Boris Godunov

Pushkin's play has twenty-three scenes in the edition of 1831 (two more scenes of the 1825 manuscript, "The Monastery Wall" and "Marina's Dressing Room," were left out by Pushkin and are left out here). The scenes are grouped into two episodes. The verse is unrhymed English blank verse in place of Pushkin's iambic pentameter, with prose where he wrote prose. Condensed; the English is my own.

The Kremlin Palace (20 February 1598)

Prince Shuisky and Prince Vorotynsky.

VOROTYNSKY. We are set to keep the city, you and I — but there is no one, it seems, to keep watch over. Moscow is empty; all the people have gone after the Patriarch, to the convent. What do you think? How will this trouble end?

SHUISKY. How will it end? That's not hard to see. The people will howl and weep a little longer; Boris will frown a little longer, like a drunkard frowning at a glass of wine; and at the last, out of his kindness, he will humbly consent to take the crown. And then — then he will rule us as before.

VOROTYNSKY. But a month has passed already since he shut himself up with his sister in the convent. Nothing, it seems, could make him leave the world. The Patriarch, the boyars of the council, all have begged him; he will hear none of them.

SHUISKY. Boris is still the same, still at his tricks. What if he really is weary of the cares of power? What if he really will not mount the throne? What would you say then?

VOROTYNSKY. I would say that the blood of the Tsarevich was shed for nothing; that Dmitry, if so, might as well be alive.

VOROTYNSKY. A dreadful crime! Is it quite certain that Boris killed the boy?

SHUISKY. Who else? Who bribed Chepchugov, and sent the two Bityagovskys and Kachalov? I was sent to Uglich to look into the matter on the spot. I found fresh traces. The whole town bore witness; the citizens all told the same story; and when I came back, I could with one word have unmasked the hidden villain.

VOROTYNSKY. Then why didn't you destroy him?

SHUISKY. I confess, he troubled me then with his calm and his unlooked-for shamelessness. He looked me in the eyes as if he were not guilty; he questioned me, went into details — and I repeated to him the nonsense he himself had whispered to me.

VOROTYNSKY. That was not clean, Prince.

SHUISKY. What was I to do? Tell everything to Fyodor? But the Tsar saw everything through Godunov's eyes, heard everything through Godunov's ears. Suppose I had convinced him; Boris would have talked him round in a moment, and I would have been sent off to prison, and in good time, like my uncle, quietly strangled in some deaf cell. I don't boast; no torment frightens me, if it must come; I am no coward; but neither am I a fool, and I will not put my head into a noose for nothing.

VOROTYNSKY. If Boris is not tired of playing, though, it is a dreadful thing. Listen: what if we should stir up the people, and remind them that we are of the blood of Rurik, and have a better right than he?

SHUISKY. The people are used to honouring in Boris the late Tsar's brother-in-law — yesterday's slave, the son-in-law of the hangman Malyuta, and in his soul a hangman himself — and he will take the crown of Monomakh. But hush; the people are coming back.

VOROTYNSKY. Boris has won. — We have let our moment pass.

Red Square

The people.

ONE. He is inexorable! He has driven from him the bishops, the boyars, the Patriarch. They bowed down before him in vain; the radiance of the throne frightens him.

ANOTHER. O God, who will rule us now? Woe to us!

A THIRD. Here comes the Secretary of the Council. Let us hear what he says.

SHCHELKALOV (on the steps). The Council has resolved to try once more the strength of supplication upon the sorrowing soul of our ruler. Tomorrow morning, after solemn prayers, the most holy Patriarch will go in procession to the Novodevichy convent, with the holy icons; the boyars will go, and the Council, and the gentry, and the elected men, and all the Orthodox people of Moscow; we will all go and beg the Tsaritsa once more to have pity on orphaned Moscow, and to bless Boris to take the crown. Go to your homes, and pray: may the fervent prayer of the Orthodox rise to heaven!

The Maiden's Field. The Novodevichy Convent

The people.

ONE. They have gone in to the Tsaritsa's cell. Boris has gone in, and the Patriarch, and all the boyars.

ANOTHER. What news?

A THIRD. He is still refusing; but there is hope.

A WOMAN (with a child). Hush! Don't cry, or the bogey will come and get you! Hush, hush, I tell you!

ONE. Can't we get through the fence?

ANOTHER. How can we? It's crowded even out here in the field. All Moscow is here. Look: the fence, the roofs, every storey of the bell tower, the church domes, even the crosses, are covered with people.

ONE. It's a fine sight.

ANOTHER. What's that noise?

A THIRD. Listen! The people are howling; they're falling down in rows, like waves, one after another. Brother, it's our turn. Quick, down on your knees!

THE PEOPLE (on their knees, howling and weeping). Have pity on us, our father! Rule over us! Be our father, our Tsar!

ONE (quietly). What are they crying about?

ANOTHER. How should we know? The boyars know, not us.

A WOMAN (with the child). Now what? When he's supposed to cry, he won't! I'll give you something — here's the bogey! Cry, you little rascal! (She throws him on the ground; the child screams.) There, that's better.

ONE. Everyone's crying. Let's cry too, brother.

ANOTHER. I'm trying, brother, but I can't.

ONE. Nor can I. Have you an onion? Let's rub our eyes.

ANOTHER. No, I'll wet them with spit. What's going on now?

A THIRD. Who can tell what's going on?

THE PEOPLE. He accepts the crown! He is Tsar! Boris has consented! Long live Boris!

The Kremlin Palace

Boris, the Patriarch, the boyars.

BORIS. You, Father Patriarch, and all you boyars: my soul lies naked before you. You have seen that I take on this mighty power with fear and with humility. How heavy is my duty! I am heir to the mighty Ivans; heir to the angel-Tsar, my brother Fyodor. O holy one, O Tsar who was my father, look down from heaven on your faithful servants' tears, and send down on him whom you loved, whom you raised up so wonderfully here, your holy blessing on his power: that I may rule my people in glory, and be as good and righteous as you were. From you I look for help, you boyars. Serve me as you served him, when I shared his labours, and was not yet chosen by the will of the people.

THE BOYARS. We shall not break the oath we gave.

BORIS. Now let us go and bow before the tombs of the departed rulers of Russia; and then — call all our people to the feast, all, from the nobles to the blind beggar; all may come freely, all are welcome guests. (He goes out; the boyars follow.)

VOROTYNSKY (stopping Shuisky). You guessed right.

SHUISKY. Guessed what?

VOROTYNSKY. Why, here, the other day — remember?

SHUISKY. No, I remember nothing.

VOROTYNSKY. When the people went to the Maiden's Field, you said —

SHUISKY. This is no time to remember; I advise you, sometimes, to forget. And in any case, with my feigned slander I only meant to test you, so as to know your secret way of thinking. But see: the people are greeting the Tsar — they'll miss me. I'm going after him.

VOROTYNSKY. The sly courtier!

Night. A Cell in the Chudov Monastery (1603)

Father Pimen, writing by a lamp; Grigory asleep.

PIMEN. One more, the last tale, and my chronicle is ended; the duty God laid on me, a sinner, is done. Not for nothing did the Lord make me a witness of many years, and teach me the art of letters. One day some industrious monk will find my labour, careful, nameless; he will light his lamp, as I do, and, shaking the dust of centuries from the pages, will copy out these true accounts, that the descendants of the Orthodox may know the past fate of their native land, remember their great Tsars for their labours, their glory, their goodness — and for their sins, their dark deeds, humbly beg the Saviour's mercy. In my old age I live my life again; the past goes by before me — how long ago it was it rushed along, full of events, troubled like the sea. Now it is silent and calm. My memory has kept few faces, few words have reached me, and the rest have perished beyond recall. But day is near; the lamp is burning out — one more, the last tale. (He writes.)

GRIGORY (waking). Always the same dream! The third time running! Accursed dream! — And still the old man sits by the lamp and writes, and has not closed his eyes, it seems, all night. How I love his calm look, when, with his soul sunk in the past, he writes his chronicle; and often I have tried to guess what he writes. Is it the dark rule of the Tatars? Is it Ivan's fierce executions? Is it the stormy council of Novgorod? The glory of the fatherland? In vain. Not on his high brow, not in his eyes can one read his hidden thoughts. Always the same humble, majestic look. So a clerk grown grey in the courts looks calmly on the righteous and the guilty, hearing good and evil with indifference, knowing neither pity nor anger.

PIMEN. You have woken, brother?

GRIGORY. Bless me, holy father.

PIMEN. God bless you, today and for ever.

GRIGORY. You have been writing, and have not closed your eyes; and my sleep was troubled by a devilish dream, and the enemy gave me no rest. I dreamed that a steep stair led me up a tower; from the height I saw Moscow like an ant heap; below, the people seethed in the square and pointed at me laughing, and I was ashamed, and frightened — and falling headlong, I awoke. And three times I have had the same dream. Is it not strange?

PIMEN. Young blood is restless. Humble yourself with prayer and fasting, and your dreams will be full of light. Even now, if I, worn out by drowsiness, do not make a long prayer before night, my old sleep is not quiet nor sinless: I see noisy feasts, the camp in war, skirmishes in battle, the mad pastimes of my youth.

GRIGORY. How gaily you spent your youth! You fought beneath the towers of Kazan, you beat back the Lithuanian host with Shuisky; you saw the court and the splendour of Ivan! Happy man! And I, from my boyhood, have wandered from cell to cell, a poor monk. Why should I not enjoy myself in battle, or feast at the Tsar's table? I too would have had time, like you, in my old age, to leave the world, its vanities, to take the vows of a monk, and to shut myself in a quiet cloister.

PIMEN. Do not complain, brother, that you left the sinful world so early, that the Almighty sent you few temptations. Believe me: we are drawn from afar by glory, luxury, the cunning love of women. I have lived long, and enjoyed much; but only since then have I known happiness, since the Lord brought me to the monastery. Think, my son, of the great Tsars. Who is higher than they? Only God. Who dares go against them? No one. And yet how often the golden crown weighed on them; they changed it for a monk's hood. Ivan the Terrible sought rest in the likeness of monastic labours. His palace, full of proud favourites, took on the look of a monastery; his guardsmen in hair shirts were obedient monks, and the terrible Tsar their humble abbot. I saw him here, in this very cell (Kirill, the long-suffering, lived here then, a righteous man; and God had already let me know the worthlessness of the world's vanities), here I saw the Tsar, weary of angry thoughts and executions. Thoughtful and quiet, the Terrible sat among us; we stood motionless before him, and he talked quietly with us. He said to the abbot and all the brothers: "My fathers, the longed-for day will come; I shall appear here, hungry for salvation. You, Nikodim; you, Sergius; you, Kirill — accept my vow: I shall come to you, an accursed sinner, and take here the holy vows, falling, holy father, at your feet." So spoke the mighty ruler, and his words flowed sweetly from his lips, and he wept. And we prayed with tears that the Lord would send love and peace to his suffering and stormy soul. And his son Fyodor? On the throne he sighed for the quiet life of a silent monk. He turned the Tsar's chambers into a cell of prayer; there the heavy cares of rule did not trouble his holy soul. God loved the humility of the Tsar, and Russia, under him, in tranquil glory, was comforted. And in the hour of his death an unheard-of miracle came to pass: at his bedside, seen by the Tsar alone, a man appeared, shining wonderfully, and Fyodor began to speak with him, and called him the great Patriarch. And all around were seized with fear, understanding the heavenly vision, for the holy Patriarch was not then in the chamber with the Tsar. And when he died, the chambers were filled with holy fragrance, and his face shone like the sun. We shall not see such a Tsar again. O dreadful, unheard-of grief! We have angered God; we have sinned: we have named a regicide our ruler.

GRIGORY. For a long time, holy father, I have wanted to ask you about the death of Dmitry the Tsarevich. They say you were in Uglich then.

PIMEN. Ah, I remember. God brought me to see an evil deed, a bloody sin. I had been sent then to far Uglich on some errand. I arrived at night. In the morning, at the hour of Mass, I suddenly heard the bell; the alarm was ringing; cries, noise. People were running to the Tsaritsa's courtyard. I hurried there too — and all the town was there. I looked: the Tsarevich lay slain; the Tsaritsa, his mother, lay senseless over him, his nurse was weeping in despair; and the people, maddened, were dragging the godless traitress, the nurse who had betrayed him. Suddenly among them, fierce, pale with anger, the Judas Bityagovsky appeared. "There he is, the villain!" the cry went up, and in a moment he was gone. Then the people rushed after the three murderers in flight; the hidden villains were seized and brought before the child's still-warm body, and — a miracle — the dead boy suddenly trembled. "Repent!" the people cried to them; and in terror, under the axe, the villains repented — and named Boris.

GRIGORY. How old was the murdered Tsarevich?

PIMEN. About seven. He would be now — (ten years have passed since then — no, more: twelve years) — he would be your age, and would be reigning; but God judged otherwise. With this mournful tale I shall end my chronicle; since then I have had little to do with the affairs of the world. Brother Grigory, you have enlightened your mind with learning; I hand my labour on to you. In hours free from the deeds of the soul, describe, without wise words or tricks of style, all that you witness in your life: war and peace, the rule of sovereigns, the holy miracles of the saints, prophecies and heavenly signs. And now it is time for me to rest, and to put out the lamp. But the bell is ringing for matins. Bless your servants, Lord! Give me my crutch, Grigory. (He goes out.)