Boris Godunov: A Drama in Verse

VOROTINSKY. To keep the city's peace, that is the task

Entrusted to us twain, but you forsooth

Have little need to watch; Moscow is empty;

The people to the Monastery have flocked

After the patriarch. What thinkest thou?

How will this trouble end?


SHUISKY. How will it end?

That is not hard to tell. A little more

The multitude will groan and wail, Boris

Pucker awhile his forehead, like a toper

Eyeing a glass of wine, and in the end

Will humbly of his graciousness consent

To take the crown; and then—and then will rule us

Just as before.


VOROTINSKY. A month has flown already

Since, cloistered with his sister, he forsook

The world's affairs. None hitherto hath shaken

His purpose, not the patriarch, not the boyars

His counselors; their tears, their prayers he heeds not;

Deaf is he to the wail of Moscow, deaf

To the Great Council's voice; vainly they urged

The sorrowful nun-queen to consecrate

Boris to sovereignty; firm was his sister,

Inexorable as he; methinks Boris

Inspired her with this spirit. What if our ruler

Be sick in very deed of cares of state

And hath no strength to mount the throne? What

Say'st thou?