Osip Mandelstam
trans. by Sasha Dugdale
Menagerie
Peace—the word abandoned
At the start of this abused age;
A lamp in the depths of a cave
And the pure air of mountainous land,
Air we knew not how to breathe,
And wanted no more to taste.
And again the pipes keep trace,
Their thin shaggy goat-like reeds.
While lambs and oxen grazed
On the meadow’s abundant crop
And gentle eagles dropped
To rest on the cliff’s drowsing face,
The German reared the eaglet,
The British lion was tamed,
A Gallic comb aflame
On the cockerel’s topknot.
Now a savage wields the club
Heracles’ weapon,
And the black earth is barren—
Yielding nothing from the mud.
I’ll take up a withered stick
And with it conjure fire,
Let the wild beasts in fear
Scatter from me in the dark.
The cock, the lion, the long-swooping
Eagle, the embrace of the bear—
We’ll build a cage for war
Warming their pelts for sleep.
But I sing the wine of ages—
From where Italian speech flows—
Slavic and Germanic swaddling clothes
Line the early Aryan cradle.
Italy, aren’t the chariots of Rome
Too much effort to disturb
Because some rowdy bird
Has flown away from home?
Neighbor, do not scold—
The eagle bristles in rage—
So what if the stone’s too large
For the sling to hold?
If the beasts were all confined
We’d be at peace once more
The Volga’s flow restored
The radiance to the Rhein
And with the violence of dance
The wiser man will honour
As a demigod, the foreigner
On the great rivers’ banks.
1916
Osip Mandelstam was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1891 but moved to Russia with his family in his youth. An Acmeist, Mandelstam’s poems are centered on human perspective, intuitive, and organic. He also authored essays, literary criticism, and translations. Refusing to compromise his morals, Mandelstam often wrote against those in power and was arrested several times. He died in a Soviet transit camp in 1938.
Sasha Dugdale is a poet and translator. Her most recent translations include the play Bad Roads by Natalya Vorozhbit, produced by the Royal Court Theatre in 2017, and Maria Stepanova’s poetry and prose. She was shortlisted for the 2020 T.S. Eliot Prize for her Deformations, her fifth collection of poetry.