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Who then to peace I seeke to call them,
Faster I find to the warre they arme them.
Мэри Герберт, графиня Пемброк (1561–1621)
Псалом 120 Ad Dominum
Сколь часто прежде в скорби к Предвечному
Взывать случалось небезответно мне;
Опять зову, опять взываю —
Не усомнившись: Господь ответит.
Избавь от лживых уст душу, Господи,
В силки лукавства нас уловляющих,
От языка, что источает
Яд поношений, погибель верных.
О ты, что всуе льстишься надеждами
На ложь уловок, молви: напраслина
Что даст тебе? и что прибавят
Злоухищренья, и что в них проку?
Подобно стрелам, пущенным с силою,
Язвит и ранит в самое сердце ложь;
Подобно дроковым угольям,
Жарко пылает огнь неуемный.
Сколь долго, Боже, стражду в изгнании,
Сношу годами горечь обиды я,
Приют у Мешеха обретши,
Дом бесприютный — в шатрах Кедара.
Увы мне! долго, долго мне жить пришлось
Средь ярой злобы мир ненавидящих —
Чуть я о мире молвлю слово —
Те уж на битву вооружились.
Перевод С. Лихачевой
Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
The Life of Man
The world’s a bubble; and the life of man
Less than a span.
In his conception wretched; from the womb
So to the tomb:
Curst from the cradle, and brought up to years,
With cares and fears.
Who then to frail mortality shall trust,
But limns the water, or but writes in dust.
Yet, since with sorrow here we live oppress’d,
What life is best?
Courts are but only superficial schools
To dandle fools:
The rural parts are turn’d into a den
Of savage men:
And where’s a city from all vice so free,
But may be term’d the worst of all the three?
Domestic cares afflict the husband’s bed,
Or pains his head:
Those that live single, take it for a curse,
Or do things worse:
Some would have children; those that have them none;
Or wish them gone.
What is it then to have no wife,
But single thralldom or a double strife?
Our own affections still at home to please,
Is a disease:
To cross the sea to any foreign soil,
Perils and toil:
Wars with their noise affright us: when they cease,
W’ are worse in peace:
What then remains, but that we still should cry,
Not to be born, or being born, to die.
The Translation of the XIIth Psalm
Help, Lord, for godly men have took their flight,
And left the earth to be the wicked’s den:
Not one that standeth fast to truth and right,
But fears, or seeks to please, the eyes of men.
When one with other falls in talk apart,
Their meaning go’th not with their words, in proof,
But fair they flatter, with a cloven heart,
By pleasing words, to work their own behoof.
But God cut off the lips, that are all set
To trap the harmless soul, that peace hath vow’d;
And pierce the tongues, that seek to counterfeit
The confidence of truth, by lying loud:
Yet so they think to reign, and work their will
By subtile speech, which enters everywhere;
And say: Our tongues are ours, to help us still;
What need we any higher pow’r to fear?
Now for the bitter sighing of the poor,
The Lord hath said, I will no more forbear
The wicked’s kingdom to invade and scour,
And set at large the men restrain’d in fear.
And sure the word of God is pure and fine,
And in the trial never loseth weight;
Like noble gold, which, since it left the mine,
Hath seven times pass’d through the fiery strait.
And now thou wilt not first thy word forsake,
Nor yet the righteous man that leans thereto;
But wilt his safe protection undertake,
In spite of all their force and wiles can do.
And time it is, O Lord, thou didst draw nigh;
The wicked daily do enlarge their bands;
And that which makes them follow ill a vie,
Rule is betaken to unworthy hands.