web analytics

Chidiock Tichborne (1558-1586). Elegy

I was once browsing the blogs that I read, and on ReadySteadyBook I came across a sad poem, written by one Chidiock Tichborne ‘on the eve of his execution’. I found his name remotely familiar, and later realised, why: he took part in the Babington conspiracy against Elizabeth I in 1586. As some of you may know (or guess by the dates), this conspiracy was also the one that had brought Mary Queen of Scots to her tragic end. However, I dare say, the end of the conspirators, including Tichborne, was far more tragic, since their execution was carried out in the *best traditions* of punishment for treason. They were hung, drawn and quartered. The execution was usually a gruesome one; it would include a criminal being cut open, and their insides being taken out and burnt in front of their eyes. Normally, they would die at this stage, but sometimes they were still alive by the time they had begun being cut into four parts. The sources say that such was the case of one of the Babington conspirators (not Tichborne, though). The rider in the verdict stated that the severity of punishment could be increased upon the authorities’ discretion. Nevertheless, having been reported about the popular dismay, the authorities allowed the next group of conspirators to hang until dead before being drawn and quartered.

Although Tichborne’s Elegy is not the only work that has reached us, this poem, written in such dramatic circumstances, has attracted much attention from the scholars. Indeed, the use of antithesis and paradox – the two popular Renaissance literary figures – suggests that Tichborne was definitely not new to the art of poetry. Some further information can be found over here, in The Leeds Review, where you can see the first imprint of Elegy, Tichborne’s letter to his wife Agnes, and a response to Tichborne’s poem, specially composed to diminish the creative effort of this young man.

Along with the English text, I also include my translation of it into Russian. I was immediately captivated by the text, and the chance to render all literary figures into my native language was impossible to miss. And when you consider the age of Tichborne and the severity of his execution, you probably begin to read the whole poem differently.

My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
And all my good is but vain hope of gain;
The day is past, and yet I saw no sun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.

My tale was heard and yet it was not told,
My fruit is fallen, yet my leaves are green,
My youth is spent and yet I am not old,
I saw the world and yet I was not seen;
My thread is cut and yet it is not spun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.

I sought my death and found it in my womb,
I looked for life and found it was a shade,
I trod the earth and knew it was my tomb,
And now I die, and now I was but made;
My glass is full, and now my glass is run,
And now I live, and now my life is done.

Chidiock Tichborne, 1586

Мою весну мороз невзгод овеял;
На радости пиру вкусил я боль;
Растил зерно – собрал охапки плевел;
Тщета надежд – достаток скудный мой.
День пролетел, – не видел солнца я.
Живу, и жизнь окончена моя.

Слух обо мне разносят пустословы;
Листвою зелен, наземь плод упал;
Промчалась юность, – я остался молод;
Я видел мир, а он меня не знал.
Прервали нить, кудели не спрядя.
Живу, и жизнь окончена моя.

К себе вернулся я, пойдя за смертью;
Я жизнь нашел в забвения тиши;
Могилу чувствовал, когда бродил по тверди;
И умираю, путь свой не свершив.
Иссякло время до исхода дня.
Живу, и жизнь окончена моя.

Julia Shuvalova © 2006

Harvard Open Collections/ Medieval Manuscripts

A new addition to the Harvard University Open Collections Program is this website dedicated to Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930. I must admit, I wasn’t very successful whilst trying to look at some documents, but maybe it’s just my browser. The documents presumably available for browsing include manuscripts, books, pamphlets, and photographs.

So as not to leave you completely without any images to look at, this is something I came across while browsing the fantastic online manuscript collection of the French National Library. The first one is an illustration to the story of Actaeon, a young hunter, who accidentally saw Artemis as she was bathing naked. For this, Artemis turned Actaeon into a stag, and set his own hounds on him. The legend says that the hounds were in deep sorrow afterwards, so the gods granted them a statue of Actaeon, which they had taken for their master. The illustrator, however, abridged the story, hence we only see a stag looking at a naked lady. The picture adorns the initial of the letter ‘C’.


[Ovid, Les Metamorphoses, BNF Richelieu Manuscrits Français 137, Belgique, Flandre, XVe s. Courtesy of BNF].

And this second one is a gem. It is from Lancelot du Lac, a 15th c. French book from Poitiers, and it shows Lancelot du Lac gone down with love. I wonder (as probably are the characters pictured around him) what may be the medicine against this sort of illness…


[Lancelot du Lac, BNF Richelieu Manuscrits Français 111, France, Poitiers, XVe s. Courtesy of BNF].

Julia on BBC Radio Manchester

Like I said previously, on Thursday I was interviewed by Richard Fair on BBC Radio Manchester. You can now go to BBC Radio Manchester Blog and read the report, just follow this link. Furthermore, you can listen to an extract from my interview – exactly on the point of why I started blogging. And no, it’s not me on that photo.

Yeah, we discussed briefly the reason why bloggers are so *arrogant* in that they expect other people to read what they write. True to my trade, I referred to George Orwell. I only quoted a tiny bit on the radio, but this is the extract from his essay ‘Why I Write’, which I had in mind. Orwell spoke about four motives for writing, and the first one was


Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc. etc. It is humbug to pretend that this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen – in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they abandon individual ambition – in many cases, indeed, they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all – and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, wilful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centred than journalists, though less interested in money.

The other three motives for writing, according to Orwell, were aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose. The latter I highlighted previously on this blog, in October, in the post ‘What Do You Think an Artist Is?’ As you may note, things have changed since 1946 (as a matter of fact, there’s no Wikipedia entry on Orwell’s essay, so I should probably write that, too), in particular, the interest in money has probably increased among both writers and journalists (at least because we all pay taxes).

The rest of the passage is still true and relevant, although I would rather say that one should distinguish between educated arrogance, informed with your knowledge, experience and self-awareness, and arrogance in the proper sense of the word. I can confidently say that those who know me would never call me ‘arrogant’. They would probably call me ‘self-sufficient’, which some people are willing to pass on as arrogance, but which is not the same thing. In fact, I’d even correct Orwell on this. Writers, who are guided by a political purpose, aesthetic enthusiasm and historical impulse, cannot be arrogant. They are simply dedicated, gifted people, who do sometimes give an impression of not being interested in money and ‘all that jazz’. But they are always interested in other people. Which is why a good writer is always a good historian, and a good historian is always a good writer. In any language, I should note.

We are vain, it’s true, but not because we are hungry for fame. Simply when you are dedicated to something you do, you put enormous efforts into it, and you need to recompense your losses. Which is why the link to my interview is now in ‘Author’s Links’ in the navigation bar.

No matter how vain we are, though, we do not fail to recognise our gratitude to our readers, especially if/when they send comments. And so I am grateful to all my readers, who’s been reading and searching my blog globally, to everyone who’s left comments, and to Robin and Richard at the BBC.

Oh, and I can’t fail to mention this. As you read in my profile, Julie Delvaux is my literary pen name. There is my real name, under which I am fairly well known. Now, there’s a third version – Julia Delvaux. I think, my next step should be realising one of my non-literary dreams and trying myself at music (singing) and cinema. On the one hand, I don’t want my mezzo-soprano to be lost. On the other, with all versions of my name I’m almost ready for an IMDb.com entry.

Isn’t that vanity? ;-))

December

Of course, we’re in Manchester, and the weather has been nice, though chilly, in the past few days, with quite a few rays of sunshine caressing our forlorn November faces. In this weather I narrowly missed the fact that it’s the first day of winter today. So, congratulations. At Piccadilly Gardens you can do your bit of ice skating. My history of ice skating was short and painful, so it’s unlikely that you see me there. I do like skiing, though, and I heard in Sheffield there’s a sport centre where I could once again experience the joy of gliding on the white snowy surface. As I probably won’t go to Moscow until February or even March, I think I’ll go to Sheffield in January. If you’ve been there and have any pleasant/unpleasant memories or tips, please tell me.

And to take you through the start of winter season and many long dark nights, here is a lovely poem by a Tudor author A.W. (fl. 1585), Upon Visiting His Lady by Moonlight.

The night, say all, was made for rest;
And so say I, but not for all:
To them the darkest nights are best,
Which give them leave asleep to fall;
But I that seek my rest by light
Hate sleep, and praise the clearest night.

Bright was the Moon, as bright as day,
And Venus glistered in the west,
Whose light did lead the ready way,
That brought me to my wishèd rest:
Then each of them increased their light
While I enjoyed her heavenly sight.

Say, gentle Dames, what moved your mind
To shine so bright above your wont?
Would Phœbe fair Endymion find?
Would Venus see Adonis hunt?
No, no, you fearèd by her sight
To lose the praise of beauty bright.

At last, for shame you shrunk away,
And thought to ‘reave the world of light;
Then shone my Dame with brighter ray,
Than that which comes from Phœbus’ sight:
None other light but hers I praise
Whose nights are clearer than the days.

Tudors, Me, and an Elusive Ghost

To begin with, a piece of news: I am the first person to feature on the Blog Spot this Thursday on Richard Fair’s programme on BBC Radio Manchester. You can read more about the feature, about Richard (who is also a blogger), and, of course, about our beloved BBC Radio Manchester that has recently won the Station of the Year award. As Richard says in his post, you can listen to the programme online at 2pm, with a chance to listen again after the programme.

Not content apparently with making me his first game, Richard is talking to me at Ordsall Hall – Manchester’s very own haunted Tudor mansion. Strictly speaking, when I say ‘Tudor’ I rather mean its exterior. The Hall itself dates back to as early as the 12th c., and its first long-term owners, the Radclyffe family, had occupied the building and the land approx. between 1335 and 1662. The best-known owners of the Hall of that time include Sir John Radclyffe, the hero of the Hundred Years’ War, whose motto – ‘Caen, Crecy, Calais’ – denoted his taking part in several pivotal battles at the beginning of war, which the English had won. Sir Alexander Radclyffe was the High Sheriff of Lancashire on four occasions. Margaret Radclyffe (d. 1599) was Queen Elizabeth’s favourite Maid of Honour.

The Hall, however, is better known for two other things. In 1861 it was commemorated by the novelist William Harrison Ainsworth. The novel called Guy Fawkes, or The Gunpowder Treason used Ordsall Hall as the set, where political intrigue and romance entwined. In particular, it introduced the character of Viviana Radclyffe, daughter of Sir William Radclyffe. According to the plot, John Catesby and Guy Fawkes came to Ordsall Hall to hide from King James’s pursuivants. There, while Fawkes was detailing out his plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament, John Catesby was wooing Viviana. To perfect the novel and to complete the legend, Ainsworth conjured the love triangle. He made the renowned Protestant scholar Humphrey Cheetham (whose statue you can see in the Manchester Cathedral) Viviana’s secret admirer. However, she was a Catholic, thus they could not marry. When the Hall was raided by the pursuivants, Cheetham had rescued Viviana, Catesby and Fawkes via an underpassage. He spent the rest of his life in solitude, ‘tinged by the blighting of his early affection’.

Secondly, the Hall is haunted. It is not exactly clear whose ghosts meet you at Ordsall, and what time these ghosts used to live when they were connected to their bodies. But the ghostcam has been working at the Hall for years, and, reportedly, the best time to try and see a ghost was on Saturday night. I must admit, I never tried to *catch* one. However, the photo below shows quite clearly that the Great Hall is indeed being well looked after (see a blueish shadow between the fireplace and a little table?)


[Courtesy of Ordsall Hall).

I shall try and take some pictures on Thursday when I go to Ordsall Hall. This will not be my first ever visit there. The first time I’ve been to the Hall was in July 2002, and, believe it or not, Ordsall Hall was my first ever Tudor mansion. Prior to that, I’ve only seen Tudor buildings in the books and on the photos on the web. My impression is that I was somewhat disturbed to go from a huge spacious Great Hall into a dim claustrophobic bedroom, whose ceiling was painted in dark-blue colour and decorated with gilded stars. The feeling of the sky coming down on you was almost palpable. As if that was not enough, the room was called ‘the Star Chamber’, because of the ceiling. Every Tudor historian would instantly remember that this was also the name of the Royal court that had existed between 1487 and 1641. Its meetings were held in secret, with no indictments, no right of appeal, no juries, and no witnesses.

I chose to specialise in Tudor history because I loved England, the English language and culture, and because I adored Medieval and Early Modern History, but wanted to be closer to the modern times, thus I opted to research into the 16th c. It was an absolutely amazing period of time, as far as I’m concerned. The geographical and scientific discoveries, Renaissance and Baroque, the beginnings of cartography and research into the Solar system, on the one hand, – and Reformation, the Wars of Religion, the Inquisition, and slavery, on the other. The co-existence of the opposites has made the 16th c. irresistibly attractive. I don’t think I would want to study any other time, had I been given the choice once again.

And now to something spooky

As I wrote before, I initially wanted to upload two photographs of the ghost. But when I was uploading the photo below, it only opened halfway, so the blueish figure in the dress with the train wasn’t seen. Now you can see it well, which either means that the ghost decided to show herself to my readers, or that some forces from the bigger world have intervened.

Whatever is the reason for such metamorphosis, it still proves, in the words of Krzysztof Kieslowski, the Polish cinema genius, that ‘something exists beyond this saucer’. Indeed, it does.

80 Years of Quiet Flows the Don Autograph

As you know, Quiet Flows the Don was written by Mikhail Sholokhov between 1926 and 1940 (vols. 1-3 were written between 1926 and 1928, and the 4th volume was published in 1940). However, throughout his life Sholokhov was plagued by the accusations of plagiarism, mainly because he was very young at the time of composition, and because the narrative had suggested an in-depth awareness of the events and the life experience, which seemed impossible for a 21-year-old.

The first tide of rumours came in 1929, which led Stalin to order a special investigation. The investigation completed, Sholokhov’s authorship was proved and upheld. Since the 1960s, however, there had been many attempts to disprove his authorship, most of them dissatisfactory, since they mostly included the analysis of the printed texts.

Both critique and the defense of Sholokhov’s authorship were jeopardised by the disappearing of the author’s manuscript. His archive was destroyed in a bomb raid during the war, and only the 4th volume has survived. The authographs of the first two volumes, however, were entrusted by Sholokhov to his friend, Vassily Kudashov, who was killed in the war. Since his death, the autograph had been looked after by Kudashov’s widow, who for some reason never disclosed the fact of owning it.

The manuscript was only rescued in 1999, with the help of the Russian Government. The subsequent analysis of the novel has unambiguously proved Sholokhov’s authorship. The manuscript consists of 885 A-4 pages, the writing paper dates back to the 1920s. 605 pages are in the writer’s own hand, and 285 are transcribed by his wife, Maria, and his sisters. The main body of the manuscript is the draft text, which gives a unique opportunity to follow the author’s work on the novel.

What prompted me to write this post, however, is not only the chance to introduce the PDF. copies of the manuscript of this genuine novel. You can browse them here. There is something more symbolic. The date on the top of the first page reads ’15 November 1926′, which makes it (almost) exactly 80 years since Sholokhov had begun to work on Quiet Flows the Don. And whether or not you understand enough Russian to read the text, you can still observe the author’s ‘workshop’ below.

[This post uses the text of the address of Felix Kuznetsov at the 10th Congress of Russian Writers, 1999 (in Russian)].

[Courtesy of the Fundamental Electronic Library].

To * * * (E. A. Poe)

As many readers have unanimously declared, this is everyone’s favourite poem by E. A. Poe – after The Raven, of course! However, the Russian translations of which I was aware did not convey the poem’s original rhythm and meter, so this became my challenge. After several different attempts I hope I have succeeded. And it is a good addition to the Literature label.

I heed not that my eathly lot
Hath little of Earth in it;
That years of love have been forgot
In the hatred of a minute.
I mourn not that the desolate
Are happier, sweet than I,
But that you sorrow for my fate,
Who am a passer-by.

Пусть слишком тяжек для Земли
Вес моего удела;
Отвергнуты года любви
В одну минуту гнева;
Пускай отчаянные все
Счастливее меня;
Жалеешь странника во мне, –
Об этом плачу я.

Julia Shuvalova © 2006

Exercises in Loneliness – III

Generally, I love sleepless nights. I love the time when I can read or write, without being disturbed. There is only one exception – I prefer when I am actually enjoying either writing or reading. At the moment, I’m about to embark on a very lengthy text on the topic of martyrdom in Sikhism. And although I already know and understand how the text should be written, I find it daunting to write because – God knows! – I’d prefer to write about something else. More inspiring. More creative.

To stay up in the night has never been difficult for me. I don’t even know how I came to develop such ability. When I was a student, however, my mates at the Uni used to ask me (quite seriously!), what to do in order to stay awake. The question would normally rise during the exam session. I could never give any sound advice, and from what I know, they never actually stayed up.

Writing daunting texts is also nothing new. Back in 2000, I was in my third year and had been writing an essay on Soviet literature between 1925 and 1935. Or, I’d better say, I’d been trying to write such essay. I knew the topic very well, but, strangely, the knowledge had put me off writing the text. The final day of submission was 15 May. 14 May was my mother’s birthday, and we had guests. They left at about 9pm, and I went to the computer. Ten hours later I had written 30 pages – exactly what was required. I took it to the tutor. A week later she told me that she absolutely loved my work and couldn’t find words to express her regret that we hadn’t discuss my essay in our seminar. Well… Perhaps, I’ll rework it for an article one day. :))

The text I need to write now is exactly a half of those 30 pages. The topic – martyrdom – borders on history, philosophy and religion, and I’m looking at the whole of the 17th c. Of course, Asia is not Europe, but the 17th c. is not something totally inconceivable. I think it’s because of him. He is Pascal Quignard. Ever since I read ‘Terrace a Rome’ I wanted to find and read as many of his works, as possible. I couldn’t start reading, but I actually found the Russian translation of ‘Tous les Matins du Monde’ (All the World’s Mornings/Все утра мира) and a couple of extracts from his essay ‘Le Sexe et L’Effroi’ (Sex and Terror/ Секс и страх). And it’s because I’d rather read these works that I find it difficult to write about those Sikh martyrs.

In my life as a reader I went through a series of very intense ‘love affairs’ with different authors. Those whose works I most hungrily devoured were Gorky, Chekhov, Bulgakov, de Sade, Henry Miller, Maugham, Sueskind, Marquez, Llosa, and Vonnegut. Oh, yes, also Wilde, Prevert, and most Russian poets. I’ve got to stop here, otherwise martyrdom will be completely forgotten.

Anyway, I know what I’m going to add to my birthday/Christmas/New Year list. It’s the works of Pascal Quignard. In English, French or Russian, it doesn’t matter.

And an extract from one of his interviews. You can read the article in full here.

Wandering Shadows or the insecurity of thinking
I certainly was not planning to embark on anything so long, I wanted to write books that did not exceed the capacity of my head, if I can put it that way, that I could skim through panoptically. But something like a wave began to get bigger and bigger and to engulf me, as though it was saying to me “Don’t be so cautious with your own life.”
Les Ombres Errantes is the book that has the greatest biographical content. It is important to me that a thought is totally involved in the life you are leading. In this book, I make clear my determination to create a hermitage within the modern world where I praise insecurity of thinking, while the societies in which we live advocate the opposite. The same thing happened at the end of the Roman Empire: in order to counter the return of religious monotheism and imperial pacification, many hermitages were created. The values that are now coming back are all the ones I detest. The return of faith terrifies me and I am filled with despair to see my own friends becoming believers and doctrinarians. We are living in 1571. This St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre atmosphere had to be described. The Wars of Religion are beginning again. Woman is being deified. Death adored. Democracy more violent and inegalitarian than in Pericles’ day. Technology, the object of all worship, and the all-pervasive cult of youth is worse than primitive – it is untamed, psychotic.
Interview conducted by Catherine Argand

Rupert a Cossack? Why Not?!!

So, Quiet Flows the Don has finally burst onto Russian screens, but only to attract a lot of criticism. Admittedly, everything I’ve heard so far has not been particularly convincing. As the article by Andrew Osborn in The Independent (12 Nov. 2006) stated, the main reason why Rupert Everett’s Grigory is not being accepted by the Cossacks (or, perhaps, by the most radical of them) is the fact that he is gay (Everett, that is). A similar protestation was expressed on 12 Nov. on The Echo of Moscow radio station.

My opinion, as you might guess, is nothing similar in this case. First of all, Everett’s new biography apparently commemorates the actor’s intimate relationships with Susan Sarandon and Paula Yates. Osborn writes that one of the criticisms leveled against Everett is that, since he is gay, he cannot “feature in a love story”, because “he doesn’t know what a woman is”. Well, it looks like he does, after all. Secondly, to judge an actor’s potential by whom he/she spends their nights with is totally unacceptable. We’re talking talent and art here, and hence sexual ‘orientation’ must not be used as a sole factor (especially negative) to form an opinion about someone’s creative potential.

This is the only thing I would pass a comment on so far, since anything else seems to depend largely on a viewer’s point of view, and I haven’t got any at the moment because I’m sitting in Manchester. I’ll only put up this link to an interview with Rupert Everett, which otherwise may get lost somewhere on this blog. It is in Russian, although Everett repeats certain things he’s said in the past. Many thanks to the anonymous user who’d sent the link.
I must say that I approach this film very openly, at the same time I’ve never had any too unrealistic hopes invested in it (like with any other film), despite the fact that I’ve been looking forward to it for years. I obviously allow for the possibility that certain things will not be the way I would expect them to be, but, knowing the book well, I would try and understand why this film is the way it is.

The reason why I am being so open-minded is not simply that I am generally open-minded. The first version of Quiet Flows the Don was made in 1931, by Ivan Pravov and Olga Preobrazhenskaya. 1957 saw the second, famous version by Sergei Gerasimov. It is said that Sergei Bondarchuk had been thinking of taking his vision to screen for about twenty years, but only got the chance to do so at the turn of the 1990s. Although it is only now that his work has finally reached the audience, he had finished shooting his film in 1993.

By only looking at the dates – 1931, 1957, 1993 – one can see that what we’re talking here is a truly notable case of bringing the same novel to screen by two generations of film directors (Pravov was born in 1901, Gerasimov in 1906, and Bondarchuk in 1920). Of these versions, neither could be totally unbiased or uninfluenced by the time. My argument is simple: rather than in direct comparison to the previous films, one should view the current version of Quiet Flows the Don in the context of Sholokhov’s novel, Russia’s ever-changing political and cultural climate, and Bondarchuk’s own legacy. There are bound to be changes in our reading of Quiet Flows the Don now, in comparison to even the early 1990s. And it is very unlikely that the changes in Russia’s political climate from the 1960s until the 1990s would not have impacted Bondarchuk’s own reading of Sholokhov’s novel.

Now, anyone living in Russia and receiving the ‘Kultura’ (Culture) channel can watch the 1931 film this Friday, November 17, at 11am. This screening commemorates the centenary of the birth of the film’s leading actor, Andrei Abrikosov, whose career in cinema had started with him playing Grigory Melekhov. The article accompanying the announcement says that Abrikosov called his son Grigory (also an actor) after the novel’s protagonist.
I am glad this first film is being screened, for those viewers who’ve been watching Bondarchuk’s film and have previously seen Gerasimov’s version will now (potentially) gain full perspective of how Sholokhov’s masterpiece had been read during the 20th c. I am also hoping that perhaps Gerasimov’s version will stop – for some time, at least – being regarded as the only possible dramatization out there. One must recognize the fact that what we’ve got now is a complete manifestation of the continuity of interest in Sholokhov’s novel, and no constraints can or must be put to this. (Shall we compare this to the British, and indeed universal, obsession with Shakespeare’s Hamlet?) One should therefore approach each dramatization historically, i.e. to be aware of the time when it was made because it is absolutely unlikely that time had left any version unscathed.

Also, on the film front – the Indian epic, Makhabkharata, is to begin to be filmed in 2008. Meanwhile, the director of the very successful TV series under the same name is going to write the script. He promises to embellish the Bollywood film with the special effects comparable to those in The Lord of the Rings. The TV series has been so popular that the Indian railways reportedly had to change timetables because people refused to travel during the screening of episodes. Well, while the Bollywood is planning to shoot the Indian epic, the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf is now in post-production in Hollywood. And a much awaited premiere of Russian fantasy story Wolfhound is currently being scheduled for the early 2007. Cannot all this, together with three versions of Quiet Flows the Don, be a better proof that history matters?

Procession (by Jacques Prévert)

As I said in the previous post, I couldn’t find the translation of Prévert’s poem Cortège on the web, so I decided I would have a go at translating it. I finished one of my projects, so I had the right amount of time to immerse in the process of rendering the French text into English. I’ll republish both French and Russian versions in this post, so that those who possibly know all three languages could compare the translations.

A golden oldster with a watch in grief
A labourer of England with an unskilled queen
And the workers of peace with the guardians of the sea
A hussar of cat with a paw of death
A coffee serpent with a bespectacled grinder
A tight-rope hunter with a head walker
A Meerschaum marshal with a retired pipe
A brat in tuxedo with a gentleman in undershirt
A composer of gallows with a bird of music
A spiritual collector with an advisor of cigarette butts
A sharpener of Coligny with an admiral of scissors
A nun of Bengal with a tiger of Saint Vincent de Paul
A professor of pottery with a repairer of philosophy
A controller of the Round Table with the knights of the Gas Company
A duck in Saint Helena with a Napoleon in orange sauce
An inspector of Samothrace with a Winged Victory of cemetery
A tug of many with a father of the tides
A member of prostate with an enlargement of the French Academy
A large horse in partibus with a great circus bishop
A comptroller of the Wooden Cross with a little singer of the bus
A dentist terrible with an enfant surgeon
And the general of oysters with an opener of Jesuits.


Julia Shuvalova © 2006

Un vieillard en or avec une montre en deuil
Une reine de peine avec un homme d’Angleterre
Et des travailleurs de la paix avec des gardiens de la mer
Un hussard de la farce avec un dindon de la mort
Un serpent à café avec un moulin à lunettes
Un chasseur de corde avec un danseur de têtes
Un maréchal d’écume avec une pipe en retraite
Un chiard en habit noir avec un gentleman au maillot
Un compositeur de potence avec un gibier de musique
Un ramasseur de conscience avec un directeur de mégots
Un repasseur de Coligny avec un amiral de ciseaux
Une petite sœur du Bengale avec un tigre de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul
Un professeur de porcelaine avec un raccommodeur de philosophie
Un contrôleur de la Table Ronde avec des chevaliers de la Compagnie du Gaz de Paris
Un canard à Sainte-Hélène avec un Napoléon à l’orange
Un conservateur de Samothrace avec une Victoire de cimetière
Un remorqueur de famille nombreuse avec un père de haute mer
Un membre de la prostate avec une hypertrophie de l’Académie française
Un gros cheval in partibus avec un grand évêque de cirque
Un contrôleur à la croix de bois avec un petit chanteur d’autobus
Un chirurgien terrible avec un enfant dentiste
Et le général des huîtres avec un ouvreur de Jésuites.

(Courtesy of http://perso.wanadoo.es/joan-navarro/tigre/tigre5/prevert.htm).

Скорбящие часы с золотым стариком
Потная королева с английским ломовиком
И труженики мира со стражами моря
Надутый эскадрон с индюком смерти
Очковая мельница с ветряной змеей
Канатный охотник с плясуном за черепами
Пенковый маршал с трубкой в отставке
Дитя во фраке с джентльменом в пеленках
Сочинитель сволочи с последней музыкой
Собиратель лиц с духовными окурками
Уличный адмирал с точильщиком флота
Бенгальская монашка с католическим тигром
Профессор по фарфору с художником по философии
Инспектор Круглого Стола с рыцарями Газовой Компании
Утка под Ватерлоо с Наполеоном под соусом
Самофракийская крыса с церковной Никой
Крестный буксир с морским отцом
Член простаты с гипертрофией Французской академии
Приходская лошадка с цирковым священником
Контролер на похоронах с плакальщиком в автобусе
Вопящий хирург с ребенком-дантистом
И магистр улиток с поедателем Ордена кармелиток.

(Courtesy of http://anch.info/reader/french_poetry/prevert/)

A few comments on the translation. Although Prévert”s poem is seemingly absurd, its play on words is sometimes exemplary in re-discovering of some familiar idioms or collocations. I tried, for the most part, to remain faithful to the text, except for when I decided to translate ‘dindon de la farce‘ as ‘cat’s paw‘, actually reversing it, to make it ‘a paw of cat’, so that to mix it with ‘hussard de la mort‘. I also reversed the parts of the second line, because in the French text one can find some occasional (and mostly acoustic) rhymes, so I tried to do just that in the English text.

Also, in the line

Un contrôleur à la croix de bois avec un petit chanteur d’autobus

Prévert refers to Les Petits Chanteurs a la Crois de Bois, a boy choir that was founded in 1906 and exists until this day. As a matter of fact, this reference is omitted in Russian translation.
Bespectacled serpent‘ is, of course, a cobra; ‘gibier de potence‘ is translated as ‘a gallow bird’. ‘Un grand eveque in partibus‘ is a bishop of the see that doesn’t actually exist or is situated in the ‘unchristian’ part. In partibus is an abridgement of in partibus infidelium (Latin), i.e. in the lands of the unfaithful. Vincent de Paul is a well-known Catholic saint, who devoutedly supported and founded various charities, some of which continue to exist. His name is widely known in the West, including America, which is why I left a reference to him in the text. ‘Admiral of Coligny‘ is Gaspard de Coligny, whose brutal assassination was one of the acts of the dance macabre of St. Bartholomew’s Night of 1572.
error: Sorry, no copying !!