I translated these three sonnets in collaboration with George Kline, who provided audio versions in Russian, interlinear word-by-word translations, and grammatical, lexical, and prosodic advice throughout the process. —AF
“Lot’s Wife” by Anna Akhmatova
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
—Genesis 19:25-26
The righteous man followed where God’s angel guide
shone on through black mountains, imposing and bright—
but pain tore his wife’s breast. It turned her aside
and said, “Look again! There is time for one sight
Of towers, and Sodom’s red halls, and the place
Where you sang in the courtyard or wove on your loom
By windows now empty—where you knew the embrace
Of love with your husband—where birth filled the room—.”
She looked. And the sight was more bitter than pain.
It shut up her eyes so she saw nothing more;
She shimmered to salt; her feet moved in vain,
Deep rooted at last in the place she died for.
Who weeps for her now? Who can care for the fate
Of someone like that—a mere unhappy wife?
My heart will remember. I carry the weight
Of one who looked back, though it cost her her life.
“The White Bird” by Anna Akhmatova
So worried about me, so jealous, so tender—
As steady as God’s sun, as warm as Love’s breath—
he wanted no songs of the past I remembered.
He took my white bird, and he put it to death.
At sunset, he found me in my own front room.
“Now love me, and laugh, and write poems,” he said.
So I dug a grave in the old alder’s gloom,
Behind the round well, for my happy, bright bird.
I promised him I wouldn’t cry any more;
The heart in my chest is as heavy as stone,
And everywhere, always, it seems that I hear
The tender, sweet voice of the one who is gone.
“Cleopatra” by Anna Akhmatova
I am air and fire. . .
—Shakespeare
Alexandria’s palaces
Were covered with sweet shade.
—Pushkin
Already, she’s kissed him, her Antony, on his warm, dead lips.
Already, she’s kneeled down in front of Augustus and cried.
And now she’s betrayed by the servants: victorious trumpets
sound under the Eagle of Rome, and the darkness spreads wide.
The last of her beauty’s tall conquests comes in, his voice grave;
his stammering whisper enfolds her as he bends to say,
“They’ll lead you before him in the Triumph–you, like a slave. . .”
Her throat, like the neck of a swan, holds its tranquil sway.
Tomorrow, the children in chains. And so little remaining
for her in the world; just to banter again with this man,
then take the black snake in a gesture like pity, and bring
it close to her rich breast at last, with her indifferent hand.