{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_12458/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_12458","id":"gutenberg_12458","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12458","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Poetry","Category: Russian Literature","Polish poetry -- Translations into English","Russian poetry -- Translations into English"],"text":"Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\nTHE TALISMAN\nFROM THE RUSSIAN OF ALEXANDER PUSHKIN\nWITH OTHER PIECES\n\n\n\n\nContents:\n\n   The Talisman\n   The Mermaid\n   Ancient Russian Song\n   Ancient Ballad\n   The Renegade\n\n\n\n\nTHE TALISMAN\n\n\nFrom the Russian of Pushkin.\n\nWhere fierce the surge with awful bellow\nDoth ever lash the rocky wall;\nAnd where the moon most brightly mellow\nDost beam when mists of evening fall;\nWhere midst his harem's countless blisses\nThe Moslem spends his vital span,\nA Sorceress there with gentle kisses\nPresented me a Talisman.\n\nAnd said:  until thy latest minute\nPreserve, preserve my Talisman;\nA secret power it holds within it--\n'Twas love, true love the gift did plan.\nFrom pest on land, or death on ocean,\nWhen hurricanes its surface fan,\nO object of my fond devotion!\nThou scap'st not by my Talisman.\n\nThe gem in Eastern mine which slumbers,\nOr ruddy gold 'twill not bestow;\n'Twill not subdue the turban'd numbers,\nBefore the Prophet's shrine which bow;\nNor high through air on friendly pinions\nCan bear thee swift to home and clan,\nFrom mournful climes and strange dominions--\nFrom South to North--my Talisman.\n\nBut oh! when crafty eyes thy reason\nWith sorceries sudden seek to move,\nAnd when in Night's mysterious season\nLips cling to thine, but not in love--\nFrom proving then, dear youth, a booty\nTo those who falsely would trepan\nFrom new heart wounds, and lapse from duty,\nProtect thee shall my Talisman.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MERMAID\n\n\nFrom the Russian of Pushkin.\n\nClose by a lake, begirt with forest,\nTo save his soul, a Monk intent,\nIn fasting, prayer and labours sorest\nHis days and nights, secluded, spent;\nA grave already to receive him\nHe fashion'd, stooping, with his spade,\nAnd speedy, speedy death to give him,\nWas all that of the Saints he pray'd.\n\nAs once in summer's time of beauty,\nOn bended knee, before his door,\nTo God he paid his fervent duty,\nThe woods grew more and more obscure:\nDown o'er the lake a fog descended,\nAnd slow the full moon, red as blood,\nMidst threat'ning clouds up heaven wended--\nThen gazed the Monk upon the flood.\n\nHe gaz'd, and, fear his mind surprising,\nHimself no more the hermit knows:\nHe sees with foam the waters rising,\nAnd then subsiding to repose,\nAnd sudden, light as night-ghost wanders,\nA female thence her form uprais'd,\nPale as the snow which winter squanders,\nAnd on the bank herself she plac'd.\n\nShe gazes on the hermit hoary,\nAnd combs her long hair, tress by tress;\nThe Monk he quakes, but on the glory\nLooks wistful of her loveliness;\nNow becks with hand that winsome creature,\nAnd now she noddeth with her head,\nThen sudden, like a fallen meteor,\nShe plunges in her watery bed.\n\nNo sleep that night the old man cheereth,\nNo prayer throughout next day he pray'd\nStill, still, against his wish, appeareth\nBefore him that mysterious maid.\nDarkness again the wood investeth,\nThe moon midst clouds is seen to sail,\nAnd once more on the margin resteth\nThe maiden beautiful and pale.\n\nWith head she bow'd, with look she courted,\nAnd kiss'd her hand repeatedly,\nSplashed with the water, gaily sported,\nAnd wept and laugh'd like infancy--\nShe names the monk, with tones heart-urging\nExclaims \"O Monk, come, come to me!\" {7}\nThen sudden midst the waters merging\nAll, all is in tranquillity.\n\nOn the third night the hermit fated\nBeside those shores of sorcery,\nSat and the damsel fair awaited,\nAnd dark the woods began to be--\nThe beams of morn the night mists scatter,\nNo Monk is seen then, well a day!\nAnd only, only in the water\nThe lasses view'd his beard of grey.\n\n\n\n\nANCIENT RUSSIAN SONG\n\n\ni.\n\nThe windel-straw nor grass so shook and trembled;\nAs the good and gallant stripling shook and trembled;\nA linen shirt so fine his frame invested,\nO'er the shirt was drawn a bright pelisse of scarlet\nThe sleeves of that pelisse depended backward,\nThe lappets of its front were button'd backward,\nAnd were spotted with the blood of unbelievers;\nSee the good and gallant stripling reeling goeth,\nFrom his eyeballs hot and briny tears distilling;\nOn his bended bow his figure he supporteth,\nTill his bended bow has lost its goodly gilding;\nNot a single soul the stripling good encounter'd,\nTill encounter'd he the mother dear who bore him:\nO my boy, O my treasure, and my darling!\nBy what mean hast thou render'd thee so drunken,\nTo the clay that thou bowest down thy figure,\nAnd the grass and the windel-straws art grasping?\nTo his Mother thus the gallant youth made answer:\n'Twas not I, O mother dear, who made me drunken,\nBut the Sultan of the Turks has made me drunken\nWith three potent, various potations;\nThe first of them his keenly cutting sabre;\nThe next of them his never failing jav'lin;\nThe third of them his pistol's leaden bullet.\n\nii.\n\nO rustle not, ye verdant oaken branches!\nWhilst I tell the gallant stripling's tale of daring;\nWhen this morn they led the gallant youth to judgment\nBefore the dread tribunal of the grand Tsar,\nThen our Tsar and Gosudar began to question:\nTell me, tell me, little lad, and peasant bantling!\nWho assisted thee to ravage and to plunder;\nI trow thou hadst full many wicked comrades.\nI'll tell thee, Tsar! our country's hope and glory,\nI'll tell thee all the truth, without a falsehood:\nThou must know that I had comrades, four in number;\nOf my comrades four the first was gloomy midnight;\nThe second was a steely dudgeon dagger;\nThe third it was a swift and speedy courser;\nThe fourth of my companions was a bent bow;\nMy messengers were furnace-harden'd arrows.\nReplied the Tsar, our country's hope and glory:\nOf a truth, thou little lad, and peasant's bantling!\nIn thieving thou art skill'd and giving answers;\nFor thy answers and thy thieving I'll reward thee\nWith a house upon the windy plain constructed\nOf two pillars high, surmounted by a cross-beam.\n\niii.\n\nO thou field of my delight so fair and verdant!\nThou scene of all my happiness and pleasure!\nO how charmingly Nature hath array'd thee\nWith the soft green grass and juicy clover,\nAnd with corn-flowers blooming and luxuriant.\nOne thing there is alone, that doth deform thee;\nIn the midst of thee, O field, so fair and verdant!\nA clump of bushes stands--a clump of hazels,\nUpon their very top there sits an eagle,\nAnd upon the bushes' top--upon the hazels,\nCompress'd within his claw he holds a raven,\nAnd its hot blood he sprinkles on the dry ground;\nAnd beneath the bushes' clump--beneath the hazels,\nLies void of life the good and gallant stripling;\nAll wounded, pierc'd and mangled is his body.\nAs the little tiny swallow or the chaffinch,\nRound their warm and cosey nest are seen to hover,\nSo hovers there the mother dear who bore him;\nAnd aye she weeps, as flows a river's water;\nHis sister weeps as flows a streamlet's water;\nHis youthful wife, as falls the dew from heaven--\nThe Sun, arising, dries the dew of heaven.\n\n\n\n\nANCIENT BALLAD\n\n\nFrom the Malo Russian.\n\nFrom the wood a sound is gliding,\nVapours dense the plain are hiding,\nHow yon Dame her son is chiding.\n\"Son, away! nor longer tarry!\nWould the Turks thee off would carry!\"\n\"Ha; the Turkmen know and heed me;\nCoursers good the Turkmen breed me.\"\n\nFrom the wood a sound is gliding,\nVapours dense the plain are hiding,\nStill that Dame her son is chiding:\n\"Hence, begone! nor longer tarry!\nWould the Horde {11} thee off would carry!\"\n\"Ha! the Horde has learnt to prize me;\n\"'Tis the Horde with gold supplies me.\"\n\nBrings his horse his eldest sister,\nAnd the next his arms, which glister,\nWhilst the third, with childish prattle,\nCries, \"when wilt return from battle?\"\n\n\"Fill thy hand with sands, ray blossom!\nSow them on the rock's rude bosom,\nNight and morning stroll to view them,\nWith thy briny tears bedew them,\nAnd when they shall sprout in glory\nI'll return me from the foray.\"\n\nFrom the wood a sound is gliding,\nVapours dense the plain are hiding,\nCries the Dame in anxious measure:\n\"Stay, I'll wash thy head, my treasure!\"\n\"Me shall wash the rains which splash me,\nMe shall comb the thorns which gash me,\nMe shall dry the winds which lash me.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE RENEGADE\n\n\nFrom the Polish of Mickiewicz.\n\nNow pay ye the heed that is fitting,\nWhilst I sing ye the Iran adventure;\nThe Pasha on sofa was sitting\nIn his harem's glorious centre.\n\nGreek sang and Tcherkass for his pleasure,\nAnd Kergeesian captive is dancing;\nIn the eyes of the first heaven's azure,\nAnd in those black of Eblis is glancing.\n\nBut the Pasha's attention is failing,\nO'er his visage his fair turban stealeth;\nFrom tchebouk {13a} he sleep is inhaling\nWhilst round him sweet vapours he dealeth.\n\nWhat rumour without is there breeding?\nYe fair ranks asunder why wend ye?\nKyslar Aga {13b}, a strange captive leading,\nCometh forward and crieth.  \"Efendy!\n\nWhose face has the power when present\nMidst the stars in divan which do muster,\nWhich amidst the gems of night's crescent\nHas the blaze of Aldeboran's lustre.\n\nGlance nearer, bright star!  I have tiding,\nGlad tiding, behold how in duty\nFrom far Lehistan the wind, gliding.\nHas brought this fresh tribute of beauty.\n\nIn the Padishaw's garden there bloometh,\nIn proud Istambul, no such blossom;\nFrom the wintry regions she cometh\nWhose memory so lives in thy bosom.\"\n\nThen the gauzes removes he which shade her,\nAt her beauty all wonder intensely;\nOne moment the Pasha survey'd her,\nAnd, dropping his tchebouk, without sense lay.\n\nHis turban has fallen from his forehead,\nTo assist him the bystanders started--\nHis mouth foams, his face blackens horrid--\nSee the Renegade's soul has departed.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n\n{7}  In the book the opening double-quotes are double commas.  These\nhave been replaced by opening quotes in this eBook - DP.\n\n{11}  The Tartar Horde,--generally known by the appellation of \"The\nGolden,\" which, some centuries since, was the dreaded and terrible\nscourge of Southern Russia.\n\n{13a}  Turkish pipe.\n\n{13b}  Keeper of the women.","title":"The Talisman, from the Russian of Alexander Pushkin; With Other Pieces","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":1704}