Without Lifting A Finger

Also reading: Khodasevich (a real live book!). Bilingual edition. Translated from the Russian by Peter Daniels. (Maybe I'll put up Daniels' version of "The Monkey" alongside Nabokov's someday. Maybe I'll have some time -- far down the road -- to dabble in the Russian myself.) Will certainly look more at Nabokov's Pale Fire in relation to Khodasevich's "Ballada." * Khodasevich's "Petersburg": They gave themselves to sad monotonous tasks, until their strength was spent. Half-dead among them, only I distracted their predicament. They looked at me and they forgot their bubbling kettles boiling dry, the boots of felt that scorched on stoves -- all listening to my poetry Then in sepulchral Russian dark a flowery herald-girl took my hand; and music's concord was revealed to me, knocked sideways in the wind. Mad with visions, over the sheet-ice on the canal, I'd reach the bank and slither up the crumbli...

From "The Task of the Translator" (a bit wrenched from context): Art, in the same way, posits man's physical and spiritual existence, but in none of its works is it concerned with his response. No poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no symphony for the listener.

Two translations: Catholic (without doxology) [10] and 1928 Anglican BCP (with doxology) [11] Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [ The 1928 BCP adds: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.] Amen. 1662 Anglican BCP [12] Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. [For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.] Amen. Other English translations are also used. Though Matthew 6:12 uses the term debts , the older English ve...