Culture and Communication. Yuri Lotman
like sorcerers’ howling, in these reveries,
I hearkened the rumbling of unfathomed seas,
And visions and dreams, all my quiet domain
Was breached by the swells and the blasting of foam.3
И море, и буря качали наш челн;
Я, сонный, был предан всей прихоти волн.
Две беспредельности были во мне,
И мной своевольно играли оне.
Вкруг меня, как кимвалы, звучали скалы́,
Окликалися ветры и пели валы.
Я в хаосе звуков лежал оглушен,
Но над хаосом звуков носился мой сон.
Болезненно-яркий, волшебно-немой,
Он веял легко над гремящею тьмой.
В лучах огневицы развил он свой мир –
Земля зеленела, светился эфир,
Сады-лавиринфы, чертоги, столпы,
И сонмы кипели безмолвной толпы.
Я много узнал мне неведомых лиц,
Зрел тварей волшебных, таинственных птиц,
По высям творенья, как бог, я шагал,
И мир подо мною недвижный сиял.
Но все грезы насквозь, как волшебника вой,
Мне слышался грохот пучины морской,
И в тихую область видений и снов
Врывалася пена ревущих валов.
We are not interested here in that aspect of the poem that is connected with what is for Tyutchev an essential juxtaposition (“Thought upon thought, wave upon wave” [Duma za dumoi, volna za volnoi]) or the opposition (“A melody found in the waves of the sea” [Pevuchest′ est′ v morskikh volnakh]) between the life of the soul, on the one hand, and the sea, on the other.
Insofar as the text is evidently rooted in a real experience—the recollection of a four-day storm in September 1833, as he was voyaging around the Adriatic—it interests us as a monument to the author’s psychological self-observation (one can hardly deny the legitimacy of such an approach to the text, among others).
The poem lays out two components of the author’s spiritual state: the soundless dream and the storm’s metrical roar. The latter is marked in the original by the unexpected insertion of an anapestic line into an amphibrachic text:
So like cymbals, around me, the rock cliffs did crash,
The swells singing their part, the winds answering back …
But then over the chaos of sound came my dream …
But like sorcerers’ howling, in these reveries …
The anapestic lines are devoted to the rumbling of the storm, and the two symmetrical verses beginning with “but” portray the dream erupting through the storm’s noise, or else the noise of the storm erupting through the dream. The verse dedicated to the philosophical theme of the “double abyss” (“infinitudes two”) and connecting the text to other Tyutchev poems is set off by the sole dactyl.iii
The abundance of sonic features makes the noise of the storm stand out just as sharply against the backdrop of the soundless world of the dream (“magically mute,” populated by “speechless crowds”). But it is precisely these metrical, deafening sounds that become the rhythmic backdrop that occasions the liberation of thought, its ascent and brilliance.
Let us bring in another example (Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, chapter 8):
XXXVI
And so? While eyes continued reading,
His thoughts remained yet far away;
His dreams, desires, as well as grieving
Were crammed deep in his soul today.
Among the lines in plain print visible,
And with the spirit’s eyes perceptible,
Were others. Those were what for verse
He took, now utterly immersed.
’Twas secret lore of deep tradition,
Obscure, sincere, from olden times,
And disconnected, muddled dreams,
A dread, and mumblings, premonitions,
Just living nonsense in a fairy’s land
Or correspondence in girlish hand.
XXXVII
And gradual pacification
Of thoughts and feelings now holds sway,
And before him his imagination
Its motley pharaoh sets to play …
XXXVIII
… How much when in a corner, solo,
Did he look like a poet inspired,
And sat he near the blazing fire,
And to himself hummed “Idol mio”
Or “Benedetta,” while up the flue
Burned now a paper, now a shoe.
(VI, 183–184)4
XXXVI
И что ж? Глаза его читали,
Но мысли были далеко;
Мечты, желания, печали
Теснились в душу глубоко.
Он меж печатными строками
Читал духовными глазами
Другие строки. В них-то он
Был совершенно углублен.
То были тайные преданья
Сердечной, темной старины,
Ни с чем не связанные сны,
Угрозы, толки, предсказанья,
Иль длинной сказки вздор живой,
Иль письма девы молодой.
XXXVII
И постепенно