Weeping Lukewarm Tears
The greatest Russian poet lost in translation to English
The verse by Russian poet Pushkin I wanted to use in my article seemed quite unsophisticated. Or so I thought. Russian literature is widely known worldwide, so as a rule, it’s easy to find an adequate English translation of any Russian author. This time I googled Pushkin’s phrase I knew in Russian and found the “Elegy” it was from. It had two stanzas and was about the sorrow Pushkin felt for his past and present. The second stanza began with Pushkin saying that he didn’t want to die.
Here is my supposed quote in Russian: “Над вымыслом слезами обольюсь.” Translated literally, it means: “I’ll weep over things imagined.” This clumsy word construction is what Pushkin meant, but unlike mere mortals, he found an elegant way to express it. Only the best poets can create music out of words. Nabokov translated “Eugene Onegin,” Pushkin’s poem sounding like Mozart, into pedestrian prose, annotated with countless explanations. Pushkin by Nabokov is correct in meaning but dead as poetry.
Perhaps that is why my simple task to use beautiful words by Pushkin easily achieved in Russian appeared to be quite tricky in English. The translations I have found are given below. Some of them were made by people who should have known better.
- “I will shed tears over the fiction” by Yandex translate, and
“I will pour tears over fiction” by Google translate. The translation gives the gist but loses poetry. Also, the word “fiction” relays only part of the Russian term used by Pushkin. That original word covers many things that people could think about: stories, visions, myths, tales, fantasy, and more. Still, the translation is passable if you’re not picky and don’t need beauty in your life. - “Be moved to tears by musings that are mine.” Translated by Hon. M. Baring, English gentleman, intelligence officer, and a good friend of G.K. Chesterton. The protagonist of a collection of detective stories, “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” was supposedly based on Baring. What can be said, the gentleman knew whom to befriend. However, his translation of Pushkin moves me to tears of frustration.
- “Or at a moving tale my eyes will fill.” Translated by Babette Deutsch, an American poet and honorary Doctor of Letters from Columbia University. Deutch was renowned for her translations of another Russian poet Boris Pasternak. As for the quote at hand, “eyes filled with tears,” a trite poetical image, is far from the desperate weeping meant by Pushkin. Deutch’s mellow interpretation is closer to a light palpitation over a chick flick than a heartbreak of not wanting to die. Also, I wonder, was Deutsch’s translation of “Eugene Onegin” the one more reason why Nabokov felt obliged to interpret Pushkin?
- “At fiction I’ll be bitter tears shedding.” Translated by Vyacheslav Chistyakov, I failed to find. The two primary candidates for authorship are the former hockey player and the Faculty of Informatics, Mathematics, and Computer Science professor in Nizhniy Novgorod. I’m glad that love for poetry lives in every heart imaginable. What I’m opposed to is the sound of the phrase. “Be bitter,” followed closely by “shedding,” has the vibration only Arnold Schwarzenegger would appreciate.
- “Or will weep over my visions.” Translated by D. Smirnov-Sadovsky, a bilingual poet and translator of Willam Blake. This version, sadly quite common, makes Pushkin, famous for his sarcastic character, into a neurasthenic weeping over hallucinations. It also could be my own imagination, but it’s the word “visions” that does the trick.
- “ Or wet my thought with tears of joy and pain.” Translated by Yevgeny Bonver. The photograph of a senior poet could be found on his website, called “Poetry Lovers Page,” wearing a hat and a cunny expression. Somebody tell me, how is it physically possible to “wet your thought with tears?” The notion of joy and pain frivolously added by the translator to the process of wetting disturbs me even more.
- “And only lukewarm tears will comfort me.” Translated by Andrey Kneller, who described himself in his Twitter account as “a Russian-born poet/translator.” The other poets he’s claiming to interpret are Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, and Mayakovsky. It doesn’t comfort me to think about the lukewarm translations produced by mister Kneller. Let’s hope that this particular phrase was his only flop.
- “Upon a fiction, heavy tears I’ll weep.” Translated by Evgenia Sarkisyants. The only information I could find about her is that she is a professional translator. The word “professional” seems the key here. It might not be the most outstanding translation ever, but this verse brings me closer to what I felt when reading Pushkin in Russian. Thank you, Evgenia Sarkisyants, for giving me Pushkin back. Not in his entirety, but in part that counts. The wording has a beat and meaning.
I know how difficult it is to translate from one language to another. I struggle with it every day. It’s hard not just to convert [thank you, Reverso] but to transpose one reality to another, keeping the beauty, meaning, and music behind the words.
Dear translators and interpreters, I beg you, please, do your absolute best when sharing great writing with those who don’t have the privilege to read it from the source. You have that responsibility to the world.
