Don't leave your room: Brodsky's words take on new meaning

Thomas de Waal shares his translation of Brodsky’s very topical poem of 1970. Extracted from its original Soviet context and spilled over the coronavirus carpet, Brodsky’s satirical slant takes on a frighteningly literal interpretation - unanticipated like the virus itself.

Don’t leave your room! Exactly 50 years ago, Joseph Brodsky wrote a prophetic "Virus" poem which suddenly sounds very relevant to our extraordinary moment, especially as you hit the last line. I’ve done a new translation of it.

Brodsky’s poem is strangely prophetic, But it’s worth mentioning that it’s a poem written against isolation not in favour of it. Brodsky came from a Leningrad intellectual milieu but differed from most of his peers by sticking his neck out and openly opposing the Soviet regime. This outspokenness cost him and he was arrested for “parasitism” and spent 18 months doing hard labour in internal exile. In 1972 he was forced to emigrate.

The spirit of this poem is entirely satirical. Brodsky is mocking those members of the stay-at-home intelligentsia of Leningrad who despised Soviet reality but did nothing to oppose it, merely remaining in their rooms and complaining. As a result, the poet scornfully maintains, they ended up blending with that reality even more completely and practicing “wall-paper fusion.” So Brodsky himself would have hated to be told to self-isolate! But never mind, it’s a poem for our time.

 

Не выходи из комнаты, не совершай ошибку...

Иосиф Бродский

Не выходи из комнаты, не совершай ошибку.
Зачем тебе Солнце, если ты куришь Шипку?
За дверью бессмысленно всё, особенно — возглас счастья.
Только в уборную — и сразу же возвращайся.

О, не выходи из комнаты, не вызывай мотора.
Потому что пространство сделано из коридора
и кончается счётчиком. А если войдёт живая
милка, пасть разевая, выгони не раздевая.

Не выходи из комнаты; считай, что тебя продуло.
Что интересней на свете стены и стула?
Зачем выходить оттуда, куда вернёшься вечером
таким же, каким ты был, тем более — изувеченным?

О, не выходи из комнаты. Танцуй, поймав, боссанову
в пальто на голое тело, в туфлях на босу ногу.
В прихожей пахнет капустой и мазью лыжной.
Ты написал много букв; ещё одна будет лишней.

Не выходи из комнаты. О, пускай только комната
догадывается, как ты выглядишь. И вообще инкогнито
эрго сум, как заметила форме в сердцах субстанция.
Не выходи из комнаты! На улице, чай, не Франция.

Не будь дураком! Будь тем, чем другие не были.
Не выходи из комнаты! То есть дай волю мебели,
слейся лицом с обоями. Запрись и забаррикадируйся
шкафом от хроноса, космоса, эроса, расы, вируса.

1970

Don’t leave your room, don’t commit that fateful mistake…

Joseph Brodsky

Don’t leave your room, don’t commit that fateful mistake.
Why risk the sun? Just settle back at home and smoke.
Outside’s absurd, especially that whoop of joy,
you’ve made it to the lavatory--now head back straight away!

Don’t leave your room, don’t go and hail a taxi, spend,
the only space that matters is the corridor, its end
a ticking meter. She comes by, all ready for caressing,
mouth open? Kick her straight out, don’t even start undressing.

Don’t leave your room, just say you have the influenza.
A wall and table are the most fascinating agenda.
Why leave this place? Tonight you will come home from town
exactly as you were, only more beaten down.

Don’t leave your room. Go dance the bossa nova,
shoes without socks, your body bare and coat tossed over.
The hallway holds its smells of ski wax and boiled cabbage,
writing even one letter more is excess baggage.

Don’t leave your room. Do you still look handsome?
Just ask the room… Incognito ergo sum,
as petulant Substance once remarked to Form.
It’s not exactly France outside. Don’t leave your room!

Don’t be an idiot! You’re not the others, you’re an exclusion!
Choreograph the furniture, essay wall-paper fusion.
Make that wardrobe a barricade. The fates require us
to keep out Cosmos, Chronos, Eros, Race and Virus!

1970

 

You can listen to Brodsky himself read the poem in Russian here.
Original text taken from: Культура.РФ. Translation by Thomas de Waal.

 

THOMAS DE WAAL

@Tom_deWaal

Tom de Waal is a scholar and writer, whose work centres around the Caucasus, the Black Sea, Ukraine, Russia and Brexit. He is a Senior Fellow with Carnegie Europe and author of a number of books, including Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War (NYU Press, second edition 2013) and The Caucasus: An Introduction (Oxford University Press, second edition 2018).

 
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