Pushkin quote, "Kakov ia prezhde byl"

[Paul B. Gallagher]

Timothy D. Sergay wrote:

> With greetings to Paul and all colleagues on SEELANGS:
> 
> An English translation of "Kakov ia prezhde byl" (mid-Sept. to early 
> November, 1826) is available, it's by Babette Deutsche:
> 
> The man I was of old, that man I still remain:
> Lighthearted, soon in love. You know, my friends, 'tis vain
> To think I can behold the fair without elation,
> And timid tenderness and secret agitation.
> Has love not played with me and teased me quite enough?
> In Cytherea's nets, wrought of such sturdy stuff,
> Like a young hawk have I not struggled long and striven?
> Unchastened by the pangs whereby I have been driven,
> Unto new idols I my old entreaties bring...
> 
> Source:
> The Complete Works of Alexander Pushkin, Volume Three: Lyric Poems, 
> 1826-1836. Downham Market, Norfolk: Milner and Company; Distributed by 
> Charles Schlacks, Jr., Publisher, 1999. Page 34. (NB: there are a 
> significant number of garbled readings of Pushkin in the translations 
> newly commissioned for these volumes.)
> 
> I don't see any extrametrical unstressed syllable in the Russian at the 
> beginning, by the way.

Thanks, Tim. I didn't mean to say "extrametrical." I was simply 
comparing to the French, which jumps right in with a stressed syllable, 
"tel." Although the unstressed "Ка-" in Pushkin's first line forms part 
of a regular iambic foot, musicians and many readers would generally put 
the bar line just before the stress, parsing an iambic hexameter thus:
	.|_.|_.|_.|_.|_.|_
	.|_.|_.|_.|_.|_.|_
where the bars divide musical measures. What I called a "pickup," as far 
as they're concerned, is an optional beat. In the second and following 
lines, this beat, which completes the measure begun at the end of the 
previous line, may be used at the author's discretion to create a 
divisive rest between lines:
	.|_.|_.|_.|_.|_.|_
	r|_.|_.|_.|_.|_.|_
(where r is an unstressed rest), or as a bridge to join them:
	.|_.|_.|_.|_.|_.|_
	.|_.|_.|_.|_.|_.|_

So to my ear, Deutsche's feminine lines come across as crowded because 
the following line also begins with an unstressed syllable:
	.|_.|_.|_.|_.|_.|_.
	.|_.|_.|_.|_.|_.|_.
The inferior alternative to rushing is to lengthen some lines to seven 
feet in reading, creating a long, inappropriate pause on the stressed beat:
	R.|_.|_.|_.|_.|_.|_.|
	R.|_.|_.|_.|_.|_.|_.|
where R is a stressed rest.

-- 
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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