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In the “Life” of the Monk Simeon, Nikita Stifat mentions the “Hymns” three times, but does not talk about the time of their composition. In the first case, Nikita talks about the appointment of Simeon as abbot of the monastery of St. Mamas, in connection with which he notes that “awarded with apostolic gifts, that is, words of teaching, he was and seemed to be a lyre, which is mysteriously touched by the Spirit from above, and sometimes composed love (outpourings) of Divine hymns in a free meter, sometimes... he wrote down the Catechetical Words” 283. In the second case, we are talking about the last period of the life of the Monk Simeon in Chrysopolis, in the monastery of St. Marina: “Finally resting from all his affairs, he again finds the precious silence, from which he never moved away even when in a whirlwind of affairs... he completely surrenders his spirit to his usual contemplations and insights. Moving away his earthly and tangible body, he, while still here, leaves it and with his mind and spirit completely unites with God, from Whom he (and before) has never been separated: his tongue becomes a fiery tongue, and he theologizes the love (outpourings) of Divine hymns, driven by the breath of the Spirit, he involuntarily publishes what he saw in revelations from God, and what, having become above nature, he contemplated in their visions" 284. Finally, Nikita mentions the Hymns for the third time when he lists the works of the Monk Simeon, which he received after the death of the latter 285. Based on the first of the evidence given, Archbishop Vasily (Krivoshein) believes that St. Simeon wrote his main works, including Hymns and Announcements, between the years 30 and 50 286 . Coder, on the contrary, based on the second testimony of Nikita, believes that most of the Hymns, at least the “most important” of them, should be attributed to the last period of Simeon’s life, that is, after his expulsion from the monastery of St. Mamas 287. It seems, however, that the time of creation of the Hymns should not be limited to the indicated periods, since it is quite likely that the Monk Simeon wrote them even before he entered the monastery. Most likely, like most great poets, he wrote poetry throughout his life, although, of course, being retired in Chrysopolis, he had more leisure for poetic creativity than during his period as abbess in Constantinople, especially since, as Coder points out, again referring to Nikita, Simeon’s visions and revelations “became more vivid and frequent during his old age” 288. In any case, trying to establish the time of writing the Hymns, we can not talk about the “corps” as a whole, but only about individual specific hymns, because the “Divine Hymns” of St. Simeon is not a complete literary work, but is a collection of his poems and poems. As for individual hymns, only the 21st hymn, according to I. Koder, can be accurately dated: about this hymn, which is a message in verse to Stephen of Nicomedia, it is known that it was composed around 1003. Several more hymns contain hints at well-known events in Simeon’s biography, which makes it possible to correlate the time of their writing with one or another period of his life. Based on the available hints, Coder dates hymns 7, 10, and 37 to the period after the death of Simeon the Studite because they mention this event. Koder dates hymns 14 and 19 to the period of Simeon's abbess, and hymns 15 and 43 to the time of the uprising in the monastery of St. Mamas, which occurred between 995 and 998. 289 Nothing definite can be said about the time of writing of other hymns. The Monk Simeon did not want to publish his hymns during his lifetime 290. The main reason for this was, obviously, the fact that most of them are of a purely personal, intimate nature, and they speak of the most intimate experience; Often Simeon himself writes about his horror at the thought of communicating his visions to anyone: How can I tell, Master, about Your great miracles? How can I express Your mysterious destinies in words? 291 And further, addressing the interlocutor: Oh, if you knew the secrets of the depths, you wouldn’t force me to write and talk about it openly. I tremble and am horrified, Trying to express in words And trying to draw with a cane What is impossible to tell... 292 On the other hand, St. Simeon is well aware that the experience he describes is exceptional and beyond understanding, and therefore the reader may simply not believe what he is talking about or not understand it. He often turns to the reader with short exhortations like “believe me,” “don’t doubt,” etc. 293 He asks Christ to come to the rescue and confirm the truth of his words, so that they “do not seem like chatter to the ignorant” 294. It should be noted that Nikita also decided to publish the hymns of his spiritual father not without some fear. In any case, he prefaced the collection with an extensive preface, in which he confirms the correctness of Simeon’s theology, his fidelity to the Orthodox tradition, and even his direct dependence on the teachings of the “great Dionysius” 295. Nikita especially fears that unprepared and inexperienced readers in spiritual life, having taken up the Hymns of Simeon, will not understand their “very sublime and rising above the feelings” content and thereby cause themselves harm instead of benefit 296. Nikita ends his preface with the following warning: “Those who have not tasted the blessings and, due to their inherent stupidity, cannot accommodate high contemplations, let them not take these hymns into their hands and study with curiosity what is written in them” 297. Not expecting that the hymns would be published, the Monk Simeon obviously did not rewrite them completely and did not edit them: grammatical and syntactical irregularities often found in the text suggest that sometimes we are dealing with a draft written in a fit of inspiration. The author, as often happens in such cases, was in a hurry to express a thought and record a state, neglecting at first the external form of the verse or, perhaps, hoping that he would be able to polish what he had written someday later. In the end, all this editorial work went to Nikita. The Monk Simeon also did not give names to his hymns (at least, most of them). The hymns are obviously also titled by Nikita, and the titles do not always fully correspond to the content: for example, the prosaic introduction to the hymns, called “a prayer to the Holy Spirit,” is more likely a prayer to the Holy Trinity. As for the title of the entire collection Ton theion hymnon hoi erotes, which can be translated as “Hymns of Divine Love” or “Love of Divine Hymns”, or more precisely “Love (outpourings) of Divine Hymns”, it, apparently, also belongs to Nikita, who was a great admirer of Dionysius the Areopagite and entitled his teacher’s collection by analogy with erotikoi hymnoi - “Love hymns,” quoted by the Areopagite 298. The hymns of St. Simeon differ from one another in length. The shortest consists of seven lines, each of which has 12 syllables 299. The longest contains 858 lines of 8 syllables 300. The epistle to Stephen of Nicomedia is close in size to it, in which there are about 500 lines 301. The content of the hymns is also extremely varied. Most of them talk about seeing God, contemplating the Divine light, unity with God (1, 2, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, etc.): these are mainly descriptions of the mystical experience of St. Simeon. Several hymns are subtitled “On Theology” (31, 33, 38, 52) and deal with dogmatic issues, although almost everywhere Simeon goes beyond the topic indicated in the title. Many hymns are addressed directly to God - they are prayers in verse: they have the subtitles “thanksgiving with confession and theology” (20), “confession combined with prayer” (46), “supplication” (7), “supplication and prayer” (37). Separate hymns are addressed to monks and priests: here is a very short poem depicting the image of an ideal monk (3), and a more extensive teaching to new monks (4), and a discussion about the height of priestly service (14) and, finally, “a general instruction with reproof for everyone: kings, bishops, priests, monks and laity” (58). The reason for writing hymns was, in most cases, not the external events of the biography of St. Simeon, but the facts of his inner spiritual life. Simeon’s hymns are a kind of “spiritual diary” that describes “his usual contemplations and insights,” as Nikita Stifat wonderfully put it about Simeon’s visions, 302 which captures feelings of deep love for God, joy from the overwhelming sense of His presence and sorrow in moments of God-forsakenness. The best description of the entire collection is given by Hieromonk Panteleimon (Uspensky): “The hymns of St. Simeon are a chronicle of the soul, telling how it was cleansed from passions and vices, whitened by tears and repentance, completely united with God, became ignorant of Christ, partook of His Divine glory, and in Him found peace and bliss. The hymns of St. Simeon describe and capture, as it were, the breath or tremulous beating of the soul of a pure, holy, dispassionate, divine soul, wounded by love for Christ and melting away from it, ignited by divine fire and burning inside, constantly thirsting for living water, insatiably hungry for heavenly bread, constantly drawn to the mountain, to heaven, to the Divine light and to God.” 303. Being so original in content, the hymns of St. Simeon are also very unusual in form. Simeon used three poetic meters, which are not traditional either for ancient classical poetry or for Byzantine church hymnography. Several hymns are written in "Anacreontic octosyllabic". Another meter used by Simeon is the twelve-syllable iambic trimeter, characteristic of the Byzantine “scholarly” poetry of his era. Most of the hymns are written in fifteen-syllable “political” (civil) verse, widespread in the folk poetry of Byzantium 304. In some hymns the meter varies - first twelve-syllable, then fifteen-syllable 305. The numerous metrical deviations and irregularities found in almost all the hymns testify not only to the fact that Simeon wrote, perhaps somewhat hastily, but also to the freedom and ease with which he used poetic meters: he always gave preference to content over form. Nikita Stifat points to this when he says that Simeon composed his hymns in “free size” (en ametro metro) - literally “dimensionless size” 307. Simeon's metric is generally based on accent. In the same verses where there is a quantitative metric, Koder sees the intervention of Nikita and his “efforts to improve the metric” 308. Basically, in all three meters used by Simeon, the number of accents and syllables is respected. The final stress of each line usually falls on the penultimate syllable (paroxytone). Simeon's octasyllabic approaches syllabonics more than other meters. Most often, the stress in words coincides with the metric accent, that is, they fall on the 3rd, 5th and 7th syllables. However, there is also accentuation of even syllables, but stress on the last syllable (oxytone) is used only as an exception. Coder believes that the irregularity of the metric is due to the "unconscious influence" of the political 15-syllable on the Anacreontic octosyllabic. He also believes that Simeon did not have a clear idea of ​​the place of stress in verse 309, that is, in his hymns there is no clear correspondence between lexical stress and verse emphasis. As for the iambic trimeter, in the era of St. Simeon it departed so much from its ancient prototype that researchers prefer to talk about the “Byzantine twelve-syllable” 310. Occasionally, this meter was used in church hymnography: in particular, he wrote the “iambic canons” of St. John of Damascus for Christmas, Epiphany and Pentecost. Each 12-syllable verse of St. Simeon is divided into two hemistiches with a caesura after the 5th and 7th syllables (but more often after the 5th) 311. The most common meter for Simeon is the 15-syllable political verse - about two-thirds of all available hymns were written with him. Coder believes that the use of this “folk” meter in serious poetry for the 11th century was a “sensation” 312. He claims that Simeon was the first to introduce this meter into theological literature 313. This, however, is not entirely true, since long before Simeon, Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus 314 wrote his eleven Sunday “exapostilarii” in this meter, which were included in the worship of the Orthodox Church. It was the work of Constantine that opened the way for political verse into high literature, although it was not widely used in liturgical hymnography 315 . Consequently, by the time of Simeon, political verse had already passed part of this path and, in any case, cannot be considered the “discovery” of Simeon. In Simeon's fifteen-syllable, each line is divided into two hemistiches with a caesura usually after the 8th syllable. Unlike later samples (XIII-XIV centuries), which are characterized by rhythmic stresses on the 2nd, 4th, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14th syllables, that is, pronounced iambicity 316, in the 15-syllable of Simeon there is quite free accentuation, not subject to strict patterns, with the exception of caesura after the 8th syllable and paroxytonic the end of every second hemistich. An analysis of the metrics of the “Divine Hymns” shows that for Simeon, size did not play a decisive or even any significant role: he often ignores the basic norms of versification, violates the number of syllables in a verse, shifts caesuras and stresses, and moves from one size to another. In some cases, especially with quotations from biblical and liturgical texts, as well as with allusions to these texts, the meter is not observed at all 317. It is also important to note that, unlike many Byzantine poets of his era, Simeon does not strive to use outdated ancient metrics, which would make his verse archaic and inaccessible even to his contemporaries. On the contrary, he chooses living, well-known and easily perceived sizes. The Monk Simeon was completely alien to rhetoric and admiration for antiquity. If some features of Simeon’s style resonate with rhetoric, then the similarity can only be external, due to the general worldview of the era, which was expressed in certain concepts and reflected in certain literary devices. For example, any work of rhetoric is characterized by an intonation of surprise and amazement at the described object, be it the sun or the moon, an ancient statue or a Christian icon, the military exploits of a commander or the humble life of a hermit: according to the laws of the genre, the Byzantine rhetorician was “obliged” to admire his subject, which gives S. Averintsev the right to speak about “ineffability” when characterizing Byzantine rhetoric as a presumption of bewildered amazement at everything in the world,” and this, in his opinion, was “the most commonly used commonplace since ancient times” 318. From the Monk Simeon we constantly encounter amazed exclamations and questions: “Oh, a strange and indescribable miracle!” 319, “I would like to speak, but I am not able” 320, “how will I tell it?”, “how will I tell it in words?” 321, “I cannot express a word, but my pathetic hand can describe” 322, and so on. However, all this has nothing to do with rhetoric and cannot even be called a literary or stylistic “device,” since Simeon is always talking about a real miracle, and he describes the state of a person who finds himself in the face of this miracle. For him, feigned feelings and artificiality of style are impossible, because he speaks in the language of a blessed person: he himself compares his speech with the “new tongues” given to the apostles on the day of Pentecost 323. The Monk Simeon not only states the “ineffability” of what he writes about, but in fact does not find words to express the overwhelming feelings of awe and surprise before the divine reality revealed to him. The same should be said about those genre techniques that could have been borrowed by the Monk Simeon from church hymnography, for example, about dialogues - with God, with an imaginary interlocutor, with his soul, as well as those cases when the author speaks on behalf of God. Similar forms occur in the hymnographic tradition dating back to Roman the Sweet Singer. However, as Coder rightly notes, “in the Roman, rhetorical fiction between the characters in question is introduced to give greater liveliness to the presentation or teaching, and Simeon ... reproduces the speeches and thoughts that in his contemplation he received from Christ: we are not talking about fiction, but about a conversation that took place in reality” 324. In other words, his dialogues with God are not the fantasies of a writer, but the revelations of a seer. Often in the hymns of St. Simeon there is a certain invisible “interlocutor” who asks short questions: sometimes this is a student or “spiritual son” to whom Simeon explains this or that thought, and sometimes an opponent whom he refutes. The “student” usually asks “how?”, “in what way?”, “why?”, “explain to me” 325, and the “opponent” - “aren’t you ashamed to say that?” 326 or “I suspect that you have blasphemed” 327. The first receives an answer in accordance with the tone of his question: “listen, child” 328, “listen patiently, child” 329, “pay attention, do it diligently, and you will soon find it” 330, “now I’ll explain” 331. And the second (opponent) often hears a formidable rebuke like “stop, man, tremble, mortal” 332, or “oh darkness! oh blindness!.. oh insolence! oh the wisdom of Judas the traitor!” 333, or, finally, “unworthy, go away!” 334 In turn, the author asks questions to the “interlocutor”, and then answers them himself: “So, what is this Divine fire, what do you think? Do you not consider it visible or created or perceptible? But he is by no means like that!..” 335 All this, however, cannot be called “dialogues with an imaginary interlocutor”, characteristic of rhetoric, because Simeon’s interlocutors are real persons, his followers or opponents, and the hymns reproduce conversations and disputes that actually took place. These dialogues help to understand the atmosphere in which the Monk Simeon lived and preached, and to appreciate the misunderstandings and protests that he encountered. In Simeon there is also a “dialogue with one’s soul”, characteristic of the Byzantine poetic tradition - let us remember the famous appeals to the soul in the Great Penitential Canon of St. Andrew of Crete: “My soul! my soul! get up, what are you writing off? 336, or the “reproaches to oneself” often found in the Greek corpus of the works of St. Ephraim the Syrian. However, even Saint Gregory the Theologian wrote “iambic verses to his soul,” and ancient philosophers thought in the genre “alone with themselves.” Simeon writes: “Tell me, my soul, what are you sad about, what are you looking for in (earthly) life?.. Do you want, my soul, to own clothes and wealth? Listen, now I will show you eternal wealth. Cry, repent, despise everything (earthly), be poor in spirit and heart... follow the footsteps (of the Lord). And then He, slowing down in the procession, will want to allow you to catch Him. When you see Him, scream and exclaim loudly, and He, turning around, looks at you with merciful eyes and allows you to look at Him a little, and again, leaving you, disappears from your eyes. Then you, poor thing, will cry bitterly... but He will appear again, will illuminate you again...” 337 These notes of Simeon are more reminiscent of the cell diary of a monk who is trying to understand for himself some special and hidden experience, than in the strict sense of a literary work. The appeal to the soul emphasizes the intimate, personal nature of the hymn, and is not a call to repentance and spiritual achievement, clothed in the form of exhortations to the soul, as is the case in the Canon of St. Andrew of Crete. Quite often, the Monk Simeon uses comparisons and comparisons of certain spiritual phenomena with the facts of everyday life. In one of the hymns the soul is compared to a lamp; virtue is with the oil, the mind is with the wick, and the Divine fire is with the fire of the lamp: a mouse comes, that is, some passion, knocks over the wick of the mind, licks the oil of the virtues, and the fire goes out 338. In another hymn, the human soul is compared to a paradise, adorned with “all kinds of beautiful trees and various fruits, flowers and fragrant lilies” 339. The generality and non-specificity of the image attracts attention - “all sorts of trees”, “various fruits”. The researcher notes that this is not characteristic of Simeon alone: ​​“Byzantine literature is characterized by abstract, essential comparisons, in which the object of comparison does not turn into an emotionally charged, detailed picture, but plays a service role, emphasizing the main point of thought... A certain mountain or a certain river is a deliberately deconcretized formula, a verbal resemblance to the conventional background of Byzantine icon painting, but Simeon does not need anything else: his laconic object of comparison contains everything that is necessary to clarify a thought - and nothing more than that” 340. If the author of “Spiritual Discourses,” attributed to the Monk Macarius of Egypt, compared various states of the soul with winter and summer, and first described in detail winter with harsh winds and severe colds, and then summer, when the earth is clothed with grass, the vineyards are clothed in greenery, young lambs are born, springs pour out “sweet and transparent streams,” and “every kind of living creature” jumps and rejoices winged and four-legged" 341, then the author of the "Divine Hymns" does not have detailed descriptions of nature: most of his comparisons are laconic and stingy. “Our modern taste would expect more color in the choice of images and their description,” says J. Darrouzes. “But the mystical (vision) does not stop at the colors or the movement of sensory life, it only briefly outlines the sun, light, wind, sea, fire, scenes of everyday life: it is a quick and hasty vision, from the very beginning turned to a symbol” 342. In other words, the mind of the Monk Simeon, immersed in the contemplation of another reality, does not want to descend to earth and examine it in all its details, and his gaze lingers on the earthly only for a short moment, in order to then ascend again to the upper world. Speaking about Simeon's language, we must note that it is far from rhetorical sophistication and is distinguished by clarity, simplicity, and artlessness: this is the everyday language of his era. However, this is not the language of the “illiterate,” as Simeon himself calls himself, 343 because his style betrays involvement in book culture and deep erudition. The hymns contain rare and outdated words drawn from the vocabulary of the Old Testament, as well as neologisms, the use of which is uncharacteristic of its time and environment 344. A feature of Simeon’s language is the frequent use of oxymorons - verbal pairs in which one word seems to contradict the other: “the appearance of the formless, the quantity of the innumerable” 345, “inseparably divided and unknowably cognizable” 346, “seen invisibly, contained uncontainably” 347, and others. This is not just a stylistic device, but an attempt to express the transcendence of the essence of God, the paradoxical nature of the mystery of Christianity, the “ineffability” of that union of the soul with God, which is spoken of in the writings of Simeon, that is, an attempt to “express the inexpressible.” Similar terminological pairs, for example, “to see and know through ignorance and non-seeing” 348, “blessed darkness” 349 and others are characteristic of the language of Dionysius the Areopagite and in general of apophatic theology, just like all terms beginning with the prefix “non-” or the prefix “super-” (unknowable, inaccessible, invisible, super-good), which Simeon also uses. It should also be noted that all of Simeon’s texts are interspersed with a huge number of quotes, paraphrases, reminiscences and allusions from the Holy Scriptures, and it is impossible to draw a clear line between a quote and a simple hint or semi-hint, since the texts are rarely quoted literally, especially in the “Hymns”, where they are adjusted to a certain poetic meter: “One (John the Baptist) calls out and preaches to everyone that one he cannot untie a belt or shoe strap 350, but another (Paul), when he ascended to the third heaven and after that was taken to heaven... said: I heard words that I cannot utter 351, but God dwells in unapproachable light” 352. There are three quotations in this passage from the 21st hymn, and none of them are given literally; Obviously, they are all cited from memory, and moreover, the author of the hymn adds extra words: instead of “belt” he writes “belt and strap”, instead of “God dwells” - “God dwells.” However, such an attitude towards the text of Holy Scripture is not a characteristic feature of Simeon alone or a feature of poetic speech: for the majority of the Holy Fathers, biblical texts are most often quoted in paraphrase. This is a special culture of citation, characteristic of those eras when quotation marks did not yet exist, when the same work was inscribed with the names of different persons or not at all, when when borrowing someone’s text - be it a separate expression or an entire treatise - it was not necessary to necessarily refer to the author. Here is another example - a description of the soul’s “chase” of God “running away” from it: “I did not turn back, did not show indecision, did not slow down... but with all my might I began to look for Him Whom I had not seen, examining the roads and fences, to see if He would appear somewhere. Shedding tears, I asked about Him to everyone who had ever seen Him... prophets, apostles and fathers, truly wise... With tears and great sorrow of heart, I begged them to tell me where they had once seen Him, or in what place, or how and in what way? And while they were still talking to me, I ran with all my might and saw my Desired One” 353. These unusual images of “search” and “pursuit” certainly reflect the personal experience of Saint Simeon, but the external form of the description was inspired by the Song of Songs: “I sought him whom my soul loves, I sought him and did not find him. I will get up, walk through the city, through the streets and squares, and will look for the one whom my soul loves... I was met by guards going around the city: “Have you seen the one whom my soul loves?” But as soon as I left them, I found the one whom my soul loves; grabbed hold of him and didn’t let him go” 354. We see how the love theme of this biblical book, which once inspired Origen and St. Gregory of Nyssa to allegorical interpretations in which a woman’s desire for her lover was reinterpreted as the soul’s desire for God, was again echoed in the works of the great mystic of the 11th century. But there is no need to talk about citation here, as in many other cases. Sometimes it seems that biblical images do not interest Simeon in themselves and he perceives in the Holy Scriptures only what is consonant with his experience. “Simeon gives the impression of a man who does not read a text or even a whole sentence: he perceives a word or an image, and this is enough for his highly poetic and imaginative spirit,” says the famous scholar of the work of St. Simeon J. Darrouzes 355 . 4. Text of hymns in the manuscript tradition The first copyist of the hymns of St. Simeon was Nikita Stiphatus, who became Simeon's student at the age of 14 around 1015 356. On the pages of the Life, Nikita talks about how he was entrusted with the task of rewriting hymns while the elder was still alive: “While the blessed elder was still alive, day and night he described, against his will, the mysterious things that the Divine Spirit brought to his mind, for he had absolutely no peace from the Spirit breathing in him and exciting him until he set out in writing His words and his inner experiences. He gave me his drafts, and I copied them onto sheets and scrolls of parchment” 357. Shortly before his death, Simeon sent Nikita a letter in which he asked the student to “rewrite” his works in a notebook, that is, to start publishing them 358. However, Nikita, who was still young and “unskilled in rational knowledge,” did not understand Simeon’s request and was unable to fulfill it. Only 16 years later he remembered the teacher’s will and decided to start working on his manuscripts 359. This happened, according to I. Ozerr, around 1035 360. Most of the manuscripts of the Monk Simeon, as Nikita writes, were kept for 13 years by one of Simeon’s admirers, and all these manuscripts were then handed over to Nikita. Even “one small manuscript, which was sold separately from other works,” was returned to him 361. Nikita searched for everything that remained of his spiritual father, including drafts and sketches, and then made copies of them. But the question arises: did Nikita keep the author’s text intact or did he allow himself to edit and “improve” it during correspondence? What is the extent of Nikita's editorial intervention in Simeon's text? It is definitely unlikely that it will be possible to answer this question, since neither Nikita’s autographs, nor even Simeon’s autographs have reached us: the earliest available manuscripts date back to the 13th century, and only one 21st hymn has been preserved in a 12th-century manuscript. 362 Nikita himself would answer the question posed in the negative - he calls himself only a scribe-copyist. As if to confirm the accuracy of the correspondence, he talks about the vision of his disciple John, who one night saw the Monk Simeon, who had long since died at that time: Simeon stood next to Nikita, who was copying his manuscript, pointed with his hand to certain passages of the text and explained them 363. If this testimony of Nikita cannot serve as a guarantee of the accuracy of his correspondence, then it at least convinces us that he did not deliberately seek to distort the text. Researchers have differing opinions regarding the scope of Nikita Stifat's editorial work. Archbishop Vasily believes that the corpus of Simeon’s works, which came from the pen of Nikita, “is in many ways different” from previous editions 364. It is known that Niketas was greatly influenced by Dionysius the Areopagite - this influence is visible in everything he wrote: in his treatises “On the Mental Paradise”, “On the Hierarchy”, “On the Soul” 365, in the three hundred “Active, Natural and Gnostic Chapters” 366, as well as in the “Life” of Simeon and in the preface to his Hymns. In Nikita's preface there are nine quotations from the Areopagite Corpus, eight from the treatise “On the Divine Names” and one from the “Ecclesiastical Hierarchy” 367. The title of the collection of Hymns given by Nikita is also marked by the influence of Dionysius, as discussed above. Based on this, researchers suggest that Niketas should have brought the text of Simeon into greater conformity with the doctrine and terminology of the Areopagite. B. Frenot-Julien draws attention to the fact that in the second part of Symeon's centuries there are more terms of Dionysius than in all other works of Symeon combined. He does not exclude the “editorial work” of Nikita, but stipulates that it is impossible to directly prove the substitution on the part of the latter 368. Nevertheless, we must state that attempts to determine the scope of Nikita’s intervention in Simeon’s text are nothing more than hypotheses, since there is no textual evidence of this intervention and conversation about it is pointless. It seems to us that a reverent attitude towards his teacher did not allow Nikita Stifat to make significant corrections to the text of his works, with the exception, perhaps, of obvious typos or some (though by no means all) rhythmic irregularities. As for the further fate of Simeon's handwritten heritage, we can talk about a gradual transformation of the text until the first printed edition in 1790. In the hands of Coder was a manuscript dating back to 1105 and containing, in addition to the works of Maximus the Confessor, which form its main part, also the 21st hymn of Simeon 369. If we take into account that Niketas Stiphatus died around 1090 370, then this manuscript is separated from his life by no more than a quarter of a century. The coder, comparing the text of 1105 with the text of the 13th century, notes quite significant corrections made by the scribe of the 13th century. All of them mainly concern the metrics of the anthem. If in many of Simeon’s poems the accents are placed irregularly, then the 13th century copyist. transforms the text in this way in order to bring Simeon’s political verse as close as possible to the “normal type.” This tendency, as the researcher notes, by the end of the Byzantine period “will lead to a tiresome monotony of political verse” 371. The scribe also strives to scrupulously observe the caesura on the 5th syllable, whereas Simeon also has it on other syllables. Thus, already by the 13th century. Simeon's text underwent an evolution towards improved metrics. Changes and corrections were made to the text later, and they concerned not only metrics: copyist-editors corrected those passages that confused them either with dogmatic boldness or too much frankness. The scribes excluded some verses from the text altogether 372, and sometimes added something of their own. In manuscripts of the 14th century. the text of the hymns is accompanied by scholia, which are sometimes placed in the margins, and sometimes interpolated into the text itself 373. Due to the indicated shortcomings of the manuscript tradition, the first printed edition of the Hymns of 1790 turned out to be very imperfect in textual terms, moreover, Dionysius of Zagorea, as noted, himself had a hand in editing the works of Simeon. Therefore, only the critical edition of the “Hymns”, carried out by the outstanding modern Byzantine scholar I. Koder in 1969–73. (SC 156, 174 and 196), restores the version of the text that comes closest to the original of St. Simeon. 5. On the poetic translation of the hymns of St. Simeon As we have already noted, the “Divine Hymns” were not conceived by their author as a single whole, but each of them represents an independent literary work. During Simeon’s lifetime, they were not collected in one book: they were collected, edited and published by Nikita Stifat 16 years after the death of his teacher” 374. The hymns differ from each other in their artistic value: some of them can be called real poetic masterpieces and can be placed on a par with the best achievements of not only Byzantine, but also world poetry, others are essentially theological treatises touching on dogmatic topics, but presented in poetic form. A literal prose translation, such as that of Hieromonk Panteleimon (Uspensky), perfectly reproduces the theological terminology of the Greek original, which is necessary for the hymns of the second category, but it cannot reproduce the “breath and tremulous beating” of verse 375, that is, its rhythmic and other features, without which the translation of the hymns of the first category turns into a dry interlinear hymn devoid of poetic beauty. Hence the natural desire to translate some of the hymns of St. Simeon in verse: we, however, chose for this purpose only those hymns that, as it seemed to us, were of the greatest artistic value. By presenting to the reader's attention this translation of selected hymns of St. Simeon, we aimed to emphasize that Simeon is not only one of the greatest saints and theologians of the Orthodox Church, but also an outstanding poet who sang not of human love and earthly beauty, but of the incorruptible and inexpressible beauty of the immortal God, whom he recognized so clearly and so closely. When translating the hymns, we did not strive in all cases to preserve the poetic meter of the original, since this is impossible - of the three meters used by Simeon, only the Anacreontic octosyllabic can be adequately reproduced using Russian verse: Pos kai pyr hyparcheis blyzon, Pos kai hydor eis drosizon, Pos kai kaieis kai glykaineis, How do you get rid of decay? 376 The twelve-syllable iambic trimeter cannot be reproduced using Russian syllabic-tonic versification - at best, a stylized effect can be achieved. Therefore, translators usually look for other means to convey the rhythmic character of the original. S. Averintsev, for example, conveys this size as follows: Monachos, hostis amyges esti kosmo, kai aenaos homilei Theo mono, blepon blepetai kai filon fileitai… A monk is one who, not connected with the world, Eternally conversing with God alone, And we see, and we see, and we love, and we are loved by Him... 377 We translate in a different rhythm: A monk is one who is not involved in the world, Who always speaks to God alone, Who, seeing God, becomes visible himself, Loving Him, he is loved by Him... In both cases, Simeon’s iambic trimeter is reproduced using Russian iambic pentameter, and S. Averintsev maintains the number of syllables in the line, but uses a dactylic ending - proparoxytone, that is, an emphasis on the 3rd syllable from the end, which is found in Simeon only as an exception. We have 11 syllables in a line, but the paroxytonic stress on the penultimate syllable, characteristic of all Simeon’s poems, remains. As for the political 15-syllable, it is perceived by ear as rhythmic prose: Easate te kelle me monon egkekleismenon, Afete me meta Theou tou monou finalthropou… Leave me alone, imprisoned in the cell; Let go with one humane God... 378 We, however, translated Simeon's political verse in most cases into Russian syllabonic meters. In general, it should be noted that there is no single principle or template for translating Byzantine poetry into Russian. The ancient poetic meters, inherited by Byzantine poetry, were based on the alternation of long and short vowels: the Russian language does not know such a phenomenon. Although in the era of Simeon this difference between long and short vowels was no longer perceptible by ear, nevertheless, by its nature, Byzantine verse remains different from Russian, based on the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables. The meter of most of Symeon's hymns, with the exception of the Anacreontic octosyllabic, which noticeably approaches the syllabonics, can be conveyed in Russian only with the help of artificial stylization, which would sound archaic and ponderous. The artistic effect of such “original size” imitations can be very questionable 379 . In any case, we sought to ensure that the verses of St. Simeon were not perceived as a museum exhibit and that his voice sounded alive and natural, as it sounded to his contemporaries. See H. 33, 70; H. 33, 45; H. 27, 84, etc. Nikita Stifat. Preface 67. SC 156, 112. There are also 1–18. SC 156, 106. Ibid 301–304. SC 156, 134 Hieromonk Panteleimon (Uspensky). Preface to the book: Divine hymns of our Reverend Father Simeon the New Theologian. Sergiev Posad, 1917. P.111. See H. 20, 97; 21, 474; 45, 24 See, for example, P. Maas. Der Byzantinische Zwolfsilber // Byzantinische Zeitschrift 12. Munchen, 1903. S.278 Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (913–959) is the third representative of the Macedonian dynasty on the Byzantine throne. The years of his reign were marked by the rise of culture and the flourishing of fine arts (the so-called Macedonian Renaissance). V. Asmus. Hymns by Rev. Simeon the New Theologian in the liturgical books of the Russian Orthodox Church // Report at the 3rd international scientific conference dedicated to the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus'. L., 1988. See especially H. 30, 450–462. S. Averintsev. Christian apophatics among the Greeks and Syrians: two approaches to the literary development of a spiritual theme // XVIII International Congress of Byzantinists. Summary of messages. T.1. M., 1991. P.87. See H. 44, 232; H. 23, 485, etc. For the Slavic text, see: Lenten Triodion. T.1. M., 1974. P.92. A. Kazhdan. Byzantine culture (X-XII centuries). M., 1968. P. 190. Macarius of Egypt. New spiritual conversations. M., 1990. P.26 H. 21, 280–281. Wed. 1 Tim. 6:16. J. Darrouzes. SC 51, 33–34. Vië Introduction par I.Hausherr, XXIII See J. Koder. SC 156, 57–61 B.Fraigneau-Julien. Les sens spirituels et la vision de Dieu selon Symeon le Nouveau Theologien. Paris, 1985. P.181 Vië Introduction par I.Hausherr, XC B.Krivocheine. SC 96, 59. Hieromonk Panteleimon (Uspensky). Preface, XII. H. 3, 1–3. Translation by S. Averintsev, see the book: Byzantium and Rus'. M., 1989. P.127 Here is the opinion of the famous translator G. Shengeli regarding the advisability of preserving the size of the original when translating into Russian: “The solution to the question of verse, undoubtedly, cannot be unambiguous... Using the size of the original, it is possible to translate poems of the same verse nature as Russian: English, German, Dutch, Scandinavian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Belarusian. All quantitative verse, all syllabics... allow only a conditional interpretation. But let’s take systems related to the Russian language. The question arises: why does the translation need the size of the original? What artistic effect is achieved by its use? I have yet to come across a thoughtful answer to these questions. Size, one way or another, in itself is aesthetically neutral: the same size is used to write things that are diametrically opposed in genre, in content, in manner, in tone. In addition, size is a general concept; there really is a rhythm: this combination of meter variations in inextricable unity with intonation, which, in turn, is determined by the semantic and emotional relief of speech. And this is no longer reproducible.” Based on these premises, G. Shengeli proposes to use the flexible method of “functional similarity”. The translator must take into account “the place occupied by the original verse in the general verse tradition of this literature,” and also take into account the Russian poetic tradition. “But the main thing is that the character of a given verse structure is taken into account: slowness, heaviness, swiftness, lightness, roundness, intermittency, the presence of enjambements, rhythmic controversies... And this character must be reproduced by means of the Russian language... If this is possible in the size of the original (in direct or conditionally traditional resolution), so much the easier; if not, we will choose any size that allows such a recreation.” G. Shengeli. About my work // “Literary studies”, No. 6. M., 1990. pp. 171–172). You might be interested in: