Part 38 (2/2)
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' Fas.h.i.+on: The full t.i.tle is Journal of Ladies' Fas.h.i.+ons and refers to the French publication Journal des dames et des modes (1797a1838), which set the fas.h.i.+ons 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 fas.h.i.+on 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).
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