Английская поэзия XIV–XX веков в современных русских переводах (билингва)

The little world the subject of my muse,
Is an huge task and labour infinite;
Like to a wilderness or masse confuse,
Or to an endless gulf, or to the night,
How many strange Meanders

doe I find?How many paths do turne my straying pen?
How many doubtful twilights make me blind,
Which seek to lim out this strange All of men?
Easy it were the earth to portray out,
Or to draw forth the heaven’s purest frame,
Whose restless course, by order whirls about
Of change and place, and still remains the same,
But how shall men’s, or manner’s form appear,
Which while I write, do change from that they were?

* * *

Our fathers did but use the world before
And having used did leave the same to us.
We spill what ever resteth of their store.
What can our heirs inherit but our curse?
For we have sucked the sweet and sap away,
And sowed consumption in the fruitful ground:
The woods and forests clad in rich array,
With nakedness and baldness we confound.
We have defaced the lasting monuments
And caused all honour to have end with us:
The holy temples fell our ravishments.
What can our heirs inherit but our curse?
The world must end, for men are so accursed,
Unless God end it sooner: they will first.

* * *

Never so many masters any knew,
And so few gentlemen in such a crew,
Never so many houses, so small spending,
Never such store of coin, so little lending.
Never so many cousins, so few kind.
Goodmorrows plenty, good wills hard to find,
Never so many clerks, ne’er learning less,
Many religions, but least godliness.
Justice is banished, law breeds such strife,
And truth: and why? for swearing is so rife.
Thus in her strength of causes virtue dies,
And vice without a cause still multiplies.

Томас Бастард (1565/6 — 1618)

Лепечущий малыш

Смешно и мило слушать, как дитя
Над первым слогом трудится, кряхтя;
Старается неловкая ракетка
Отбросить звук — но слабо и неметко.
Там язычок, толкаясь в нежный свод,
Никак опоры должной не найдет;
Курок дает осечку за осечкой…
И наконец — срывается словечко,
Смешно оскальзываясь на ходу, —
Как будто человек идет по льду.

Перевод Г. Кружкова

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