Boris Pasternak
Magdalene

1

The night now falls, my demon’s here,
The reckoning for my past exacting.
Debauchery’s memories appear,
The lifeblood from my heart extracting,
Of how, seized by men’s whimsy’s steer,
I was propelled in mad distraction
And alleyways became my sphere.

But there is not much time left now,
And soon a deathly hush will settle.
But yet before they take their bow
In front of you my vital mettle
I’ll smash to bits at edge’s slough
Just like an alabaster vessel.

Oh, where on earth now would I be,
O blessed Saviour and my Teacher?
Awaited me eternity
When at the desk I took my fee,
From caller I’d enticed to me
When with my craft I snared the creature.

Explain to me what sin can mean,
And death, and hell, and flame of sulphur,
When there in front of all I keen —
As if from you I’ve sprouted, green —
I find that more and more I suffer.

O my Lord Jesus, when I press
Your feet to me when all is over,
Perhaps I may then learn to bless
Your cross’s beams in my caress
And clinging to your bloody mess
Prepare it for your tombstone’s cover.

2

Eve of festival finds people cleaning.
Now aside, away from teeming street
I anoint with oil — replete with meaning —
Pureness of your quite unsullied feet.

And your sandals somehow flee my fumbling,
For my vision’s clouded by my tears.
Like a shroud across my eyes are tumbling
Strands of straggling hair where salt adheres.

Feet I’ve pulled towards my dress’s border,
Jesus, with my teardrops they are drenched.
Wrapped them in a threaded beaded order,
Cleaved them to my heart as with a wrench.

Future now I see without restriction,
It’s as if you’ve brought it to a halt.
Now I have been given its prediction
With a sibyl’s foresight to a fault.

Temple’s curtain will be rent tomorrow,
In a frightened huddle we shall hide,
And perhaps you’ll spare me then some sorrow
As above the earth your feet are tied.

Horses’ hooves will then begin to thunder
As the soldiers start to march away.
And above, this cross will split asunder
Heaven with a whirlwind’s giddy play.

Then beneath your cross in sad prostration
Wailing, I will faint and bite my lips.
Arms you stretch in cross’s vindication
To the world as yet your blood it drips.

Who’s this for, this grace of such expansion,
Such an anguish, such a mighty deed?
Have they all a place in heaven’s mansion?
Do you for all nature’s creatures bleed?

Three-day vigil soon will reach its ending
And those days will cause me such despair
That, when’s finished intermission’s rending,
At the resurrection I’ll be there.

Translated by Rupert Moreton