The Truth
The Truth - meaning Summary
Truth Found in a Cup
Pushkin’s short poem contrasts laborious, ritualized searching for an abstract "truth" with a simpler, unpretentious discovery. Learned sages repeatedly probe a well and debate, while a solitary figure, possibly Silen, abandons the formal quest, drinks wine, and finds the truth at the bottom of his cup. The poem suggests that truth can be encountered unexpectedly through direct, ordinary experience rather than through endless theorizing.
Read Complete AnalysesFrom ancient times sages were seeking For the forgotten truth’s footprints. And they for long were loud-speaking The usual speeches of old flints. They were repeating: “The truth-treasure Had hidden self into a well.” And, drinking water all together, Were crying: “There we’ll find it, well!” But someone faithful friend of mortals, (Maybe Silen this person was) The witness of their disputes, thoughtless, Had tired of water and of noise, Left all attempts to find the holly, And thought about wine, the first, And, having drunk a bowl, whole, Saw, on its bottom, the truth, lost. Translated by Yevgeny Bonver
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