Speaking of Pale Fire, the racehorse
in a painting mentioned by Lucette (3.5):
in Russian, kon' (horse)
rhymes with ogon' (fire). Cf. Pushkin, The Bronze Horseman,
Part Two, ll. 145-164):
Евгений вздрогнул. Прояснились
В нем страшно
мысли. Он узнал
И место, где потоп играл,
Где волны хищные
толпились,
Бунтуя злобно вкруг него,
И львов, и площадь, и того,
Кто
неподвижно возвышался
Во мраке медною главой,
Того, чьей волей
роковой
Под морем город основался....
Ужасен он в окрестной мгле!
Какая
дума на челе!
Какая сила в нем сокрыта!
А в сем коне какой
огонь!
Куда ты скачешь, гордый конь,
И где опустишь ты
копыта?
О мощный властелин судьбы!
Не так ли ты над самой бездной
На
высоте, уздой железной
Россию поднял на дыбы?
And now Yevgeny, with a shiver
Of terror, felt his reason clear.
He knew the place, for it was here
The flood had gamboled, here the river
Had surged; here, rioting in
their wrath,
The wicked waves had swept a path
And with their tumult had
surrounded
Yevgeny, lions, square--and Him
Who, moveless and aloft and
dim,
Our city by the sea had founded,
Whose will was Fate. Appalling
there
He sat, begirt with mist and air.
What thoughts engrave His brow!
what hidden
Power and authority He claims!
What fire in yonder
charger flames!
Proud charger, whither art thou ridden,
Where
leapest thou? and where, on whom,
Wilt plant thy hoof?--Ah, lord of doom
And potentate, 'twas thus, appearing
Above the void, and in thy hold
A curb of iron, thou
sat'st of old
O'er Russia, on her haunches rearing!
(a rather loose translation by Waclaw
Lednicki)
Btw., Neva means in Finnish the same what
veen means in Dutch: "peat bog."
Alexey Sklyarenko