Өлең – сөздің патшасы, сөз сарасы

Поэзия властитель языка

Poetic speech, the Queen of literature, implies

The finest words put well together by the wisest bards.

Words that a person easily can memorise,

Words that will smoothly flow and touch the heart.

Lines cluttered with unnecessary words

Speak of the poet’s helplessness and lack of culture.

Alas, there are so many ignorants among the poets,

So many readers who’re not competent to judge.

At first, we know, there was the ayaf” and the hadis*

And in composing them the beitas'”” too, were used.

Why would the Prophet choose this form of writing

If it had neither harmony, nor melody, nor rhythm?

A learned mullah in his evening prayers,

A seer in his predictions and his omens

Will rhyme his speech and choose his words with care

To give them a harmonious and flowing sound.

It’s true that everybody wants to be a poet,

But genuine poets only few of us become.

Who of us, Kazakhs, can compose a poem whose form

Would be a thing of silver, and the words pure gold?

Let’s take my predecessors, for example:

The biys, who had a well-known predilection

For garnishing their speech with proverbs. The akyns—■

Those wingless poets who could neither read nor write,

Who spun their crudely rhymed and worded tales

And, fingering the strings of their kobyz or dombra,

Cried out their lofty-sounding dedications,

And then passed round the hat, collecting coppers.

A shame that they should thus discredit poetry.

By fawning on the rich, by tricks and flattery,

They managed to get gifts of cattle and of sheep.

While living on the charity of other clans

They boasted of the fabulous riches of their own.

They did not flatter everybody—just the purse-proud bais.

But still they did not make a fortune for their pains.

And, judging by their like the Kazakhs had the notion

That poets windbags were and poetry was nonsense.

 I  shall  not speak in proverbs  like  a  clever biy,

Nor shall I beg for coppers like an old akyn.

 I shall keep to the point, because the moment’s ripe

To speak of you, my reader, and improve your mind.

If I were to describe the batyrs plunderous raids,

Or write in racy verse of love and pretty girls,

You’d hang upon my words, you’d never have enough,

Because you’re used to hearing idle gossip,

Which dulls your mind and takes it off more serious things.

“But such is life,” you stubbornly persist.

All round you money takes the place of human values,

So you’ll forgive me if I sound too indiscreet.

Here, everybody’s looking for a windfall,

They’d even try to graft a grapevine to a pine.

But what can you expect from all these people,

Where in a thousand hardly one is honest?

And most are happy in their ill-gained wealth,

And bask in flattery, however insincerely offered.

They stir up animosity among the other rich,

And seize tlieir rhnnrp to profit by their quarrels.

Such things as loyalty and honesty and honour.

Are senseless words that long have lost their meaning.

It’s common to make much of gossip, lies and rumours,

To lice from knowledge and avoid all thought.

Translated by Olga Shartse

* Ayat and hadis are prayers in the Koran.—Ed. ** Beita—a meter much used in Oriental poetry.—Ed.