Our births, for we are too like brothers,
Took place beneath the self-same star,
And ruddy Bacchus and the others
Our fate have fiddled from afar.
We both appeared bright and early,
The races, not the market, graced,
Derzhavin’s tomb, ’midst hurly-burly,
Was where we idle rapture chased.
From adolescence we were pampered.
And being filled with lazy pride
In truth we really were not hampered
By thoughts of children’s rights denied.
But you, O carefree son of Phoebe,
Would not betray your lofty art
To cunning traders, those who would be
The judges of your noble heart.
Oh yes, they’ve scolded us, the scribblers,
We’ve heard ourselves by all maligned:
We’re glory-hunters, boozy dribblers,
Whose glass enflames our reckless mind.
But yet your word, so strong, so soaring,
Is taunted by some parodist,
Your verses, richly hope restoring,
Are chewed by toothless journalist.
Мы рождены, мой брат названый,
Под одинаковой звездой.
Киприда, Феб и Вакх румяный
Играли нашею судьбой.
Явилися мы рано оба
На ипподром, а не на торг,
Вблизи державинского гроба,
И шумный встретил нас восторг.
Избаловало нас начало.
И в гордой лености своей
Заботились мы оба мало
Судьбой гуляющих детей.
Но ты, сын Феба беззаботный,
Своих возвышенных затей
Не предавал рукой расчётной
Оценке хитрых торгашей.
В одних журналах нас <ругали>,
Упрёки те же слышим мы:
Мы любим <славу> да в б<окале>
Топить разгульные умы.
Твой слог могучий и кры<латый>
Какой-то дразнит пародист,
И стих, <надеждами> <богатый>,
Жуёт беззубый журналист.
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«Not long ago, when I was at a dinner, / I heard a toast — and here I write it down. "I had a dream" the speaker said to us / "That I had died, and yet I was not dead / And there before me lay a final road / On which I walked, with neither food nor fire. / An empty plain stretched out i...»