Bulat Okudzhava
Playwright Anton Chekhov Once famously noted...

Playwright Anton Chekhov
Once famously noted:
A wise man loves learning
While a fool loves to teach.
If you knew how many fools
I’ve met o’er my lifetime,
It’s a wonder sanity
Is still within my reach.

Fools, they love to gather
Into flocks of followers,
Led by the chief gander,
Whipped up in a trance.
As a child, I always thought
That one day I’d step out
To find that all the fools are gone,
Flown to distant lands.

Oh days of my innocence,
A blissful illusion!
What landscapes of fancy
I frequented in yore!
Nature has upon her lips
A dastardly smirk.
Clearly, of Her ways,
I need to learn much more.

Meanwhile, the wise man
Keeps wandering in circles —
Solitude, serenity —
The markings of a sage.
That makes him convenient
To snatch out in the open;
Soon they’ll all be captured
And locked up in a cage.

Once they’ve all been captured,
We’ll enter an era
That’s hard to imagine
And harder to describe.
To be wise is bothersome,
To be foolish — trouble;
We need something average,
But those are hard to find.

To be a fool is profitable,
But nobody wants it.
To be wise is wanted,
But it will lead to ruin.
Nature has upon her lips
A dastardly prophecy…
But perhaps the average
Will turn up someday soon. 

Translated by Nikita Pavlov