Loin de Byzance

Joseph Brodsky

L’AME DE VICTIME

Avait largement reçu de quoi

Devenir un perroquet doloriste,

Mais un jour il a vidé ses placards

Des habits qui auraient trop bien

Convenu à l’ennemi, et il est parti

Vers un vent d’au-delà des terres.

Les juges, il les a laissés vieillir

De plus en plus vite, avec le souvenir

Du bon vieux temps où l’on bandait même

Devant L’Inscription de la jeune fille

Au Komsomol. A ceux qui voulaient sa veste

Il a laissé son manteau : la victoire,

Messieurs, c’est de ne jamais laisser

La belle âme de victime rafler la mise.

Far from Byzantium

For Joseph Brodsky

A VICTIM’S SOUL

Had received more than enough to make

Of him a grief-glorifying parakeet,

But one day he emptied his closets

Of suits which would have been all too

Becoming to the enemy, and he went off

Toward a wind from beyond those lands.

As for the judges, he left them to age

More and more quickly, with the memory

Of the good old days when they got a hard-on even

In front of The Young Girl Being Registered

In the Komsomol. To those who wanted his jacket

He left his coat: victory

My good sirs, is never to allow

The noble victim’s soul to walk off with the jackpot.