Anna Akhmatova

The twenty-fourth drama of Shakespeare
Time�s writing with its indifferent hand.
We, selves, the guests of the awful Feast here,
Better would read Hamlet, Caesar, and Lear
Over the river, in heavy lead clad;
Better � to bear, with singing and torches,
Juliet, the dove, to her family�s graves,
Peep into windows of Macbeth�s castle godless,
Tremble with scum � hired killers and knaves �
But not this one, Lord� oh, not this...oh, not this, �
To read this one we already haven�t strengths!

Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, July, 2002