Pushkin’s “Ode to Liberty”

Flee, begone, vanish from my sight,

Oh, ye feeble princess of Cythera

Thou, lofty muse of Liberty,

Where art thou, bane of kings, come nearer!

A garland of flowers from me wrench,

Smash down with hands the coddled lyre…

I sing of Freedom’s victorious fire

Chastised vice enthroned on royal bench.


Reveal to me the noble path

Of the self-aggrandized Gaul

In whom amidst famed catastrophes

Thou inspired hymns audacious

Nurslings of frivolous Destiny,

Tyrants of the world! Tremble!

And ye, take heart and pay attention,

Rise up, trampled slaves!


Alas! Wherever I cast (my) gaze

Everywhere scourges, everywhere irons,

The laws’ destructive mockery,

Serfdom’s helpless tears

Everywhere lawless sovereignty

The heavy fog of prejudice

Has confirmed – slavery’s dreaded Genius

And Glory’s baneful intensity.


There only upon the royal head

The nation’s quilt has not come to lie

Where potent with sacred Liberty

Is powerful laws’ association

Where to all is offered their firm shield

Where grasped by steadfast hands

Rise up protecting citizens, of equal heads

Their sword glissades without choice


To attack the breach from on high

With righteous force

Where honesty is their hand

By either eager greed or fear.

Monarchs! To your crown and throne

The law delivers – and not nature

Ye stand superior above the nation,

Higher still than ye infinite Law.


And woe, misery to the family

Where it hotheadedly slumbers,

Where for nations or for kings

It is feasible to override the laws!

Thee I assemble you all to witness,

Oh, martyr of infamous fallacies,

Who for an ancestry in rebellious storms

Lay down his sovereign head.


Up steps Louis to his death

In full view of voiceless progeny,

Without his crown he bowed his head

To the bloody scaffold of Mutiny

Mute the Law-mute the nation,

There swings the unlawful ax…

And lo – a corrupted purple

Lies like all shackled Gaul.


Autocratic Miscreant!

Thee, thy throne I detest,

Descent means thy children’s death.

With savage delight I see.

Nations perceive upon thy brow.

The sign of execration,

Thou [art] the horror of the world, a disgrace of nature,

A rebuke to God on earth.


When on the murky Neva

The star of midnight shone

And the worry-free head

Subdued sleep weighs down.

The thoughtful singer gazes.

Upon the threatened sleeping midst, the haze

Abandoned monument of the tyrant,

The palace deserted to oblivion—


Echoes of terror, Cleo’s voice erupts.

Behind fortresses a summons tolling

Caligula’s last hour beckons us.

Before he sees a vivid fate unrolling,

He sees, in ribbons and in stars.

By poison and with wine befuddled,

The secretive assassins huddled.

Insolent faces over fear filled hearts.


And silence visits the disloyal watchman,

To drop the drawbridge at midnight season,

In secret gloom the gate unbarred

By hired hands of mercenary treason.

Oh, shame, the horror lately found!

The Janissaries thrust in, appalling

Like beasts, irreverent blows befalling…

Till butchered lies the miscreant crowned.


Henceforth, oh, kings learn, and know this true:

That neither flattery nor halters

Make sturdy barricades for you,

Neither prison walls, nor holy altars.

Be ye first to bow your head down.

Beneath the canopy of Law eternal.

The people joyous, their freedom vernal

Will forever save the nation’s crown.

—Alexander Pushkin

Translation by A. Remlov