Elena Laptinskaya. Two Poems. Translations by Dmitri Manin and Simon Patlis

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Embroidered panel: Penelope Unraveling Her Work at Night, 1886
Elena Laptinskaya. Two Poems. Translations by Dmitri Manin and Simon Patlis

1

I’m taking a Peneloping test,

One-two-three and bingo, you are impressed:

I’m almost there.

I’m faithful and thoroughly patient, nothing upsets

My even temper.

My Odysseus had two missuses and a bunch of kids,

My Odysseus kept making dangerous bids,

He would die if he couldn’t scale peak after peak:

The wind and the sea, triumph and Troy –

He’s not unique.

My Odysseus was wounded in a random fray,

He was heading down the Styx to the realm of the dead,

But no one went looking for him, no one:

Not his wives, nor his daughter, his beauty and pride,

Nor the worthiest of all men,

His son.

My Odysseus was left without a dime,

In fact, he had nothing left,

Nothing remained of his youthful time,

Just belief in himself.

And when he came to, alive and broke,

He breathed out, breathed in and set out to find:

His bow and arrows, Penelope, hearth smoke,

Clean sheets, watermelons, the home he’d left behind.

He would miss none of the roadside inns and taverns,

He’d left all he’d had to the Jews:

His rings, his sword and belt.

Thus he picked wisdom from Jews in his travels,

But he never learned to hold on to what he was dealt.

I’m taking a Peneloping test,

Weaving plain cloth, baking bread –

Almost there, it seems.

I can wait here for the second flood to crest

And my land to become the Ithaca of his dreams.

I know: Penelope had jewelry of the Hellenes,

Bracelets, necklaces, bedsheets with a fancy weave,

She had an expansive field

Growing watermelons.

But what do I have…

Translated from Russian by Dmitri Manin

2

They filled my ears with slanderous venom,

I accepted all their gifts.

Thus, in a myth the proud Arachne

Weaved her stupendous tapestries
To no avail: her woven wonders

Did not save the worlds of golden dreams.

Thick cobwebs filled the air between us,

So you and I could hardly breathe.

Wasn’t it just like when divine Medea,

Poisoned with jealousy and rage,

To spite her cheating husband Jason,

Murdered her children in revenge?

I empathize with epic heroes,

Yet now——where is that ancient Greece?

Nor had I ever found Jesus,

Who could have brought me back my peace.

I won’t disturb your quiet slumber;

My torn-to-pieces bleeding soul

Was carried low by an angel,

Above the ground, very low.

Translated from Russian by Simon Patlis

The Originals

1

Я сдаю экзамен на Пенелопу,

Я в два подскока и в три прихлопа –

Почти она.

Я терпелива, неутомима в своём терпении

И верна.

Мой Одиссей нарожал детей и сменил двух жен,

Мой Одиссей постоянно лез на рожон,

Он не может жить без своих вершин:

Без ветра и моря, без славы и Трои, –

Не он один.

Мой Одиссей был ранен в одной из войн

И устремился по Стиксу в царство теней,

Но не искала его ни одна из жен,

Ни красавица дочь,

Ни достойнейший из мужей –

Его сын.

У моего Одиссея не было двух монет,

Потому что не было ничего,

Не было и двадцати молодецких лет,

Оставалась только вера в себя самого.

Так Одиссей обнаружил себя живым,

Выдохнул воздух, вдохнул и пошел искать:

Дом, Пенелопу, арбузы, из печки дым,

Лук боевой и застеленную кровать.

Не миновал Одиссей не одну корчму,

Всё оставлял евреям:

Перстни, пояс и меч.

Так научили евреи его уму,

Но Одиссей не умел ничего беречь.

Я сдаю экзамен на Пенелопу,

Тку полотно, выпекаю хлеб, –

Почти она.

Я ожидаю здесь второго потопа,

Чтобы его Итакой стала моя страна.

Я знаю: у Пенелопы были серьги и бусы,

Золотые браслеты, белёная простыня,

Было большое поле,

На котором росли арбузы.

А что же есть у меня…

2

Мне лили в ухо яд злословный,

Я принимала все дары,

Так горделивая Арахна

Сплетала чудные ковры,
Но не спасли её картины

Миры иллюзий золотых

Покрылся воздух паутиной,

Нещадно душащей двоих.

Не так ли дивная Медея

В отраве ревности своей,

В изменах мужа сатанея,

Губила собственных детей.

Я о героях сожалею,

Но Греция уже не та,

Найти спасенье не умею

В теле распятого Христа.
Я мирный сон твой не нарушу,

Так низко, низко от земли

Мою растерзанную душу

На крыльях ангелы несли.

About the Author:

_DSC4607
Elena Laptinskaya
Minsk, Belarus

Elena Laptinskaya was born in Orsha, Vitebsk region, Belarus. Her family moved from Orsha to Mogilev, and Elena graduated from secondary school and the Institute of Finance and Economics in Mogilev. Since 2009, she has lived and worked in Minsk. Elena began writing poetry in secondary school. She sees imagery and musicality as the most important qualities of poetry. Her poems were published in local publications in Belarus as well as in St. Petersburg anthologies such as “Limb”/”Helikon Plus”. Her first poetry collection “Razbeg” was published in Minsk in 2010 by Artia Group.

About the Translator:

1. photo simon
Simon Patlis
San Diego, USA

Simon Patlis grew up in the former Soviet Union (first in Tashkent, later in Kishinev.) Since moving to the US in 1991, he’s lived in San Diego, CA. Mathematician by education, he works as an IT consultant. He has been writing poetry since childhood and translates English and Russian poetry (English to Russian, Russian to English). He is the author of “Duda”, published in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, in 2006. His work was published in “The Notebook. A Collection of Contemporary Russian Poetry in North America” (“Общая Тетрадь”, Moscow, 2007), as well as in other collections and almanacs of poetry published over the years in Russia and the US.

About the Translator:

manin_2021 (1)
Dmitri Manin
California, USA

Dmitri Manin is a physicist, programmer, and translator of poetry. His translations from English and French into Russian have appeared in several book collections. His latest work is a complete translation of Ted Hughes’ “Crow” (Jaromír Hladík Press, 2020) and Allen Ginsberg’s “The Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems” (Podpisnie Izdaniya, 2021). Dmitri’s Russian-to-English translations have been published in journals (Cardinal Points, Delos, The Café Review, Metamorphoses, etc) and in Maria Stepanova’s “The Voice Over” (CUP, 2021). In 2017, his translation of Stepanova’s poem won the Compass Award competition. “Columns,” his new book of translations of Nikolai Zabolotsky’s poems, was published by Arc Publications in 2023 (https://eastwestliteraryforum.com/books/nikolai-zabolotsky-columns-poems).

Elena Laptinskaya Елена Лаптинская
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