Osip Mandelshtam
I will not see the Phèdre of grand renown...

I will not see the Phèdre of grand renown,
in an ancient many-terraced theater,
its high gallery coated with smoke and soot,
by the light of weeping candles.
And, indifferent to the actors’ vanity,
as they gather the harvest of handclaps and applause
I will not hear the line supported by its double rhyme
directed to the footlights of the stage:

— How repugnant to me are these coverings...

Theater of Racine! A mighty barrier
divides us from the other world;
ruffled by deep frowns
between them and us the curtain lies.

From shoulders fall the classical shawls,
melted with suffering a voice grows stronger,
reaches the outraged temper
of a syllable white-hot with indignation...

I am too late for the festival of Racine!

Again the rotted posters butter,
and there is a faint smell of orange peel,
and my neighbor, as if awakening
from the lethargy of a hundred years, says to me:
— Tortured past endurance by Melpomene’s madness,
in this life I long only for peace;
let us depart, while still the jackal-spectators
have not come for the tormenting of the Muse!

That a Greek might see our games...

Translated by David McDuff