Evgene Onegin

I just finished an amazing work by Pushkin, Evgene Onegin.  The form is very unique-- it's a novel in verse.  So it's like a more modern Iliad, except that James E. Falen actually manages to translate it with rhyme.  Here's a great passage, where Onegin kills his best friend in a duel because of a silly misunderstanding.

Ilya Repin's Depiction of the Duel

(Chapter 6, verses 29-32)

The gleaming pistols wake from drowsing.

Against the ramrods mallets pound.

The balls go in each bevelled housing.

The first sharp hammer clicks resound.

Now streams of greyish powder settle

Inside the pans.  Screwed fast to metal,

The jagged flints are set to go.

...

'Approach at will!' Advancing coldly,

With quiet, firm, and measured tread,

Not aiming yet, the foes took boldly

The first four steps that lay ahead--

Four fateful steps.  The space decreasing,

Onegin then, while still not ceasing

His slow advance, was first to raise

His pistol with a level gaze.

Five paces more, while Lensky waited

To close one eye and, only then,

To take his aim.... And that was when

Onegin fired!  The hour fated

Has struck at last: The poet stops

And silently his pistol drops.

He lays a hand, as in confusion,

On breast and falls.  His misted eyes

Express not pain, but death's intrusion.

Thus, slowly, down a sloping rise,

And sparkling in the sunlight's shimmer,

A clump of snow will fall and glimmer.

Eugene, in sudden chill, despairs,

Runs to the stricken youth... and stares!

Calls out his name! --No earthly power

Can bring him back: the singer's gone,

Cut down by fate at break of dawn!

The storm has blown; the lovely flower

Has withered with the rising sun;

The altar fire is out and done!

He lay quite still and past all feeling;

His languid brow looked strange at rest.

The streaming blood poured forth, revealing

The gaping wound beneath his breast.

One moment back-- a breath's duration--

This heart still throbbed with inspiration;

It's hatred, hopes, and loves still beat,

Its blood ran hot with life's own heat.

But now, as in a house deserted,

Inside it-- all is hushed and stark,

Gone silent and forever dark.

The window boards have been inserted,

The panes chalked white.  The owner's fled;

But where, God knows.  All trace is dead.

As tempting as it was to include a clip from Tchaikovsky's opera, the trailers from the movie on youtube were more impressive.  (I don't like the modernist staging that the Met put on last time.)  Here's one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0i1_dPf9Th4 set to Alanis Morrisette.