Орлы/мухи Eagles/flies Vulturi/muște

Даниил Хармс
(1905-1942)

Я долго думал об орлах
И понял многое:
Орлы летают в облаках,
Летают, никого не трогая.
Я понял, что живут орлы на скалах и в горах,
И дружат с водяными духами.
Я долго думал об орлах,
Но спутал, кажется, их с мухами.
15 марта 1939 года

Cugetam îndelung asupra vulturilorȘi multe înțeles-am:Vulturii zboară-n nori,Zboară, nimic neatingînd.Înțeles-am că vulturii trăiesc pe piscuri și-n munți,Și-s prietenii cu duhurile apei.Cugetam îndelung asupra vulturilor,Dar i-am confundat, se pare, cu muște.

15 martie 1939

(traducere de Alistair Ian Blyth)

De esu ceparum

A section concerning one particular effect of eating onions may be found in the Physiologia crepitus ventris (The Physiology of Ventral Crepitation) of Rudolphus Goclenius père (1547-1628), professor of Physics, Logic, Mathematics and Ethics at the University of Marburg, eclectic philosopher, polymath and poet. The text was first published in Frankfurt in 1607, and later included (with the title Problemata de crepitu ventris - Questions concerning Ventral Crepitation) in the Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Socraticae Joco-Seriae of Caspar Dornavius (Hanau, 1619), where it appears alongside the De peditu eiusque speciebus, crepitus et visio, Discursus methodicus in Theses digestus (On Farting and its Species, the Noisy and the Silent, Methodical Discourse divided into Theses), ascribed to a certain Sclopetarius, an otherwise unknown and possibly pseudonymous author. The authors of the Bibliotheca Scatologica (Paris, 1848) fulsomely describe the two tractates as follows: "L'un est l'alpha, l'autre l'omega de la matière, et tous deux il forment le nec plus ultra de ce que pourront jamais inspirer de plus ingénieux les soupirs abdominaux."

Question VII of the Problemata ("Why is it that the Vandals by eating onions fart frequently?") is both ethnological and physiological in scope, and concerns the onion-eating habit of the barbarous Vandals, who sacked Rome in AD 455, and its less than civilised effects:

Cur Vandali ex ceparum esu frequentius pedunt? An quia sunt Dioscoridi πνευματωτικαι et δηκτικαι hoc est, inflandi atque erodendi seu commordendi vim habent, quae in pituita redundante multos spirituosos flatus gignunt, maxime si cepae longae, ruffae, siccae et crudae fuerint. Vandalos autem cepis vel quotidie victitare, notissimum est, quibus ventris crepitus gratissimi sunt.

Thus, the reason can be none other than that the onion is apt to cause flatulence (πνευματωτικός). Onions are piquant (δηκτικαι) and produce a superabundance of wind (flatus) in the body's excess phlegm, especially if the legumes in question are of the long, red, dry and raw variety (longae, ruffae, siccae et crudae). It is notorious that the Vandals eat onions as their everyday victuals, and so breaking wind is most agreeable to them.

(c) Alistair Ian Blyth, Bucharest 2009

Vandal

Adam Lonitzer, Naturalis historiae opus novum, Frankfurt, 1551-1555.

Note toward the "Malbrough theme" (тема Мальбрука)

Johannes Ravisius, in his Officinae epitome (Seb. Gryphius: Lyon, 1560), gives an extensive catalogue of famous cases of unnatural death recorded in classical antiquity. These include those who met their ends by fever (Febre mortui); by apoplexy (Apoplexia mortui); by bleeding to death (Sanguinis fluxu mortui); by the gout (Podagra [mortui]); by dysentery (Dysenteria [mortui]); by drowning (Aquis submersi); by falling off horses (Equorum lapsu mortui); killed by snakes (A serpentibus occisi), lions (A leonibus occisi), or dogs (A canibus occisi); suffocated by smoke or steam (Fumo aut vaporibus suffocati); dying of merriment and laughter (Gaudio et risu mortui); engaged in a sexual act (In venereo actu mortui); by excessive eating and drinking (Cibo et potu nimio mortui); by hunger and thirst (Siti et fame mortui); struck by lightning (Fulminati seu fulmine percussi); swallowed up by the earth (Terra absorpti); etc. etc.

Ravisius also dedicates a short section (vol. 1, p. 93) to those who died or were slain in the privy (In latrinis mortui aut occisi). In fact, the cases cited all involve murder: Heliogabalus and Cneius Carbo were assassinated while in the jakes at stool; Foelicula, Valerianus, Ireneus, and Abundius were Christian martyrs whose torments culminated in them being thrust down a latrine (in cloacam detrudi).

The subsection "In latrinis mortui aut occisi" is cited by the anonymous authors of Bibliotheca Scatologica (Scatopolis [Paris]: Chez les marchands d'aniterges, l'année scatogène, 5850 [1849], p. 17), who approve "avec plaisir" the mention of debauched third-century Roman emperor Heliogabalus (Elagabalus), but are surprised at the omission of fourth-century heresiarch Arius (perhaps the most notorious case of death in the latrine recorded in history). Moreover, they regret the fact that Ravisius did not also provide a list of famous figures born in a privy: "Ravisius aurait dû donner la liste des hommes célébres qui sont nés là où les précédents sont morts, et il est à regretter qu'il ne l'ait pas fait"

In Histoire de la merde (Paris, 1978), Dominique Laporte, evidently without having consulted Ravisius, and relying on a cursory reading of the entry in Bibliotheca Scatologica, unwittingly creates an apocryphal tome dedicated to the subject of death (and birth) in the privy:

The stercus could be as much a principle of life as death. The literal resonance of this belief is illustrated by Gryphius's work [Gryphius is, in fact, the publisher, not the author -- my note], In latrinis mortui et occisi, from 1593, in which the author proposes nothing less than a comprehensive census of eminent men and women who were born or died in infamous places -- namely, in latrines.

History of Shit, trans. Nadia Benabid and Rodolphe el-Khoury, MIT Press: Cambridge Mass., 2002, pp. 36-7

The concept of stercus as a principle of life and death of course derives from Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of the carnivalesque, in which death and defecation are fundamentally ambivalent, implying not corruption and destruction, as in the moralising view of life, but rather regeneration and rebirth. For Bakhtin, carnivalesque representation of the evacuations of the “material-corporeal substratum” (material'no-telesnyj niz) is a liberating debasement (sniženie) of fear and death. The ‘Malbrough theme’ (tema Mal'bruka) is the term he uses to denote those instances in literature or folklore where the moment of death coincides with the act of defecation (ispražnenie) or breaking wind (ispuskanie vetrov). The throes of death, childbirth and defecation are interwoven in the carnivalesque continuum. As an important variant of the theme Bakhtin also mentions involuntary defecation provoked by terror, by the throes of fear (Tvorčestvo Fransua Rable i narodnaja kul'tura srednevekovaja i Renessanca, Xudožestvennaja literatura: Moscow, 1965; 2nd edition, 1990, p. 167-8).

For Bakhtin the Malbrough theme in particular and scatological images more generally are intrinsically linked with the image of the underworld (s obrazom preispodnej). Within the order of the carnivalesque cosmos, the material-corporeal substratum is contiguous with the bowels of hell. However, again, in this context Bakhtin, like Ravisius, omits to mention what was probably the most famous instance of the "Malbrough theme" in the ancient and mediaeval world after that of the Emperor Claudius, namely the death of Arius, the originator of the heresy that the Son of God was a created being subordinate to the Father, condemned by the Ecumenical Council at Nicea in the year 325. Indeed, "the strange and horrid circumstances of [Arius's] death", as Edward Gibbon puts it in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (cap. 21), were decisive in the defeat of Arianism, and seen as divine intervention. The sceptical Gibbon concludes that "those who press the literal narrative of the death of Arius (his bowels suddenly burst out in a privy) must make their option between poison and miracle."

Arius

Fifth-century Constantinopolitan church historian Socrates Scholasticus describes Arius's demise as follows:

On approaching the place called Constantine's Forum, where the column of porphyry is erected, a terror arising from the consciousness of his wickedness seized him, accompanied by violent relaxation of the bowels: he therefore inquired whether there was a convenient place near, and being directed to the back of Constantine's Forum, he hastened thither. Soon after a faintness came over him, and together with the evacuations of his bowels protruded, followed by a copious haemorrhage, and the descent of the smaller intestines: moreover portions of his spleen and liver were brought off in the effusion of blood, so that he almost immediately died. The scene of this catastrophe still exists at Constantinople, behind the shambles in the piazza: and by persons going by pointing the finger at the place, there is a perpetual remembrance preserved of this extraordinary kind of death. So disastrous an occurrence filled with dread and alarm the party of Eusebius bishop of Nicomedia; and the report of it quickly spread itself over the city and throughout the whole world. The verity of the Nicene faith being thus miraculously confirmed by the testimony of God himself, the emperor adhered still more zealously to Christianity.

The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates, anonymous translator, London 1853, p. 78

The death of Arius combines the main elements of the Malbrough theme: death during defecation; defecation caused by terror. However, its eschatological import could not be farther removed from Bakhtin's concept of the Rabelaisian grotesque. The hellish eruption of Arius's bowels is an image and consequence of the infernal origin of his heretical doctrine. It is ambivalent in that is a divine epiphany, but one of the intestinal, infernal underbelly, devoid (voided) of the fertilising, regenerative virtue and merry carnivalesque ambivalence that characterises the "Malbrough theme".

(c) Alistair Ian Blyth, Bucharest, 2009

In the Silent Mornings

Gellu Naum (1915-2001)

In the Silent Mornings (Tăcutele dimineți)
from Culoarul somnului/The Corridor of Sleep (1944)

In the silent mornings or in the silent nights
there is a haunch there is a thigh there is a panther
I try to catch your shoulders using a violin
as a butterfly net
but if your hair chimes it's because it's dreaming
if your eyelid blossoms it's because of the wind
if your hand howls it's because it's night
if your ears sleep it's because they're famished
if your shoes laugh it's because they're thinking
and if your shoulders take flight it's because it's very late

If your hand falls silent it's because it's a seashell
if your veins race it's because of the mandrake
if the thigh listens it's because there are still leaves
if the blood foams it's the fault of the umbrellas

If your frock screams it's because it's dying
if your shadow flickers it's because it's burning
if your fingernail sits on the curtains it's because they're violet
if your foot whinnies it's because of the clouds
if the lungs fall asleep it's because it's dark
and if your shoulders choke it is assuredly because of the trees


in Gellu Naum, Vasco da Gama și alte poheme/Vasco da Gama and other pohems, ediție bilingvă română-engleză, introducere și traducere de Alistair Ian Blyth, Humanitas, Bucharest, 2007 (ISBN 978-973-50-1136-9)

The Golden Fleece

Mariya Yudina

Mariya Veniaminova Yudina (1899-1970) was perhaps one of the greatest classical pianists of the twentieth century. She was openly critical of Stalin and, in spite of the climate of fear created by militant atheism and religious persecution, made no attempt to conceal her Christian faith, as a Jew who had converted to Orthodox Christianity. Although she was sacked from her teaching position at the Petrograd Conservatory in 1930, she escaped arrest during the Terror, unlike many of those from her intellectual circle who perished, including Pavel Florensky (1882-1937) and Osip Mandel'shtam (1891-1938). The reason she was spared is no doubt because Stalin himself was an admirer of Yudina's piano playing. (Likewise, it is known that Stalin, who took a personal interest in the arts, gave orders for Mandel'shtam to be "isolated, but preserved", until the poet's withering attack on the tyrant in his suicidal "kremlyovskiy gorets" epigram of November 1933 made his destruction inevitable). There are a number of versions of a story about how Stalin heard Yudina play Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 23 on radio one evening and demanded that a copy of the disk be brought to him the next morning, not realising that it had been a live performance. The following account is from Caterina Clark and Michael Holquist's biography of philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975), who was a friend of Yudina:

"When Stalln heard Yudina playing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 over the radio, he liked it so much that he telephoned the station and asked them to send over the record. This caused great consternation because the performance had been a live one and there was no record. It was decided to make him one on the spot. Yudina and an orchestra were summoned to the studios. The conductor was so nervous that he had to be replaced, but his replacement was no better, and only with a third conductor did they manage to make a record. Yudina was unruffled throughout. Stalin was so pleased with the record that he sent her a large sum of money. In her thank you note, she told Stalin that she had given the money to her church and then declared, 'I will pray for you day and night and ask the Lord to forgive you for your great sins before the people and the country.' Everyone expected Yudina to be arrested forthwith, but Stalin, who perhaps had a weak spot for people of the church as a holdover from his seminary days, did not react. Her recording of the Mozart was reportedly found on the turntable in Stalin's dacha when he died."

(Mikhail Bakhtin. Caterina Clark and Michael Holquist. Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 1984, p. 107)

I cannot agree with the assertion that Stalin may have had "a weak spot for the people of the church". It is more likely that he had a superstitious fear of the "yurodivyy", the holy fool, who, since St Prokopiy of Ustyug, Fool-for-Christ, has had such a long tradition in Orthodox Rus. Certainly, Yudina would fit the bill: she is described as wearing "an old raincoat of her father's, a beret, and tennis shoes" and as having no fixed abode. In spite of her impoverished circumstances, she donated Stalin's gift of money to the Church. Shostakovich maliciously called her a "religious hysteric". However, the strength of her religious faith made her utterly fearless, as is evident in the fact that she could dare to tell Stalin himself that she was praying for God to forgive his sins.

The recording of Mozart's Concerto no. 23 can be found here:

http://www.mariayudina.com/

Whither? Whence are they?

Osip Mandel'shtam (1891-1938)

What are we to do with the murderousness of the plains,
With the expansive hunger of their miracle?
Surely that which we deem to be openness in them
Is what we ourselves see, as we fall asleep, what we behold -
And ever sprouts the question: Whither? Whence are they?
And the one who is slowly creeping across them,
Is it not he, about whom we scream out in our sleep,
The Judas of all generations to come?

16 January 1937, Voronezh

Orion

Les majuscules sur les glaces des magasins se muent en troublants hiéroglyphes ... prennent des significations menaçantes.

Louis Aragon, Anicet ou le Panorama
Éditions de la Nouvelle revue française, 1921, p. 26

Bucharest