Eugene Onegin Part 38

10. a second crown: The first crown is the wedding crown.

11. barin: Squire or landowner.

12. penates: (Latin) guardian deities of the household.

13. Ochakov medal: Ochakov, on the Black Sea, was seized from the Turks in 1788 by Suvorov, under whom Larin served. The commemorative medal was given to all officers taking part in the campaign. Brigadier (a general's rank) Larin might have expected the more ill.u.s.trious 'order'. Pushkin might have wanted thereby to keep Larin ordinary.

14. Lethe: River of fortgetfulness in Greek mythology.

15. Aonia's maids: The Muses in Greek mythology. Aeonia was a region of ancient Boeotia, containing the mountains of Helicon and Cithaeron, sacred to the Muses.

16. will pat the old man's laurel crown: Alongside the ignoramus, Pushkin addresses his future devotee. In the 'old man' Pushkin optimistically envisages his own future. A Latin teacher at Pushkin's lycee, when introducing a cla.s.sical text, would always remark: 'Let's pat the old man on the head.'

CHAPTER III.

1. Elle etait fille... Malfilatre: 'She was a girl, she was in love.' A line from Narcisse, ou l'ile de Venus (Narcissus, or the Island of Venus, 1768), a posthumous poem in four cantos by the second-rate French poet Jacques Charles Louis Clinchamp de Malfilatre (1733a67), probably taken by Pushkin from Laharpe's anthology of ancient and modern literature used at Pushkin's lycee.

2. Jam in small dishes: Home-made preserves a cherry, raspberry, strawberry, gooseberry, red and blackcurrant a were presented to guests in small gla.s.s dishes on a tray. In a variant Pushkin has with but one spoon for all'. The guests would transfer their helpings (by means of that spoon) on to their respective saucers and then would eat the jam with their teaspoons or mix it with their tea.

3. board: Pushkin omitted the rest of the stanza in the final version, though it exists in his fair copy.

4. Svetlana: Heroine of Vasily Zhukovsky's ballad of the same name (1812). Zhukovsky (1783a1852) was Russia's outstanding Romantic poet, a friend and protector of Pushkin and a mentor of Nicholas I's son and heir. Svetlana was a free adaptation of Gottfried August Burger's (1747a94) ballad Lenore (1773).

5. The lover of Julie Wolmar: St Preux, hero of Rousseau's Julie, ou la Nouvelle Heloise (Julie, or the New Heloise, 1761). Julie and St Preux are lovers, but only until she marries and a.s.sumes her husband's name, Wolmar.

6. Malek Adhel: Hero of Mathilde, ou Memoires tires de l'histoire des croisades (Mathilde or the Crusades, 1805), a novel by Sophie Cottin (1774a1807), described by Pushkin in his note as mediocre'. Malek Adel is a Muslim general at the time of the Third Crusade who falls in love with Princesse Mathilde, sister of Richard Lionheart.

7. de Linar: 'Hero of baroness Krudener's delightful tale,' notes Pushkin. The tale in question is Valerie, ou Lettres de Gustave de Linar a Ernest de G. (Valerie, or Letters from Gustave de Linar to Ernest de G., 1803). Mme von Krudener (1764a1824) was a German novelist and mystic who wrote in French. De Linar, a dark-haired and violent young Swede, is the unrequited lover of Countess Valerie (probably from Livonia), who, like Julie in La Nouvelle Heloise (see note 5 above), remains faithful to her older husband. She marries at fourteen and meets de Linar at sixteen.

8. Werther: Hero of Goethe's Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther, 1774). Werther commits suicide after failing to win the love of Lotte, who is married to his friend.

9. Grandison: Hero of Richardson's Sir Charles Grandison (1754).

10. Delphine: Eponymous heroine of Mme de Stael's novel Delphine (1802). It has been suggested, but not accepted, that the Delphine mentioned by Pushkin belongs to a story by Marmontel, L'Ecole de l'amitie (School of Friendship, 1792), translated in 1822 by Nikolai Karamzin (1766a1826), an important predecessor of Pushkin. In Mme. de Stael's novel Delphine is a widow of twenty-one whose admirer she gives up out of consideration for his wife.

11. Clarissa: Heroine of Richardson's Clarissa Harlowe (1748).

12. The British Muse's tales: Romanticism was in Russia largely taken to be an English trend in European literature.

13. the pensive vampire: Pushkin comments in his note: 'A tale wrongly attributed to Lord Byron.' During a stay in Switzerland in 1816 Byron, Sh.e.l.ley, Mary Sh.e.l.ley and Byron's physician Polidori competed in writing horror stories of which the most successful and famous was Mary Sh.e.l.ley's Frankenstein. Byron composed a fragment, The Vampyre, which Polidori later turned into a novel (1819).

14. Melmoth: Pushkin's note: 'Melmoth, Maturin's work of genius.' Charles Robert Maturin (1782a1824), an Irish clergyman, wrote Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), a long Satanic horror tale.

15. The Wandering Jew: The legend of the Wandering Jew was common at the time. Pushkin's sources are probably Mathew Lewis's (1775a1818) The Monk (1796) and Jan Potocki's (1761a1815) enormous novel The Ma.n.u.script Found in Sara-gossa, published between 1803 and 1814.

16. the Corsair: Hero of Byron's poem of the same name.

17. Sbogar: Hero of Charles Nodier's (1780a1844) Jean Sbogar (1818). Sbogar is the Dalmatian chief of a robber band who redistribute wealth in favour of the common good'.

18. Coquettes... more a.s.suredly: An imitation of the French poet Evariste de Parny's 'La Main' ('The Hand'). Parny (1753a1814) was renowned for his elegant love poetry. See lines 13a14 of stanza 29.

19. The Well-Meaner: Pushkin's note reads: 'A journal edited by the late A. Izmailov in a rather slipshod way.' Pushkin and his friends treated the journal as a joke and privately read line 4 as With a phallus in their hand'.

20. seminarist... in yellow shawl: In this case a seminarist is a learned woman.

21. Bogdanovich: Ippolit Fedorovich Bogdanovich (1743a1803), poet, author of Dushen'ka (1783a9), based on the story of Cupid and Psyche; regarded as the founder of light poetry' and valued by Pushkin for opening up poetry to popular speech. His influence on Pushkin is felt in Ruslan and Lyudmila (1820).

22. tender Parny's: Evariste Desire Desforges, Chevalier de Parny (1753a1814) French poet. He used the word tendre profusely in his elegies.

23. Bard of The Feasts: Yevgeny Abramovich Baratynsky (1800a1844), an outstanding poet of Pushkin's period. The Feasts was written in Finland in 1820, where he was serving as a private in the army, having been expelled from military school for theft. It evokes the ebullient days spent in St Petersburg in 1819, when he got to know Pushkin. But he was more famed as an elegiac poet.

24. Der Freischutz: Opera by Carl Maria von Weber (1786a1826), a popular import when Pushkin was writing his third chapter.

25. The rosy seal: A round piece of sticky paper used to seal envelopes.

26. Song of the Girls: Invented by Pushkin, but adapted from folk songs he heard on his family estate at Mikhailovskoye. This is a wedding song where the bridegroom is symbolized by cherries and the bride by berries. It has the double effect of keeping the girls from eating the fruit and adding to Tatiana's situation.

CHAPTER IV.

1. La morale... Necker: 'Morality is in the nature of things.' Jacques Necker (1732a1804) was a politician and financier, minister in Louis XVI's government at the beginning of the French Revolution and father of Mme de Stael, who quotes Pushkin's epigraph in her Considerations sur les Princ.i.p.aux Evenements de la Revolution Francaise (Considerations on the Princ.i.p.al Events of the French Revolution, 1818).

2. Chateaubriand: Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand (1768a1848), French Romantic writer and politician, author of the novel Rene (1802).

3. Qu'ecrirez-vous... Annette: 'What will you write on these tablets?'... Ever yours, Annette.'

4. Tolstoy: Count Fyodor Petrovich Tolstoy (1783a1875), artist.

5. a madrigal: In this context is a complimentary poem written for society alb.u.ms.

6. And, river-like... verities: A rare example of a two-rhyme octet resembling the Italian sonnet, which I render imperfectly a ababaabb. A similar, but less exact version is to be found in Chapter V, stanza 10.

7. Yazykov: Nikolay Mikhailovich Yazykov (1803a47), Romantic poet.

8. an awesome critic: The critic is Wilhelm Kuchelbecker (1797a1846), who in an essay of 1824 denounced the elegy and praised the ode.

9. The Other Version: The reference is to Chuzhoy tolk (1795), a satirical verse narrative by Ivan Dmitriyev (1760a1837). The t.i.tle may be translated as The Other Opinion' or The Opinion of Others'. The poem ridicules the overblown style of the ode, attributing mercenary aims to its authors. The satirist and the lyric poet are characters in the poem.

10. 36: Stanza 36 was published only in the separate edition of Chapters IV and V.

11. Gulnare: Byron. Gulnare is the heroine of The Corsair.

12. Then drank... dressed: Omitted in the final text. After 'And dressed' there follows in Pushkin's fair copy: but you'd not care to don/The article that he put on'.

13. (You've guessed... 'petals': Pushkin parodies a hackneyed rhyme which he himself used elsewhere: morozy/rozy, frosts/roses. The suggestion is perhaps reddening of the cheeks in the cold. The rhyme is irreproducible. Having used settles/petals before, in Chapter 1, stanza 16, I decided to use it again here, hoping that the reader might remember it. In neither case is it a hackneyed rhyme, but in both cases the context is frost. Compare a similar rhyme in Chapter IV, stanza 44, where Pushkin rhymes sladost' with mladost', sweetness/youth: Dreams, dreams! Where is your sweetness?/Where is its stock rhyme, youth?' which I have translated, this time more successfully, I think, as: Where are my dreams, the dreams I cherished?/What rhyme now follows, if not perished' since cherished' and perished' have a more hackneyed ring in English. I have used the same rhyme in Chapter VII, stanza 28. What Pushkin is getting at in both cases is the paucity of rhymes in the Russian poetry of his time.

14. Pradt and Scott: Dominique de Pradt (1759a1837), French political writer and priest to Napoleon; later a liberal under the Restoration. Sir Walter Scott (1771a1832), Scottish poet and father of the historical novel, who influenced Pushkin in the writing of his own historical novel The Captain's Daughter (1836). Pushkin read Scott in French translations.

15. Ai: Ai or Ay is the name of a town in the Marne Department of Northern France, where this champagne originates.

16. 'Between the wolf and dog': A translation of entre chien et loup, meaning dusk or the time of day when it is too dark for a shepherd to distinguish his dog from a wolf.

17. Lafontaine: Not the fabulist Jean de Lafontaine, but August Lafontaine (1759a1831), a mediocre German writer, 'author of numerous family novels' (Pushkin's note), popular in Russia at the end of the eighteenth century.

CHAPTER V.

1. Never know... Zhukovsky: Epigraph from concluding lines of Zhukovsky's ballad Svetlana (1812), which was considered a model of Romantic poetry based on folklore. Svetlana shadows Tatiana in this chapter.

2. kibitka: A hooded carriage.

3. One poet: In a note Pushkin refers to Vyazemsky and his poem 'The First Snow' (1819). The epigraph from Chapter I is likewise taken from Vyazemsky's poem.

4. Finnish Maid: A reference to a fragment of Baratynsky's poem Eda (1825).

5. With curious gaze... tomcat chants: Dish-divining took place at Yuletide and Twelfth Night. Divining times were divided between 'holy evenings' (25a31 December) and 'fearful evenings' (1a6 January). Tatiana chose the second period. Girls and women dropped rings into a dish containing water that was then covered with a cloth. As each is removed, a song is sung. The one sung for Tatiana predicts unhappiness and death. Tomcat songs foretell marriage, as Pushkin remarks in a note. In these the tomcat invites the she-cat to join him on his comfortable stove.

6. training a mirror on the moon: Another method of divination whereby a future husband was supposed to appear in the mirror's reflection.

7. Agafon: In this context a comical peasant's name, derived from the Greek Agathon. As Pushkin points out in his note 13 to Chapter II, concerning his choice of Tatiana's name, sweet-sounding' Greek names are only used by the common people. Asking the name of the first pedestrian Tatiana comes across is another ritual for discovering the name of her future intended.

8. fear a.s.sailed Tatiana... Felt fear as well: In her dream Svetlana, heroine of Zhukovsky's ballad (see above), conjures up her lover only to be carried off by him to his grave. This reference presages Tatiana's nightmare.

9. We won't tell fortunes all night through: See Chapter IV, note 6 on the two-rhyme octet in Italian sonnets.

10. Her silken girdle she unknotted: Unknotting her girdle is a magical act like taking off a crucifix. It is an invitation to the secret world of superst.i.tion. Russians would often wear a belt in the bathhouse to ward off evil spirits.

11. Lel: Artificial G.o.d of love derived by eighteenth-century writers from chants and cries a.s.sociated with wedding ceremonies (lyuli, lel', lelyo).

12. Ladies' Fashion: The full t.i.tle is Journal of Ladies' Fashions and refers to the French publication Journal des dames et des modes (1797a1838), which set the fashions throughout Europe. Tatiana, as Pushkin points out in Chapter III, stanza 26, line 6, did not read Russian journals, nor did a specific women's fashion journal exist in Russia.

13. Martin Zadek:A fict.i.tious person probably invented in Switzerland in the eighteenth century. His book of prophecies and divinations, the impressive t.i.tle of which is too long to reproduce here, was translated from German into Russian and published in three separate editions (1814, 1821, 1827).

14. Malvina: A novel by Mme Cottin (1773a1807).

15. Petriads: Pushkin gives this ironic, high-sounding name to the various mediocre poems on Peter the Great current at the time.

16. Marmontel: Jean-Francois Marmontel (1723a99), French author; volume 3 of his complete works, all of which Pushkin possessed, contained his Contes moraux (Moral Tales).

17. her crimson hands extending: Pushkin comments in his note 34: 'A parody of well-known lines by Lomonosov: Dawn with crimson hand/From morning's tranquil waters'. These are the opening lines of a Lomonosov ode celebrating Empress Elizabeth's ascent to the throne. Pushkin's parody recalls the discussion of the ode in Chapter IV, stanza 33 . Lomonosov's 'crimson hand' derives from Homer's 'rosy-fingered dawn'.M. V. Lomonosov (1711a65) was a scientist, poet, creator of the modern literary language and founder of Moscow University.

18. britska: A light carriage.

19. Pustyakov: Most of the names in this stanza are farcical, largely deriving from the comedies of Fonvizin (see note 28 to Chapter I). Pustyakov means Trifle, Gvozdin Basher, Skotinin Brute, Petush-kov Rooster or c.o.c.kahoop. Buyanov (Rowdy) is the hero of a skittish poem The Dangerous Neighbour by Pushkin's uncle Vasily Pushkin (1770a1830). This allows his nephew to introduce Buyanov here as his cousin.

20. Kharlikov: Another comic name meaning Throttle'.

21. Reveillez-vous, belle endormie: 'Awake, sleeping beauty.'

22. pie: The pie or pirog was either a meat or cabbage pie and traditional for a nameday feast.

23. blanc-manger: Nabokov writes in his Commentary: 'blanc-manger (p.r.o.nounced as in French): This almond-milk jelly (an old French and English sweet, not to be confused with our modern 'blancmange') might be artificially coloured. Its presence (as well as the presence of Russian champagne) at Dame Larin's festive table stressed both the old-world style of her household and a comparative meagreness of means.

24. Tsimlyansky: A sparkling wine from Tsimlyanskaya Stanitsa, a Cossack settlement on the Don.

25. Zizi: Zizi or Yevpraksia Vulf (1809a83) was the youngest daughter of the large Osipov family headed by Praskovia Osipov, widow of Nikolay Vulf and Ivan Osipov. The Osipovs were Pushkin's nearest neightbours during his exile at Mikhailovskoye (1824a6). He courted fifteen-year-old Zizi and several other members of the clan. Later, in 1829, the two briefly became lovers.

26. omber: A card game of Spanish origin, popular in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

27. Albani: Francesco Albani (1578a1660), Italian painter popular in the eighteenth century.

28. 'I'll go no more a-roving: I have allowed myself a quote from Lord Byron (1788a1824), since he is omnipresent in the text, from his poem So, we'll go no more a-roving'.

CHAPTER VI.

1. La, sotto... non dole: 'There, where the days are cloudy and short, A race is born for whom death is not painful.' A quotation from Petrarch's In vita di Laura, Canzone XXVIII, which misses out the middle line: Nemica naturalmente di pace' ('By nature the enemy of peace'). The omission allows the quotation to refer more easily to Pushkin's own generation.

2. To die from him will be delightful: Love for a villain was a common theme in contemporary Romantic literature and folklore (cf. Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer).