Pushkin, The Gypsies and Other Narrative Poems (trans. Antony Wood)

Of the five narrative poems in this volume, I particularly enjoyed "The Bridegroom" (a hauntingly familiar folk-tale about a woman who narrowly escapes a fateful marriage), "The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Champions" (a retelling of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves), and "Count Nulin" (a parodic re-imagining of Shakespeare's "Lucrece").

"The Gypsies" (written 1824, first published anonymously 1827)

Wood notes that "both Mérimée's Carmen (1845), the acknowledged source for the libretto of Bizet's opera, and the opera libretto itself (1875), owe much to ['The Gypsies'], which has always gone unacknowledged" (xxvi).

Freedom is a recurring theme in the poem, but it is most curiously applied to the bear that travels with the gypsies.  As the scene opens on the gypsies' encampment, we learn that "behind one tent / A bear lies fast asleep and free" (3).  Wood's word choice suggests that the bear is essentially a willing fellow-traveler with the gypsies, or perhaps that it has become habituated to handouts and is thus almost domesticated, trusting and trustworthy.

After the young lovers' first night together, the gypsies clamorously move on, "din everywhere, / Songs, the roaring of the bear, / The jingling of its iron tether" (6).  One might wonder: is the bear really free, as initially stated, or is it tethered in irons?  Later evidence (12) further supports a view that the bear is, in fact, a captive:

"His [Aleko's] shelter's shaggy guest, the bear,
A vagrant from its native lair,
Roves the Moldavian villages,
Performs its clumsy dances, gnaws
Its irritating chain, and roars
Before the wary villagers;
The bent old man is not averse
To beating on the tambourine,
Aleko leads the bear and sings,
Zemfira goes about to glean
The voluntary offerings."

This puts everything in a different light; the bonds chafe or otherwise irritate the poor bear, which bootlessly gnaws at the iron.   So in what sense was the bear "free" in the opening scene?  Perhaps merely in the freedom of the temporary oblivion of sleep (it "lies fast asleep and free") -- a purely primitive or animal freedom which is unknown to Aleko, whose own sleep is troubled by jealousy and fears of losing Zemfira's love.

Of course, Aleko also conspicuously lacks the freedom of Zemfira's father, who was content to receive the love of Zemfira's mother Mariyule as long as she chose to bestow it and thereafter cherish the daughter she left behind without trying to constrain her either.  (Both men lack the freedom of Zemfira and Mariyule, in that they seem to give their hearts only once; but Zemfira's father - unlike Aleko - is free of the burden of anger, jealousy, or grief.)

(Or to take it from the other direction, Aleko lacks the freedom of Zemfira, in that he seems to be able to give his heart only once.  While Zemfira's father shares this particular constraint, never moving on from Mariyule, he is still more free than Aleko because he bears his loss lightly and loves what is, rather than some idea of what should be.)

"The Dead Princess"

The Snow White retelling does away with some of the more morally dubious elements of the more familiar story.  The prince who eventually rescues the princess is already her betrothed, not a stranger, and he is looking for her.  He awakens her from the glass coffin not by kissing her supposed corpse, but by beating and banging the coffin in grief!  The "seven champions" (not dwarves here) are all in love with her, but respectful and courteous once they learn that she is already betrothed.

There are other changes as well.  For example, it's not a nameless huntsman, but a named female servant, Chernavka, who is ordered to "bind [the princess] up and leave her / For wolves to eat alive" (68).  She leaves the princess alive and unbound, but lies to the evil queen that she left her "Bound firmly by the elbows" (69).  When the mirror reveals that the princess is still alive and beautiful, the queen threatens Chernavka with an "iron penal collar" and vows that either Chernavka or the princess must die (75).  The prince not only gets a name (Yelisey) but also a quest, in which he asks the sun, moon, and wind for help.  As it turns out, only the wind knows where the princess is.    

I noticed that the king, queen and princess are referred to only by title (no name given).  The seven champions are also not named.  So the only names we get in the entire poem are the prince Yelisey and the servant-girl Chernavka.

I'm sure it would have been a tremendous disappointment to Pushkin to learn that his failure to come up with another female name would cause his poem to fail the Bechdel test, even though both the queen and the princess speak with Chernavka about something other than a man.

"Count Nulin"

Origins 

Wood notes that Pushkin wrote "Count Nulin" after wondering what would have happened  in Shakespeare's poem, had Lucrece slapped Tarquin (xxix).

Perhaps this line of thought was inspired by lines 1034-36, in which Lucrece urges her hand to assist her in suicide:

Since thou couldst not defend thy loyal dame
And wast affeard to scratch her wicked foe,
Kill both thyself and her for yielding so.

Especially as we later learn that, had Lucrece been able to cry out at the time, her maid would have come quickly:

With untuned tongue she hoarsely calls her maid,
Whose swift obedience to her mistress hies,
For fleet-winged duty with thought's feathers flies.

(ll. 1214-16).

A Simile, Deflation, and Some Points of Comparison with "Lucrece"

I particularly liked this passage from "Count Nulin":

Donning his striped silk dressing gown,
The count is speedily abroad.
In the dark a chair goes down;
Tarquin, in hope of sweet reward,
Once more sets forth to seek Lucretia,
Resolved to go through fire to reach her. 

Thus you may see a cunning tom,
The mincing darling of the house,
Slip from the stove to stalk a mouse,
Creep stealthily and slowly on
Towards his victim, grow slit-eyed
And wave his tail from side to side,
Coil to a ball, extend his claws
And snap! the wretch is in his paws.

(57).  So here, Pushkin explicitly compares Nulin and Natalya to Tarquin and Lucrece.  There's some excellent deflation going on there -- tripping over a chair in the dark is like going through fire! -- especially since, in this poem, the intended mouse slaps the cat and thwarts him.  (Still, the count might have taken a dark revenge on Natalya Pavlovna for the shameful slap, the poem suggests, "Had not the barking of the pom / Woken Parasha [Natalya's servant] from her sleep." The sound of Parasha's "footsteps drawing close" sends Count Nulin "To take shamefaced and rapid flight" [59].)

"Lucrece" also contains a cat simile, though not as extended.  It occurs after Tarquin gives Lucrece a choice between (a) saying Yes to him as a secret lover and (b) getting raped and murdered and left with a murdered servant in her arms to make it look like she was untrue.   She desperately pleads with him, but her words only buy her a little time:

So his unhallowed haste her words delays,
And moody Pluto winks while Orpheus plays. 

Yet, foul night-waking cat, he doth but dally,
While in his hold-fast foot the weak mouse panteth. [...]
His ear her prayers admits, but his heart granteth
No penetrable entrance to her plaining [...].

(ll. 552-55, 558-59).

Another point of contact between the poems -- a comic contrast -- is Count Nulin's tripping over a chair in the dark.  Shakepeare's Tarquin does not face that particular risk to his enterprise, because he lights a torch to find his way; indeed, he chillingly addresses the flame: "As from this cold flint I enforced this fire, / So Lucrece must I force to my desire" (ll. 181-82).

Shakespeare actually expends rather a lot of verse on this torch.  Tarquin debates with himself about whether to proceed, urging "Fair torch, burn out thy light, and lend it not / To darken her whose light excelleth thine" (ll. 190-91) but proceeds with lit torch nonetheless:

As each unwilling portal yields him way,
Through little vents and crannies of the place
The wind wars with his torch to make him stay
And blows the smoke of it into his face,
Extinguishing his conduct in this case;
But his hot heart, which fond desire doth scorch,
Puffs forth another wind that fires the torch. 

And being lighted, by the light he spies
Lucretia's glove

(ll. 309-17).

Retelling of the Incident 

After she escapes Count Nulin's nefarious attentions, Natalya regales her friends and neighbors with the tale.  The poem ends with a comment that it was Natalya's 23-year-old male neighbor Lidin -- rather than her husband -- who found the story most amusing.  Her unnamed husband is "the least amused by far" and swears "he'd make [Count Nulin] yelp" (61).  

Lidin's amusement here suggests to me that he is Natalya's established lover. In that case, he would rejoice in both the story of Count Nulin's failure to seduce Natalya and the husband's impotent vows of revenge.  What better jest for a young buck than to know he has usurped both the husband and a would-be rival lover -- with the husband not only none the wiser but also wrongly irate with the thwarted count?  

If so, Pushkin's closing quatrain is nicely ironic.

Alternative Translation

While preparing this post, I came across a loose, breezy translation by Betsy Hulick, which I'm guessing probably captures the tone of the original rather well.

In both translations, we get the names of our "heroine" Natalya Pavlovna (48), our "hero" Count Nulin (56, 61), the count's manservant Picard, Natalya's maidservant Parasha, the 23-year old neighbor Lidin, and two other servants, Filka and Vash.

In Wood's translation, the husband remains unnamed like the non-entity he is; in Hulick's, Natasha addresses him as Seryozha.

Revisiting the Tomcat Analogy

Hulick renders the passage as:

Even so, a snoozing tom,
the darling of the help, will rouse
from sleep, apprised that there's a mouse
nearby, and track it to its doom.
With narrowed eyes, on silent paws,
he closes in with untaught skill,
crouches, leaps, and sinks his claws
in flesh that twitches, then is still.

In Alexander Pushkin: A Critical Study, Briggs (106) gives us:

A sly cat sometimes set off thus.
A maid's spoilt pet, of mincing walk,
Down mousing from the stove he'll stalk.
Slow-moving, inconspicuous,
Eyes screwed in half a squint, advancing,
He'll coil into a ball, tail dancing,
Spread paws from sly pads, and anon
Some poor, poor mite is pounced upon!

And Wood's version (57), as previously seen:

Thus you may see a cunning tom,
The mincing darling of the house,
Slip from the stove to stalk a mouse,
Creep stealthily and slowly on
Towards his victim, grow slit-eyed
And wave his tail from side to side,
Coil to a ball, extend his claws
And snap! the wretch is in his paws. 

====

Briggs, A. D. P. Alexander Pushkin: A Critical Study. Croom Helm ; Barnes & Noble Books, 1983.
Pushkin, Alexander.  "Count Nulin."  Translated by Betsy Hulick, Cardinal Points Journal, vol. 12, no. 3, July 2011, pp. 112-126.  Stosvet Press, 15 January, 2018.  
Pushkin, Alexander.  The Gypsies and Other Narrative Poems.  Translated by Antony Wood, 1st ed, David R. Godine, 2006.
Shakespeare, William.  "Lucrece" from Folger Digital Texts.  Ed. Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston, and Rebecca Niles.  Folger Shakespeare Library, 15 January, 2018.