Robartes. Have you not always known it?
Aherne. The song will have it
That those that we have loved got their long fingers
From death, and wounds, or on Sinai's top,
Or from some bloody whip in their own hands.
They ran from cradle to cradle till at last
Their beauty dropped out of the loneliness
Of body and soul.
Robartes. The lover's heart knows that.
Aherne. It must be that the terror in their eyes
Is memory or foreknowledge of the hour
When all is fed with light and heaven is bare.
Robartes. When the moonТs full those creatures of the full
Are met on the waste hills by countrymen
Who shudder and hurry by: body and soul
Estranged amid the strangeness of themselves,
Caught up in contemplation, the mind's eye
Fixed upon images that once were thought;
For separate, perfect, and immovable
Images can break the solitude
Of lovely, satisfied, indifferent eyes.
And thereupon with aged, high-pitched voice
Aherne laughed, thinking of the man within,
His sleepless candle and laborious pen.
Robartes. And after that the crumbling of the moon.
The soul remembering its loneliness
Shudders in many cradles; all is changed,
It would be the world's servant, and as it serves,
Choosing whatever task's most difficult
Among tasks not impossible, it takes
Upon the body and upon the soul
The coarseness of the drudge.
Aherne. Before the full
It sought itself and afterwards the world.
Robartes. Because you are forgotten, half out of life,
And never wrote a book, your thought is clear.
Reformer, merchant, statesman, learned man,
Dutiful husband, honest wife by turn,
Cradle upon cradle, and all in flight and all
Deformed because there is no deformity
But saves us from a dream.
Aherne. And what of those
That the last servile crescent has set free?
Robartes. Because all dark, like those that are all light,
They are cast beyond the verge, and in a cloud,
Crying to one another like the bats;
And having no desire they cannot tell
WhatТs good or bad, or what it is to triumph
At the perfection of oneТs own obedience;
And yet they speak what's blown into the mind;
Deformed beyond deformity, unformed,
Insipid as the dough before it is baked,
They change their bodies at a word.
Aherne. And then?
Rohartes. When all the dough has been so kneaded up
That it can take what form cook Nature fancies,
The first thin crescent is wheeled round once more.
Aherne. But the escape; the song's not finished yet.
Robartes. Hunchback and Saint and Fool are the last crescents.
The burning bow that once could shoot an arrow
Out of the up and down, the wagon-wheel
Of beauty's cruelty and wisdom's chatter-
Out of that raving tide-is drawn betwixt
Deformity of body and of mind.
Aherne. Were not our beds far off I'd ring the bell,
Stand under the rough roof-timbers of the hall
Beside the castle door, where all is stark
Austerity, a place set out for wisdom
That he will never find; I'd play a part;
He would never know me after all these years
But take me for some drunken countryman:
I'd stand and mutter there until he caught
"Hunchback and Saint and Fool," and that they came
Under the three last crescents of the moon.
And then I'd stagger out. He'd crack his wits
Day after day, yet never find the meaning.
And then he laughed to think that what seemed hard
Should be so simple-a bat rose from the hazels
And circled round him with its squeaky cry,
The light in the tower window was put out.
Фергус и друид
Весь день день я гнался за тобой по скалам,
Ты ж ускользал, обличьями играя:
То вороном прикинулся облезлым,
От старости все перья растерявшим,
То меж камней, как тень, мелькнул куницей,
Но наконец подобьем человека
Предстал передо мной, во мгле теряясь.
Зачем пришел, король из Красной Ветви?
Послушай, о мудрейший из живущих!
Когда вершил я суд, сидел со мною
Конхобар юный. Он явил такую мудрость
И так легко сносил он бремя власти,
Что отдал я ему свою корону,
Хоть тем тоску свою стремясь развеять.
Зачем пришел, король из Красной Ветви?
Король! Ты сам назвал мое мученье.
Пирую ль на холме с моим народом,
Брожу ль в лесах, веду ли колесницу
Вдоль пенной кромки шепчущего моря, -
Всё тяготит чело мое корона.
Зачем пришел ты, Фергус?
Трон отринуть
И мудрость грез постичь — твое искусство.
Взгляни на худобу мою и дряхлость,
На руки, коим меч навек запретен,
На тело, сотрясаемое дрожью!
Я женской ласки в жизни не изведал,
Мужчина не искал во мне собрата.
А что король? глупец, который платит
Своею кровью за чужие грезы.
Что ж, коли так, возьми котомку грез,
Ослабь узлы и насладись мечтами.
О, жизнь моя рекою истекает,
Струится прочь, обличьями играя!
Кем только не был я — и каплей в море,
И бликом на мече, и старой елью,
Рабом, вертящим неподъемный жернов,
И королем на золоченом троне, -
Все это было дивно и прекрасно;
Но ныне, все познав, я стал ничтожен.
Друид, друид! что за тенета скорби
Таились в серой маленькой котомке!
Fergus. This whole day have I followed in the rocks,
And you have changed and flowed from shape to shape,
First as a raven on whose ancient wings
Scarcely a feather lingered, then you seemed
A weasel moving on from stone to stone,
And now at last you wear a human shape,
A thin grey man half lost in gathering night.
Druid. What would you, king of the proud Red Branch kings?
Fergus. This would I say, most wise of living souls:
Young subtle Conchubar sat close by me
When I gave judgment, and his words were wise,
And what to me was burden without end,
To him seemed easy, So I laid the crown
Upon his head to cast away my sorrow.
Druid. What would you, king of the proud Red Branch kings?
Fergus. A king and proud! and that is my despair.
I feast amid my people on the hill,
And pace the woods, and drive my chariot-wheels
In the white border of the murmuring sea;
And still I feel the crown upon my head
Druid. What would you, Fergus?
Fergus. Be no more a king
But learn the dreaming wisdom that is yours.
46
Фергус, сын Ройга (Fergus mac Raoich) — в ирландских сагах король Улада, возлюбленный Медб, королевы Коннахта. Взял в жены мать Конхобара Несс, согласившейся на брак лишь после того, как Фергус пообещал на один год уступить трон Конхобару. За этот год Несс успела настроить благородных мужей Улада против Фергуса, и по истечении срока они отказались вновь признать его королем. Источниками образа Фергуса Йейтсу послужили, среди прочего, "История Ирландии" Стендиша Джеймса О'Грэйди (1878–1880) и поэма ирландского поэта Сэмюэла Фергюсона (1810–1886) "Отречение Фергуса мак Роя" (1864) из сборника "Песни западных гаэлов". В поэме Фергюсона Фергус, как и у Йейтса, изображен королем-поэтом, добровольно отрекающимся от трона, "дабы жить мирной лесной охотой".