Poetry
Tristia
Osip Mandelstam · 1922
Opening lines
— Какъ этихъ покрывалъ и этого убора
Мнѣ пышность тяжела средь моего позора!
How heavy to me is the splendour of these veils
and of this attire, amid my shame!
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from archive.org
Synopsis
The author's second collection brings together forty-five poems, most of them untitled, written from 1916 to 1920. Antiquity dominates: Rome, Greece, which the poems turn into a new Hellas, and Ovid's exile, to which the poem on separation that gives the book its title refers. Mingled with these are Petersburg, which the author calls Petropolis, war and revolution, love poems, and Jewish as well as Christian motifs.
Context
The collection appeared in 1922 from Petropolis, between Petersburg and Berlin, under a cover by Mstislav Dobuzhinsky bearing the date 1921. The manuscript had been arranged and the title chosen without the author, who complained about it: the book, he wrote, had been put together against his will. He gave an authorized version under the title “The Second Book”, but it was under the first title that the collection remained known. Khodasevich and Mochulsky praised it very highly.
Who it is for
Dense, allusive poems, often untitled; several French translations since 1975.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the high point of the author's first period, it confirmed his place as a great poet.