Like an ungraceful little girl you appeared before me.
Sappho
«Like an ungraceful little girl you appeared before me» —
Ah, one line of Sappho pierced me like an arrow!
At night I mused over your curly little head,
Passion trading places with a mother’s tenderness in my frantic heart, —
«Like an ungraceful little girl you appeared before me» —
It came to me, how you avoided a kiss by a trick,
I recalled those eyes with an impossible pupil…
Into my house you stepped, happy with me, as with a new toy:
As with a belt, a fistful of beads, or colorful sandals —
«Like an ungraceful little girl you appeared before me» —
But you under the blow of love — what soft gold!
I bent towards your face, pale in passionate shadows,
Where it was as if death had rubbed a snowy puff….
I thank you even for that, sweet one, that in those days
«Like an ungraceful little girl you appeared before me.»
Девочкой маленькой ты мне предстала неловкою.
Сафо
«Девочкой маленькой ты мне предстала неловкою» —
Ах, одностишья стрелой Сафо пронзила меня!
Ночью задумалась я над курчавой головкою,
Нежностью матери страсть в бешеном сердце сменя, —
«Девочкой маленькой ты мне предстала неловкою».
Вспомнилось, как поцелуй отстранила уловкою,
Вспомнились эти глаза с невероятным зрачком...
В дом мой вступила ты, счастлива мной, как обновкою:
Поясом, пригоршней бус или цветным башмачком, —
«Девочкой маленькой ты мне предстала неловкою».
Но под ударом любви ты — что золото ковкое!
Я наклонилась к лицу, бледному в страстной тени,
Где словно смерть провела снеговою пуховкою...
Благодарю и за то, сладостная, что в те дни
«Девочкой маленькой ты мне предстала неловкою».
«A cast-iron fence, / A bed of pine, / How sweet that I no longer / Need to be jealous. A bed’s made for me / With sobbing and prayer; / Now go wherever on earth / You wish, God bless you! Now your ears won’t burn / With frenzied speech, / Now a candle won’t flicker / Till t...»
«I bow to them as if over a cup, / Those innumerable precious lines — / This is the black, tender news / Of our youth stained with blood. The air is the air I breathed / That night above the abyss, / That night of iron emptiness, / When all calls and cries were vain. How rich the scen...»
«Like a bird, the echo answers me. / B.P. 1 A unique voice fell silent yesterday; / our woodland companion has gone his way, / changed into life-giving ears of grain / or – as he liked to sing – into the finest rain. / And all the flowers in all the world / burst into bloom to greet...»
«Though it's seldom I think about you / and I'm not enamoured of your fate, / I can't erase the mark made in my soul / that indifferent occasion we met. On purpose I pass by your red house, / your red house beside the dark river, / and I know that I'm troubling your life in the sun / and...»