And ne’er shall darken thy bright ray
Until grows dark the orb of day;
When with a crash the heavens fall,
And time shall cease to be, and ruin cover all.
—From C. T. Wilson’s Russian Lyrics.
WHAT OTHERS SAY
“How strange! More than twenty years have passed since we, with mind intent and furrowed brow, have assiduously been writing odes, yet we nowhere hear praises sung to them or us! May it be that Phœbus has sent forth his stern decree that none of us should ever aspire to equal Flaccus, Ramler[170] and all their brotherhood, or ever be renowned as they in song? What do you think? I took yesterday the pains to compare their song and ours: in theirs, there is not much to read! a page; if much, three pages, and yet what joy to read! You feel—how shall I say it?—as if you flew on wings! Judging by their briefness, you are sure they wrote them playfully, and not labouring four days: then why should we not be more fortunate than they, since we are a hundred times more diligent and patient? When one of us begins to write, he leaves all play aside, pores a whole night over a couple of verses, sweats, thinks, draws and burns his paper; and sometimes he rises to such daring that he passes a whole year over one ode! And, of course, he uses up all his intelligence upon it! And there you have a most solemn ode! I cannot say to what species it belongs, but it is very full,—some two hundred strophes! Judge for yourself how many fine verses there are in it! Besides, it is written according to the rules: at first you read the introduction, then the argument, and finally the conclusion,—precisely as the learned speak in the church! And yet, I must confess, there is no pleasure in reading it.
“Let me take, for example, the odes on victories, how that they conquered the Crimea, how the Swedes were drowned at sea: I find there all the details of a battle, where it happened, how, when,—in short, a report in verse! Very well!... I yawn! I throw it away, and open another, one written for a holiday, or something like it: here you discover things that a less clever mind would not have thought out within a lifetime: ‘Dawn’s rosy fingers,’ and ‘lily of paradise,’ and ‘Phœbus,’ and ‘heaven cleft open’! So vociferous, so loud! No, it does not please, nor move our hearts in the least.”
Thus an old man of our grandfathers’ times spoke yesterday to me in gentle simplicity. I, being myself a companion of those singers, the action of whose verse he so marvelled at, was much disturbed, nor knew how to answer him. But luckily, if at all that may be called luck to hear your own terrible sentence, a certain Aristarch began to speak to him.
“For this,” said he, “there are many causes; I will not promise to unveil one-half of them, but some I will gladly expound to you. I myself love the language of the gods, poetry, and just as you, am little edified with ours. In former days I have much conversed in Moscow with our Pindars, and have watched them well: the greater part of them are corporals of the body-guard, assessors, officers, scribes, or dust-covered guardians of monsters in the Museum of Antiquities,—all of them busy government officials; I have often noticed that they barely have time in two days or three to make a proper rhyme, their mind being all taken up with their affairs. No sooner has a lucky thought struck them, when, lo, the clock strikes six! The carriage is waiting: ’tis time for the theatre, and then to the ball, or to Lion,[171] and then ’tis night.... When are they to call on Apollo? In the morning, no sooner has he opened his eyes, than there is a note: ‘Rehearsal at five o’clock’.... Where? In fashionable society, where our lyric poet is to play the part of the harlequin. Is there any time left for odes? You have to learn our parts, then to Kroll,[172] then home again, to primp yourself and get dressed, then to the theatre, and good-bye another day. Besides, the ancients had one purpose, we another: Horace, for example, who nurtured his breast with ecstasy, what did he want? Not very much: in the æons immortality, and in Rome but a wreath of laurels or of myrtle, that Delia might say: ‘He is famous; through him I, too, am immortal!’ But the aim of many of us is a present of a ring, at times a hundred roubles, or friendship with a princelet who all his life has never read anything except now and then the Court almanac, or praises from their friends to whom each printed sheet appears to be sacred.