Rex’s Reviews > Eugene Onegin An immortal novel in verse in a brilliant new translation by Walter Arndt > Status Update

Much, oh, so much was snatched by Fate!
Blest he who left in its full glory
The feast of life, who could decline
To drain the brimming cup of wine,
Refused to read life's waning story,
And with abrupt resolve withdrew,
As I from my Onegin do.

…And whom you hear throughout his span
Referred to as "an excellent man!"

Blest he who, green in adolescence,
matured at the appointed stage,
Who tasted of life's acrid essence
And learnt to stomach it with age;
Who for strange transports never lusted,
Through worldly slime strode undisgusted,
At twenty was a fop or blade,
At thirty a good marriage made,
At fifty shed by liquidation
All debts, both private and the rest,
And issued painlessly possessed
Of money, rank, and reputation

Fare thee well, and if for ever,
Still for ever fare thee well.

— Byron

Muse of the epic, bless my work!
in my long task, be my upholder,
put a strong staff into my hand,
don't let me stray in paths unplanned.

📚♥️📚

Upon those books she turned her mind,
And finding them of curious kind,
She soon was all engrossed in reading,
An eager passage, door on door,
To worlds she never knew before.

The cold irony of this verse, in the contemporary zeitgeist, is not lost, when one reflects on Aleksandr Pushkin himself❗

💔💝👌

…True,
The poet's slain and gone; but who
Here in the world he left still felt it?
…
Like smoke into the sky and melted.
Two hearts, perhaps, for his sad lot
Were grieving still…grieving for what?

…Oblivion lonely
Awaits our shadows down below,
The tones of lover, friend, and foe
Are silenced all at once, and only
The angry heirs to our estate
Intone their scandalous debate.

Oh, dreams, my dreams, where is your sweetness?
Oh, youth's (the rhyme fair beckons) fleetness!
Can it be really true at last,
Its lovely bloom is past, is past,

"Roué-in-chief and tavern plyer,
But now all kindness and well-bred,
A good papá, although unwed,
A faithful friend, a peaceful squire,
And even, lo, an honest man:
Such progress in a life's brief span!"