Ovid thus enumerates the causes which brought about his banishment:
“Perdiderint quum me duo crimina, carmen et error,
Alterius facti culpa silenda mihi est.”
Ovidii Nasonis Tristium, lib. ii 207.
Les Aventures du Chevalier de Faublas, a romance of a loose character by Jean Baptiste Louvet de Couvray, b. 1760, d. 1797, famous for his bold oration denouncing Robespierre, Marat and Danton. ↩
À la “Bolívar,” from the founder of Bolivian independence. ↩
M. Bréguet, a celebrated Parisian watchmaker—hence a slang term for a watch. ↩
Talon, a famous St. Petersburg restaurateur. ↩
Paul Petròvitch Kavèrine, a friend for whom Pushkin in his youth appears to have entertained great respect and admiration. He was an officer in the Hussars of the Guard, and a noted “dandy” and man about town. The poet on one occasion addressed the following impromptu to his friend’s portrait:
“Within him daily see the fires of punch and war,
Upon the fields of Mars a gallant warrior,
A faithful friend to friends, of ladies torturer,
But ever the Hussar.”
Denis Von Wisine (1741–92), a favourite Russian dramatist. His first comedy The Brigadier, procured him the favour of the second Catherine. His best, however, is the Minor (Niedorosl). Prince Potemkin, after witnessing it, summoned the author, and greeted him with the exclamation, “Die now, Denis!” In fact, his subsequent performances were not of equal merit.
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Jacob Borissovitch Kniajnine (1742–91), a clever adapter of French tragedy.
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Simeonova, a celebrated tragic actress, who retired from the stage in early life and married a Prince Gagarine.
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Ozeroff, one of the best-known Russian dramatists of the period; he possessed more originality than Kniajnine. Oedipus in Athens, Fingal, Demetrius Donskoi, and Polyxena, are the best known of his tragedies.
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Katènine translated Corneille’s tragedies into Russian.
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Didelot, sometime Director of the ballet at the Opera at St. Petersburg.
Istòmina—A celebrated Circassian dancer of the day, with whom the poet in his extreme youth imagined himself in love. ↩
In Russia large fires are lighted in winter time in front of the theatres for the benefit of the menials, who, considering the state of the thermometer, cannot be said to have a jovial time of it. But in this, as in other cases, “habit” alleviates their lot, and they bear the cold with a wonderful equanimity. ↩
“Tout le monde sut qu’il (Grimm) mettait du blanc; et moi, qui n’en croyait rien, je commençai de le croire, non seulement par l’embellissement de son teint, et pour avoir trouvé des tasses de blanc sur la toilette, mais sur ce qu’entrant un matin dans sa chambre, je le trouvais brossant ses ongles avec une petite vergette faite exprès, ouvrage qu’il continua fièrement devant moi. Je jugeai qu’un homme qui passe deux heures tous les matins à brosser ses ongles peut bien passer quelques instants à remplir de blanc les creux de sa peau.”
Confessions de J. J. Rousseau
Refers to Dictionary of the Academy, compiled during the reign of Catherine II under the supervision of Lomonossoff. ↩
Elvine, or Elvina, was not improbably the owner of the seductive feet apostrophized by the poet, since, in 1816, he wrote an ode, “To Her,” which commences thus:
“Elvina, my dear, come, give me thine hand,” and so forth. ↩
I.e. the milkmaid from the Okhta villages, a suburb of St. Petersburg on the right bank of the Neva chiefly inhabited by the labouring classes. ↩
Apropos of this somewhat ungallant sentiment, a Russian scholiast remarks:—“The whole of this ironical stanza is but a refined eulogy of the excellent qualities of our countrywomen. Thus Boileau, in the guise of invective, eulogizes Louis XIV. Russian ladies unite in their persons great acquirements, combined with amiability and strict morality; also a species of Oriental charm which so much captivated Madame de Stael.” It will occur to most that the apologist of the Russian fair “doth protest too much.” The poet in all probability wrote the offending stanza in a fit of Byronic “spleen,” as he would most likely himself have called it. Indeed, since Byron, poets of his school seem to assume this virtue if they have it not, and we take their utterances under its influence for what they are worth. ↩
The midsummer nights in the latitude of St. Petersburg are a prolonged twilight. ↩
Refers to Mouravieff’s Goddess of the Neva. At St. Petersburg the banks of the Neva are lined throughout with splendid granite quays. ↩
A street running parallel to the Neva, and leading from the Winter Palace to the Summer Palace and Garden. ↩
The strong influence exercised by Byron’s genius on the imagination of Pushkin is well known. Shakespeare and other English dramatists had also their share in influencing his mind, which, at all events in its earlier developments, was of an essentially imitative type. As an example of his Shakespearian tastes, see his poem of Angelo, founded upon Measure for Measure. ↩
The poet was, on his mother’s side, of African extraction, a circumstance which perhaps accounts for the southern fervour of his imagination. His great-grandfather, Abraham Petròvitch Hannibal, was seized on the coast of Africa when eight years of age by a corsair, and carried a slave to Constantinople. The Russian Ambassador bought and presented him to Peter the Great who caused him to be baptized at Vilnius. Subsequently one of Hannibal’s brothers made his way to Constantinople and thence to St. Petersburg for the purpose of ransoming him; but Peter would not surrender his godson who died at the age of ninety-two, having attained the rank of general in the Russian service. ↩
Refers to two of
