Last Toast by Anna Akhmatova
Translated from the Russian by Katie Farris and Ilya Kaminsky
I drink to our ruined house
To the evil of my life
To our loneliness together
And I drink to you—
To the lying lips that have betrayed us,
To the dead-cold eyes,
To the fact that the world is brutal and coarse
To the fact that God did not save us.
Born in Odessa, Anna Akhmatova is one of the four most important Russian poets of the 20th century, others being Mandelstam, Tsvetaeva and Pasternak. She was associated with the Akhmeism movement.
Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odessa, Ukraine and currently lives in San Diego.
Katie Farris is the author of Boysgirls (Marick Press) and co-editor of Gossip and Metaphysics: Russian Modernist Poets (Tupelo Press). She teaches in the MFA Program at SDSU.
Here’s the original, so people don’t have to look it up.
•
Последний тост
Я пью за разорённый дом,
За злую жизнь мою,
За одиночество вдвоём,
И за тебя я пью,—
За ложь меня предавших губ,
За мертвый холод глаз,
За то, что мир жесток и груб,
За то, что Бог не спас.
•
I just began reading Akhmatova, and so far, your translation of this poem is the best. I would really love to see more!
Спасибо
Desolate-drained-bitter cold-beyond acceptable resentment-bleak-all that is beautiful