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"What's in my name for you? By Alexander Pushkin Translated by A.Z. Foreman Click to hear me recite the original Russian What�s in my name for you? What good? It will but die as the sad sound of a wave that's splashed its last aground, a cry out in the toneless wood. Lifeless its marks will lie among these album pages: the design of someone's epitaphic line in some unfathomable tongue. What's in it then? Lost to the past in new emotions' wild infection, upon your soul it will not cast the tender rays of recollection. But on a silent day of rue pronounce it with a sigh of pain and say "One memory is true! There beats one heart where I remain!� The Original: ??? ? ????? ???? ????? ??? ?????, ??? ??? ????????? ?????, ?????????? ? ????? ???????,   ??? ???? ?????? ? ???? ??????. ??? ?? ???????? ?????? ??????? ??????? ????, ???????? ????? ??????? ?????????? ?? ?????????? ?????. ??? ? ???? ??????? ????? ? ????????? ????? ? ????????, ????? ???? ?? ???? ??? ???????...

This may be thought of as Pushkin's locus am�nus poem, and it  was an absolute pain in the ass to translate. Seriously. Not because the language is hard, or even because of the (today) opaque allusions, but because of the resonances of language. Pushkin's gift is the ability to phrase an idea in such a way, and in such a context, that the Russophone reader somehow just feels that this is the natural  way to say it. Much as Shakespeare constructed phrases (not merely obvious ones such as  to thine own self be true, the fault is not in the stars, doth protest to much, to be or not to be, one fell swoop, star-crossed lovers  but also words many English speakers use every day such as  good riddance, laughingstock, what's done is done, hoist by one's own petard, seen better days, strange bedfellows, a sorry sight ) that, by dint of talent and a hefty amount of luck, became part of the English semanticon, so too did Pushkin make much of the Russian phrasebank in ...