Yermil Kostrov

Yermil Ivanovich Kostrov (1755–1796) studied at Moscow University and made a name as a translator. He rendered part of Homer’s Iliad into Russian verse and worked on a version of Ossian, which, as Bowring notes, was completed after his early death by Gnedich.

The versions here are by John Bowring, from his Specimens of the Russian Poets (Part the First, 1821; Part the Second, 1823), one of the first English anthologies of Russian verse. They are free, rhymed versions, and should be read as period translations rather than as literal renderings.