Tyutchev - Silentium!
A pond on Tolstoy’s estate, Yasnaya Polyana
This widely known poem deals with the richness of the inner life, the inadequacy of language to express it, and, hence, the ultimate unknowability of another’s soul — as the saying goes in Russian, “Чужая душа потёмки” (Another’s soul is darkness). The poem is quoted (misquoted, actually!) by Dmitry Karamazov in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.
The poem suggests, in its most famous line, that “a thought once spoken is untrue” — or, to stick more closely to the original, an “uttered thought it falsehood” (Мысль изреченная есть ложь). Of course, this thought is slightly peculiar when expressed in a poem that is nothing if not an “uttered thought," an expression, in words, of the powerlessness of language. To me, this paradox suggests a further distinction (à la Wittgenstein) between a logically intelligible kind of language, which states facts through propositions — and poetic, literary language that can somehow express the ineffable, give a sense of the mysterious “whole” of life, “show” life rather than merely “speaking about” it in a narrowly rationalistic sense.
I never tire of pointing out that the dramatic shift in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, from logic to mysticism, all while straddling the limits of human language — came during his time serving in the Austrian army in WWI, face-to-face with death, and all the while obsessively reading Tolstoy’s Gospel in Brief (which Wittgenstein recommended enthusiastically to everyone he knew), and The Brothers Karamazov (it’s no accident, by the way, that it was Russian works that helped inspire this shift, since Russian thought, reaching back to its Orthodox roots, has always been keenly interested in questions of meaning, of the limits of rational thought, and the paradoxes that attend any attempt to express the whole of life logically: the whole, the divine truth of existence, can perhaps in some sense be grasped intuitively, but for the intellect that would seize and possess it, it collapses into insurmountable antinomies). Surely these works spoke to him in a way that was not logically comprehensible, with a sense of the whole that cannot be reduced to a number of propositions. Of course, the opposition between speech (rational discourse) and silence is a crucial one in Dostoevsky’s novel.
While I’m at it, here’s a relevant passage from Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground.
After all, I, for example, as is completely natural, want to live in order to satisfy all of my capacity for life, and not to satisfy my rational capacity alone — that is, some one-twentieth of my total capacity for life. What does reason know? Reason only knows what it’s managed to learn (and many a thing, I suppose, it may never learn; this is certainly no consolation, but why not state it openly?), but human nature acts as a whole, with all that is in it, consciously and unconsciously — and though it lies, it lives. (my translation)
Ведь я, например, совершенно естественно хочу жить для того, чтоб удовлетворить всей моей способности жить, а не для того, чтоб удовлетворить одной только моей рассудочной способности, то есть какой-нибудь одной двадцатой доли всей моей способности жить. Что знает рассудок? Рассудок знает только то, что успел узнать (иного, пожалуй, и никогда не узнает; это хоть и не утешение, но отчего же этого и не высказать?), а натура человеческая действует вся целиком, всем, что в ней есть, сознательно и бессознательно, и хоть врëт, да живет.
This suggests, quite provocatively, that if words, if speech — including poetry — is a “lie,” then this kind of falsehood may be more intimately bound up with life in its entirety — with the human being’s full capacity for life — than any more narrow insistence on demonstrable, logically expressible “truth.”
Today’s translation is not by me; it’s a well-known one by Vladimir Nabokov.
Silence!
Speak not, lie hidden, and conceal
The way you dream, the things you feel.
Deep in your spirit let them rise
Akin to stars in crystal skies
That set before the night is blurred:
Delight in them and speak no word.
How can a heart expression find?
How should another know your mind?
Will he discern what quickens you?
A thought once uttered is untrue.
Dimmed is the fountainhead when stirred:
Drink at the source and speak no word.
Live in your inner self alone
Within your soul a world has grown,
The magic of veiled thoughts that might
Be blinded by the outer light,
Drowned in the noise of day, unheard...
Take in their song and speak no word.
trans. V. Nabokov
Silentium!
Молчи, скрывайся и таи
И чувства и мечты свои —
Пускай в душевной глубине
Встают и заходят оне
Безмолвно, как звезды в ночи, —
Любуйся ими — и молчи.
Как сердцу высказать себя?
Другому как понять тебя?
Поймёт ли он, чем ты живёшь?
Мысль изреченная есть ложь —
Взрывая, возмутишь ключи,
Питайся ими — и молчи…
Лишь жить в себе самом умей —
Есть целый мир в душе твоей
Таинственно-волшебных дум —
Их оглушит наружный шум,
Дневные разгонят лучи —
Внимай их пенью — и молчи!..
1830 (?)
Vocab notes
молчать ЖА: to be silent • скрываться АЙ / скрыться ОЙ: to keep hidden • таить И: to keep secret • чувство: feeling • пускай = пусть • душевный: from душа • глубина: depths • вставать АВАЙ / встать Н: to rise • заходить И / зайти: to fall, set • безмолвно: silently, without words • звезды = звёзды: stars • любоваться ОВА чем: to delight in • высказывать АЙ / высказать А: to express • другому = другому человеку • понимать АЙ / понять Й/М: to understand • мысль, и: thought • изреченный: said, uttered • ложь, лжи: lie, falsehood • взрывать АЙ / взрыть ОЙ: to dig up • возмущать АЙ / возмутить И: to muddy, trouble • ключ: spring, source of water питаться АЙ чем: to take nourishment from • лишь = только • в себе самом: within yourself • целый: entire • таинственный: mysterious • волшебный: magical • дума: thought оглушать АЙ / оглушить И: to drown out • наружный: outer • шум: sound • дневной: day • разгонять АЙ / разогнать n/sA: to scatter • луч: ray • внимать АЙ чему: to hearken unto, listen to • пение: singing
