Silentium

[osprey_archer]

In Russian class today we read a poem by Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev, a lesser nineteenth century poet (he didn't manage to die in a duel, poor man, and thus could not be great).

And I got it. Okay, so first I looked up half the words, and then we dissected it line by line, but in the end I got it (though I'm not sure I agree...) and so I'm sharing it with you.

The style of this translation is more elevated than that of the original poem - and no wonder; it's Nabokov - but it's lovely and it rhymes.

Silentium
by Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev
translated by Vladimir Nabokov

Speak not, lie hidden, and conceal
the way you dream, the things you feel.
Deep in your spirit let them rise
akin to stars in crystal skies
that set before the night is blurred:
delight in them and speak no word.

How can a heart expression find?
How should another know your mind?
Will he discern what quickens you?
A thought once uttered is untrue.
Dimmed is the fountainhead when stirred:
drink at the source and speak no word.

Live in your inner self alone
within your soul a world has grown,
the magic of veiled thoughts that might
be blinded by the outer light,
drowned in the noise of day, unheard...
take in their song and speak no word.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Oh that is beautiful. This is particular:

A thought once uttered is untrue

I've thought that very thought....

Not that it makes me stay silent or anything.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

That's the line we had a philosophical discussion about in class.

I think "untrue" is perhaps too strong? I think it's impossible to tell the complete truth, especially about something like feelings which are so complicated and often contradictory. But I don't think a partial truth is necessarily a lie.

Sometimes I think the point of talking about feelings is not so much to let the other person know how you're feeling, but to tame the feelings themselves.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I think "untrue" is maybe too strong if you equate it with a lie, but I take it precisely as your meaning of incomplete. And it's not even that it's a deliberate untruth--on the contrary--it's just that nothing can be conveyed completely, if for no other reason than that your own thoughts and ideas and feelings and interpretations and impressions are always changing.

But, it would be a sad world if we didn't **try** to communicate, so yeah, in the end I come down on the side of expressing yourself, even if the expressing never is quite true. And I do agree, too, that you can often learn something about how you're feeling by trying to articulate it.