Osip Mandelshtam
How luxury of these wares and robes and lace...

«How luxury of these wares and robes and lace
Is loathsome to me in my disgrace»
«In the stone Troezene
A famous sorrow will be
Stairs in the king's name
Will grow red from shame
Black sun will rise above
A mother in love»
«Oh if the hatred only in my chest had boiled
But recognition from my lips recoiled»
«Phaedra burns with a black flame in broad daylight
A funeral torch burns in broad daylight
Fear your mother, Hippolitus,
Phaedra the night guards you in broad daylight»
«With black love I blotched the sun's face
Death will cool my ash from a clean vase.»
«We fear, we do not dare
Help relieve the king's despair.
Hearbroken with Theseus,
Night attacked him too
We, with a funeral song
Send the dead along
Passion sleepless and wild
Will have the black sun reviled.»

Translated by Ilya Shambat