Vyacheslav Ivanov and C.M. Bowra: a ... - UCL Discovery

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Ivanov – Bowra
9 December 1946 33
- “I am not sure that they (the versions) are really Hellenic. I wish they were”. 34
- Πολλω̃ν έδω̃ν δέσποινα Μου̃σ’ ε̉ν Ελλάδι
αύ̉λοι̃σιν ε̉μπνει̃ σοι̃σιν οι̉κείαν χάριν,
η˚ς̃ ευ̉̃νις
ω̉ν́, φράδμων περ, έρμηνεὺς ε̉πω̃ν
̀Αρκτου λύρας, Βορρα̃ συγήθεις άλμυρω̃
Χώρας τ’ ο̉μίχλη καὶ νέφους φαντάσμάσιν
έλληνίδας πω̃ς α̉̉ν
ποιήσαι; Χαιρέτω.
[The Muse, mistress of many sites in Greece,
Breathes into your pipes with her own grace,
Bereft of which, wise though he be, how could an interpreter of lines
Of the Northern lyre, make those accustomed to the briny North wind
And the country’s mist and phantasms of cloud
Into Greek? Let it be.] 35
103
Rome, Dec. 9 th , '46
33
WCA, Bowra’s papers. Manuscript, ink, one sheet (torn); no envelope. No draft versions of this letter survive in
RAI.
34
Ivanov opens his letter by quoting the closing sentence of Bowra's previous letter to him (letter 4), also copied out
by him on a separate sheet (see note 35 below). His letter and Greek poem directly address the concern that Bowra
expressed in this sentence.
35
I am extremely grateful to Chris Carey for his translation and helpful comments. Ivanov’s poem is an original
composition in iambic trimeters (a few lines are metrically flawed, due to lack of caesura). The poem’s core
message evidently grew out of two Greek words ‘“Ελληνίδ” έμπνει’ (breathes the Greek); as ‘Ελληνίδ’ (the Greek)
is in the feminine accusative form, it may refer to the Greek Muse or spirit. These two words, which were later taken
up in lines 2 and 6 of the poem, were first written down by Ivanov on a folded sheet, accompanying the three printed
pages of Bowra’s Greek version of Coleridge’s poem, immediately after the closing sentence of Bowra’s previous