NOTICE

All files on this site have been moved to http://www.wikilivres.ca. All future contributions to Wikilivres should be made there.

This site will be closed on June 6th, 2012.

Free texts and images.

And the ardent Pole — a jealous piano man written by Osip Mandelstam

From Extempore Poems, Fragments. First published in: Осип Мандельштам, Собрание сочинений, IV – additional volume (под редакцией проф. Г. Струве, Н. Струве, и Б. Филиппова) Paris, IMCA-Press 1981, No. 522. See also Poems. Translated from Russian by Dmitri Smirnov. In Russian: «И пламенный поляк — ревнивец фортепьянный… »

Smirnov:	Mandelstam:
* * * And the ardent Pole — a jealous piano man… I'm afraid of Tchaikovsky — he is Mozart left in the cold…[1] And small Rameau — a wooden grasshopper. 1937	* * * И пламенный поляк — ревнивец фортепьянный... Чайковского боюсь — он Моцарт на бобах... И маленький Рамо — кузнечик деревянный. 1937

Notes

1. ↑ Russian expression «на бобах» ("to be on beans") is equal to the English idiom “to be left in the cold” .

---

© Dmitri Smirnov, translation. Can be reproduced if non-commercial.

---