The song “Paromshchik” to Zinoviev’s poem and Patinir’s “Crossing the Styx”

An early star has fallen, there is coolness in the fields,
A ferry glides, the water sings of something close by.
And where the river gleams by a quiet grove,
A grey-haired ferryman joins the banks together.

There are so many partings on earth, and so many different fates,
At dawn the ferryman gives people hope.
Now they need the left bank, now the right,
There are many lovers, and he is the only one at the crossing.

Literal translation

The poem by Nikolay Zinovyev, which became the basis of Igor Nikolayev's song "The Ferryman" ("Paromshchik"), known from the performance by Alla Pugacheva, was written about a real ferryman who for several decades carried people across on his ferry at the place where the river Zhizdra flows into the river Oka.

But if you look at the painting by the sixteenth-century Flemish painter Joachim Patinir, "Crossing the River Styx", I think it will become clearer which ferryman is really meant. In Patinir, Charon, contrary to the ancient iconography, offers the human soul a choice: which shore to land on, the hard-to-reach heavenly one or the bountiful and tempting infernal one. And the river gleams by the quiet grove, and the early star has fallen.

There are many lovers, and he is the only one at the crossing...