Anna Akhmatova Quotes

Though you are three times more beautiful than angels,
Though you are the sister of the river willows,
I will kill you with my singing,
Without spilling your blood on the ground.
Not touching you with my hand,
Not giving you one glance, I will stop loving you,
But with your unimaginable groans
I will finally slake my thirst.
From her, who wandered the earth before me,
Crueler than ice, more fiery than flame,
From her, who still exists in the ether — From her you will set me free.

No-one was more cherished, no-one tortured Me more, not Even the one who betrayed me to torture, Not even the one who caressed me and forgot.

Forgive me that I ignored the sun And that I lived in sorrow.

I have a lot of work to do today;
I need to slaughter memory,
Turn my living soul to stone
Then teach myself to live again.

Not a single muscle quivered On his radiantly evil face. Oh, I know: his delight Is the tense and passionate knowledge That he needs nothing, That I can refuse him nothing.

I don’t long for anyone,
But I don’t want, don’t want, don’t want
To know how they kiss each other.

That was when the ones who smiled
Were the dead, glad to be at rest.

It's all the same to me. The Yenisei swirls, the North Star shines, as it will shine forever; and the blue lustre of my loved one's eyes is clouded over by the final horror. — The House on the Fontanka, 19 August 1939

I knew: the gods turned once, in their madness,
Men into things, not killing humane senses.
You’ve been turned in to my reminiscences
To make eternal the unearthly sadness.

N.V.N.
(translated by Jane Kenyon)

There is a sacred, secret line in loving
which attraction and even passion cannot cross, — even if lips draw near in awful silence
and love tears at the heart.

Friendship is weak and useless here,
and years of happiness, exalted and full of fire,
because the soul is free and does not know
the slow luxuries of sensual life.

Those who try to come near it are insane
and those who reach it are shaken by grief,
So now you know exactly why
my heart beats no faster under your hand.

The stars of death stood over us. And Russia, guiltless, beloved, writhed under the crunch of bloodstained boots, under the wheels of Black Marias.

We never quite learned to part,
-We wander slowly side by side.
Outside it’s starting to get dark,
I’m silent, - you’re preoccupied.

We’ll enter a church and we’ll see
Baptisms, marriages, mass.
A minute later, we’ll leave…
Why is everything different with us?

Or we’ll sit on the trampled snow
In a dark cemetery and sigh,
With a stick in your hand, you’ll draw
A palace for just you and I.

سال های تلخ بیماری نصیبم کن،
خفقان ، بی خوابی ، تب ،
فرزندم را بگیر و یارم را ،
موهبت اسرارآمیز شعرسرایی را ،
اما ، باز ، از پس این همه روزهای فرساینده،
در مراسم نیایش،چنان به درگاهت دعا میکنم
تا ابر سیاه بالای روسیه
به ابر سفیدی در میان پرتوهای شکوهمند بدل شود.

Give me bitter years of sickness, Suffocation, insomnia, fever, Take my child and my lover, And my mysterious gift of song — This I pray at your liturgy After so many tormented days, So that the stormcloud over darkened Russia Might become a cloud of glorious rays.

He never asks for endearment, all quiet,
Only gazes at me all the time,
And he bears with a blissful smile
This distressing oblivion of mine.