No More Learning

"

XXVIII

I still a complication view,
My country's honour and repute
Demands that I translate for you
The letter which Tattiana wrote.
At Russ she was by no means clever
And read our newspapers scarce ever,
And in her native language she
Possessed nor ease nor fluency,
So she in French herself expressed.
I cannot help it I declare,
Though hitherto a lady ne'er
In Russ her love made manifest,
And never hath our language proud
In correspondence been allowed. (39)

[Note 39: It is well known that until the reign of the late Tsar
French was the language of the Russian court and of Russian
fashionable society. It should be borne in mind that at the time
this poem was written literary warfare more or less open was
being waged between two hostile schools of Russian men of
letters. These consisted of the _Arzamass_, or French school, to
which Pushkin himself together with his uncle Vassili Pushkin
the "Nestor of the Arzamass" belonged, and their opponents who
devoted themselves to the cultivation of the vernacular. ]

XXIX

They wish that ladies should, I hear,
Learn Russian, but the Lord defend!
I can't conceive a little dear
With the "Well-Wisher" in her hand! (40)
I ask, all ye who poets are,
Is it not true? the objects fair,
To whom ye for unnumbered crimes
Had to compose in secret rhymes,
To whom your hearts were consecrate,--
Did they not all the Russian tongue
With little knowledge and that wrong
In charming fashion mutilate?
Did not their lips with foreign speech
The native Russian tongue impeach?

[Note 40: The "Blago-Namierenni," or "Well-Wisher," was an
inferior Russian newspaper of the day, much scoffed at by
contemporaries. The editor once excused himself for some
gross error by pleading that he had been "on the loose. "]

XXX

God grant I meet not at a ball
Or at a promenade mayhap,
A schoolmaster in yellow shawl
Or a professor in tulle cap.
As rosy lips without a smile,
The Russian language I deem vile
Without grammatical mistakes.
May be, and this my terror wakes,
The fair of the next generation,
As every journal now entreats,
Will teach grammatical conceits,
Introduce verse in conversation.
But I--what is all this to me?
Will to the old times faithful be.

XXXI

Speech careless, incorrect, but soft,
With inexact pronunciation
Raises within my breast as oft
As formerly much agitation.
Repentance wields not now her spell
And gallicisms I love as well
As the sins of my youthful days
Or Bogdanovitch's sweet lays. (41)
But I must now employ my Muse
With the epistle of my fair;
I promised! --Did I so? --Well, there!
Now I am ready to refuse.
I know that Parny's tender pen(42)
Is no more cherished amongst men.

[Note 41: Hippolyte Bogdanovitch--b. 1743, d. 1803--though
possessing considerable poetical talent was like many other
Russian authors more remarkable for successful imitation
than for original genius. His most remarkable production
is "Doushenka," "The Darling," a composition somewhat in
the style of La Fontaine's "Psyche. " Its merit consists in
graceful phraseology, and a strong pervading sense of humour. ]

[Note 42: Parny--a French poet of the era of the first Napoleon,
b.