Pushkin quote

[Paul B. Gallagher]

Thanks much to David Powelstock and Michael Pushkin.

Here's what I sent back to my colleague, who does understand French 
(sorry I missed you, Mike):

I think we've got it (suggested by David Powelstock on the Slavic & East 
European Languages and Literature List <seelangs at listserv.cuny.edu>):

<http://www.rvb.ru/pushkin/01text/01versus/0423_36/1826/0424.htm>
<http://feb-web.ru/feb/pushkin/texts/push17/vol03/y03-143-.htm>
<http://www.uni-potsdam.de/u/slavistik/pushkin/opus_ori/lyrics_1826_1837/W1828lykakov.htm>

Tel j'étais autrefois et tel je suis encor.

Каков я прежде был, таков и ныне я:
Беспечный, влюбчивый. Вы знаете, друзья,
Могу ль на красоту взирать без умиленья,
Без робкой нежности и тайного волненья.
Уж мало ли любовь играла в жизни мной?
Уж мало ль бился я, как ястреб молодой,
В обманчивых сетях, раскинутых Кипридой,
А не исправленный стократною обидой,
Я новым идолам несу мои мольбы...

This is the entire poem (the ellipsis is the author's own). The first 
line of the Russian is equivalent to the French.

This page offers the following clumsy translation:

<http://www.fplib.org/literature/19century/pushkin/iamthesame.html(opt,mozilla,mac,english,,new)>
I am the same, what I was then...

This poem is not available in English. Please choose one of the Russian 
encodings at the bottom of this page. If you don't have Cyrillic fonts 
installed on your page please choose the Transliterated option labeled 
"TRANS".

I have been unable to discover any other English translation, but that 
doesn't mean none exists. Perhaps [francophone colleague name] could 
offer something? The original meter is iambic hexameter: ._._._, ._._._: 
(where period represents unstressed and underscore represents stressed), 
like the French if we elide the second syllable of "aut'fois"; the 
Russian has an extra unstressed (pickup) syllable at the beginning.

-- 
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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