At the beginning of the century, Balmont, according to the memoirist, “reigned unchallenged” in Russian poetry. Having written a whole library of books, traveled the globe, captivated thousands of readers and was carried away by hundreds of ideas, by 1920 Balmont saw himself unnecessary to Russia, exhausted by fratricidal war and terror. Balmont emigrated in 1920 and lived in France until the end of his days. There was no other poet in the Russian diaspora who experienced isolation from Russia as keenly. He called emigration “life among strangers.” He still worked unusually hard. In 1921 alone, six of his books were published. The poet M. Tsetlin wrote shortly after Balmont’s death that what he had done would be enough not for one human life, but “for the entire literature of a small people.”
There are relatively few memories of Balmont during the emigrant period. Immersed in work, he lived in solitude and for the most part not in Paris, where the vibrant literary life of the emigration was concentrated in the twenties and thirties. Apart from small memoir mentions in the books of N. Berberova and V. Krymov, ten foreign memoirists wrote about Balmont: B. Zaitsev, Y. Terapiano, I. Bunin, A. Sedykh, R. Gul, V. Yanovsky, I. Odoevtseva, N. Teffi, M. Vishnyak and with the greatest sympathy and understanding M. Tsvetaeva. Zaitsev’s memoirs capture the image of Moscow’s Balmont - eccentric, spoiled by worship, capricious. “But he was also completely different. Sometimes before the evening he came to us, quiet, even sad. He read his poems. Despite the presence of fans, he kept it simple - no theater” (Zaitsev B. Distant. Washington, 1965. P. 42). Roman Gul also talks about the Moscow period, and, in his own words, “some monstrous things,” and also from hearsay. Bunin, who generally did not like the Symbolists, also remembers the pre-revolutionary Balmont unkindly. “This was a man who was truly exhausted from narcissism all his life - not yet the harshest words about him in Bunin’s memoirs. N. Teffi’s essay “Balmont,” although very fragmentary, covers a wider range - including the emigrant period. “Always poet. And therefore he spoke about the simplest everyday trifles with poetic pathos... He called the publisher who did not pay the promised fee “a killer of swans.” “I am too Balmont to be denied wine,” he said to his Elena" (Renaissance. 1955. No. 47. P. 66). M. Vishniac in the book "Modern Notes. Memoirs of an Editor" tells about the conflict between the poet and the Socialist Revolutionary editors of the magazine: "He came to explain himself - or rather, demanded from me an explanation of how it could happen that the famous and illustrious Poet (as Balmont always called himself in the third person) was forced to shorten the article... then How could a useless article by the editor (Rudnev, “Near the Earth”) find almost twice as much space?" From a historical perspective, things look different. Few people now need the articles of the already forgotten Rudnev.
In the memoirs of Yanovsky, Sedykh and Odoevtseva, the poet in exile is shown as a living anachronism. Memoirists cannot deny a certain amount of sympathy for Balmont, but his artistic achievements of the emigrant period seemed to remain unknown to the authors of these memoirs. The essay by Y. Terapiano, included in this edition, is filled with a deeper understanding. As for Tsvetaeva’s memories, she has “her own Balmont” - a faithful, noble and fearless friend: “I could spend all evenings telling you about the living Balmont, whose devoted eyewitness I had the good fortune to be for nineteen years, about Balmont - completely misunderstood and not captured anywhere... and my whole soul is filled with gratitude."
I had the opportunity to meet Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont at the beginning of 1925.
He then lived with his wife and daughter Mirra in a modest hotel near Place Denfert-Rochereau; One of the young poets of that time lived in the same hotel. Balmont came down to him almost every day and sometimes sat among the young people for several hours at a time. His usual place was on his master's bed. Around the table (tea, endless Russian tea, which we had not yet gotten used to!) were the owners - the poet and his wife and the “representatives of young literature” who came to read poetry and talk. Mirra, Balmont's daughter, wrote poetry and was a member of the Union of Young Poets, which met nearby.
The first time I saw Balmont, he was sitting, leaning back on pillows, in a majestic and inspired pose. A thick, golden mane of hair (Balmont dyed it), a high and wide forehead, a Spanish beard, eyes - very young and lively. I remember his hands with wide “spatula-shaped” fingertips - a “creative hand”, as palmistry defines. In a poor refugee room, in a dark, shabby suit, the author of "Burning Buildings" and "Let's Be Like the Sun" resembled Baudelaire's albatross. What glory in the past, how many books have been written, where the poet has been - in Mexico, in Egypt, in Oceania, and now he, along with others, is in a refugee situation, among a stranger, indifferent to the Russian sufferings of Paris.
I looked at the man and thought about the poet. “Russian Verlaine,” as they later began to call him in Paris, comparing his plight and fatal addiction to wine with the difficult fate of the French poet, experienced his glory in Russia; his poetry even then ceased to be a new word.
Blok, Sologub, Akhmatova, Gumilyov, O. Mandelstam, B. Pasternak were the favorite poets of the majority of those present at these meetings. Young people listened to Balmont with respect, but ready to defend their “gods” in advance, and for them he was already a distant past. Balmont, for his part, looked closely at the youth and, knowing their mood, perhaps first expected some sharp outburst, but the tone of the “Parisian atmosphere” did not resemble the tone of some literary circles in Russia, and Balmont soon felt surrounded by a peaceful and benevolent environment .
He was not by nature a “master” capable of working with young people, like Vyacheslav Ivanov, Gumilyov or Vl. Khodasevich. Speaking about poetry, he did not touch upon its formal side at all; listening to the poems of young people, he assessed them from the point of view of “the presence of poetry in them” - and I must admit, he felt this presence of poetry very correctly.
Balmont loved to talk about his past, about the former Moscow, about poets of the era of decadence and symbolism, about travel, and sometimes about past adventures. Sometimes, at the request of those present, he read new poems. He always had new poems; Balmont wrote a lot, perhaps too much. He read in a very original way, drawing out some words, clearly highlighting caesuras in the middle of the lines, emphasizing the “melody.” His poems were copied into a small notebook in clear and beautiful handwriting - he always carried it with him - young poets at that time no longer carried poems with them.
Poetry really was life for Balmont; he thought about poetry all the time. He was so accustomed to thinking in poetry that he responded to every experience with it; the element of poetic speech was always with him. I don’t know whether Balmont worked a lot on finishing the poems or “wrote right away,” as he wanted to present to others, but it is possible that he did little reworking and reworking what he wrote, especially in last years life.
In his style, Balmont had long ago achieved mastery: apparently, it was really easy for him to write - words, images, phonetic features flowed to him in a wide stream. However, in the era of his heyday, I think Balmont could not write like this - a “blasphemous thought” spontaneously arose when Balmont said that “real poems come suddenly, requiring no amendments or changes.”
During his long life, Balmont wrote many poems, so that, speaking about his work, you imagine some kind of huge collective, full of sounds, sometimes too sonorous, eloquence, verbal flow, a lot of poses, sometimes - a lack of authenticity, rigor, sensitivity, even taste. The judgment of our contemporaries on Balmont's poetry is very strict, but I think that over time someone will be able to discover the real Balmont.
If we carefully reconsider his literary legacy, if we discard many worthless poems, two or three books of real and authentic poems by a major poet will remain.
The same goes for translations: his translations, for example those of Edgar Poe, can fairly be placed next to the famous translation of Baudelaire.
The youth invited Balmont to speak at the evenings of the Union of Young Poets; Balmont read his poems several times and took part in an evening dedicated to Baratynsky. He gave a speech about him, I think it was called “The High Knight” or something like that, in Balmont’s style. Quoting Baratynsky from memory, Balmont made a mistake in two places, and Pushkinist M. L. Hoffman, who was present at the meeting, immediately corrected him. Balmont accepted the first amendment, but the second made him angry:
“You correct me all the time,” he turned to Hoffman, “but I’m an expert on Balmont, not Baratynsky!”
Our generation of poets is drier and stricter; our manner of reading poetry was in sharp contrast to Balmont's reading. But his manner of reading influenced the audience. I think, in addition to the prestige of the name, there was something else here: Balmont served as a priest, seriously performed the service of Poetry, and his sincere enthusiasm was transmitted to those present. Over his long life, Balmont was accustomed to influencing his audience and knew how to captivate them.
In those years about which I am writing, the poet was still “en forme,” as the French say. Illness, nervousness and loneliness came to him later - and in this, to a certain extent, the indifference of the emigrant environment to poetry played a role. Balmont's ancestors (if I'm not mistaken, on the female side) were susceptible to mental illness from generation to generation. Lack of attention to him and his poetry increased the suffering.
In a world alien and meager for him, after the general collapse and collapse of the atmosphere to which he was accustomed in Russia, after the ensuing reassessment of values, what Balmont lived with - sounds, forms, metaphors, “beauty,” violent orgiastic passion, “ups " and "insights" - began to seem too external, insincere - "literature".
Balmont withdrew into himself; Balmont could not and did not want to change - and this practically meant complete isolation for him.
In the twenties, probably loneliness and some curiosity attracted him to young people. But soon, even here, Balmont felt superfluous and moved away.
I remember Balmont’s story about how he began to write poetry.
The insight and feeling of being a poet came to him suddenly, from experiencing the landscape: “I was then 16 years old, I was riding in a sleigh across a wide plain covered with dazzling white snow. A forest was visible on the horizon, a flock of crows was flying somewhere in the transparent air. And so, completely unexpectedly for myself, I felt this landscape with some special poignancy, sadness, tenderness and love and realized that I should be a poet."
Balmont went to the provinces, occasionally published poems in Sovremennye zapiski and Latest News, then returned to Paris, became seriously ill and then lived again in the provinces. During the occupation, he settled in Noisy-le-Grand, in a Russian hostel set up by his mother Maria. The Germans treated Balmont indifferently, while the Russian Nazis reproached him for his previous revolutionary beliefs.
The sick poet was said to be in a very depressed state all the time. They learned about Balmont’s death in Paris from an article published in Zherebkov’s then-organized “Paris Herald”. Having, as was then expected, thoroughly reprimanded the late poet for the fact that at one time he “supported the revolutionaries,” the Zherebkovsky journalist described the sad picture of the funeral: there was almost no one, since in Paris only very few knew about Balmont’s death. It was raining, and when they lowered the coffin into a hole filled with water, the coffin floated up, and they had to hold it with a pole while they covered the grave with earth.
K. D. Balmont died on December 26, 1942.
Y. Terapiano
ViewPRESENTATION.EXERCISE: Read the poem by K. Balmont
FANTASY
Like living statues, in the sparkles of the moonlight,
The outlines of pines, spruces and birches tremble slightly;
The prophetic forest calmly sleeps, the bright shine of the moon accepts
And he listens to the murmur of the wind, all filled with secret dreams.
Hearing the quiet groan of a blizzard, pine trees whisper, spruce trees whisper,
It is pleasant for them to rest in a soft velvet bed,
Without remembering anything, without cursing anything,
Slender branches bend, listen to the sounds of midnight.
Someone's sighs, someone's singing, someone's mournful prayer,
And melancholy and rapture, like a star sparkling,
It’s like light rain flowing, and the trees seem to be dreaming of something.
Something that people will never dream of, no one ever.
These are the spirits of the night rushing, these are their eyes sparkling,
At the hour of deep midnight, spirits rush through the forest.
What torments them, what worries them? What, like a worm, is secretly eating them?
Why can’t their swarm sing the joyful hymn of heaven?
Their singing sounds more and more loudly, the languor in it becomes more and more audible,
Tireless striving, constant sadness, -
It’s as if they are tormented by anxiety, thirst for faith, thirst for God,
It’s as if they have so much torment, as if they feel sorry for something.
And the moon still shines, and without pain, without suffering
The outlines of prophetic fairy-tale trunks tremble slightly;
They are all dozing so sweetly, listening indifferently to the moans
And they calmly accept the charms of clear, bright dreams.
1.What is the composition of this poem?
3. What is the most remarkable, interesting thing you noted in the form of the poem?
4. What impression did the poem make on you? Do you agree that Balmonte's poetry leaves a feeling of fragility and insubstantiality?
5. Do Balmont’s poems give the impression of some kind of poetic improvisation?
6. Which collections of K. Balmont became, in your opinion, the most noticeable phenomenon both in his work and in the history of Russian symbolism? Which ones do you find most interesting? Why?
K. Balmont "Oh quiet Amsterdam" |
Konstantin Balmont
Poetry is like magic
We apologize for the “ѣ” signs in the text; this is the only version of the text that has reached us. If you know how these letters should look correctly, we will be happy to correct them.
Mirror to mirror, match two mirror images, and place a candle between them. Two depths without a bottom, colored by the candle flame, will deepen themselves, mutually deepen each other, enrich the candle flame and unite with it into one.
This is an image of a verse.
Two lines melodiously go into uncertainty and aimlessness, unrelated to each other, but colored by one rhyme, and looking into each other, they deepen themselves, connect, and form one, radiantly melodious whole. This law of the triad, the connection of two through a third, is the fundamental law of our Universe. Looking deeply, pointing the mirror at the mirror, we will find a singing rhyme everywhere.
The world is universal music. The whole world is a sculptured Verse.
Right and left, top and bottom, height and depth, Sky above and Sea below, Sun during the day and Moon at night, stars in the sky and flowers in the meadow, thunder clouds and huge mountains, the vastness of the plain and the infinity of thought, thunderstorms in the air and storms in soul, deafening thunder and a barely audible stream, an eerie well and a deep gaze - the whole world is a correspondence, order, harmony, based on duality, now spreading into an infinity of voices and colors, now merging into one inner hymn of the soul, into the singularity of a separate harmonious contemplation , into the all-encompassing symphony of one Self, which has accepted the limitless diversity of right and left, top and bottom, height and abyss.
Our day is divided into two halves, in which there is day and night. In our day there are two bright dawns, morning and evening, we know in the night the duality of twilight, thickening and thinning, and, always relying in our being on the duality of the beginning mixed with the end, from dawn to dawn we go into clarity, brightness, separateness, expanse, into the feeling of the multiplicity of life and the diversity of individual parts of the universe, and from twilight to twilight, along a black velvet road strewn with silver stars, we walk and enter the great temple of silence, into the depth of contemplation, into the consciousness of a single choir, the all-united Lada. In this world, playing day and night, we merge two into one, we always transform duality into unity, connecting with our thought, with its creative touch, we connect several strings into one sounding instrument, we merge two great eternal paths of divergence into one aspiration , like two separate verses, kissing in rhyme, unite into one inseparable sonority.
Sounds and echoes, feelings and their ghosts, The mystery of creativity, a newly created verse.
It has long been said that in the beginning was the Word. It has been said that in the beginning there was Paul. In both dogmas we are given part of the truth. In the beginning, if there was a beginning, there was Silence, from which the Word was born according to the law of addition, correspondence and duality. From voicelessness - a voice, from silence - a song, from silence - a whole explosion of sounds, an immeasurable cyclone of noises, screams, screams, whispers, roars, babblings, buzzing strings, dawns from Chaos, red flowers from the black Night, ruby fires of the creative Day, stars , scattered by a worldwide storm, an infinity of blizzard roads, united into a single Milky Way.
At the beginning, when the beginning arose, the single Sex, who knew neither measure nor time, fell in love with himself, and, in his single infatuation, having experienced the immensity of bliss, because of this immensity he wanted more, and the power of thirst created duality, the one became double, the whole - multiple, one became two, and two became three, four and infinity, for two must be in the world for a kiss to arise, - for he and she must be in the world for Love to become stars, with the multiplicity of all its radiances, the fragmentation of sounds, calling them back and reuniting them in one tune, - there should be two lines so that a rhyme sings between them, and there should be not two, but more of them, - three in three lines, and four in a stanza, and eight in an octave, and fourteen in a sonnet, and there are many, uncounted many, in the poem.
One mountain is beautiful and rises to the sky as if by a frozen fire, the flame of which has sharpened and froze - rises to the sky as if with a wordless hymn, which began with a broad broadcast, ended with a blade of thought, gradually tapering, evenly sharpened, a call leading into the azure. One mountain is beautiful, but when two high peaks, but when two peaks at a certain distance and in a certain proximity, are connected with each other - by some correspondence in size, by some linear mirroring, and rise as if repeating each other, not in monotonous identity, but in friendly harmony of affinity - a melodious mood grows in the soul of the beholder, line to line seems to cling to it, a whole song arises in it, where the lines are different, but form one whole, like different mountains, adding up into a whole, form one mountain range.
The mountain lake shines silver below like a huge mirror. A high mountain peak looks out into the flat waters. By the power of secret correspondence, these two different phenomena are combined into one. The gigantic impenetrable stone is reflected in the transparent moisture. High mountain looks in deep water. A human soul, which sees this, stands as the third link, and, just as rhyme connects two lines into one melodiousness, the soul connects the silent mountain and the mirror water into one melodious thought, into one ringing verse. And a person will call the snowy mountain that looks into the waters the Young Virgin, and this reflecting lake he will call the Rose of the Five Winds.
A green sprout emerges from a small acorn. The green shoot turns into a tree. The tree grows in huge oak. The oak grows into a grove - a noisy oak grove, a green forest. The primary mind of man looks and sees, full of high poetry, a correspondence in the duality of the face of tree creatures. There is a melodious charm in the way an uplifting trunk bursts out of the flat earth. The horizontal and vertical line, by their intersection and their connection, lead the thought along two paths of divergence, and at the same time detain it in the spell of contemplation of a single miracle, which is called the talking oak, where a branch corresponds to a branch, and each patterned leaf corresponds to a thousand carved leaves, and all this green multitude rustles, rustles, casts a spell, inspires song. Two principles united into one, from one multiplicity was born, the multitudes formed a single whole, the oak tree grew into a sacred grove, and the Druids will gather in it to sing their prayers and cast a spell in a chanting voice.<...>
Human thought draws from everywhere the invisible substance of enchantment, the ghostly basis of witchcraft, in order to sing a beautiful verse, - just as the solar power drinks up everywhere the drops of dew and the buoyancy of moisture, - so that a light haze turns slightly white over the emerald meadows, - so that a white cloud glides in the azure, - so that the cloud spreads across the sky like a complex dragon, - so that the two become one, - so that two different fires, opposed, touching in the cloud, break through its reservoir and free the rain.
The ancient Peruvian, the creator of a language gentle as the murmuring of streams and gentle as the chirping of birds, listens to the sky and listens to the thunderstorm; in the stormy sky he sees the Lady of Moisture, melting flowing diamonds in an urn, and his brother, the Lord of Fire, in love with her.<...>.
Poetry is internal Music, externally expressed through metered speech.
Just as all the inspiring beauty of the sea roar lies in the dimension of the surf and tide, in the correct harmony of sound forces that came from the silence of the inner depths, and in the replacement of this correctness with wayward interplay, so verse after verse, stream-lines found in the interweaving of rhymes, speak soul not only with the direct meaning of its immediate music, but also with a secret reminder to it that this sound change of ebb and flow was taken by us from the pre-temporal rhythms of Peacemaking. The verse reminds a person that he is the immortal son of the Sun and the Ocean.
Far in the south of the Globe, surrounded by the inspiring murmurs of the sea, lies a fabulous island, which was called Terra Australis, the Southern Land. This island is not an island, it is the remnant of an unknown sunken continent. Bizarre oases of the Sea, chosen places of extraordinary legends inspired by the Ocean, the Sun and the Moon, centers of such rich and melodious languages that in all combinations of words one can hear a fluid interplay and a sweet-tender spill of light moisture. Fragrant eucalyptus and blue rubber trees, stronger than oak, our slender acacia, which here has a perverted face and crawls along the ground like an ugly bush, thin lace of cassowary trees, gigantic yellow gum, stalactite caves and blue mountains, always mysterious steppes and deserts, wingless birds , animals with beaks, humanoid kangaroos - everything is unusual within the Southern Land, along all the coasts of which the all-circular Ocean roars.
The black primitive man who lives here captured in his melodious tales that degree of penetration into the life of Nature, that radiant level of World Sensation, when the individual human Self endlessly drowns and reappears in the united dream of World Creation. It is in that all-poem existence when birds and grass speak, and every animal is a person, and every person is a beast.
The world needs the formation of faces - in the World there are sorcerers who, with their magical will and melodious words, expand and enrich the circle of existence. Nature gives only the rudiments of being, creates unfinished monsters - sorcerers, with their words and their magical actions, improve Nature and give life a beautiful face.<...>
But if the Black inhabitants of the Southern Land show the face of a completely primitive person, the Mexicans and Mayans, without losing their primitiveness and originality, achieved high sophistication, and their melodies and spells are marked with the stamp of artistic perfection. They love the musicality of thought and the ringing of musical instruments, and music is a witchcraft that always shakes our primordial foundation in our soul, the invisible stream of our songs, the water cannon that flows into itself from itself. When on the high teocalli, on the fateful night, the priests of Witztlipohtli, the god of War, called on the Aztecs of Tenoctitlan to attack the Spaniards of Cortes, they beat drums made of the skin of gigantic Snakes, and the ominous hum of these drums was as menacing as the scream of birds of prey living in the names of the Mexican gods - Ciguacoatl, the Snake Woman, the god of Song and Dance, Macuil-Xochitl, the King of Flowers, Xochipilli, the Yellow-Faced Flame, Quetzaltzin. The god Tezcatlipoca, who loved battle so much that he was a teaser of two different sides, at the same time built a Rainbow so that Music would come down to people from Heaven to Earth.<...>
The most brilliant poet of the nineteenth century, Edgar Poe, who mastered the sorcery of words like no one else and sometimes strangely coincides with the prophetic sayings of ancient peoples, Egyptians, Chinese, Hindus, in the philosophical fairy tale “The Power of Words,” wrote wonderful lines about the creative magic of words. Agathos and Oinos are talking. Like spirits, they fly between the stars. “True philosophy has long taught us that the source of every movement is thought, and the source of every thought is God. I spoke to you, Oinos, as to a child of the beautiful Earth, and while I was speaking, did any the thought of f_i_z_i_ch_e_s_k_o_m m_o_g_u_sh_e_s_t_v_e s_l_o_v? Isn't every word an impulse influencing the air? - But why do you cry, Agathos - and why, oh, why do your wings weaken when we soar above this beautiful star - the greenest and most terrible of everyone we met on our flight? Its brilliant flowers are like a fairy dream, but its fierce volcanoes are like the passions of a rebellious heart. - This is this, this is this! They are what you see in reality. This crazy star is already three centuries ago , I, clasping my hands, and with eyes full of tears, at the feet of my beloved - said her - in a few passionate words - gave her birth. Her brilliant flowers in_o_i_s_t_i_n_u are the most cherished of all unfulfilled dreams, and her raging volcanoes in_o_i_s_t_i_n_u_u_t_the passion of the most stormy and the most offended of all hearts."
The ancient Hindus sing in the sacred Vedas: “From the all-offering sacrifice, the beasts of the air, forests and villages were born. From the all-offering sacrifice, songs arose, the dimensional word caught fire. The ancestral man is fire, his open mouth is burning brands, his breath is smoke, his speech is flame ", the eyes are coals, the hearing is sparks, in this flame is the sacrifice of the Gods. The primal force heated the worlds. From the heated worlds a triple knowledge arose. She heated this triple knowledge - from it came magical words."
The creative magic of the word and the infinity of its multi-colored shades are sculptured by Miami in bizarre hieroglyphs on the temple wall in Palenque, where to this day, lost between Tabasco and Usumacinta, as the ultimate stronghold of the Cordilleran heights, which know the flight of the condor, there are memorable ruins - the Great Temple of the Cross, the Small Temple The Sun and the Palace of the Four Sides. Fanned by the ocean whispers of Maya, these pearl divers composed their hieroglyphs from the coastal pebbles of the Sea, from sea reeds, from pearls, from spirals of winding shells, from shells similar to ringing pipes, from round and long shells, from arches, from ovals, from ellipses. , from circles intersected by a quadrangle and a complex pattern, as we see on the backs of sea jellyfish, which were the first to teach people painting. The May Sculptor, who imprinted the word about the Word, speaks, feeling surrounded by enemies, whom he calls bird-eaters, for they are beak-nosed and have prehensile claws.<...>Beware!
The same high idea of magical power we see the melodious word, and words in general, in two countries surrounded by the sea of our North, in Norway, where there are deep valleys and deep fjords, and in the lake-filled country of the Finns.
The god of armies, Odin, with ravens sitting on his shoulders, put the Valkyrie Sigurdrifa to sleep by pricking her with a sleepy thorn. As a woman, this Valkyrie became famous throughout the land of Brynhild. Her castle is surrounded by a wall of fire. Only the one who breaks through the fiery stronghold can take possession of it. Brave Sigurd, who drank the blood of the dragon Fafnir and understood the language of eagles, rode on horseback through the fire, found the sleeping Brynghild, took off her military helmet and cut off the armor that stuck to her with a sword. They talk, and the proud Valkyrie, doomed to become a woman, talks to Sigurd about the runes and gives him good advice.<...>
If anyone needs the incantatory power of words, it is precisely the man of the harsh North, where in essence Nature is so often hostile to him with its frosts and swamps, the immense forces of the Sea and the obstacles of impenetrable forests. But wild animals teach man the necessary wisdom in the struggle for existence. A wolf does not attack a wolf in vain, but if it decides to attack, it will meet another wolf not by surprise, but ready for battle. And the eagle, although powerful and clawed, like no other bird of the air, does not fly into someone else’s eagle’s nest for robbery purposes, since it has its own. This primitive, bestial, but also divine, need to tenaciously hold on to one’s own is deeply expressed in the runes and advice of Brynghild. If you want to be strong, be as hard and accurate as steel. Firm, but also flexible. In the spell word, the Valkyrie teaches to be proportionate, vigilantly weighing the dignity of a person’s behavior in the World. Through the spell word, she teaches the soul to master the World, but, having taught to be strong, the first advice she gives to the strong is not to abuse power, for in this high power and there is, - and he orders, stretching out his hand, to extend his hand healing or directing the sure blow, where this blow should occur. Singing and terrible power is this wisdom of the Valkyrie - the claws of the bear and the claws of the wolf, the eagle's wings and the beak of the owl, and the runes are inscribed on the nail of the Norna, in whose fingers the thread of Being is woven. But they are also rushed on its hooves by the fiery Horse of the Sun, and the Sun rushes us all in a host of stars. The long-haired night of Norway, the Valkyrie woman, Bringhild, teaches us to be prophetic, high, swift, starry in the spell word.
If the runes are worthy of praise in the Scandinavian Edda, the power of the spell fills even more the Finnish poem, Kalevala. Here the thought at first does not completely escape the spell of the conspiracy, just as we will never part with snow and fog in the North, and only for individual moments of insight the Sun breaks through the thickest fog, the storm scatters the darkest clouds - the conspiracy word defeats the most formidable evil and causes the most desirable combinations of creative dreams come to life.
In Kalevala, Vainemainen casts spells all the time. V_e_y_n_o in Finnish means s_t_r_a_s_t_n_o_e z_e_l_a_n_y_e. From this present x_o_ch_u the whole World will be born, stars and Seas, flowers and volcanoes will be created. A Song is born, Music arises, rays stretch from one heart to a million hearts, a single human spirit, conjuring a melodious word, becomes, as it were, the main luminary of a whole interweaving of stars and planets.
With the power of the word, the Daughter of the Air, the mother of Weinemäinen, raises capes, digs pits for fish, lifts up cliffs, sculpts countries, builds pillars of the winds, enriches the abysses of the Sea, and between Heaven and Sea, in the cycles of centuries, gives life to man, and commands him to be a singer and a spellcaster. Vainemäinen transforms sands and stones into a tree kingdom. Having enchanted Nature with a knowing word, he scattered seeds on the ground. He sowed everything we love: pine and spruce, willow and birch, heather and bird cherry, juniper and red rowan. Having hidden six or seven grains in marten and squirrel fur, he sowed barley and oats. Where necessary, he cut down trees, but spared the birch trees so that the cuckoo would have room to crow. He is good, but he knows how to be formidable, and when the arrogant Yukagainen, an undergrown singer of spells, challenges him to a competition, Vainemoinen sang a spell, branches grew on Yukagainen’s arc, a willow fell on the collar of his horse, the whip turned into sedge, the sword became lightning, painted the bow became a rainbow, the mittens became flowers, and Yukagainen himself sank up to his mouth in quicksand, in a quagmire, and would have drowned completely if Weinemainen had not chanted a reverse spell and had not disillusioned his spell.
From the bones of the pike, which swims in the Sea and knows the secrets of the sea, Vainemäinen made his melodious harp, kantele, and to this music he sings incantatory songs. He made the strings from the hair of the elemental spirit Hiishi, who lives in a deep abyss on hot coals, but he is also a water king, a mountain spirit, a woodsman, and a fast horse.<...>
The Virgin of the Moon and the daughter of the Sun, who were spinning gold and silver cloth, heard the kantele and forgot to spin, and the gold and silver thread of Heaven broke at the sound of an earthly instrument playing an incantatory song. Later, the Sea swallowed this kantele, Vainemoinen made another, from birch wood and the girl’s thin hair. In this fusion of the natural and the human, the elemental and the humane, lies the sound secret of Poetry as Magic, in which the cries of the wind, animal cries, the singing of birds, and the rustling of leaves speak through human words, giving them a double expression, and settling in incantatory words and letters how brownies and goblins live in our forests and houses.
If the entire world life is an incomprehensible miracle, arising by the power of the creative word from non-existence, our human word, with which we measure the Universe and reign over the elements, is the very magical miracle of everything that is valuable in our human life. It is difficult for us to remember, with our imperfect memory, how it first burst out of our human throat, but truly great it must have been joy, or great pain, or such a moment where bliss was indistinguishably mixed with pain, and silence must have opened up, and we must were to speak. And since in the Miracle all the parts of its components are magical, everything that makes it a miracle, there is no doubt that every letter of our alphabet, every sound of our human speech, be it Russian or Hellenic, Chinese or Peruvian, is a small magical elf and gnome , each letter is magic, having its own separate charm, and we express this in separate words, and we feel it in their special combinations, it is only easier for us to feel, sense the reality of a verbal miracle, rather than accurately determine and check with our minds what exactly our letter and verbal guessing, and through the interweaving of syllables and words, spiritual guessing, when our understanding heart suddenly makes us sing a prophetic song that will sweep like the wind across the whole country. Or say one word that will be so true that it will spread from people to people, and spread from century to century.
The ancient Egyptian said that spells must be cast in the right voice, only then will the Spirits and Gods submit to human will. The Egyptian expression M_a-X_r_o_u means Creating with a Voice, Embodying with a Word, Carrying out His Will with a Faithful Voice. The most ancient monument of the human word is the wall inscription of the Great Pyramid of the Sahara, in the funeral chamber of the pharaoh, whose name is Upas. With measured speech, the Egyptian king commands the Gods, he has power over life and death, he says to himself: “Oh, with us, you exist, you live, you are. Your scepter is in your hand. You give commands to those whose dwellings are hidden. You are washed by fresh water, the moisture of the stars. You go down by iron paths. The geniuses of light greet you, exclaiming..."
Heraclitus said that words are the shadows of things, their sound images. Democritus counters, saying that words are living images. In essence, there is not even a confrontation here. The silent pond sculpts the willow tree, reflecting its shadow in its water. And a child or a savage, without much thought, only imbued with the power of vision, gives in an idol carved from wood or stone a truer shadow of things than he himself can suspect. Every word is a shadow of the first thought, one of the facets of thought, for a person’s sensation and thought are always multifaceted, and every word is a speaking statue of an Egyptian temple, you just need to understand this statue and be able to cast a spell on it so that it ceases to be silent. In order for the sound statue, which is called the Word, to reveal its innermost voice and speak to us magically, it is necessary that we ourselves have the primary glowing power of enchantment. The giant of Egypt, the stone Meshnon, was usually silent, but when the rising Sun touched him, he sang.
Fet said:
Only you, Poet, have the winged sound of words that grabs you on the fly and suddenly fixes them.
The primary man is always a Poet, and the Poet is his god who creates the Universe for him. The Egyptian god of the Night Sun, Atum, chanted the gods, they came out of his mouth. The Egyptian god of rebirth, Osiris, wandering among half-bestial human beings, through the power of a melodious inspiring word, taught them to be people truly, loving life-giving hops and nourishing grain. By the power of chanted magic spells daylight conquers all the horrors of the Night, reviving the infinity of the bright day - and the dead person, with the power of a spell word, goes through all the purgatories in order to live reborn among the carefree fields.
The word is a miracle, and in a miracle everything that makes it up is magical. If we look closely with an ear that understands each individual sound of our native speech, human speech in general, the speech of animal voices, the speech that exists in the singing and cries of birds, the speech of rustling trees and those natural entities that are generally considered inanimate, like a stream, a river, the wind , storm, thunder - we will see that there are individual sounds, individual singing letters that have such an all-encompassing character that they are repeated not only in speech talking man, but also in the voices of Nature, thus shading our human speech with a sound spell thrown into it from Nature. Before we talk about this complicated sound spell, let's get down to the individual sounds of our speech. Listening for a long time and intently to different sounds, peering lovingly at individual letters, I cannot help but approach certain guesses; I build from the sounds, syllables and words of my native speech a treasured chapel, where the weight is filled with deep meaning and penetration. I know that, in building such a chapel, I proceed from the Russian verbal principle, and therefore my guesses are necessarily partial, just as the one who builds Indian Pagodas does not go to the Christian Temple, and the masses of Carpak or Teocalli of Mexico City are not equivalent to the Mosque, - but there are, however, crystalline moments where the souls of all peoples converge, and there are Rituals, there are melodies, there are movements, body movements of the soul that are repeated in all the Temples of the entire Globe.
I take my childhood alphabet, a small primer, which was my first guide, who introduced me as a child into the endless labyrinths of human thought. I look at all the letters with humble love, and each one looks at me friendly, promising to speak to me separately. But before I hear their individual voices, I myself try to identify them in their overall face. These letters are called - g_l_a_s_n_y_e and s_o_g_l_a_s_n_y_e. It’s easier to pronounce vowels; you can master consonants only with struggle.
Vowels are women, consonants are men. Vowels are the nakedest voice, the mothers who gave birth to us, the sisters who kissed us, the hiervoist, from where, like drops and explosive streams, we flowed out in our verbal face. But if our speech contained only vowels, we would not be able to speak; we would only cry with vowels in the fluid, formless moisture, like the splashing waters of a flood.
And those who agreed, with their strong masculine strength, ordered, coordinated the spilled abundance, stood up like a dam, a dam, a long pier, cutting off a strip of the Sea, and walked in a clear channel, directing the waters to conscious work. Nevertheless, even though the rulers are consonants, and they give orders, considering themselves the real masters of the word, the emphasis in every word is not on the consonant, but on the vowel. Even big and greatest number the most expressive consonants. Tell R_u_s_a_l_k_a. There are seven sounds here. There are more agreements. But I hear only one insinuating A. Are there many sounds that are more expressively audible than Shch or Ts, and such obstacles as P. But say the word P_l_a_k_a_l_l_shch_i_ts_a. I can only hear A sobbing again.
So, as soon as I began to talk about letters, vowels took possession of me with a purely feminine insinuation. Each letter wants to speak separately.
The first is A. Our alphabet begins with A. A is the clearest, most easily elusive, most vowel sound, emanating from the mouth without any obstacle. Open your mouth and, mentally checking yourself, try to pronounce any vowel, for each you need to make a small effort, only this fret, A, flies out on its own. It is not for nothing that the Hindus, wishing for euphony, ordered that women be given names where A is often found - Anasuya, Sakuitala. A is the first sound uttered by a child, and the last sound uttered by a person who, under the influence of paralysis, little by little loses the power of speech. A is the first basic sound of an open human mouth, like M is a closed one. M - the painful sound of a deaf-mute, a groan of restrained, crumpled torment. A is a cry of extreme torment of the tortured. Two principles in one word, repeated among almost all nations - M_a_m_a. Two first principles in Latin A_m_o - L_yu_b_l_yu. An enthusiastic child's exclamation of A, and into the depths of silence the numb M. Soft M, wet A, vague M, transparent A. Honey M, and A like a bee. In M there is the dead noise of winter, in A the imperious spring. M will squeeze both darkness and bottom, And the churning shaft. The gentle garden of pleasure of passion, the frightening terrible darkness of punishment, from Heaven to Hell, there are two of them in our saga of Genesis, A - the beginning, A - the end. A - imperiously: - Az seven, the self-affirming step of the speaking Adam. In Music A, or L_ya, the penultimate of the seven sounds of the scale, this is, as it were, a sound pre-final glance, before the final cry, the piercing S_i, sounds. In the secret algebra of passionate inspiring words, A, like the spirit of May, sings and broadcasts: “Give me caresses, let me kiss you, my clear falcon, little swallow, red Sun, mine, you are mine, desired, desired.” Like a stone, and not a scarlet ruby, but in the lunar spell it fell, sometimes, - more often, during the day, a diamond playing, the whole gamut of colors. As the popular saying goes, Diamond is an angel's tear. Glory to the full vowel A, this is our Slavic letter.
Our other main vowel is O. O is the throat. Oh this is the mouth. O - the sound of delight, triumphant space is O: P_o_l_e, M_o_r_e, P_r_o_s_t_o_r. Why do we say O_r_g_i_ya? Because in Orgy there are many screams of delight. But everything huge is defined through O, even if it is dark: - S_t_o_n, g_o_r_e, g_r_o_b, p_o_x_o_r_o_n_y, s_o_n, p_o_l_n_o_ch_y. Big, like valleys and mountains, an island, a lake, a cloud. Long, like a sorrowful fate. Huge as the Sun, like the Sea. Terrible, like scree, landslide, thunder. Strict, like a threat, like a sentence thrown by Rock. Together with the rude U, he denigrates in the word U_r_o_d. It will bite deftly and viciously with a sharp dart. It will sing and whine like a bell. It whispers with a sigh like a sedge. A deep ditch will open up. Cart after cumbersome cart, like an elephant after an elephant, the train sleepily groans at its full capacity. In the multi-trunked choir of a multi-leaved forest or in a coniferous forest, it wanders freely, like waves in its interplay, with repeated hints and groping. The sultry bosom of the earth, and the cold of the frosty mountains, the whirlpool bottom, the whirlpool and the persistent millstone, the fire of flesh and desire. The watchful eye of the wolf's enemy, and the blind eye of the homeless midnight. Your harsh wills. The high vault of the elevated cathedral. Bottomless O.
U is the music of noise, and U is a cry of horror. The sound is heavy, like a cloud and buzzing copper pipes. Often U is rough, in its substance: S_t_u_k, b_u_n_t, t_u_p_o, k_r_u_t_o, r_u_p_o_r. In a deep forest he gets lost - A. The ear catches the hooting of an eagle owl. Elastic U, multi-string. Rumble on the seashore. The gloomy thought of vague copper-round moons. In the fluid world of vowels, where a bond is needed, U suddenly stands up like a stop, like an angle, anticipating the spill of a storm.
As the opposite of the heavy U, I is a thin line. A piercing, elongated blade of grass. Scream, whistle, squeal. The bird whose cry in the spring, after a rainstorm, is especially audible among the cries of birds, is called I_v_o_l_g_a. And - the sound face of amazement, fear: - T_i_g_r, K_i_t. Naively sincere: - I_sh_y you k_a_k_o_y. Acute, fast: - I_g_l_y, h_i_r_k. Leaves, whirled by the wind, sometimes with their rustling suggest the name of the tree: L_i_p_a, I_v_a. And - a pitchfork, a piercing screw. When the water spins quickly, they say about this swirling abyss: V_i_r. Scream, French C_r_i, Spanish C_r_i_t_o, in the very word it screams, worries, torments, - how whole games of armies live in an expressive strong and united clique of victorious hordes: - Latin V_i_v_a_t.
E is the most incorrect, difficult to identify vowel. It is not for nothing that we distinguish - E, Ѣ, E. This is not enough - we have E. Madmen fight with Ѣ and E. But the desire to impoverish our alphabet is a vain desire to spill from a full handful, lingering on it, golden sparkles of grains of sand. In vain. The grains of sand stick. Say - M_e_l_k_i_y, say - L_ ѣ _s. You will immediately see that you pronounce the first word quickly, the second slowly. E and ѣ are quite appropriate as a designation of light and weighty, short and long. Triple, quadruple, this letter is some kind of bewildered, intermittent, full of splashing and splashing, sound message. Either this is a bright gospel, as in the blowing words - Spring willow, then it is a delayed ominousness, as in the words - S_ ѣ _р_ы_й, M_ ѣ _p_a, Т_ ѣ _н_ь, then it is the echo of singing in the concavity of the vault, as in the word - E_kh_o. And if E is a softened O, bent halfway, then what a strange hedgehog, a quick brush, suddenly flashes, a quarter of an existing, softened E, which is E.
I, Yu, Yo, And are the pointed, thinned A, U, O, Y. I am obvious, clear, bright. I am Yar. Yu - curling like ivy and flowing into the stream. Yo - melting light honey, flower - flax. And - twisting the pothole Y, an impassable pothole, for it is impossible to pronounce Y without the firm help of a consonant sound. The softened sound words Ya, Yu, Yo, And always have the face of a writhing serpent, or a broken line of a stream, or a bright lizard, or a child, a kitten, a falcon, or a nimble loach fish.
Just as in the world of living beings inhabiting the Earth, there are not only female and male beings, but also elusively dual androgynous beings, changing both principles within themselves, so between vowels and consonants there are several elusive sounds, which in essence are not vowels, pi consonants, but they took their charm from both consonants and vowels. The most bizarre sound creature is the sound V. In the Russian language, as well as in English, V easily turns into a soft U. In Mexican dialects, V is mixed with a light G. And it is not for nothing that two such different sounds, like V and G, stand in our the alphabet is nearby, and it is no coincidence that we say - G_o_l_o_s, and the Latin will say - V_o_x. The voice of the Wind is heard here.
The babble of a wave is heard in L, something wet, loving, - L_yu_t_i_k, L_i_a_n_a, L_i_l_e_ya. The overflow word L_yu_b_l_yu. A willful curl separated from a wave of hair. A benevolent face in the rays of a lamp. A light-eyed clinging weasel, an enlightened gaze, the rustling of leaves, bending over the cradle.
Listen carefully to how Moisture speaks to us.
An oar slipped from the boat. The coolness melts gently. "Darling! My darling!" Light, Sweet from the white gaze. The swan swam away into the semi-darkness, into the distance, turning white under the moon. The waves are caressing towards the oar. Lily is fond of moisture. My ears involuntarily catch the babbling of the mirror womb. "Darling! My darling! I love you!" - Midnight looks from the sky.
L is a gentle sound not only in our Slavic speech. Look how the Peruvians, distant Peruvians, separated from us by the vastness of the Oceans and belonging to a completely different group of peoples, coincide with us. L_yu_l_yu in Peruvian L_yu_b_i_m_k_a, L_yu_l_yu_y - L_e_l_e_t_b, L_l_n_ya_n_l_l_ya_y - V_n_o_v_b z_e_l_e_n_e_t_t, L_l_o_h_l_y_ya - L_i_v_e_n_b, L_b _yu_l_y_ya_y - U_l_e_shch_a_t_y, L_ly_yu_s_k_a_y - S_k_o_l_l_z_i_t_y, L_ly_yu_l_ly_yu - L_a_s_k_o_v_y_y. I take another country, lost in the Seas: Samoa. The Samoans are not connected with us, nor with the Peruvians, and yet, to say S_o_l_n_t_e, they say L_a, N_e_b_o they have L_a_n_g_i, P_e_t_b - L_ya_n_g_i, G_o_l_o_s - O_-_l_e_-_l_e_o, M_e_l_k_o_v_o_d_e_e - V_ a_i_l_ya_l_yo_a, L_i_s_t P_a_l_b_m_y - L_ya_o_a_i, Z_e_l_e_n_e_t_b - L_e_l_ya_u, M_o_l_v_i_t_t - L_ya_l_ya_u, K_r_a_s_i_v_y_y - L_e_l_e_y. Affectionate demands L.
In nature itself, L has a certain meaning, just like the parallel, nearby R. Standing nearby - and the opposite. Two brothers, but one is light, the other is black, R - fast, patterned, threatening, controversial, explosive. Rupture of mountains. In the rose - ruddy, in the thunder - rumbling, prophetic - in the runes, prostrate - in the plain and in the rainbow. The rumble of the mind, the roaring mouth, the beat of the drum, the bursts of wind, the roar of the storm, the explosion of the hurricane, the rumble of strings, the red, red whirlwinds of the fires of thunderstorms that broke out and roared with thunder. R - views of the mountains where ore is stored - various nuggets. There is more than one sun in grains there. It’s not just the games of decorating silver - there’s the grumbling of other metals, in their secrecy.
Copper touched by blood, To rattle with axes, To kill in a sweeping manner, And to yield to iron. Under the iron - Oh, ore - Blood flows like water, And the headdress is locked in the steel Mountain black conversation.
R is one of those prophetic sounds that participate significantly in the language of the most different nations, and in the rumblings of all nature. Just as Z, S and W are heard - in human speech, and in the hiss of a snake, and in the rustling of leaves, and in the whistle of winds, so P participates in the speech of our mouth and throat, and in the grumbling of a tiger, and in the cooing of a turtledove, and in the cawing of a raven, and in the murmur of waters flowing in masses, and in the rumble of thunder. It was not in vain that we, the Russians, said G_r_o_m, and it was not for nothing that the Germans called him D_o_n_n_e_r, the English - T_h_u_n_d_e_r, the French - T_o_n_n_e_r_r_e, the Scandinavians called the god Gromovnik T_o_r, the Ancient Slavs - P_e_r_u_n, the Lithuanians - P_e_r_k_ u_n_a_s, and in Chaldea - R_a_m_a_n. It is not in vain that we define our speech with the verb Г_о_в_о_р_и_т_ь, which sounds in German - S_p_r_e_c_h_e_n, in Italian - P_a_r_l_a_r_e, in Sanskrit - B_r_u, in Peruvian - R_i_m_a_y.
I said that some sounds are especially dear to our feelings, our unconscious, wisely understanding feelings, because they are fundamental, primordial, so that even their external outline strangely excites us, we fall in love with them. In ancient notation, A is 1: A, surrounded by a thin circle, means T_b_m_u or 10,000; A, surrounded by a denser circle, means L_e_g_i_o_n or 100,000; A, surrounded by a fancy circle consisting of hooks, means L_e_o_d_o_r or Thousand Thousands, 1,000,000. There are truly many shades in the beautiful letter A, and a thousand thousand is not at all such an incalculable wealth, for human speech is a continuously flowing Ocean, and it is calculated that in one Arabic language there are 80 words for Honey, 200 for Snake, 1000 for Sword, and 4,000 for Misfortune.
A is the first sound of our open mouth, while the first sound of a closed mouth is M, the second is N. And so we see that in all the oldest religions known to us, the sounds A and N act as a bright banner. The sacred city of the Sun in Egypt, beloved by the gods Solntsegrad, is A_n_u. The Chaldean god of Heaven is A_n_n_a. The Chaldean goddess L_yu_b_v_i is called N_a_n_a. In Sanskrit A_n_n_a means P_i_sch_a. Hindu spirit of joy - A_n_a_n_d_a_n_a_t_h_a. Hindu world serpent - A_n_a_n_t_a. The sister of the World Blacksmith Ilmarinen is called A_n_n_i_k_i in "Kalevala". The wife of the Scandinavian Sun God Balder is called N_a_n_n_a. These are not borrowings or random coincidences. This is a manifestation of the law, which operates strictly; only the actions of the law have been little studied by us.
Participating in the highest - in the primary explosion of a human, desiring speech - And also participates in the most humble thing that exists - an animal cry. And there is a dog in the barking, And there is a horse neighing. So is the mysterious V. I am not a body, but a spirit. And the spirit is the Wind. And the Wind is V. Vayu and Vaata in Sanskrit, Veyas among the Lithuanians, Ventus among the Romans, Viento among the Spaniards, Wind among the Germans, Wind /Wind/ and the poetic Wind /Wind/ among the English, Wiatr among the Poles, - the Wind that lives and in the human spirit and in the spirit of God, which hovered over the formless waters, a whirlpool rushing in a cyclone and blowing forgetfully in the leaves of the willow above the stream. The wind playfully dropped its small sound hieroglyph - V - into the crystal throat of the songbirds: V_i_i_t sings the robin, T_i_i_v_i calls the wagtail, T_i_i_v_i_t_t - the tenth highest sound of the nightingale. This roulade Tii-vit, as Turgenev says, for a good nightingale has the highest meaning, making him the supreme maestro.
Knowing that the sounds of our speech participate, not equally and with an indefinable degree of dedication, in the hidden voices of Nature, we are powerless to determine exactly why this or that sound affects us with all the charm of memory or all the charm of novelty. Touching the music of the word with our consciousness, we grasp part of its torn wealth, but only with a wise feeling do we feel the music of the word in full and, having joyfully bathed in all the ringing waves and dull depths, we have the power to create, refreshed, a new harmony. Red wild North America, by the power of magical singing and special dancing, like the representatives of wild Mexico, conjuring the descent of rain and the fiery music of thunder, they say about our European songs that we talk too much - they themselves arrange certain words of certain lines in a sacred order, inexplicably repeating in They have well-known refrains and rehashes, for the word is essentially sacred for them. The incantatory word is Music, and Music itself is a spell that causes the immobility of our unconscious to stir and glow with phosphorescent light.<...>But verse in general is magical in its essence, and every letter in it is magic. The word is a miracle, the verse is magic. Music, which rules the World and our soul, is Verse. Prose is a line, and prose is a plane, there are only two dimensions in it. One or two. A poem always has three dimensions. Verse - pyramid, well or tower. And in a rare verse of a rare poet there are not three, but four dimensions - and as many as a dream has.
Speaking of verse, the most magical poet XIX century, Edgar Allan Poe said: “Rhyme began to be looked upon as rightfully belonging to the rank of verse - and here we regret that this has become so completely consolidated. It is clear that much more should have been meant here. One sense of r_a_v_e_n_s_t_v_a entered into the effect. "Rhymes have always been p_r_e_d_v_i_d_e_n_y. The great element of surprise has never been dreamed of, and as Lord Bacon says, there is no exquisite beauty without some s_r_a_n_o_s_t_i in proportion." Edgar Allan Poe, who made the Raven speak and bells and bells ring in his poems, and who transferred the midnight magic of the Sea and silence into his verse, and who plucked several bright stars from the sky for rhymes and consonances, was the first European to clearly understand that every sound is a living being and every letter is a messenger. In one line he explodes the depths of the soul, showing us our ringing keys, and in four lines he closes the whole sentence of Fate.
A chanting with a drowsy lull, With a lazily carefree wing, Amid the trembling green sheets That shadows spread on the backwaters, You were a motley parrot to me, That bird that we have known since childhood, You taught me the alphabet. I merged with you in the first word, When I lay in the wooded distance, A child whose eyes already knew.
But at the very time when the young magician, Edgar Poe, moving from youth to youth, created the symbolism of melodious expressive-sound poetry, in the field of Russian verse, from the original sources of Russian speech, symbolic verse arose completely independently, in the beginning. The poet, who is famous and yet essentially little known, describing in 1844 the impression of music on the river, says, precisely playing the notes:
The streams curl, the songs flow, The echo echoes in the distance.
Two years earlier, describing fortune telling, he says:
Mirror to mirror with trembling babble I brought it up by candlelight.
Also in 1842, he sang:
Storm on the evening Sea, Angry noise of the Sea, Storm on the Sea and thoughts, Many painful thoughts. Storm on the Sea and thoughts, Chorus of growing thoughts. Black cloud after cloud, the sea of angry noise.
This magical chant is also built entirely on B, R, and especially on the dumb M, like the first chorus of “Rhine Gold”, where the wizard of the northern Sea, Wagner, guesses the voice of moisture, built on V...<...>
The Russian wizard of verse, who, at the same time as Edgar Poe, listening to our riot, understood the witchcraft of each individual sound in verse, and whose Muse -
The abrupt speech was full of sadness, And female whims, and silvery dreams, -
the wizard talking about her -
We are agitated by some kind of languid depression, I listened as words met with a kiss, And for a long time without her my soul was sick, -
this wizard, the sweet sorcerer of verse, was Fet, whose name is like a spring garden, filled with the cries of joyful birds. I exalt this bright name as the name of the first creator, as the name of the herald of those sound fortune-telling and verse guessing, which decades later were embodied in the books “Silence”, “Burning Buildings”, “Let’s Be Like the Sun” and will continue through “Glow of the Dawn”.
Even before Fet, another enchanter of our verse, created a sound rune, which we have no equal to, I’m talking about Pushkin, and at the sound of this name it seems to me that I’m listening to the wind, and I want to repeat what I wrote down about him for myself in a moment brought up.
Everything that is connected with the free play of feelings, everything that is intoxicating, wine-tempting, this is Pushkin. He will teach us a bright laughter, this majestic and playful, this light as the smell cherry blossoms, and formidable at times, like a howling blizzard, a wizard of Russian verse, brave, the grandson of Beles. All the murmur of water, all the breath of the wind, all the intermittent rhythm of stubborn desire, which in silent slavery grew and rushed to freedom, and broke out, and spread its influence over miles and miles, all this is in Pushkin’s “Collapse”, in this dancing holiday of L , R, V.
Once a landslide broke from there and fell with a heavy roar. And he blocked the entire gap between the rocks, and the mighty shaft stopped the Terek. Suddenly exhausted and subdued, O Terek, you interrupted your roar, But stubborn anger broke through the back walls of the snow... You flooded, furious, Your shores...
The brevity of the lines and the repetition of sounds, the strict dimension of this verbal storm, the penetration into the broadcast secret of individual cries of the human throat - cannot be surpassed. Here the sorcerer-miner worked and saw flowing wells underground precious stones and, scooping up a full ladle with an imperious hand, splashed out the talking moisture for us. The Russian peasant bore in his soul many conspiracies, the most bizarre ones including Z_a_g_o_v_o_r_a n_a t_r_i_d_ts_a_t_t_r_i t_o_s_k_i. Elusive in his surprises, the wind-flying Pushkin created in “Collapse” the immortal and effective “Conspiracy for prophetic letters”, “Conspiracy for evoking a sound message-story”.
Modern verse, which has absorbed the witchcraft principle of Music, has become multifaceted and guessing. The special state of the elements and the touch of the soul to the origins of life are expressed in modern verse in a witchlike way. Without naming names, which of course everyone remembers as famous, I take two melodies from two different poets, regardless of considerations of general assessment, historical and literary, only in the direct application of an example of enchanting poetry: “Seal” by Vyacheslav Ivanov, where is the inner music based on Ch, P and silent M, and “Wedding” by Jurgis Baltrushaitis, where the explosively stormy violent B, together with the blowing B, gives the melody of a mortal snow whirlwind.
An indelible seal fell on two foreheads. And two have one destiny: - To remain silent About what the night has spun, - What of the nights one has spun, Spun and unswept. The two were mated with one yoke by the deaf-mute Vodir. He branded two with one brand, And marked them with the sign: Mine, And one became Mine to the other... Be silent. Forever - Mine.
In this terrible tune, where the poet exposes not only the magical understanding of the sound M, but also the wisdom of the heart, which grows numb in horror, everything is stuffy, cramped, dim, dead, love is a curse, love is an obstacle. In Baltrushaitis’s melody, wide and free, there is not the crampedness of a room, but the spaciousness of sunny vision, not love as a curse and death, but death as a blessing and love.
Wedding hour! Radiant Winter Crystal opened the tower. A swan turns white in the blue sky. And white hops fly up in a column. Dashing messenger, exploding White smoke, A singing whirlwind rushes towards the young. Smokes and jumps, blowing a white horn. Pearls are generously dropped along the roads. In the wedding field, the wild Blueberry spins and twists a white tow. Her maids sing and weave, They will clothe you in their white velvet, - And you will be dressed like a dandy for the eternity of dark years, My pale prince. Your cheerful curls will make your delicate flax white with a crown of lilies. And in the secret hour of your wedding dreams You will wilt among the white, white roses. And you will be three times more beautiful among them, my handsome, pale, white groom!
The magic of knowledge can conceal the magic of curse. Based on an understanding of the exact law, we can fall into the numbing realm of killing consciousness. There is a valuable truth, well formulated by the singer of the Wind, the Sea and the human depths, Shelley: “Man cannot say - I want to write the creation of Poetry. Even the greatest poet cannot say this, because the mind in a state of creativity is, as it were, an extinguishing coal, which by action "The invisible influence, like the fickle wind, awakens to a fleeting brilliance. This power arises from the depths of the soul, like the colors of a flower."
Modern verse easily forgets, too often does not remember that one needs to be like a flower in order to enchant, to be rooted in the dark depths of the extraconscious, to be for a long time in the testing depths of Silence, before, opening his cup, to be a lover of the Moon, and most importantly, most importantly , flame of the Sun. Only then is the prophetic legend of the Scandinavians justified that the creative drink that makes a person a skald consists of the blood of a demigod and intoxicating honey<...>.
NOTES
This work was published as a separate book, the first edition was in 1915 /M.: Scorpio/. Published in an abbreviated form according to the 1922 edition /M.: Zadruga/. It was conceptualized by the author as software. Developing a kind of treatise on poetry, Balmont drew on extensive material from the mythology of the peoples of Central and South America, ancient India / "Vedas" /, ancient egypt, Scandinavia, Russian folk art, epic tales: “Edda” /Scand./, “Kalevala” /Karelian-Finnish epic/, mentions the heroes and characters of these works, etc. At the same time, the author’s judgments are subjective, they do not stand up to scientific criticism /for example, an attempt to assign a certain meaning to individual sounds/. However, they should be taken into account when studying the poetic principles that guided Balmont in his work, as they can clarify some of the features of his poetry and work on poetry.
In the beginning there was the Word - the “Gospel of John” begins with this saying... in the beginning there was Paul - this position was developed in his works by the Russian philosopher and writer V.V. Rozanov /1856-1919/. Edgar Allan Poe - see note. to the poem "Edgar Poe", Heraclitus, Democritus - ancient Greek. philosophers. A chanting with a drowsy lull... - poem by E. Poe. Fet said... - quotes the poem by A. A. Fet /1820-1892/ “How poor our language is: I want and I can’t...”. The poet who is famous<...>and is little known... - Fet is meant, then his poems are quoted: “The streams curl behind the stern...”, “Mirror in mirror, with tremulous babbling...”, “Storm on the evening sea...”. Wagner - Richard Wagner /1813-1883/ - German composer. And whose Muse... - meaning Fet's poem "Muse" / "Not to the gloomy palace of the talkative Naiad..."/. Shelley - see note. to the poem "To Shelley". Vyacheslav Ivanov /1866-1949/ - symbolist poet. Jurgis Baltrushaitis /1873-1944/ - symbolist poet who wrote in Lithuanian and Russian, Balmont’s closest friend; His poems “The Indelible Seal” and “The Wedding” are quoted.
"POETRY AS MAGIC"
That’s what I called my new book, summing up what I wrote in 2010.
Without a doubt, this name was already used by someone in the previous century.
Remember who?
But the topic stated in it, the problem, still sounds relevant.
Because poetry is a gift from God. And the poet who owns this gift, with the help of simple words and a magic wand in the form of a fountain pen, shows the world a miracle.
What is the essence of this miracle?
And the fact is that something arises from nothing, something capable of influencing a person’s soul and maintaining its impact - positive or negative - for a very long time.
The poetry of the new, 21st century is now in a state of chaotic excitement, breaking habitual stereotypes, in search of...
Everyone writes poetry, everyone who writes poetry strives for poetry, but only a few become wizards.
For me, Sergei Yesenin and Nikolai Rubtsov, Osip Mandelstam and Joseph Brodsky remain examples.
They are true magicians of the word, which has become the work of their whole life. It is not for nothing that from generation to generation young Russian poets, willingly or unwillingly, began by imitating them.
If it was possible to overcome their magnetic attraction, a new poet appeared. After all, only something new in poetry has the right to life. Novelty in view of the world, in use poetic devices, visual and musical media.
Poetry and painting are quite conservative, say, compared to photography. Remember how rapidly, literally before our eyes, photographic technologies improved - from photographic plates, photographic films and to digital cameras. From black and white to color. From a long process to an instant one.
Poets are also trying to do something in this sense. They are looking for new forms, sizes - from iambs, trochees, anapests and amphibrachs they move on to blank verse, to free verse... They write without punctuation, come up with abstruse metaphors addressed to the subconscious...
And woe to the poet who, in his experiments, forgets that the main and unique instrument of poetic sound is his soul.
You need to sing with your soul! – Ekaterina Konstantinovna Iofel said recently at a meeting at the Blagozvuchie club. – Everything divine is in the human soul! Of course, you need to know the notes, master the skill, and be comprehensively educated. But if I had not taught Dima Hvorostovsky to sing not only according to the notes, but with all his soul, he would not have become the winner of the “Singer of the World” competition.
And when I open a book of poems in a store, first of all, I look - are the poems written from the heart? Because the rules of versification can be taught to any schoolchild, but not every soul will open up in response with the help of poetry!
To understand the magic of Nikolai Rubtsov’s poetry, I took and reprinted all his poems - and a lot of things were revealed to me that I had missed when reading.
To understand the secret of Viktor Tsoi’s popularity, I took and reprinted all his song lyrics - and I understood why he still has so many fans.
And recently I discovered a brave, unique poet - Valery Prokoshin. I downloaded all his poems from the Internet, reprinted them, and now I have a single, unique copy of the book, which I called “Dust of Ages.” Every speck of dust in it is worth its weight in gold. I'm telling you this for sure.
Yes, poetry is inexhaustible.
Every year representatives of a new generation appear who dare to write better than Yesenin and Rubtsov.
But what does better mean?
I think this means being bolder than your predecessors and teachers in a search that reveals the riches of the soul hitherto unknown.
It seems that Mandelstam and Brodsky are much better?
But no, novelty requires new songs that touch the soul, better thoughts and feelings...
It is difficult to be a poet in Rus'.
It's hard to get people to listen to you. Everyone has their own concerns. It's hard to get interested
a book published at his own expense. But these difficulties are overcome when your works begin to work in your Name, and then the Name works for you.
I gave Ekaterina Konstantinovna Iofel the book “The Shadow of the Butterfly and the Moth”
After reading it, she called me and said that she was absolutely delighted. That after that I went to the store “ Russian word” and bought my book “On the Level of Love” and now recommends my poems to everyone she teaches singing.
I understood, recognition has come to me, and I must now write in such a way that my new poems become songs, romances that I could perform with all my heart, remembering my homeland, Siberia, somewhere in London or Paris, Dmitry Hvorostovsky...
And I thought - it would be good if at least one of the poems became a folk song and resonated in the hearts of people kindred to me in spirit.
Reviews
Hello. When I saw the precise and intriguing title, I was delighted, but unfortunately, I only found a review... Real poetry is truly magic. But, as they say, WHERE TO READ? By the way, I have been familiar with your poetic work for more than forty years, because I was born and raised in Eastern Siberia, then “catchy” poems were rare (except, of course, for the poems of your fellow countryman “Zhenka”, who filled all possible niches), and I even remembered some of them by heart. With the advent of the Internet, I found it online.
Hello, Marina!
You intrigued me.
I am very glad that I am your chosen poet and prose writer.
Until next time
Sincerely, Nikolay EREMIN
Mirror to mirror, match two mirror images, and place a candle between them. Two depths without a bottom, colored by the candle flame, will deepen themselves, mutually deepen each other, enrich the candle flame and unite into one. 
This is an image of a verse.
Two lines melodiously go into uncertainty and aimlessness, with each other
unrelated to each other, but colored by the same rhyme, and looking into each other, they deepen themselves, connect, and form one, radiantly melodious whole.
This law of the triad, the connection of two through a third, is the fundamental law of our Universe. Looking deeply, pointing the mirror at the mirror, we will find a singing rhyme everywhere.
The world is universal music. The whole world is a sculptured Verse.
Right and left, top and bottom, height and depth, Sky above and Sea below, Sun during the day and Moon at night, stars in the sky and flowers in the meadow, thunder clouds and huge mountains, the vastness of the plain and the infinity of thought, thunderstorms in the air and storms in soul, deafening thunder and a barely audible stream, an eerie well and
a deep look - the whole world is a correspondence, structure, harmony, based on duality, now spreading into an infinity of voices and colors, now merging into one inner hymn of the soul, into the singularity of a separate harmonic contemplation, into an all-encompassing symphony of one Self, which has accepted limitless diversity right and left, up and down, height and abyss. 
Our day is divided into two halves, in which there is day and night. In our day there are two bright dawns, morning and evening, we know in the night the duality of twilight, thickening and thinning, and, always relying in our being on the duality of the beginning mixed with the end, from dawn to dawn we go into clarity, brightness, separateness, expanse, into the feeling of the multiplicity of life and the diversity of individual parts of the universe, and from twilight to twilight, along a black velvet road strewn with silver stars, we walk and enter the great temple of silence, into the depth of contemplation, into the consciousness of a single choir, the all-united Lada.
In this world, playing day and night, we merge two into one, we always turn duality into unity, connecting with our thought, its creative touch, we connect several strings into one sounding instrument, two
We merge the great eternal paths of divergence into one aspiration, just as two separate verses, kissing in rhyme, unite into one inseparable sonority.
Sounds and echoes, feelings and their ghosts,
The mystery of creativity, a newly created verse.
Konstantin Balmont "Poetry as magic"
What is the magic of poetry?
Perhaps in nakedness of feelings?
The ability to touch heartstrings?
After all, the words that come out of your mouth can
Make a gloomy day happy.
Or maybe it's just an obsession?
And yet, as long as the light exists,
Behind the line is a line, like a necklace,
The poet slowly strings together the words.
Poetry is probably one of the most brilliant achievements of mankind. To pour out your feelings in poetic form, to capture your worldview in rhyme, to dream about the future and remember the past, while simultaneously addressing millions and remaining alone with yourself - only poetry, the greatest of the arts created by man, is capable of this.
In 1999, at the 30th session of the UNESCO General Conference, it was decided to celebrate World Poetry Day on March 21 every year.
On this day, employees of the Demidov Central Regional Library held a poetry reading “Poetry as Magic” for listeners of “Literary Thursdays”.
Each of us has moments in life when we want to move away from current problems and plunge into another, turbulent and exciting world - the world of poetry. And, having opened a volume of poems by our favorite poet, we begin to feel and think differently. At the evening, those present got acquainted with the series of books “Great Poets”, published by the publishing house “ TVNZ" Poems by A. Pushkin, A. Barto, L. Chizhevsky, V. Mayakovsky, N. Zabolotsky, M. Tsvetaeva, K. Vanshenkin, E. Asadov opened up a whole world of emotions for those present, expressed in short ringing lines. Vera Andreevna Poklonova and Irina Aleksandrovna Murochkina read poems by A. Akhmatova and B. Okudzhava.
The next meeting of the Literary Thursdays club, held on March 21, was dedicated to the famous Smolensk resident, great composer, the pride of Russian music, Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka. He was the first among composers to deeply and comprehensively express the soul of the Russian people in music. “Among the names that have been dear to us since childhood, in whose sounds the pride of the homeland can be heard, there are two especially dear to the heart - the names of Pushkin and Glinka...”, wrote about M.I. Glinka poet N.I. Rylenkov. It is not for nothing that the work of the great composer is truly a living spring of all Russian music. Literary and musical evening “M.I. Glinka is the pride of Russia” was prepared and conducted by the leading librarian of the central library, Anna Vasilievna Yurochkina. Listeners learned about the life of the great composer, about the creation of his brilliant operas “A Life for the Tsar”, “Ruslan and Lyudmila” and others musical works. A vivid, emotional narrative about the life and work of the great Smolensk resident was accompanied by music from his works and a multimedia presentation prepared by leading librarian Oksana Vladimirovna Zaitseva.
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