Zukovskij's Translation of Campbell's "Lord Ullin's Daughter" (1)

English poet Thomas Campbell (1777-1844) was greatly admired in his own day for his sprawling longer pieces such as Pleasures of Hope and Gertrude of Wyoming, but today he is most valued by the anthologists for his battle songs and ballads. As W. Macneile Dixon has observed, it is Campbell's martial lyrics such as Ye Mariners of England, The Battle of the Baltic, and Hohenlinden--and inimitable Ullin's Daughter--that assure him his place with the makers of English literature. (2) In 1795 Campbell visited Mull, one of the largest islands of the Inner Hebrides (Argyllshire, Scotland), and there sketched the ballad Ullin's Daughter, which he reworked in 1804 and finally published in 1809. (3) ballad is the story of an attempted elopement which results in the deaths of the couple. fleeing lovers, the young of isle and his bonny bride, Lord Ullin's daughter, have been hotly pursued by Lord Ullin and his horsemen for three days. Both know that the young man's life will be forfeit if they are captured. They approach boatman whom the young man offers money if he will them over the ferry; that is, if he will take them across Lochgyle. boatman, hardy Highland wight, agrees them across in spite of the raging storm, not for money, but for the sake of the winsome lady. As the pursuers approach, the boat puts out into the stormy loch. When Lord Ullin reaches the shore, he is forced watch his daughter and her lover drown as he calls out them, vainly promising forgiveness the young man if only they will return. (4) stanzas of Ullin's Daughter are quatrains consisting of lines of iambic tetrameter alternating with lines of iambic trimeter and rhyming abab. a rhyme is masculine; the b rhyme is feminine. Each of the b-rhyme lines concludes with an extra-metrical unstressed syllable, which provides the feminine ending. great weakness of the ballad is the inexorable regularity of its beat and line length and the inevitability of the rhymes, although the monotony is broken by internal rhymes: word--bird in stanza 6, glen--men in stanza 8, dismay'd'--shade in stanza 12, and wild--child in stanza 14. Campbell's end rhymes, like those in some traditional ballads, are often imperfect: tarry--ferry in stanzas 1 and 6, ready--lady in stanza 5, and wind--men in stanza 8, for example. In stanzas 6 and 14, he gives up the struggle with bird--white and shore--child. One of the great strengths of the ballad is its pervasive sense of place. One can imagine Campbell composing the poem on the very shore where its action is supposed have taken place. Though certain vagueness on the part of the poet prevents the reader from actually being able map the route of the lovers' flight and identifying their precise destination, Campbell's exactness in naming places almost compels the reader consult the map and gazetteer. This sense of place results in an authenticity that is genuinely impressive. of isle and Ullin's daughter--to the bound--plead with the boatman row us o'er the ferry, that is, take them across Lochgyle. They have been fleeing from their pursuers for three days. Lochgyle---or Loch na Keal--is sea-loch in the west of Mull. (5) Ulva (5 miles by 2-1/3 miles) is an island off the mouth of Loch na Keal. ferry referred is presumably that from Ulva Ferry over Ulva Sound, an arm of Loch na Keal, the mainland of Mull. (6) Since the two have been fleeing for three days, it seems likely that Ulva's chief is trying escape the larger island of Mull and gain passage by ferry across the Sound of Ulva, in order find refuge in his own diminutive island of Ulva. Although the poet tells us that the fleeing couple are to the bound, there is no reason why the destination may not be Ulva, for the term Highlands may be understood include the islands of the Inner Hebrides and need not refer only certain mainland areas of Scotland. …

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