Lermontov's 'The Cliff' presents three problems for translators: how to render the feminine rhymes used throughout, what to do with the
pathetic fallacy {1} and how to move beyond the poem's sentimentality. {2}
We are in the Romantic period, rather brief in Russia, but ably summarized as 'marked by six primary characteristics: celebration of nature, focus on the individual and spirituality, celebration of isolation and melancholy, interest in the common man, idealization of women, and personification and pathetic fallacy.' {3}
Утес
Ночевала тучка золотая
На груди утеса-великана,
Утром в путь она умчалась рано,
По лазури весело играя.
Но остался влажный след в морщине
Старого утеса. Одиноко
Он стоит, задумался глубоко,
И тихонько плачет он в пустыне.
1841
Ruverses has 5 versions:
1. Irina Zheleznova
By a cliff a golden cloud once lingered;
On his breast it slept, but, riseing early,
Off it gently rushed across the pearly
Blue of sky, a tiny thing and winged.
2. Eugene Mark Kayden
A golden cloud at evening came
To sleep upon the mountain’s breast.
And, merrily, at dawn she left the crest
To wander in the sky, aflame.
3. Anthony Phillips
A golden cloud spent the night
Resting on the breast of the giant crag;
Come the morning, it darted away,
Airily playing in the breeze.
4. Don Mager
A gold cloud rested the whole night
Upon the breast of a huge rock;
And cheerfully at dawn it dashed
Into the blue not to come back
5. Vivian de Sola Pinto
In the night a golden cloudlet straying
Slumbered on a crag’s breast, huge and burly;
Rose the damsel in the morning early,
Gaily fled through heaven’s azure, playing.
(Note: I transcribe the Ruverses exactly as they appear on the website, though the sometimes inept verse and the odd spelling mistake
suggest that English is not the first language of its compilers.)
The poem is written in iambic pentameters, rhymed ABAB, i.e with feminine rhymes throughout:
Ночева́ла ту́чка золота́я 5A
На груди́ утёса-велика́на, 5B
У́тром в путь она́ умча́лась ра́но, 5B
По лазу́ри ве́село игра́я. 5A
A TTS (text to speech) recording of the first stanza is:
Let's first start by using feminine rhymes on two lines of the stanza:
The whole night long a golden cloud was resting
upon a rock that formed the mountain side:
it flew off with the coming dawn and tried
to make its actions with the azure air be jesting.
And so that wrinkled spot a tear was keeping.
The cliff was feeling ancient and alone.
How sad it stands, in deeply pondered stone,
that softly to the desert wastes is weeping.
In some ways the Vivian de Sola Pinto version is the best. It has a folk song air, is the only one to render the Russian pentameter
as an English pentameter, to reproduce the feminine rhymes throughout, and to be sensible. Clouds don't rest on rocks, however large, though whether 'cloudlets'
is a happy choice is another matter. I don't like 'Gaily fled through heaven’s azure, playing' too much, but the other versions have their problems. Numbers 1,
2 and 4 have too much invention, particularly number 1. Numbers 3 and 4 don't rhyme, and the early/pearly rhyme of number is distinctly unhelpful. Has the tone
of the first stanza been properly grasped by any version, moreover, and do clouds really 'dart' (version 3)?
Because Vivian de Sola Pinto (1895-1965) was an accomplished translator, sufficient to feature in Bowra's anthology, {4} the problem, as I see it, arises
in slavishly reproducing the feminine rhyme, so common in Russian verse but liable to give a droll effect in English. Even our version, where it is employed in the opening
and closing lines of each stanza, seems a little contrived (as is the side/tried rhyme.) I think we'd be better off with masculine rhymes only.
The Pathetic Fallacy, i.e. the ascribing of emotion to inanimate objects, was castigated by John Ruskin, but remains alive and well in many types of poetry, in English poetry of the Romantic period, for example, or pre-modern Chinese poetry generally. Strictly speaking, Lermontov's poem goes further, into anthropomorphism: the cliff not only has human attributes but acts like a sentient and active being. But before we say 'far-fetched' or 'impossible', we should remember that the Meghaduta, Kalidasa's 'Cloud Messenger' has a anthropomorphic cloud throughout its celebrated stanzas.
The need, I think, for the translator, is to make the poem fully convincing. We may privately wonder if Lermontov really thought of the cloud in this manner, rather
than as a literary conceit on which to pin emotions he didn't truly feel, i.e. rank sentimentalism. In contrast, Russian critics have generally called the poem one of
the 'most striking and impressive landscape and philosophical works of Lermontov', where the cliff's loneliness echoes the poet's state of mind.
Lermontov, too, was 'crying quietly in the desert.' {5} There is also the contrast between the thoughtless activity of youth and the sad wisdom of age.
Translating a pertinent section: {5}
'To fully convey the feelings and mood of this work, the poet used the following means of artistic expression:
personification (the cloud spent the night, rushed away in the morning, the cliff thought, the cliff cries),
metaphor (playing on the azure, the giant cliff), epithets (golden cloud, old cliff),
periphrasis (a wet trace in the wrinkle of the cliff - traces tears).
The alternation of the sounds "p", "l", "b" (alliteration) and the repetition of the sounds "o" and "a" (assonance)
gives the work a special smoothness and expressiveness.'
That being the case, we need to rewrite our first draft, making both stanzas more integrated, lucid and compelling.
The Cliff
The whole night long a golden cloud took rest
upon a rock that flanked the mountain side.
It flew off early, when its thoughtless ride
would join the bright blue sky in playful zest.
But to that rugged spot a tear has crept:
the cliff at once was old and felt alone.
How still it stands, in deeply pondered stone
that quietly to the desert air has wept.
1. Pathetic Fallacy Short account on Literary Terms.
2. Sentimental poetry. Good Wikipedia article.
3. Romanticism in Poetry. ThoughtCo's brief article.
4. Bowra, C.M, A Book of Russian Verse (Macmillan, 1943) 7, 14, 25, 38, 40, 67, 78, 79, 83 and 115.
5. Google 'литературный анализ Михаил Лермонтов Утес'.
6. Mirsky, D.S. A History of Russian Literature (Vintage, 1958) 136-44.
Russian poem translations on this site: listing.
