Alexander S. Pushkin about Love
The most significant poem by Russian poet from the Golden Age
We love those who don’t love us,
We destroy those who love us,
We hate, but kiss,
We do not seek, but live.
We allow, aren’t wishing,
We curse, but take,
We talk and… forget,
About that we love, forever lie!
We’re indifferently observing,
Don’t answer on the sparks of eyes,
We rudely play with feelings,
And we regret about nothing.
We dream to be with loved beside,
But we forget the only thing,
That we love those who don’t love us,
That we destroy those who love us.
Alexander S. Pushkin
I would like to produce some analysis. My relationship with this poet is quite close. I remember how I was entirely memorising some poems, writing by him. Ultimately, despite he is far away from us on the timescale (he lived in 1799–1837), but he also wrote very scandalous things, took part in 90 duels. He had a youth, he played, he loved likewise as we.
When I’ve been thinking about poetry, I distinguished two components.
The first one is the modus of meaning, and the second one is the modus of form. The form contains different parts as rhythm, tone, etc. It was significant for Pushkin to transfer the fluctuation of the air which makes it difficult to translate. Isn’t it magnificent how poetry is close to music in this?
Above all, everything we hear or read is encountered to our perception. I maintain it because I know that some poetic lines above might give the impression that there is a condemnation about us being characterised almost like evil (“We rudely play with feelings”). It’s not about that.
There are several keystones that come together in this work. Two lines of life assemble here, namely love and life itself. This is about mutuality, feelings, delusions, dream and reality, gratefulness, forgetfulness, oblivion.
In the end, this is about the ambivalent nature of human beings.
I’m interested in this idea: “Why is it so difficult to match with someone?”. Should it be an element of similarity or is it possible to be totally different? What if love brings suffering? And if everything really exists, how it has depicted above, we are in a big trouble. Envision, if everyone would love someone who doesn’t love him. Coupledom is crucial for society.
Mutuality is not only idea within love relationship, but in the rest of life. There is an answer on smile by smiling, on kindness by producing kindness, on help by helping.
Some eclectic details:
‘We hate, but kiss’
It is about we are compelled to do certain things in life.
‘We do not seek, but live’
‘We allow, aren’t wishing’
It is about we do not aim to live, but we do it. We do a lot of things without intention. We just allow events to happen with us.
‘We curse, but take’
People permanently take their benefits. They can bear with us not because of our flourishing personality, but because of objectivity.
‘We talk and… forget’
We tend to change our mind all the time. This is also a lining of distinction between words and actions. We might forget words, but we cannot undo actions.
‘About that we love, forever lie!’
A scale of love does not exist at all. It is not about that we are liars, but rather non-universality and variability the concept. There is not any absolute love. Even if we have that feeling in our heart, it can be transformed or halted over time.
‘We’re indifferently observing’
It is about the state of obliviousness our day-to-day life.
‘Don’t answer on the sparks of eyes’
I connect these lines with inner feelings which means it might be our own eyes, and we are not able or not willing to recognize it. This is tricky because in a widespread translation it is ‘sparkling eyes’, then undoubtedly you start thinking about the eyes of others. But in the original, it is ‘the sparks of eyes’.
‘We dream to be with loved beside’
It is about our urge to idealize things and live in dreams. After this line, the author ruthlessly ground us by giving a repetitive reminder.
