарический отрывок)
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