Archives for: December 2009, 14

«Последний тост» Анны Ахматовой

December 14th, 2009 by Don

In June I came across a poem by Anna Akhmatova that was new to me. I disliked the translation that was presented with it, so I decided to make a new one. To go about the process, I began with a word for word gloss next to the original:

Анна Ахматова
Последний тост

 Anna Akhmatova
Last toast

Я пью за разорённый дом,
За злую жизнь мою,
За одиночество вдвоём,
И за тебя я пью,-

 I drink to the destroyed home
To my cruel life
To loneliness two-together
And to you I drink

За ложь меня предавших губ,
За мёртвый холод глаз,
За то, что мир жесток и груб,
За то, что Бог не спас.

 To the lie of lips that betrayed me
To the dead cold of eyes
To the fact that that world is harsh and crude
To the fact that God did not rescue
27 июня 1934, Шереметьевский Дом June 27, 1934
Sheremetev Palace

I wanted my final translation to reflect the original rhyme scheme, but I couldn't come up with any lines with “did not rescue” or “did not save” that flowed in neat iambs, so I eliminated the “not” approach and rephrased it in the positive with “God let this be.” With that established, I could then work backwards so that all the previous lines would lead up to it. Here's what I came up with:

The Last Toast

Here's to our family, now in shatters
And here's to all my cruel days
The loneliness of two in tatters
And cheers to you and all your ways

Here's to the lips that fin'lly cheated
To cold dead eyes that cannot see
A world where justice is not meted
And cheers to God that let this be

June 27, 1934
Sheremetev Palace

What can we say about this translation? It captures the bitterness and despondency which are the essence of the original. That by itself makes it a decent translation. It flows decently in English. That makes it a good translation. It captures the irony of each line of the toast, and it approximates the ABAB rhyme scheme of the original. That combination of successes makes it a very good translation.

Notes:

  • I am not an Akhmatova scholar and have never properly researched her life, so it is entirely possible that my translation misses autobiographical references from the original.
  • Akhmatova lived in an apartment in the garden wing of Sheremetev Palace on the Fontanka embankment from the mid 1920s till 1952. (Wikipedia)
  • If you are interested in poetic translation as a topic, you can see some variations I played with here.
  • The third line means “to the loneliness of two together.” It is so concisely put in Russian that I don't know of any way to capture its punchiness in English. The word одиночество contains the root один one, and “two together” contains the stem дв- ‘two,’ and the contrast between them is heart-rendingly obvious in Russian. (The English word ‘lonely’ also comes from a phrase that used to mean “all one,” but we no longer feel the ‘one’ part of the word as clearly as the Russians understand один in одиночество.) The only option is to find some phrase in English that gathers heartbreak neatly. “In tatters” is my best attempt.
  • Line 7 is the one most open to criticism. It is only loosely connected with the original in that a world without justice is ipso facto a cruel world. Doubtless I will be accused of отсебятина. If anyone can come up with a line to replace it, making whatever other adjustments are necessary for the poem to work, I'd love to see it.
  • The word “cheated” in line 5 will be first interpreted by the English reader as meaning spousal cheating. If upon study it turns out that it was betrayal that had nothing to do with the marital relationship, then the line needs to be rewritten. That of course means the rhyme in line 7 will most likely have to change as well.
  • Feel free to add your own translation in the comment section.

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