A stark barren fact that all logic opposes,
Bare truth that oppresses my soul:
Atrid lies dead on a bed of red roses,
So how can I live, how my grief to condole?
All that we dreamt of, always and ever,
Longings and yearnings and fears,
All was made flesh in his purest endeavors,
His eyes where sereneness inhered.
Puissant like wind were his muscles of might,
Lissome with grace were his legs at knees’ bend,
He was as lovely as clouds at first light,
The leader of gold-laden Argos: Godsend.
And I, what am I? A shred from old lesions,
A javelin lost in the greenness of lawn,
The shepherd lies dead, the chieftain of legions,
While I, a mere nothing, breathe on.
The depths of lake waters are calling my name,
Rebuke gleams in sheen of each dawn,
Leaden, like rocks in my soul, is the shame,
Losing one’s king, to live on!
Смутную душу мою тяготит
Странный и страшный вопрос:
Можно ли жить, если умер Атрид,
Умер на ложе из роз?
Все, что нам снилось всегда и везде,
Наше желанье и страх,
Все отражалось, как в чистой воде,
В этих спокойных очах.
В мышцах жила несказанная мощь,
Нега — в изгибе колен,
Был он прекрасен, как облако, — вождь
Золотоносных Микен.
Что я? Обломок старинных обид
Дротик, упавший в траву.
Умер водитель народов, Атрид, —
Я же, ничтожный, живу.
Манит прозрачность глубоких озер,
Смотрит с укором заря.
Тягостен, тягостен этот позор —
Жить, потерявши царя!
«While lounging in a chair, I looked up at the ceiling / Where, teasing my imagination, / A circle hangs above the quiet lamp, / And spins just like a ghostly shadow. Within the flicker there's a trace of autumn sunset: / As if, above the rooftop and the garden, / Unable to fly off, afraid...»
«My face turned upwards to the sky / One summer night I lay upon some hay / A lively close-knit starry chorus / Was flickering all around. The mute earth, nebulous and dreamlike, / Rushed off without a trace / And I, like Eden's first inhabitant, / Faced night's gaze all alone. Was it ...»
«I have come to you with greetings / To tell you the sun has risen, / To say that its burning light / Through the leaves has sent a flutter; To say that the woods have waked, / Every corner, and every twig, / Every bird has taken wing / Full of appetite for spring; To say I have come a...»
«What grief! The alley's end / Is lost in snow again today, / And once again, the silver snakes / Are crawling through the snow. The sky's without a patch of blue, / The steppe's completely smooth and white, / A single crow is struggling hard / To beat its wings against the storm. My s...»