Tsvetaeva Quotes

An Attempt at Jealousy"

How is your life with an ordinary
woman? without the god inside her?
The queen supplanted -

How do you breathe now?
Flinch, waking up?
What do you do, poor man?

How's your life with a tourist
on Earth? Her rib (do you love her?)
is it to your liking?

How do you live with cheap goods: is the market rising?
How's kissing plaster-dust?

Are you bored with her new body?
How's it going, with an earthly woman,
with no sixth sense?

Are you happy?
No? In a shallow pit - how is your life,
my beloved? Hard as mine
with another man? ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

And tears are water, blood is water,
a woman always washes in blood and tears.
Love is a step-mother, and no mother:
then expect no justice or mercy from her. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

I opened my veins. Unstoppably life spurts out with no remedy. Now I set out bowls and plates. Every bowl will be shallow. Every plate will be small. And overflowing their rims, into the black earth, to nourish the rushes unstoppably without cure, gushes poetry ... ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

For the spell is older than experience. For the tale is older than the record. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

An amazing observation: it is precisely for feelings that one needs time, not for thought ... Feelings, obviously, are more demanding than thought. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

What is the main thing in love? To know and to hide. To know about the one you love and to hide that you love. At times the hiding (shame) overpowers the knowing (passion). The passion for the hidden - the passion for the revealed. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

After a sleepless night the body gets weaker,
It becomes dear and not yours - and nobody's.
Just like a seraph you smile to people
And arrows moan in the slow arteries.
After a sleepless night the arms get weaker
And deeply equal to you are the friend and foe.
Smells like Florence in the frost, and in each
Sudden sound is the whole rainbow.
Tenderly light the lips, and the shadow's golden
Near the sunken eyes. Here the night has sparked
This brilliant likeness - and from the dark night
Only just one thing - the eyes - are growing dark. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

I'm kissing you now - across
The gap of a thousand years. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

The one that burned the hottest is the first to die. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

For the path of comets/ is the path of poets: they burn without warming,/ pick without cultivating. They are: an explosion, a breaking in ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

What is this gypsy passion for separation, this
readiness to rush off when we've just met?
My head rests in my hands as I
realize, looking into the night
that no one turning over our letters has
yet understood how completely and
how deeply faithless we are, which is
to say: how true we are to ourselves. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

It's an abominable fallacy that suffering makes for greater art. Suffering blinds, deafens, ruins, and often kills. Osip Mandelstam was a great poet before the revolution. So was Anna Akhmatova, so was Marina Tsvetaeva. They would have become what they became even if none of the historical events that befell Russia in this century had taken place: because they were gifted. Basically, talent doesn't need history. ~ Joseph Brodsky

I know wherever you are, there are poems. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

A poet's marriage to his time is a forced marriage. A marriage of which - as of any suffered violence - he is ashamed, and from which he tries to tear loose. Poets of the past tear into the past, those of the present into the future, as if time were less time for not being my own! All Soviet poetry is a stake on the future. Solely Mayakovsky, this zealot of his own conscience, this convict of the present day, came to love this present day; overcame, that is, the poet in himself. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

Когда рыжеволосый Самозванец
Тебя схватил - ты не согнула плеч.
Где спесь твоя, княгинюшка? - Румянец,
Красавица? - Разумница, - где речь?

Как Пётр-Царь, презрев закон сыновний,
Позарился на голову твою -
Боярыней Морозовой на дровнях
Ты отвечала Русскому Царю.

Не позабыли огненного пойла
Буонапарта хладные уста.
Не в первый раз в твоих соборах - стойла.
Всё вынесут кремлёвские бока.

9 декабря 1917



When the red-haired impostor, fell Dmitri,
laid hold of you, you did not bow the knee.
Where is your pride, my princess? - Where, my beauty?
The rosy cheeks? the voice once wise and free?

And when Tsar Peter, coveting your beauty,
made to ride roughshod over filial law -
Morozova showed you the path of duty:
she was your answer to the Russian Tsar.

And Bonaparte's cold lips cannot forget still
The fiery draught you set before him then.
Once more now your cathedrals serve for stables.
The Kremlin's flanks will soldier to the end. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

I am a shadow's shade, a lunatic, perhaps,
Of two dark moons. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

Where does such tenderness come from
And what do I do with it, you, sly,
Adolescent, vagabond singer,
Whose lashes couldn't be longer? ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

I so often remain silent. I am like a wolf in his den hiding my grief, it's hard on people. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

Don't you know no one can escape the power of creatures reaching out with breath alone? ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

Freedom - a drunken whore
Sprawling in a power maddened soldier's arms. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

A deep sigh - an interview with a knife. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

Think about me lightly,
think of me, and forget. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

For the way of the comets is the poet's way. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

Beating soul and breathing blood. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

Надобно смело признаться, Лира!
Мы тяготели к великим мира:
Мачтам, знаменам, церквам, царям,
Бардам, героям, орлам и старцам,
Так, присягнувши на верность - царствам,
Не доверяют Шатра - ветрам.

Знаешь царя - так псаря не жалуй!
Верность как якорем нас держала:
Верность величью - вине - беде,
Верность великой вине венчанной!
Так, присягнувши на верность - Хану,
Не присягают его орде.

Ветреный век мы застали, Лира!
Ветер в клоки изодрав мундиры,
Треплет последний лоскут Шатра…
Новые толпы - иные флаги!
Мы ж остаемся верны присяге,
Ибо дурные вожди - ветра.

14 августа 1918



Better, my Lyre, to confess it freely!
It was the great ever stirred our feelings:
masts, battle ensigns, churches, and kings,
bards, epic heroes, eagles, and elders.
Those that are pledged to the realm, like soldiers,
do not confide their Tent - to the winds.

You know the Tsar - do not toy with the hunter!
Loyalty has held us, firm as an anchor:
loyalty to greatness - to guilt - to grief,
to the great crowned guilt - loyalty unswerving!
Those that are pledged to the Khan will serve him
- their oath is not to the horde, but its chief.

We struck a fickle age, Lyre, that scatters
all to the winds! Uniforms ripped to tatters,
and the last shreds of the Tent worn thin...
New crowds ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

And soon all of us will sleep under the earth, we who never let each other sleep above it. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

У меня в Москве - купола горят!
У меня в Москве - колокола звонят!
И гробницы в ряд у меня стоят, -
В них царицы спят, и цари.

И не знаешь ты, что зарёй в Кремле
Легче дышится - чем на всей земле!
И не знаешь ты, что зарёй в Кремле
Я молюсь тебе - до зари!

И проходишь ты над своей Невой
О ту пору, как над рекой-Москвой
Я стою с опущенной головой,
И слипаются фонари.

Всей бессонницей я тебя люблю,
Всей бессонницей я тебе внемлю -
О ту пору, как по всему Кремлю
Просыпаются звонари…

Но моя река - да с твоей рекой,
Но моя рука - да с твоей рукой
Не сойдутся, Радость моя, доколь
Не догонит заря - зари.

7 мая 1916

At home in Moscow - where the domes are burning,
at home in Moscow - in the sound of bells,
where I live the tombs - in their rows are standing
and in them Tsaritsas - are asleep and tsars.

And you don't know how - at dawn the Kremlin is
the easiest place to - breathe in the whole wide earth
and you don't know when - dawn reaches the Kremlin
I pray to you until - the next day comes

and I go with you - by your river Neva
even while beside - the Moscow river
I am standing here - with my head lowered
and the line of street lights - sticks fast together.

With my insomnia - I love you wholly.
With my insomnia - I listen for you,
jus ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

Meanings are translatable. Words are untranslatable… More briefly – a word is translatable, its sound is not. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

Wings are freedom only when they are wide open in flight. On one's back they are a heavy weight. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

Perhaps we may meet each other in a dream. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

The complete concurrence of souls requires the concurrence of the breath, for what is the breath, if not the rhythm of the soul? And thus, in order for people to understand one another, they must walk or lie side by side. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

I am only a shell where the ocean is still sounding. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

За Отрока - за Голубя - за Сына,
За царевича младого Алексия
Помолись, церковная Россия!

Очи ангельские вытри,
Вспомяни, как пал на плиты
Голубь углицкий - Димитрий.

Ласковая ты, Россия, матерь!
Ах, ужели у тебя не хватит
На него - любовной благодати?

Грех отцовский не карай на сыне.
Сохрани, крестьянская Россия,
Царскосельского ягнёнка - Алексия!

4 апреля 1917,
третий день Пасхи


Pray for the Son - the Dove - the Adolescent,
For the young Tsarevich, for the young Alexis -
Russia, pray, who the true faith confessest!

Wipe those angel eyes now, ponder deeply
Him that fell upon the stones - think meetly
On the dove of Uglich, on Dimitri.

Gentle mother, Russia, kind, caressing!
Is thy heart so hard as not to grace him
With thy loving-kindness, with thy blessing?

Visit not upon the son the father's trespass.
Russia of the country folk - be his protectress:
Spare the lamb of Tsarskoye Selo, Alexis!

4 April 1917
Third day of Easter ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

My favorite means of communication is otherworldly: dreams - meeting in dreams. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

The forbidden cabinet. The forbidden fruit. That fruit is - a volume, a huge blue-lilac volume with a gold inscription slantwise: Collected Works of A.S. Pushkin. I read the fat Pushkin in the cabinet with my nose in the book and on the shelf, almost in darkness and almost right up against it and even a little bit suffocated by his weight that came right into the throat, and almost blinded by the nearness of the tiny letters. I read Pushkin right into the chest and right into the brain. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

And I'm starving – in the literal sense. Idiots think hunger – is the body. No, hunger – is the soul, the whole weight of it falls directly on the soul. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

Old men, old men, old men. Medals, medals, medals. Not a brow without a furrow, not a breast without a star. My brother and husband are uniquely-young here. The grouping of young Grand Dukes doesn't count because a grouping is just what they are: a marble bas-relief. Today the whole old-age of Russia seems to have flowed into this place in homage to the eternal youth of Greece. A living lesson of history and philosophy: this is what time does with people, this is what it does
with gods. This is what time does with a man, this is what (a glance at the statues) art does. And, the last lesson: this is what time does with a man; this is what a man does with time. But because of my youth I don't think about that, I feel only a cold shudder. ("The Opening of the Museum") ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

Who sleeps at night? No one is sleeping.

In the cradle a child is screaming.

An old man sits over his death, and anyone

young enough talks to his love, breathes

into her lips, looks into her eyes. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

There are books so alive that you're always afraid that while you weren't reading, the book has gone and changed, has shifted like a river; while you went on living, it went on living too, and like a river moved on and moved away. No one has stepped twice into the same river. But did anyone ever step twice into the same book? ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

At the skin, my blood calls out to
your heart, my whole sky craves
an island of tenderness.
My rivers tilt towards you. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

In this most Christian of worlds all poets are Jews. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

Tonight - I am alone in the night,
a homeless and sleepless nun!
Tonight I hold all the keys to this
the only capital city
and lack of sleep guides me on my path.
You are so lovely, my dusky Kremlin!
Tonight I put my lips to the breast
of the whole round and warring earth.
Now I feel hair - like fur - standing on end:
the stifling winds blow straight into my soul.
Tonight I feel compassion for everyone,
those who are pitied, along with those who are kissed. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

Bullets they took from us, they took our rifles
Minerals they took, and comrades too:
But while our mouths have spittle in them
The whole country is still armed. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

Это просто, как кровь и пот:
Царь - народу, царю - народ.

Это ясно, как тайна двух:
Двое рядом, а третий - Дух.

Царь с небес на престол взведён:
Это чисто, как снег и сон.

Царь опять на престол взойдёт -
Это свято, как кровь и пот.

7 мая 1918, 3-ий день Пасхи
(а оставалось ему жить меньше трёх месяцев!)


It is simple, as blood and sweat:
Tsar and people - in destiny wed.

It is clear, as a secret shared
Between two, an the Spirit- the third.

Heaven summoned the tsar to his throne:
It is spotless, as sleep as snow.

And the tsar shall regain his throne yet:
It is sacred, as blood and sweat.


24th April 1918
3rd day of Easter (and he had - less than three months to live!) ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

What am I here for? To listen to my soul. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

I have two foes in the world, twins inextricably interrelated -- the hunger of the hungry and the glut of the glutted! ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

Mandelstam is the sort of poet who comes along very, very rarely. Even the two Russian poets whose work is often linked with his - Anna Akhmatova and Marina Tsvetaeva - though their work is more "urgent" than most American poetry, seem to me to operate at a lesser charge than Mandelstam. ~ Christian Wiman

Кто уцелел - умрёт, кто мёртв - воспрянет.
И вот потомки, вспомнив старину:
- Где были вы? - Вопрос как громом грянет,
Ответ как громом грянет: - На Дону!

- Что делали? - Да принимали муки,
Потом устали и легли на сон.
И в словаре задумчивые внуки
За словом: «долг» напишут слово: «Дон».

30 марта 1918


Those spared - will die, those fallen - rise from under.
Then come the sons, remembering days far gone: - And where were you? - the words will roll like thunder,
The answer roll like thunder: - On the Don!

- What did you do? - We bore with grief and cruelty,
Then laid us down to sleep, our last strength gone.
And in the dictionary, over Duty,
The grandsons, looking back, will write: the Don. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

What shall I do, singer and first-born, in a
world where the deepest black is grey,
and inspiration is kept in a thermos?
with all this immensity
in a measured world? ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

In prose too much seems superfluous to me, in poetry (genuine) everything is necessary. Given my attraction to asceticism of the prosaic word, I could end up with a skeleton.

In poetry- there's a certain innate measure of flesh: less is impossible. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

My desk, most loyal friend thank you. You've been with me on every road I've taken. My scar and my protection. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

Somewhere in the night a
human being is drowning. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

I will win you away from every earth, from every sky,
For the woods are my place of birth, and the place to die,
For while standing on earth I touch it with but one foot,
For I'll sing your worth as nobody could or would. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

I - am. You - will be. An abyss between us.
I drink. You thirst. In vain we try to agree.
Ten years between us, a hundred thousand
Years between us. - God builds no bridges.
Be! - that's my commandment! Let me pass
So that my breath doesn't hinder your growth.
I - am. You - will be. Some ten springs from now,
You'll say : - I am! - and I will say : - once was... ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

Black as
the centre of an eye, the centre, a blackness
that sucks at light. I love your vigilance
Night, first mother of songs, give me the voice to sing of you
in those fingers lies the bridle of the four winds.
Crying out, offering words of homage to you, I am
only a shell where the ocean is still sounding.
But I have looked too long into human eyes.
Reduce me now to ashes
Night, like a black sun. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

I do not speak. I smoke. Throat tight, as if fingers are squeezing it. ~ Marina Tsvetaeva