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

the opening poem of the cycle ‘Solntse Emmausa’ (The Sun of Emmaus). It is written
from the point of view of the two apostles who encountered the resurrected Jesus on the
third day after his crucifixion but did not at first recognize him (Luke 24). The biblical
narrative is used as a springboard for a meditation on the central role of faith in bringing
about the transition from darkness to light, from death to eternal life. The poem
culminates in the image of the burning heart, symbolising the transforming power of
faith, derived from the biblical verse that serves as one of the sources of the title Cor
Ardens (Luke 24.32). 30
Although Ivanov expressed his enthusiasm for all three translations in his letter
to Bowra, he did not single out this poem for special mention, possibly because of a
number of distortions in the translation. The most significant error is the translation of
‘nad mrakom zol’ (over the gloom of evils) as ‘gold on the gloom’, evidently based on
the confusion of the genitive plural of ‘zlo’ (evil) with the root of ‘zoloto’ (gold). One
could also quibble over various other points. The replacement of ‘vopros’ (question) by
‘dismay’ at the end of the first stanza somewhat obscures the allusion to the leading
question posed in the biblical narrative (‘Why seek ye the living among the dead?’ Luke
24.5). In the second stanza, the line ‘And though the warming sun is bright’ lacks the
darker connotations of ‘A Solntse tonet luchezarno’ (And the Sun sinks radiantly). The
addition of ‘death’ before ‘the inexorable’ narrows the open-ended dimension of the
opening line of the third stanza. Lines 15-16, ‘From crushing and denying fears / The
lulling mist lets nothing out’ sound poetic but are unclear and too far removed from the
allusion in the original poem to the apostles’ dismissal of the women’s words as idle
tales and refusal to believe their report of the resurrection (Luke 24.9-11). Despite these
differences of emphasis, however, Bowra’s translation has much to commend it and
30 On the image of the burning heart see Pamela Davidson, The Poetic Imagination of Vyacheslav Ivanov:
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