Saturday, September 23, 2017

GALINA SEDOVA. A CHAPTER ON BULGAKOV. CCCCXXIV



Gumilev. Li Bo. The Dragon.
The Porcelain Pavilion.
Posting #4.


…Have the strong ones left the world,
So that I would give the knowledge to you?
I will pass it on… to the waterfalls and the clouds,
To the seven-star constellation in the black sky,
Curving up like myself…
Or to the wind, son of Fortune…
But not to a creature with hot blood,
Which does not know how to glitter!

N. S. Gumilev. The Poem of the Beginning. The Dragon.


Li Bo does not say how many friends are conversing and writing down their poetry. But in Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita we find eight major Russian poets, six of whom are Bulgakov’s contemporaries, and all eight of them have suffered a tragic fate.
Bulgakov does a great job disguising his poets. And only four of them are endowed with swords and berets plumed with eagle feathers. Which naturally constitutes part of the disguise, misleadingly pointing in the direction of France, habitually leading astray Bulgakovian scholars.
Li Bo’s words in translation may be known to the Western world, but the hieroglyphs remain up to this day a total mystery, a great secret of the Chinese civilization. Only a great poet, such as Gumilev, could penetrate that secret by the sheer force of his poetic genius and his language-transcending intuitive vision.
Gumilev’s dragon knows no words, he only knows the signs and symbols inscribed by the Priest Maradita “with a black pike in the sand.” However, even at the doorstep of death he has no intention of passing his knowledge on to people. –

I will pass it on [his knowledge]…
To the waterfalls and the clouds,
To the seven-star constellation in the black sky,
Curving up like myself…
Or to the wind, son of Fortune…
But not to a creature with hot blood,
Which does not know how to glitter!

Because the only way the dragon could converse with others was through the “glittering of its scales,” the Priest kills the dragon with his black pike for its unwillingness to share its knowledge.

And unswervingly staring into
The mist of the already dimming eyes,
Of the dying dragon,
Ruler of the ancient races.

The Priest’s superiority consists in his voice, his speaking ability.

A voice rich, thick, and full,
Uttered for the first time in ages
The forbidden word: OM!

Gumilev calls it in his poem “the mysterious word OM,” and also “the sanctified word OM.” The power of this word OM was such that, as Gumilev writes –

The spread-out branches of the sycamores
Lay down flat on the sand,
No force of the hurricanes
Could ever bend them like that until now…
The dragon shuddered and once again
He cast his glance on the intruder.
Death was fighting the power of the word in him,
Unknown until now…
Without voice, without movement,
He carried his suffering and waited.
The white chill of the last pain
Swam upon his heart, and it seemed that almost
He was about to escape from
The human will, burning his heart…

The last 12th song of the Poem of the Beginning is amazing. And the way Bulgakov used it in his Pontius Pilate it is prophetic:

The Priest realized that the loss was frightening,
And that there was no way to fool death,
He raised the right paw of the beast
And placed it on his own chest…

In such a manner, the “hot-blooded creature” decided to prove his superiority to the dragon.

Drops of blood from the fresh wound
Flowed red and warm,
Like springs at a red dawn
From the depths of a chalky rock.
Its streams shone crimson
Like a wondrous sacred sash…

Through his flowing blood, the Priest forces the dragon to pass on his knowledge to him. –

And when without words, without movement,
The Priest asked him again with his gaze
About the birth, the transfiguration,
And the end of the primordial forces…

…the dragon obeyed, “having drunk life” out of human blood. As N. S. Gumilev writes, closing his Poem of the Beginning

And the sparkle of the scales shone
On the faraway cliffs of the steeps,
As though a non-human voice,
Transformed from sound to a beam of light.

At the price of his life the Priest Maradita was able to read the answer to his question, for he said it himself to the dragon –

You see, I know the sacred signs
Which are kept in your scales,
Their glitter from the sun and copper
I had studied day and night,
I watched how you were delirious in your  sleep,
Through the changing fire of grief…

Gumilev’s Poem of the Beginning is allegorical, and it has a connection not only to Master and Margarita, but to Bulgakov’s other works, such as for instance to Fateful Eggs, where a beam of light is born in the laboratory of Professor Persikov. What is most important, however, is that it was precisely the study of Gumilev’s creative work that helped Bulgakov become that kind of mystical writer which he considered himself to be.


To be continued…

No comments:

Post a Comment