The Marina Tsvetaeva Home Page

(for English-speakers)

Some forebear of mine was a violinist,
A horseman and a thief, moreover.
Isn't that where I got my wanderlust,
Why my hair smells of wind and weather?
Swarthy, guiding my hand, is it not really him
Stealing apricots from the fruit-cart?
Curly-haired, hook-nosed, is it not his whim
That my fate is all passion and hazard?
Admiring the tiller at his plough,
In his lips he twirled a sweet-briar.
He made a perfidious friend, but how
Dashing and tender a lover.
Of moon, pipe and beads he was long a fan,
And of all female neighbours...
It seems to me he was a cowardly man,
My yellow-eyed, distant forebear.
That after he'd sold the devil his life
He'd not walk through the graveyard at midnight.
It occurs to me, too, that he carried a knife
Hidden inside his bootflap.
That many a time from round some fence
He'd leap, a supple feline.
And somehow it was I came to sense
He didn't play his violin.
Like last year's snow in summer days
All was child's play to him.
That's the kind of fiddler my forebear was.
That's the kind of poet I am.

Marina Tsvetaeva, 1915
Translated by David McDuff, 1987
See bibliography for full citation
Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva (the name is also transliterated as Tsvetayeva, Tzvetaeva or Cvetaeva) was one of the greatest Russian poets of the twentieth century. She was also one of Stalin's most prominent victims. This is an amateur site, but I hope it will provide English-speaking readers with an introduction to Tsvetaeva's life and work.

All translations on these pages are used with the translator's permission.

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