Pushkin's Eugene Onegin Chapter 5, Stanzas 1-15
100 Days of Charming Rotten Scoundrels tutorial - Goethe, Pushkin, Lermontov, Turgenev
100 Days of Charming Rotten Scoundrels tutorial - Goethe, Pushkin, Lermontov, Turgenev
February 20 - May 31, 2024
Pushkin's Eugene Onegin
March 29, 2024
Chapter 5, Stanzas 1-15
Next passage:
March 30, 2024
Chapter 5, Stanzas 16-30
Chapter 5
Oh, never know these frightful dreams,
My dear Svetlana!
What a profound epigram...
Zhukovsky
Vasily Zhukovsky (1787-1852) was Pushkin’s contemporary and artistic predecessor - and the most famous Russian poet of the early 19th century. He served at court and was the tutor of the future tsar Alexander II. His poetic ballad Svetlana was inspired by the German poet Gottfried Bürger’s (1747-1794) poem Lenora. In the poem, a young woman is spirited away by a ghostly apparition - the terrifying tale turns out to be but a dream. Zhukovsky’s unusual stanza and rhyming pattern in this poem inspired Pushkin’s Onegin stanza!!!
1
The fall that year was in no hurry,
And nature seemed to wait and wait
For winter. Then, in January,
The second night, the snow fell late.
Next day as dawn was just advancing,
Tatyana woke and, idly glancing,
Beheld outdoors a wondrous sight:
The roofs, the yard, the fence all white;
Each pane a fragile pattern showing;
The trees in winter silver dyed,
Gay magpies on the lawn outside,
And all the hilltops soft and glowing
With winter's brilliant rug of snow—
The world all fresh and white below.
Winter time!!!
2
Ah, wintertime!... The peasant, cheerful,
Creates a passage with his sleigh;
Aware of snow, his nag is fearful,
But shambles somehow down the way.
A bold kibitka skips and burrows
And ploughs a trail of fluffy furrows;
The driver sits behind the dash
In sheepskin coat and scarlet sash.
And here's a household boy gone sleighing
His Blackie seated on the sled,
While he plays horse and runs ahead;
The rascal froze his fingers, playing,
And laughs out loud between his howls,
While through the glass his mother scowls.
The most famous nature description in the Russian language - once again, many Russians who have not read Eugene Onegin, know this stanza!!!
Зима!.. Крестьянин, торжествуя,
На дровнях обновляет путь;
Его лошадка, снег почуя,
Плетется рысью как-нибудь;
Бразды пушистые взрывая,
Летит кибитка удалая;
Ямщик сидит на облучке
В тулупе, в красном кушаке.
Вот бегает дворовый мальчик,
В салазки жучку посадив,
Себя в коня преобразив;
Шалун уж заморозил пальчик:
Ему и больно и смешно,
А мать грозит ему в окно...
3
But you, perhaps, are not attracted
By pictures of this simple kind,
Where lowly nature is enacted
And nothing grand or more refined.
Warmed by the god of inspiration,
Another bard in exaltation
Has painted us the snow new-laid
And winter's joys in every shade.
I'm sure you'll find him most engaging
When he, in flaming verse, portrays
Clandestine rides in dashing sleighs;
But I have no intent of waging
A contest for his crown... or thine,
Thou bard of Finland's maid divine!
References to Pushkin’s friends the poets Vyazemsky and Baratynsky.
4
Tatyana (with a Russian duty
That held her heart, she knew not why)
Profoundly loved, in its cold beauty,
The Russian winter passing by:
Crisp days when sunlit hoarfrost glimmers,
The sleighs, and rosy snow that shimmers
In sunset's glow, the murky light
That wraps about the Yuletide night.
Those twelfthtide eves, by old tradition,
Were marked at home on their estate:
The servant maids would guess the fate
Of both young girls with superstition;
Each year they promised, as before,
Two soldier husbands and a war.
I am such a lousy Russian - I detest cold and winter!!! But Tanya is the quintessence of Russianness!!! She LOVES winter - AND the traditional Russian winter sport - fortune telling!!! (Traditional Russian summer sport is mushroom picking - those of you who read Anna Karenina with me know all about it!!!)
5
Tatyana heeded with conviction
All ancient folklore night and noon,
Believed in dreams and card prediction,
And read the future by the moon.
All signs and portents quite alarmed her,
All objects either scared or charmed her
With secret meanings they'd impart;
Forebodings filled and pressed her heart.
If her prim tomcat sat protected
Atop the stove to wash and purr,
Then this was certain sign to her
That guests were soon to be expected;
Or if upon her left she'd spy
A waxing crescent moon on high,
Russian culture retained many superstitions from pagan pre-Christian times and there are certain superstitions that are still observed today - do not shake hands over a threshold or you will quarrel; absolute truth is spoken just before someone sneezes; never ever break a mirror or you will have bad luck; never whistle in the house or you will be poor; and never twirl your hat or else your head will spin when you put it on!!!
6
Her face would pale, her teeth would chatter.
Or when a shooting star flew by
To light the sombre sky and shatter
In fiery dust before her eye,
She'd hurry and, in agitation,
Before the star's disintegration,
Would whisper it her secret prayer.
Or if she happened anywhere
To meet a black-robed monk by error,
Or if amid the fields one day
A fleeing hare would cross her way,
She'd be quite overcome with terror,
As dark forebodings filled her mind
Of some misfortune ill defined.
Oh yes, watch your jewelry when the moon is waxing - it may steel your bling in order to enlarge; wish upon a shooting star; and never ever cross the street after a black cat runs across!!!
7
Yet even in these same afflictions
She found a secret charm in part:
For nature fond of contradictions-
Has so designed the human heart.
The holy days are here. What gladness!..
Bright youth divines, not knowing sadness,
With nothing that it must regret,
With all of life before it yet—
A distance luminous and boundless...
Old age divines with glasses on
And sees the grave before it yawn,
All thoughts of time returning groundless;
No matter: childish hope appears
To murmur lies in aged ears.
Fortune telling was a huge part of Shrovetide festivities that lasted for three weeks before the Great Lent - some other activities included sled rides, snow fort building and snowball fights, eating copious amounts of pancakes, dressing up and caroling!!!
8
Tatyana watches, fascinated,
The molten wax submerge and turn
To wondrous shapes which designated
Some wondrous thing that she would learn.
Then from a basin filled with water
Their rings are drawn in random order;
When Tanya's ring turned up at last,
The song they sang was from the past:
'The peasants there have hoards of treasure,
They spade up silver from a ditch!
The one we sing to will be rich
And famous!' But the plaintive measure
Foretells a death to come ere long,
And girls prefer 'The Kitty's Song.'
Melted wax is powered into water and fortunes are told based on the shape the wax takes at it hardens. Rings are placed into water and covered - after each song a random rind is fished out - the content of the song just performing foretells the future of the girl whose ring is wished out right after the song. Tanya’s ring was pulled out after a song that had prophecies of death… Kitty’s song, on the other hand, foretells marriage…
9
A frosty night, the sky resplendent
As heaven's galaxy shines down
And glides so peaceful and transcendent....
Tatyana, in her low-cut gown,
Steps out of doors and trains a mirror
Upon the moon to bring it nearer;
But all that shows in her dark glass
Is just the trembling moon, alas..
What's that... the crunching snow who's coming?!
She flits on tiptoe with a sigh
And asks the stranger passing by,
Her voice more soft than reed pipe's humming:
'Oh, what's your name?' He hurries on,
Looks back and answers: 'Agafon.’
Tanya wants to see shapes in the reflection of the moon in her mirror - and when a passerby appears right then, she asks his name since it may predict the name of her future husband - but the answer she hears - Agafon - is hilarious since it’s very old fashioned and based on Greek - and is thus used only by peasants - see my earlier notes on Russian names!!!
10
Tatyana, as her nurse suggested,
Prepared to conjure all night through,
And so in secret she requested
The bathhouse table laid for two.
But then sheer terror seized Tatyana
And I, recalling poor Svetlana,
Feel frightened too so let it go,
We'll not have Tanya conjure so.
Instead, her silken sash untying,
She just undressed and went to bed.
Sweet Lel now floats above her head,
While 'neath her downy pillow lying,
A maiden's looking-glass she keeps.
Now all is hushed. Tatyana sleeps.
Do you remember Natasha and Sonya doing fortune telling in Volume Two of War and Peace?! Tanya wants to have a meal with a ghost in the bathhouse - but remembering the terrible tale of Svetlana (see my note on the epigraph) she goes to bed instead - with a mirror…
11
And what an awesome dream she's dreaming:
She walks upon a snowy dale,
And all around her, dully gleaming,
Sad mist and murky gloom prevail;
Amid the drifting, snowbound spaces
A dark and seething torrent races,
A hoary frothing wave that strains
And tears asunder winter's chains;
Two sender, icebound poles lie linking
The chasm's banks atop the ridge:
A perilous and shaky bridge;
And full of doubt, her spirits sinking,
Tatyana stopped in sudden dread
Before the raging gulf ahead.
Oh no… Snowy winter dream…
12
As at a vexing separation,
Tatyana murmured, at a loss;
She saw no friendly soul on station
To lend a hand to help her cross.
But suddenly a snowbank shifted,
And who emerged when it was lifted?
A huge and matted bear appeared!
Tatyana screamed!
He growled and reared,
Then stretched a paw... sharp claws abhorrent,
To Tanya, who could barely stand;
She took it with a trembling hand
And worked her way across the torrent
With apprehensive step... then fled!
The bear just followed where she led.
A BEAR!!! A true Russian nightmare!!!
13
She dare not look to see behind her,
And ever faster on she reels;
At every turn he seems to find her,
That shaggy footman at her heels! ...
The grunting, loathesome bear still lumbers,
Before them now a forest slumbers;
The pines in all their beauty frown
And barely stir, all weighted down
By clumps of snow; and through the summits
Of naked linden, birch, and ash
The beams from heaven's lanterns flash;
There is no path; the gorge that plummets,
The shrubs, the land... all lie asleep,
By snowy blizzards buried deep.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!
14
She's reached the wood, the bear still tracking;
Soft snow, knee-deep, lies all about;
A jutting branch looms up, attacking,
And tears her golden earrings out;
And now another tries to trip her,
And from one charming foot her slipper,
All wet, comes off in crumbly snow;
And now she feels her kerchief go,
She lets it lie, she mustn't linger,
Behind her back she hears the bear,
But shy and frightened, does not dare
To lift her skirt with trembling finger;
She runs... but he keeps crashing on...
Until at last her strength is gone.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!
15
She sinks in snow; the bear alertly
Just picks her up and rushes on;
She lies within his arms inertly;
Her breathing stops, all sense is gone.
Along a forest road he surges,
And then, mid trees, a hut emerges;
Dense brush abounds; on every hand
Forlorn and drifting snowbanks stand;
A tiny window glitters brightly,
And from the hut come cries and din;
The bear proclaims: 'My gossip's in.'
'Come warm yourself,' he adds politely,
Then pushes straightway through the door
And lays her down upon the floor.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!
NOW WHAT?!?!?!
Boris Kustodiev (1878-1927), Shrovetide, 1916, The State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg.
