Translated by D.H. Low

The Heroic Ballads of Servia are the folk epic poetry of Serbia — one of the great bodies of oral poetry in European tradition, comparable to Homer in its antiquity of transmission and to the Norse eddas in its mythological depth. The ballads survived for centuries in oral tradition, sung to the accompaniment of the one-stringed gusle, and were collected in written form primarily by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić in the early nineteenth century. They fall into great cycles: the Ballads of Kosovo, centered on the catastrophic defeat of Serbia by the Ottoman Turks at the Field of Kosovo in 1389; the cycle of Prince Marko Kralyevich, the half-legendary hero who embodies Serbian resistance and cunning; the ballads of resistance under Turkish rule; and the mythological ballads without historical foundation.

The Kosovo cycle is the heart of the tradition — the founding myth of Serbian national identity. Its ballads treat the decision of Tsar Lazar to choose the Kingdom of Heaven over earthly victory (the Kosovo covenant), the treachery of Vuk Branković, the heroism of Miloš Obilić who slew the Sultan Murad, and the lament of the Maid of Kosovo moving among the dead. The cycle has the quality of Greek tragedy: inevitable, dignified, and saturated with grief. The Marko Kralyevich ballads are a different register entirely — comic, picaresque, impudent — the trickster hero of the same tradition that produced Kosovo's martyrs.

The ballads were first collected and published by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić (1787–1864), the Serbian linguist and folklorist who systematized the Serbian language. They were translated into German by Goethe and Grimm, inspiring the Romantic movement's fascination with folk poetry. This English translation by D.H. Low was published by John Murray, London, 1922.

Preface and Introduction

PREFACE

p. i

The purpose of the present volume is to give specimens of the best portions of a ballad literature that is among the most remarkable in Europe. For the translation of the ballads from the Servian, and for the introduction and notes, I am responsible; Mr. Bacon has transformed my prose texts into English verse. Each of us, however, has of course made suggestions as to the work of the other.

G. R. NOYES.

HEROIC BALLADS OF SERVIA

p. v

p. vi

INTRODUCTION

The ballads of Servia occupy a high position, perhaps the highest position, in the ballad literature of Europe. Of them Jacob Grimm wrote: “They would, if well known, astonish Europe,” and “in them breathes a clear and inborn poetry such as can scarcely be found among any other modern people.” The origin of this popular literature goes back to a period of which no written record exists; its known history dates from the fourteenth century, since which time it is absolutely continuous. And in Servia, unlike England and Spain, ballads still survive as an important part of the nation’s intellectual life; they are still sung, and still composed, by peasant poets who have received their training from oral tradition instead of from the printed page.

According to their subjects the Servian ballads may be divided into two very unequal divisions, the first, and by far the larger, being based on the national history, while the second lacks any such historical foundation. Yet the line between the two groups cannot be strictly drawn; well-known folk-lore motives or mere popular jests are continually attached to historical heroes. Such ballads as Prince Marko’s Plowing and Marko Drinks Wine in Ramazán called “historical” only in the most ultra-catholic interpretation of the term.

The historical ballads may again be divided into more or less definite cycles. First in order of time come those dealing with the kings of the Némanich dynasty (1168-1367). This royal line made less impression on the popular mind by its heroic exploits than by its piety in founding churches and monasteries (cf. p. 28). The surviving ballads of the cycle, which are few in number, are represented in this volume by Urosh and the Sons of Marnyáva and The Building of Skadar. After the death of the great tsar Stepan Dushan in 1356, his son, the weak Urosh, came to the throne, but was unable to preserve his authority intact. The leader of the revolting chieftains was King Vukáshin, who defeated his lawful superior and caused him to be slain. Of the rivalry of the two men the ballad Urosh and the Sons of Marnyáva preserves a distant echo; to the historic brothers Vukáshin and Úglyesha it adds a third, Goyko, unknown outside of folk-lore. Another glimpse, still more legendary, of the three brothers is preserved in The Building of Skadar.

The cycle of the battle of Kósovo forms the classic center of the Servian ballads. After the death of Vukáshin, being hard pressed by the Turks, the Servians in 1371 elected as their tsar, Lazar, a leader who had served under Dushan and was connected with him by marriage. His efforts to save the country were vain; on June 15 (St. Vitus’ day), 1389, his armies were crushed by those of Murad I. Both rulers fell on the battlefield, Murad being killed by a Servian to whom one of the contemporary accounts gives the title of “a faithful servant of Lazar, by name Milosh.” About 1431 Constantine the Philosopher, a Servian biographer, states that the “great noble” who killed Murad was “slandered to his lord by envious tongues as wishing to betray him.” An anonymous Italian writer (about 1500) tells how on the eve of battle Lazar reproached Milosh with wishing to betray him, and how Milosh replied that the event would prove his truth or treason; the same source states that on the battlefield there was a report of the treachery of a voývoda named Drágoslav Príbishich. Finally Mauro Orbini in his Regno de gli Slavi (1601) for the first time ascribes the betrayal of Lazar to his son-in-law Vuk Bránkovich, whose fair fame is thus wrongfully besmirched. Orbini makes Milosh, like Vuk, the son-in-law of Lazar, and tells of the origin of the enmity of the two men in a quarrel between their wives Mara and Vúkosava; in other words, he gives the Kósovo legend in practically its complete form, as it is found in the ballads here printed. It is, however, probably the product of popular tradition, not of Orbini and his predecessors.

Upon this Kósovo legend many episodes are grafted, such as those of Ban Strahin, Musich Stevan, and the Maid of Kósovo. The ballads often represent varying traditions; thus the accounts of Lazar’s church in The Battle of Kósovo and The Building of Ravánitsa are not perfectly consistent with each other. They depart widely from historical truth, making Vukáshin, for example, who died in 1871, and Ertseg Stepan, who belongs to a later period, both take part in the battle of Kósovo.

These Kósovo songs are emphatically not fragments of a primitive epic, but ballads dealing with detached episodes. The attempts that have been made to stitch them together into a connected whole result in damaging splendid ballads without constructing an epic worthy of the name. They furnish an argument of some weight against the Homeric theories of Lachmann and his school.

If the Kósovo cycle be the most elevated, dignified, epic portion of the Servian popular poetry, the ballads of Marko Krályevich (Prince Marko) are of more dramatic interest, combining tragic pathos with almost ribald comedy in a fashion worthy of an Elizabethan playwright. Unlike Strahin and Milosh, who, to borrow a phrase from Dryden, are “patterns of exact virtue,” radiant as their garments, Marko is a burly spoiled child, strong, self-willed, capricious, at times cruel, but always brave, always kind to the weak and friendless, whether they be fair maidens or mere birds of prey, and, above all, always a devoted son to his old mother Yévrosima. The historic Marko, the son of King Vukáshin, was not of great importance. After his father’s death he ruled over a portion of Macedonia, with Prilip as his capital; in 1385 he submitted to Turkish sovereignty; and in 1394 he perished, fighting for the Sultan Bajazet against the Voývoda Mircha of Wallachia. But he must have endeared himself to the nation by his personal qualities, for he became by far the best known and the best beloved hero of the ballads. In one respect, at least, the ballads about him are true to history. Although Marko is associated with Milosh as his sworn brother, and although he visits the field of Kósovo after the defeat of the Servians (see pp. 130-32), he is assigned no part in the battle itself; as to the cause of his absence from the fray the ballads are silent.

From the great days of heroic conflict with the Turks to the dark ages of oppression, the ballads of The Maiden Márgita and Rayko the Voývoda, with its lament over fallen champions, forms a natural transition. The time of Turkish rule lacked great exploits and great personalities; its heroes were the hayduks, or robber outlaws, of whom the most famous was Starína Novak, who with his band of followers, including his sworn brother, the bold Rádivoye, lived in Bosnia late in the sixteenth century. Though they use muskets instead of bows, these worthies, as they appear in the ballads, are own cousins of Robin Hood and Little John.

“After Herzegovina was subdued by the Turks (1482), many of the inhabitants fled to Dalmatia and Klis [near Salona], and after the fall of Klis (1537) they went to Zengg [Senye in the ballads] on the Croatian seacoast, in order, as hired soldiers of the emperor, to defend the country from Turkish marauding bands: these are the fugitives.” A special cycle of ballads glorifies these “fugitives,” of whom Ivo of Senye, who lived about 1600, is the chief hero. With this cycle may be grouped the ballads of the “seacoast heroes,” who, however, are not in the strict sense “fugitives.” They are not from Zengg, but from Kotári, in northern Dalmatia, and are of a later date, the middle and end of the seventeenth century. Among them is Stoyan Yánkovich, who in 1689 contributed to the fall of Údbina and the freeing of Lika and Kríbava from the Turks. The ballads that deal with him have little connection with his actual exploits.

Of ballads more recent in subject-matter this volume contains but one specimen, The War of the Montenegrins with Mahmud Pasha (1796), which represents the cycle of the freeing of Montenegro. Unlike their predecessors, the ballads of this group are better history than poetry. “Short and simple, generally without poetic descriptions or long conversations, almost entirely without the vila or raven motives, they sing in a realistic fashion the wars of the Montenegrins with the Turks; they celebrate only real persons, and when they mention even unimportant actors, always preserve the topography of their doings accurately and consistently. In them women play no part.”

The ballads lacking historical foundation are of the most varied sort. Thus The Serpent Bridegroom and Sister and Brother are versified fairy tales, dealing with familiar folk-lore motives. Predrag and Nenad is ostensibly a hayduk story, but its plot is not purely Servian; it is known to English readers from Malory’s tale of Balin and Balan, or Tennyson’s modern version of it. St. Nicholas is a naïve popular legend, while Muyo and Áliya tells of the misdeeds of an unusually wicked vila, or mountain nymph. On the other hand, The Wife of Hasan Aga is a simple, powerful tragedy of domestic life.

The Servian heroic ballads are now all composed in one measure, an unrimed line of ten syllables, with a cæsura after the fourth syllable. There is no regular arrangement of accents; but, as no Servian word (except of course monosyllables) is accented on the ultima, the effect of the verse, when read or recited, is of an irregular trochaic rhythm.

When the ballads are sung, the prose accents are set aside, and the lines become regular trochaic pentameter.

The Servian ballads are ordinarily recited or chanted to the accompaniment of the gusle, a crude, one-stringed instrument, in appearance somewhat like a mandolin, but played with a bow. The tones of the gusle come in only at the close of the verses. On their distribution Karájich wrote thus in 1823: “The heroic songs are now sung most often and with most zest in Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, and the southern, mountainous regions of Servia. In these places even to-day almost every house has its gusle, and it is hard to find a man who does not know how to play it, and many women and girls know how.” In the lower regions the gusle grows less common, until it finally becomes the peculiar possession of blind beggars, who sing the songs at fairs and church festivals.

The anonymous authorship of these songs may excite surprise among a people of bookish training and habits like ourselves. It will be readily understood that a singer knowing some fifty of the ballads by heart can without great difficulty compose new songs on any passing event of village life, even as a cultivated gentleman, well versed in even one of Shakespeare’s plays, can find fitting quotations for an after-dinner speech on any imaginable topic. Karájich gives an example of such a jesting song composed upon a village wedding. Ballads of this type have no value in themselves, and disappear from memory along with the trifling event that occasioned them. But “just as waggish old men and youths compose these jocose songs, so others compose serious ballads of battles and other notable events. It is not strange that one cannot learn who first composed even the most recent of the ballads, to say nothing of the older ones; but it is strange that among the common people nobody regards it as an art or a thing to be proud of to compose a new ballad; and, not to speak of boasting of doing so, everyone, even the real author, refuses to acknowledge the ballad, and says that he has heard it from another. This is true of the most recent ballads, of which it is known that they were not brought from elsewhere, but arose on the spot from an event of a few days ago; but when even a year has passed since the event and the ballad, or when a ballad is heard of an event of yesterday, but of a distant locality, no one even thinks of asking about its origin.”

A few words are due the memory of the great collector of the Servian national songs, Vuk Stefánovich Karájich (1787-1864), from whose work all but one of the ballads in the present volume have been translated. Born of a peasant family, under Turkish rule, Vuk early learned to read and write, and while still a boy served as a scribe to Black George, the leader of the Servian revolt. Owing to an illness he became a cripple and was restricted to a bookish career. In 1813 he became acquainted in Vienna with the Slavic scholar Kopitar, whose attention he attracted by an article written in the living Servian language instead of the artificial ecclesiastical dialect then current in Servian literature, and who encouraged him to undertake the gathering of popular songs and ballads. In 1814-15 he published the first fruits of his labors, a small collection in two volumes; a second, enlarged edition appeared in four volumes, 1824-33; and a third edition, with still further additions, followed in 1841-66, in six volumes, of which the last two were printed posthumously. Finally the Servian government has reissued the great work, with additions from Karájich’s manuscripts, in nine volumes, 1891-1902, containing, besides two volumes of folk-songs, nearly five hundred ballads.

Karájich also published a collection of popular tales and one of proverbs. But his activity as a folk-lorist was only one side of his labors. In 1814 he published the first edition of his Servian Grammar, and in 1818 he published the first edition of his Servian Dictionary, with translations in German and Latin, which, in a revised form, is still a standard work. He prepared a translation of the New Testament into the living speech of the people. Finally, not to speak of his less important writings, he revised on a phonetic basis the alphabet and spelling of his native language, and his system, after years of persecution, partly owing to his introduction of the letter j from the hated “Catholic” Latin alphabet, has long since been adopted as the Servian official orthography. Few writers of books have had so great an influence, or an influence so purely beneficent, on the life of their nation as had Vuk Stefánovich Karájich.

Some explanation is needed of the pronunciation of the Servian proper names. No simple transliteration can correctly indicate the native pronunciation; that here adopted seems open to as few objections as any other. The vowels and diphthongs should be given their regular “continental” values: roughly, father, café, machine note, rule, aye, bey, boy. I never forms a diphthong with a preceding vowel: Vó-in, Vá-i-sti-na. Y is always either a consonant or the second element of a diphthong; a consonant followed by y plus a vowel forms one syllable with them: Né-ma-nya. The consonants and consonantal digraphs have their ordinary English sounds; the following are apparently all in regard to which there could be ambiguity. G is always “hard,” as in gift; j is pronounced as in jelly, the j of the Servian alphabet being here rendered by y (Yug); s is always surd, as in soft, passing; z and ch are pronounced as in zebra and church, not with their German sounds; zh represents the sound of s in pleasure. Ch and j, it should be added, each transliterate two Servian sounds, only one of which corresponds to the English value of the letter used for it. The Servian “vocalic r,” as in Srja, has been rendered by ri, Srija. C has not been used in the transliteration; thus, Tsétinye (Cetinje). The accent of words of two syllable is always on the first syllable; on words of three or more syllables the accent is always marked. No attempt has been made to indicate the quantities of the Servian vowels or the secondary accents.

1 Quoted by Vogl, Marko Kraljevits, p. iii.

1 This ballad is here printed as the first of those dealing with Prince Marko, with which also it may be classed.

1 Duke, lord.

2 The story of the quarrel of Mara and Vúkosava is not, however, included in this volume.

1 This topic is discussed by H. Munro Chadwick, The Heroic Age (Cambridge, 1912), pp. 818-819.

1 Quoted by Pópovich without indication of source.

1 Pópovich.

2 Karájich, Preface to second edition of Servian National Songs, 1824 (in government edition, 1891).

1 Ibid.

1 Ibid. Acquaintance with these simple statements by Karájich as to conditions with which he was familiar, in a country where ballads are still a living force, might have saved writers on English balladry from much empty theorizing. Despite the prevailing anonymity, the authorship of some of the modern ballads is known with reasonable certainty: see p. 225, note.

2 The one exception is the ballad How Milosh Killed the Sultan Murad, which is from a small volume, Boj na Kosovu, published at Allegheny, Pennsylvania, no date.

Before the Turkish Conquest

The Building Of Skadar

ONCE there were three born brothers, a hold that had begun—
The three sons of Marnyáva. Vukáshin the king was one,
The second was Voývoda Úglyesha, and Goyko the third was he;
And Skadar on the Bóyana were they building busily.
With fifteen score of masons three long years labored they,
But they could not for the fortress the strong foundations lay,
Much less raise up the wall thereof, for what was set upright
By the masons in the morning, a vila wrecked at night.
The vila called from the mountain in the spring of the fourth year:
“Plague not thyself, Vukáshin, and squander not thy gear!
King, thou canst not for the fortress the strong foundation lay,
Much less raise up the wall thereof, until upon a day
Come news of Stoya and Stoyan, for like names have the twain;
Sister they are and brother. Into the wall amain
Shalt thou wall them. And the fortress shall be stablished in the land.”
Vukáshin heard. To Désimir he issued his command:
“Désimir, thou wast ever a faithful knave to me,
And from this hour onward mine own son shalt thou be.
Harness, my son, the horses to the wains in the yard below,
And take six packs of money, and over the white world go.
Do thou seek for Stoya and Stoyan, for like names have the twain;
Brother they are and sister. Buy them or seize them amain.
Thou shalt bring them unto Skadar on the Bóyana straightway,
That the twain in the foundation of the tower we may lay,
To see if the foundation at last will stay or stand,
And finally the fortress be stablished in the land.”
Désimir heard, and harnessed the steeds to the wains below;
And with six packs of money o’er the white world did he go.
He sought for Stoya and Stoyan, for like names had the twain;
For three full years he sought them, and aye he sought in vain.
To Skadar on the Bóyana at last he took the track;
To the king he gave the horses and the wains and money back.
“Here, king, are thy wains and horses, and thy money-bags again,
Since I found not Stoya and Stoyan—for like names have the twain.”
Vukáshin heard it, and summoned Rado the builder in,
And Rado bade three hundred men their labor to begin.
What the king built, wrecked the vila; no foundation could he lay,
Much less raise up the wall thereof. To the king then did she say:
“Plague not thyself, Vukáshin, and squander not thy gold;
Thou canst not rear a single pier, much less the wall of the hold.
A faithful wife hath each of you, ye kingly brothers born:
Whose wife with the masons’ dinner comes to Bóyana tomorn,
Into the tower’s foundation wall her then, that it may stand;
And finally the fortress shalt thou stablish in the land.”
When King Vukáshin heard it, he called his brethren there:
“Hear ye what from the mountain the vila doth declare!
In no way get we vantage by squandering the gold;
She will not let rear a single pier, much less the wall of the hold.
She saith that we have faithful wives, all we three brothers born:
Whose wife with the masons’ dinner comes to Bóyana tomorn,
Into the tower’s foundation we must build her, that it stand;
And finally the fortress shall we stablish in the land.
Before God shall we not pledge it, not to tell our wives at home,
And leave to chance whose wife tomorn to Bóyana shall come?”
While the three lords were pledging, upon them came the night,
And straightway they departed unto their houses white.
They spent the lordly evening, and went each man to bed;
And—a marvel!—Vukáshin brake the pledge, and told the wife he wed:
“Hearest thou, my dear love now, that troth to me hast sworn!
Go not thou to the Bóyana with the masons’ dinner tomorn.
Thou wilt perish; they will wall thee into the wall of the tower.”
Úglyesha brake it also, and told his wife in that hour:
“Be not deceived, my darling wife, that troth to me hast sworn!
Go not with the masons’ dinner unto Bóyana tomorn.
Girl, thou wilt die; they will wall thee into the wall of the tower.”
But Goyko did not break the pledge, nor tell his wife in that hour.
On the fair morrow early, when first the daybreak shone,
The children of Marnyáva to the Bóyana were gone.
Time came the dinner to carry, and the turn of the queen to bear;
She went to the wife of Úglyesha, and spake unto her there:
“Hear, and good health to thee, sister! My head beginneth to ache;
I cannot conquer it. Prithee the meal to the masons take.”
“Good health to thee, queen,” she answered, my sister that is so dear!
I cannot master this aching arm. Speak thou to our sister here.”
She went to the youngest sister, and unto her said she:
“O thou young wife of Goyko, do thou harken now to me!
It is this—good health to thee, sister!—my head beginneth to ache;
I cannot conquer the pain. Do thou the meal to the masons take.”
Goyko’s young wife gave answer: “I would do it gladly, O queen;
But all unbathed is my little child, and the linen not washed clean.”
Answered the queen: “With the dinner to the masons do thou go.
Let our sister bathe thy baby; I will whiten the linen like snow.”
Then the young wife of Goyko thereto would say no more;
Forthwith unto the masons their midday meal she bore.
By Bóyana Goyko saw her, and sad was his heart that day,
Sad for his wife and the little lad that in the cradle lay,
That should be without his mother ere his first month was told;
And down upon the hero’s face the bitter tears they rolled.
The slender girl looked on him; gently she walked along,
Until she was come to Goyko, and she spake as soft as a song:
“What aileth thee, Goyko, that on thy cheeks the bitter tears have rolled?”
He answered: “Evil it is, my love! I had an apple of gold, And to-day it fell into Bóyana, and woe is me this day!
It is a trouble of the soul; this grief I cannot slay.”
She understood not, the slender girl; unto her lord she spake:
“Pray for thine health; an apple far better shalt thou make!”
Then was he grievously sorry, and turned his head aside;
He could not any longer bear to look upon his bride.
But the two sons of Marnyáva took her hands white and small,
And led her to the stronghold, to wall her in the wall.
They made to Rado the builder the matter manifest;
She laughs at his three hundred men, for she deems it is a jest.
They brought her and they placed her, to wall her in the wall;
And the three hundred masons they came there one and all.
With stone and wood they walled her to the knees east and west,
And the slender girl laughs lightly, deeming haply they jest.
They built unto her girdle with the heavy wood and stone.
She saw what was come on her; with a very bitter groan,
And writhing like a serpent, she prayed her brethren there:
“An you trust in God, wall me not up, so tender and so fair.”
So prayed she. They looked not on her; no way her prayer did aid.
But she overcame disgrace and shame, and to her lord she said:
“Let me not now, my dearest lord, be walled up in the hold,
But send unto my mother, that hath a treasure of gold,
And purchase thou a slave girl with her money in that hour,
And wall the slave girl into the foundations of the tower.”
So spake the slender girl in vain; the prayer could not aid.
When she found no help, to Rado, the master builder, she prayed:
“For my bosom, builder Rado, leave a space at my behest,
That Yovo when he cometh may be suckled at my breast.”
Rado, the master builder, was well pleased with her prayer,
And for her milk-white bosom he left a window there,
With the white bosom outward. He did her whole behest,
That Yovo might be suckled when he came unto her breast.
And again she called on Rado, the builder, in this wise:
“I prithee, brother Rado, leave a window for mine eyes,
That I may look to the white house, and easily may see
When they bring Yovo hither, or bear him back from me.”
Rado, the master builder, was well pleased with her prayer;
That she might look to the milk-white house, he left a window there,
And see the child when they brought him or bore him back again.
At last they walled her in the wall and stablished the hold amain.
They brought the babe in the cradle, she suckled him from the stone;
For seven days she suckled him; thereafter her voice was gone.
A year she gave the young child suck, and sweet did the white milk flow.
As it was then in Skadar, so sweet it runneth now.
Yea, even to-day the white milk flows, for a miracle most high,
And a healing draught for women whereof the breasts are dry!

Ballads of Kósovo Field

The Building Of Ravánitsa

To celebrate the holy tide, Tsar Lazarus is gone
To Krúshevats, the fortress of many-colored stone;
To the birthfeast of St. Amos he summons all the lords
By letter and salutation that with their rank accords.
And all the lords of Servia were gathered at that place.
He set them at the tables, by greatness and by grace.
At the head of the good table the good Tsar Lazar sat;
The lords were set beside him to drink the wine thereat;
And they spake of all good tidings what time the wine ran free.
Tsáritsa Mílitsa stepped forth, and through the hall came she.
Girded was she with girdles nine, nine chains her neck did fold,
Nine pendants hung about her brows from the coronet of gold,
And the three summits of the crown were set with a precious stone
That shone by night as broad and bright as in the day the sun.
And she spoke to the glorious Lazarus: “Abashed am I to-day Only to look on thee, Lazarus; and more this word to say—
I cannot help it, I must speak forth. Némanya’s sons of old,
They were our tsars in word and deed, and all their days are told.
They heaped not treasure up in hills, but to God reared many a fane;
They builded their good monasteries on the mountain and the plain;
They reared o’er Jákovitsa Déchani on the height,
The Patriarch’s Place at level Pech, and in Drénitsa the white
Did they raise the Devich; near Pazar St. Peter’s Church they set,
And the great Pillars of St. George on the mount, higher yet;
They builded Sópochani over the Rashka cold,
And the Cathedral of St. Anne they wrought in Vlah the Old;
Studénitsa ’neath Brivenik; ’neath Yádovnik, St. Paul;
O’er Káranovats the fair church that Zhicha men do call.
The Chapel of Good Friday on Prizrend did they bestow;
And they reared Gráchanitsa on level Kósovo.
All these are their foundations. In their place thou reignest now;
No churches hast thou founded, yet a treasure of gold hast thou.
The treasure availeth nothing to help us or to heal;
Neither for soul or body will treasure work our weal.”
Then rose up Lazar the glorious: “My great lords, harken ye What saith my queen, that nowhere a church builded have we!
Ravánitsa in Résava by the Ravan will I rear,
For treasure in my treasuries whate’er I need is here.
Leaden shall be the corner stones, and the walls of silver white;
I will cover the walls of it with the gold burnished bright.
And moreover, by God’s mercy, shall pearls be set thereon,
And the gateways of the chapels shall glow with precious stone.”
The Servian lords rose lightly; they bowed down one and all:
“Build for the sake of thine own soul and the health of Stevan the Tall.”
But Milosh Óbilich sat there at the table foot to dine,
And naught he said; and Lazar saw, and pledged him in the wine:
“Hail to thee, Milosh the voývoda! What then to me wilt thou say?
For I think to build to our Lord God a mighty church this day.”
Milosh rose up and doffed the cap with the plumes and sable fine,
And he made obeisance to the tsar, and they gave him the cup of wine.
Milosh took up the golden cup, and gave his health again:
“Glory to thee, prince, for thy speech, but for building of the fane—
This is no time for building. In faith, it cannot be!
My lord, but look in the ancient book what it shall say to thee.
The last hour is upon us; swift it cometh apace.
The Turks will take the kingdom and rule it in our place.
They will sack church and convent, and Ravánitsa likewise.
The foundations of Ravánitsa, they will dig them for a prize,
And melt them into cannon balls, to beat and batter down
The bulwarks of our churches and the rampart of the town.
For trappings the whitesilver walls shall be molten in the flames;
They will overthrow the church roof for necklets for their dames;
For these same necklaces, I wot, they will wrench away the pearls;
For their sword hilts will they take the gems, and for rings for Turkish girls.
But hark to me, Tsar Lazar! Let us quarry out the stone
And build a church of marble. For the Turks will seize the throne,
And our church shall serve forever, unto God’s Judgment Day!
There is no profit in the stone, to carry it away.”
Then spake the great Tsar Lazarus, when he that speech had heard:
“Now glory to thee, Milosh, for truth is in thy word!”

Ban Strahin

STRAHIN was ban of Banska that by Kósovo doth stand;
And such another falcon there is not in the land.
He rose up in the morning: “Ho, all my knaves, give heed! Get ye down to the stables and saddle me my steed.
Deck him out fair and seemly, and gird him with the girth;
For hark and hear me, gallants, I go roving o’er the earth.
Weary shall be the milk-white steed, before I shall alight
Where dwell my wife’s good kindred in Krúshevats the white—
Her brave old father Yug Bogdan and her good brothers nine,
Her gallant kin shall take me in and cheer me with the wine.”
Then forthwith all the servants unto the ban gave heed,
And from the lordly stable led the white falcon steed.
And then the brave Ban Strahin himself the steed arrayed;
He set on him a saddle of velvet and brocade,
Redder than sunset water, more shining than the sun!
So the good ban put on the steed that rich caparison.
So rode he forth that morning, nor ever did alight
Till he came in to his wife’s kin in Krúshevats the white,
Where late the realm men stablished. And him Yug Bogdan saw,
And with his nine gray hawks came on to greet his son-in-law.
They waited little for him, but clasped him one and all;
And while the servants took the steed, they brought the ban to hall.
Down sat they at the ready board, and spake fair words and fine;
And man and maid came in apace to serve or pour the wine.
Then all those goodly Christians their thirst began to quench;
Yug Bogdan set Ban Strahin beside him on the bench;
Upon his right he set him, his sons on the other hand;
But the remnant of his people at the table-foot must stand.
The servants served before them. Nine daughters had that lord,
And each fair daughter in her turn served deftly at the board.
They served before their father; they served their lords that tide;
But most of all Ban Strahin, for their sister was his bride.
One servant stood before them to serve the red wine up;
In a gold cup he measured it—nine measures held that cup.
Much courtesy was there to see and guests from near and far;
Brothers as many came as to a banquet of the tsar.
Long was Ban Strahin’s tarrying; long, long did he abide,
Dwelling among his wife her kin in pleasure and in pride.
The guests that were in Krúshevats a bitter cry they made,
And came to old Yug Bogdan and unto him they prayed:
“We kiss thy silken garments, thou art our lord and chief;
We therefore pray thy kindness to do us this relief.
Bring Strahin thy good son-in-law to our castles and our courts,
That we may do him honor as with his worth consorts.”
Before that mirth was over was long enough, I trow.
Long the ban tarried, ere came forth the tidings of his woe.
But lo, in the fair morning, when the warm sun beat down,
A lad bore a white letter from Banska, the little town,—
Tidings from his old mother! He set it on his knee;
Therein was many a bitter and dreadful thing to see,
For there her curse is written most plain in Strahin’s sight:
“Where art thou, son? Foul fall the wine in Krúshevats the white!
Evil is the wine and full of shame for thee and thy wife’s kin.
Behold what woes against thee are written down herein!
From Yedren with an army is come the Turkish tsar
To Kósovo, and his viziers are with him in the war;
And he hath taken Kósovo with his accurst viziers.
The whole strength hath he brought along of all the Turkish spears;
Along the land of Kósovo hath he ta’en either flood—
Lab and Sítnitsa onward from the marble to the wood,
From the maple dry to Sázliya bridged over by the arch,
Through Zvechan and Chechan to the wood round Kósovo they march,
The valley of their capture; thereto they haste along.
And the tsar hath one army an hundred thousand strong,
That one lone lord hath lent him who hath a fief of the tsar.
Many lords eat of the tsars bread, and ride his steeds of war.
Few arms those chieftains carry; nay, but a single blade!
And yet another army is for the tsar arrayed—
The Turks and janissaries in Yedren’s milk-white tower;
And yet an hundred thousand they say are in that power.
Tuk and Manjuk an army for the tsar lead as well,
And death is in their onslaught and slaughter in their yell.
But yet there is one army of all from far and near—
Vlah Áliya’s, that feareth not for sultan nor vizier,
Nor all within the armies save as ants upon the hill.
“Such is the Turkish battle, nor departs he without ill.
He smote on little Banska; by the left-hand way he came;
He stormed the hold of Banska, and burned it with the flame.
He hath o’erturned the lowest stone; thy servants fled perforce;
And o’er thy mother’s body hath he ridden on his horse;
With thy wife upon his saddlebow through Kósovo he went,
And he kisses thy belovèd in the shadow of his tent.
And I above burned ruins bewail this fate of mine,
While thou drink’st wine in Krúshevats. God send ’tis Death his wine!”
When the ban read the letter, Grief took him in her grip;
Down drooped upon his shoulder the black beard of his lip;
He ground his teeth together, and was very nigh to weep;
And old Yug Bogdan saw him, as he rose up from his sleep.
Yug’s voice flashed up like fire; he spake after this wise:
“God help my son! and wherefore dost thou so soon arise?
And wherefore art thou troubled, good son-in-law of mine?
Have thy brave brothers laughed at thee or mocked thee at the wine?
Have not thy sisters served thee? Is there evil among thy kin?
Tell me, my son, and straightway: what shame is found herein?”
The ban flashed up before him and to his father said:
“Father, I find no fault at all in the kin of her I wed,
And my good brothers with me deal pleasantly withal;
The noble ladies speak me fair and serve me in the hall:
Among my wife’s good kindred no fault at all doth stand.
My mother out of Banska sends this letter to my hand.”
He tells unto his father in the fair morning-tide
How all of his possession is wasted far and wide;
How that the Turks have scattered his servants, knight and knave,
And trampled on his mother, and his wife ta’en for a slave:
“And O thou old Yug Bogdan, if she be dear to me,
Also she is thy daughter and shame to me and thee!
And if thou ever thoughtest a gift to me to give,
Give it not after I am dead, but now while yet I live.
I pray thee and I kiss thy hand: give me thy children nine,
And we will go to Kósovo to seek this foe of mine—
Yea, this red traitor to the tsar, that hath enslaved my wife.
Be not afraid, my father, nor sorrow for their life;
They shall wear Turkish raiment, turbans as white as milk
And good green mantles, and also broad trousers wrought of silk.
And at the belt long sabers as flashing as a flame.
And I will call my servants, and order them by name,
To saddle up the horses and draw the saddlebelts,
And cover o’er the horses with the strong black bear-pelts.
Strong janissaries shall they be; my counsel shall they know,
What time through the tsar’s army we ride in Kósovo.
And I will be their captain, who have their sister wed,
That they may heed my counsel, and have it still in dread.
And if a soldier of the tsar shall challenge us in speech,
Turkish, mayhap, or Arabic; why, I can speak in each,
And Manov too, and Arnaut, enough to serve that tide.
To seek my foe through Kósovo, so lightly will we ride—
This Turk Vlah Áliya that enslaved my love by might and main.
For though alone among the Turks I might perish or be ta’en,
My brethren and I, we shall not die nor be smitten down in vain!”
When old Yug Bogdan heard this, he flashed like living fire;
He spake unto Ban Strahin in words of wrath and ire:
“O thou, my son Ban Strahin, witless art thou and rash!
Wilt thou lead my sons to Kósovo for these same Turks to slash?
Say nothing more, my son-in-law! My sons shall not be slain,
Though thy fair wife, my daughter, come never home again.
Nay, nevermore, Ban Strahin, unloose thy wrath at me,
For wit thou well, my son-in-law—may the plague light on thee!—
If she have been his paramour but one night in the tent,
So may she be no longer the bride of thy content;
God hath slain her forever; accursèd shall she be!
And a worse thing, Ban Strahin, him she prefers to thee.
Go to! The Devil take her! And for this love of thine
I will give thee a better, and with thee drink the wine.
I will be thy friend forever, but my children shall not go
Riding amain across the plain with thee to Kósovo!”
But when Ban Strahin heard it, he flashed like living fire;
Answered the ban to the old man in agony and ire.
He will not call a servant; for a groom he takes not heed,
But goeth himself to the stable to saddle the white steed.
How royally he saddled him! how girded him thereto!
How over flashing ear and crest the bit and bridle drew!
Before the gateway of the court he led him forth alone,
And held him by the bridle near the white stepping-stone.
And he caught the steed by the shoulder and mounted with a bound,
And looked upon his brethren, but they looked upon the ground.
Upon his sister’s husband Ban Strahin turned his eyes,
But Némanyich looked downward at the black dust likewise.
They had drunken wine and brandy enough to make one nod,
And boasted that they were heroes, and sworn by the name of God:
“We love thee, thou Ban Strahin, more than the tsar’s whole land.”
But woe! the ban has never a man this day his friend to stand.
It is no easy labor to Kósovo to wend;
And the ban looked about him and saw he had no friend.
He rode down through white Krúshevats, but aye he looked behind
To see if his brave brethren would alter in their mind,
And pity his affliction. No friend came to the ban.
And thereupon he minded him of the hound Káraman,
Whom he loves better than the steed, and holds of richer worth,
And loudly from the strong white throat the hound-call thunders forth.
The hound lay in the stable, but harkened and gave heed,
And swiftly in the field he ran, till he overtook the steed.
And gay beside the milk-white steed the hound rejoicing springs,
And on his neck the collar of corded goldwork rings.
A pleasant thing it was; the ban rode glad on the stallion’s back,
And took by weald and mount and field to Kósovo the track.
When he saw the host at Kósovo his heart was touched by fear,
But he remembered the true God, and to the Turks drew near.
Over the field of Kósovo on all four sides he went,
Seeking the strong Vlah Áliyah, but he could not find his tent.
By the waters of the Sítnitsa a marvel there was seen,
By the shore of the Sítnitsa was pitched a tent of green.
The tent of green was very fair; it hid the grassy lawn,
The golden apple on the pole shone brighter than the dawn.
A spear is set before the door, and by the spear a steed,
With his head deep in the nose-bag upon the oats to feed.
The steed pawed fierce upon the ground with the off hoof and the near,
And the ban thought unto himself: “Vlah Áliya’s tent is here.”
And forward rode the hero upon the milk-white steed;
He took his spear from shoulder, all ready to his need.
He threw the tent door open, and looked within the tent;
But it was not Vlah Áliya, the strong and insolent;
But a dervish, to whose girdle the white beard sweeps from the chin,
Lies in the shadow of the tent, and no one else therein.
A luckless dervish is the Turk, but he drinks wine in a cup;
He pours the wine out for himself and forthwith drinks it up.
Ban Strahin looked on the dervish that was bloody to the eyes,
And made salam unto him, after the Turkish wise.
The drunken Turk looked on him, and spoke a word of woe:
“Hail to thee, brave Ban Strahin of Banska by Kósovo!”
Now flashed up the Ban Strahin, and answered him in dread;
In the fair-spoken Turkish a bitter word he said:
“Foul fall thy mother, thou dervish, that drinkest here this hour!
Thou art so drunk thou canst not tell a Moslem from a Giaour.
Wherefore dost thou speak of him? for here is found no ban;
There is none here but I, and I am the tsar’s true fighting man.
All of the tsar’s good horses are scattered near and far,
And the warriors run quickly to catch them for the tsar.
If I go with this thy insult to the tsar and the vizier,
Know well, thou sorry dervish, thy words shall cost thee dear.”
Laughed the dervish: “Thou a Turk, Strahin? Good fortune go with thee! Were I upon Mount Golech, and should haply chance to see
Thee afar in the host of the tsar, well I should know thee, ban—
Thee and that milk-white steed of thine, and the hound Káraman,
Whom aye thou lovest better than the strong stallion white.
And know, thou ban of Banska, I read thy brow aright.
And I know the eyes thereunder and the black beard of thy lip.
Know, ban—and may good fortune be of thy fellowship!—
That when thy guardsmen took me and made of me a slave,
To thee in Suhara of the mount me miserable they gave.
To the bottom of that prison didst thou cast me at that tide,
And there a slave to thine and thee nine years did I abide.
Nine fearful years past over, yea! and the tenth began,
When filled with deep compassion thou thoughtest on me, ban.
Thou badest Rado, the jailer, unbar the doors withal,
And forthwith bring me upward a captive to the hall.
And dost thou know, Ban Strahin, what words thy fierce lips said:
“ ‘Slave! Turkish snake! Now would that thou within my hold wert dead!
Canst thou then, like a hero, redeem thee with a fee?’
“So ran thy question to me, and I told the truth to thee:
“ ‘My life now could I ransom, could I come to my hall,
To my father’s land and my birthplace and my fiefs one and all—
My many farms and freeholds, the price of liberty.
But thither to go, too well I know, hardly thou trustest me.
I will give thee a good bondsman, even God who does not feign,
And another bondsman, his good faith, that I bring that ransom again.’
“Thou gavest thy trust to me that tide to go to my white hall,
To my father’s land and my birthplace, and my fiefs one and all.
I came to my sad birthplace; no more I knew good luck;
On my houses and my birthplace the pestilence had struck.
It smote the men and women; in my houses none had stayed,
And my whole house had perished and my whole possession strayed.
Fast-barred was all my sire’s estate, and bolted was the door.
The Turks took farm and freehold for their own forevermore.
And when I saw my houses all closed against me stand,
That I had neither friend nor goods, then a good plan I planned.
I rode post unto Yedren, to the vizier and the tsar,
And the vizier boasted me for a hero in the war.
The tsar’s vizier clothed me and gave a tent to me,
And the great raven charger and shining panoply.
For the tsar’s man forever in his book my name they set,
And thou hast come to me to-day to claim of me thy debt.
But, ban, I have not a penny; and woe is on thee this day,
That thou comest to die in folly amidst the tsar’s array.”
The ban looked on the dervish. Forthwith the man he knew;
From the steed he vaulted, and clasped him, and to his bosom drew:
“Brother in God, old dervish, no debt is due to me.
I seek no money, brother, nor any ransom fee.
I seek the strong Vlah Áliya, who hath overthrown my hall,
And hath taken my belovèd to be his bounden thrall.
Tell me of him, thou dervish, and do not me betray
Unto the Turkish army, who are yearning me to slay.”
“By God,” then said the dervish, “thou ban, thou falcon-one,
The strength of this my faith to thee is firmer than the stone.
Shouldst thou with the sword’s edges smite half the army dead,
Yet would I not betray thee, nor trample on thy bread.
Though I ate of it in prison, thou gavest me store of wine;
Thou gavest the milk-white loaves to me that I might freely dine;
Oft in the sun’s light glorious I warmed me in the morn;
Thou didst set me free upon my word, wherein I am forsworn.
I could not keep my word to thee, returning to thy hall:
Faith it was hard for me to keep without the wherewithal!
And for the Turk, Ban Strahin, Vlah Áliya insolent—
On the high mount of Golech he pitches now his tent.
But, Strahin, go from Kósovo, or a fool’s death diest thou here;
Trust not thy hand, nor the sharp brand, nor the venom of the spear.
To pass that Turk in the mountain, it is a hero’s deed;
In his arms alive will he take thee, thy weapons and thy steed.
He will break thine arms asunder; he will blind thee living, O ban.”
Laughed Strahin: “Dervish, pity me not because of any man,
But to the Turkish army betray me not this tide.”
And thereupon the dervish unto the ban replied:
“My faith is firmer than the stone, and plighted thee indeed.
For even shouldst thou madden the anger of thy steed,
And riding on the army the half thereof shouldst slay,
Yet I will not at any time thee to the Turks betray.”
The ban spoke and departed, but he turned on the stallion white:
“Dervish, thou waterest thy steed at daybreak and at night
In the waters of Sítnitsa. Say where the fords are found—
The fords in the cool water—that my horse may not be drowned.”
Said the dervish: “Thou Servian falcon, a ford shalt thou find indeed,
Where’er thou enterest the water, for thy valor and thy steed.”
The ban forded that water; on the milk-white steed he sped
Over the mount of Golech with the great sun overhead.
It warms all things beneath it, both the near and the far,
And it shines down on Kósovo and the army of the tsar.
And now behold Vlah Áliya, the strong and insolent,
Ban Strahin’s bride that kisses in the shadow of the tent.
He hath an evil custom, for ever does he fall
In slumber of a morning, when the sun beats over all.
He dreamed a dream upon that tide, and heavy lay his head
On the breast of the belovèd that Stráhinya had wed.
At the tent door she fondled him, but her eyes went to and fro
Over the Turkish army on the field of Kósovo.
She sees what manner are the tents, what steeds the heroes ride,
And by mischance towards Golech she turned her eyes aside.
She slapped the Turk on the right cheek; and, “Master,” did she cry,
“Rise up, Vlah Áliya! stir thyself! or forthwith mayst thou die!
Now belt thou on thy war-belt and thy fair mail likewise!
Ban Strahin comes that will cut off thine head, or blind thine eyes.”
Vlah Áliya wakened from his dream and flashed up like the fire;
His eye was proud, he laughed aloud: “Thou Stráhinya’s desire, Thou art afraid, Wallachian maid; thou fearest him eachwhere!
When I bear thee unto Yedren, yet wilt thou see him there!
“Yon captain is not Strahin; a tsar’s man rideth here:
Either the tsar hath sent him, or Mehmet, the vizier.
He bids that I submit me, nor smite the host of the tsar.
Tsar and vizier, mayhap they fear to feel my scimitar.
Fear not, what time I smite him with the keen, shining sword
That no more captains of the tsar come hither for their lord.”
But the ban’s bride spake unto him: “My master, prithee see! That is no Turkish captain—a blindness light on thee!—
Nay, but my master Strahin, that did my body clip.
Do I not know both eye and brow and the black beard of his lip?
Do I not know his milk-white horse with the spot of brown and tan,
And the tawny hound beside him, the good hound Káraman?
Jest not with life, my gallant lord.” But when Vlah Áliya heard, The wrathful Turk leaped to his feet and straight began to gird:
His girdle with the poniards and the scimitar thereto.
And he giveth heed to the black steed, while the ban nearer drew.
The ban is very careful, but he cursed him, nor bowed his head
After the Turkish fashion; and unto him he said:
“Art thou then there, thou dastard—thou traitor to the tsar?
Whose women hast thou taken that round thy camp-fires are?
And whose belovèd hast thou kist in the shadow of the tent?
Come out to battle against me, thou strong and insolent.”
The Turk was very angry. He sprang with might and main
Unto the shoulder of the horse, and caught the bridle-rein.
The ban bode not his coming, but straight against him drove;
He lifted the iron spear on high, and hurled it from above.
And the strong Turk, Vlah Áliya, reached out and caught the spear,
And he spake unto Strahin: “Dastard, what dost thou here? Here are no maids of Shúmadin to scatter with a cry,
But who fears not vizier or tsar, Vlah Áliya am I!
And I dread not any hero in the army of the tsar;
To me as ants upon the grass all in that army are.
And thou thinkest in the lists this tide to battle with me here!”
He spake and very suddenly he cast the battle-spear,
Eager to wound. But the good God aided Ban Strahin well.
His white steed, when the spear flew by, down on his knees he fell.
High overhead the great spear flashed, and broke on a stone in three.
Up to the boss that guards the hand was it broken utterly.
Now when the spears were broken, each champion drew his mace;
Vlah Áliya smote on Strahin and beat him from his place,
Forward from out of the saddle on the white neck of the steed.
Now the good God aided Strahin in the moment of his need.
Nor Turk, nor Serb a steed doth curb of half that worth to-day.
The beast swung head and shoulder in the middle of the fray,
And his lord out of that danger to the saddletree threw back;
And upon that Turkish devil the ban made his attack.
But the Turk out of the saddle would neither fall nor flee,
Though ’neath the blows his horse had sunk in the black dust to the knee.
The spiky maces in their hands were shattered left and right,
And forth they drew the sabers, and anew they fought the fight.
But lo, the great Ban Strahin at his belt had such a blade
That a pair of smiths must forge it with three men there to aid!
From Sunday unto Sunday till the steel was waxen cold
Had those same craftsmen cooled it within the earthen mold;
And thereafter had they sharpened it by laying on the sledge.
Smote the Turk, but Strahin waited edge against saber-edge,
Till he smote hard against it, and the Turk’s blade broke in half.
This saw the ban and in he ran, and in his heart did laugh
As he prest in upon him, smiting on either hand,
To strike his head from his shoulders with the edges of the brand.
Hero smote against hero; the Turk good ward he made,
He kept his head and shoulders with the truncheon of the blade.
With the remnant of his weapon he beat the saber back;
And bit by bit as he smote on it to pieces did he hack
The saber of Ban Strahin. Two blades in fragments lay.
Then leaped they from the horses, and hurled the hilts away.
They gripped each other by the throat like dragons at that tide;
All day till noon they wrestled upon the mountain side;
Till on the Turk’s pale lips the foam like snow new-fallen stood,
And the white foam on Strahin’s lip was flecked with drops of blood;
The blood upon his garments and on his jack-boots ran.
But when the pain had gripped him, at last out spake the ban:
“My love, God’s curse upon thee! What travail dost thou see?
Take up a splinter of the sword, and strike the Turk or me.
Think which of us, belovèd, is dearer unto thee.”
But thereto the Turk spake fiercely: “Belovèd of the ban, Strike him, for thou shalt never more be dear unto the man;
But aye his sharp reproaches against thee shall be bent,
Because thou once wast with me in the shadow of the tent.
But I will love thee always, nor ever thee disdain.
In Yedren thirty serving-maids shall bear thy sleeves and train;
Sugar and honey ever more shall be set for thee to eat;
With ducats will I deck thee from thy head unto thy feet:
Strike now the ban.” All womankind are lightly led astray. She leaped and grasped a splinter of the sword-blade where it lay.
She wrapped it in a napkin, lest it should wound her hand,
And she sought to smite her wedded lord with the fragment of the brand,
And guard Vlah Áliya’s head. She cut the silver plume in twain;
She clove the milk-white turban that guarded him in vain;
The blood flowed down the hero’s face, and was like to blind his eyes,
And the ban dreaded sore that tide to die in foolish wise.
But suddenly within him the thoughts together ran,
And out of his white throat he called on the hound Káraman—
A hound trained to the hunting. He called the hound by name,
And with a bound the tawny hound to help his master came,
And bit the ban’s belovèd. A dog all women fear;
She threw the blade upon the ground, and cuffed the hound on the ear.
Screaming she fled across the mount; afar they heard her cry;
But the strong Turk looked after to see where she did fly.
And new strength burst upon the ban, and courage great and new,
And hither and yon he drove the Turk, and wrestling overthrew.
Howe’er so hard the Turk might guard, he struck from underneath,
And, leaping in under the chin, he fastened with his teeth,
As the wolf throttling a lamb. Then he leaped up from the ground,
And with a mighty voice he called after the tawny hound,
That the beast should cease pursuing the maid the ban had wed;
And swift along the mountain to the Turkish host she fled.
But the ban would not let her; he caught her by the hand;
He brought her back unto the place where the dappled steed did stand.
He took the horse by the shoulders; he threw her on behind;
Then rode he deviously along, the homeward way to find.
Away from the tsar’s army he turned the bridle-rein,
Till he came in to his wife’s kin at Krúshevats on the plain,
And old Yug Bogdan and his sons rose, when they saw him come;
They took him to their bosoms, and gave him welcome home.
But when Yug Bogdan saw his plight his tears ran down amain:
“Now fair be all thy fortune, that thou art home again.
Strong are the Turkish heroes, the soldiers of the tsar;
A fighting man to wound the ban they must have sought afar.”
But the nine brothers feared him, till the ban to them spake:
“Dread nothing, my good brethren, nor be troubled for my sake.
With the tsar there was no hero to conquer me in fight.
Would ye then hear who wounded me, and whose hand did me smite?
When with the Turk I battled, O thou good father mine,
Then my belovèd smote me—this dearest child of thine;
She set aside my love that tide, and to the Turk gave aid.”
Yug flashed up like a living fire, and to his sons he said:
“Slash the she-wolf in pieces with the nine blades of the brands!”
The strong sons heard their father, and upon her set their hands.
But Strahin will not let them. He speaketh to them apace:
“My nine good brethren, wherefore do ye yourselves disgrace?
Why are your knives unscabbarded? Heroes ye are, I know!
But why were not your sabers with me at Kósovo,
To do great deeds against the Turk when danger ran most high?
And harken this, my brethren; your sister shall not die.
Without your aid already, all I wished, she had been slain.
Yet, should I slaughter all her kin, no comrade then would drain,
Reveling with me deliciously, the cool cups of the wine.
So now have I given my pardon unto this bride of mine.”
There are not many on earth to match him, man to man,
And scanty are the heroes as gallant as the ban.

Tsar Lazar And Tsáritsa Mílitsa

TSAR LAZAR sat at dinner; and with him at the wine
Sat Mílitsa, the Tsáritsa, beside her lord to dine.
Unto her lord said Mílitsa: “O Servia’s king and crown, To-morrow unto Kósovo the army goeth down,
Thy voývodas and captains. No man thou leavest at home
With a letter to go to Kósovo and hither again to come.
Thou leadest my nine brethren, Yug Bogdan’s children nine.—
Leave me one brother of them all to cheer this heart of mine.”
To her spake Lazar of the Serbs: “Which wilt thou have with thee
In the palace?” And she made answer: “Let Boshko stay with me.”
Then spake Tsar Lazar: “Lady, to-morrow, when day comes on, And the white dawn breaketh, and the world is warmed of the great sun,
And they open the gates of the city, go thou unto the arch,
Wherethrough unto the muster my hosts begin to march.
The spears shine over the chargers: before them will Boshko ride,
And he carries high the standard with a great cross glorified.
Bless him! Let give the standard to whomsoever he will;
But let him back to the palace, abiding with thee still.”
Now when the gates were opened, what time the morning shone,
Then forth unto the gateway Queen Mílitsa came down,
And stood beneath the portal in the shadow of the arch,
What time unto the muster the host began to march.
The spears shone over the chargers: before them Boshko rode
On a bay steed, and his rich weed with shining goldwork glowed,
And the standard that he carried swept round him fold on fold;
Over the steed it bellied; thereon was an apple of gold;
From the apple rose gilded crosses, and tassels from them did hang,
And brushed against his shoulders as in the wind they swang.
Queen Mílitsa sprang forward to the bay stallion’s head,
And she clasped arms round her brother, and unto him she said:
“My brother Boshko, thou art become the tsar his gift to me.
Thou shalt not go to Kósovo; he gives his blessing to thee;
Thou shalt give the golden banner to the hero of thy will,
And be my brother in Krúshevats, that I may have thee still.”
Boshko answered her straightway: “Get back to thy hall this tide! I would not turn nor give up the flag with the great cross glorified,
Though the tsar should give me Krúshevats for ever and a day;
For the remnant of the army concerning me would say:
“ ‘Where is the captain, Boshko—that same I that dared not go
To perish for Christ his Cross and Faith on the field of Kósovo?’ ”
And forthwith he rode the stallion abroad beneath the arch;
And lo, Yug Bogdan and seven sons began thereby to march!
She stopped each of the seven to whom her heart did yearn,
But none of all the seven aside for her would turn.
With the tsar’s chargers Voin, her brother, came that way;
All covered with a panoply of shining gold were they.
She seized the dun steed under him, and took him by the head;
She took her brother in her arms, and unto him she said:
“My brother Voin, thou art become the tsar his gift to me;
Thou shalt not go to Kósovo; he gives his blessing to thee.
Thou shalt give the tsar’s war horses to the hero of thy will,
And be my brother in Krúshevats, that I may have thee still.”
Voin answered her straightway: “Get back to thy hall this tide! I would not turn nor give over the steeds that the tsar shall ride;
What though in wisdom I foresaw all of my overthrow,
I would ride to death for the Cross and the Faith on level Kósovo.”
Forthwith right through the gateway he spurred the charger well;
And when the queen that sight had seen, on the stone in a swoon she fell.
And when King Lazar saw it, the tears ran down his face;
And he looked and called Golúban, his henchman, from his place:
“Golúban, my good henchman, dismount thee in this hour,
And bear thy lady in thine arms up to the slender tower.
For this the deed of my command God’s pardon shalt thou find;
Thou shalt not go to Kósovo, but linger here behind.”
Weeping, Golúban heard it. He dismounted in that hour;
He bore his lady in his arms up to the slender tower;
But his will he could not overcome, nor bear to linger so,
But steed bestrode, and hard he rode away to Kósovo.
When rose up the white morning, from Kósovo there wheeled
A pair of great black ravens from the broad battlefield;
They perched on the white palace whence Lazar issued forth;
The one cawed loud and vainly, the one spake words of worth:
“Is this Tsar Lazar’s palace, where he was wont to dwell?
Is there no man or woman within the citadel?”
None heard but the Queen Mílitsa; she came before the wall,
And unto those two ravens her voice aloud did call:
“I conjure you, black ravens, sitting upon the coign,
From whence come ye this morning? Did ye see the armies join?
Have the armies smitten together in the field of Kósovo?
In God his name I conjure you, who hath the overthrow?”
And the black ravens answered: “At Kósovo, O queen, Two hosts that smote at Kósovo, we saw them fight yestreen.
Both tsars are down; and of the Turks a remnant doth remain,
But all the Serbs are slaughtered, or wounded on the plain.”
They spoke; and lo, Milútin came before the queen to stand!
Wounded full sore, the henchman bore one hand in the other hand;
Seventeen wounds were on him; his steed with blood was red.
And unto him the weeping queen rough words in anger said:
“What treachery, Milútin, is this unto the tsar?”
But he said: “Help me down, lady, from the great steed of war; Lave me with the cool water, and with the ruddy wine,
Do thou, O royal lady, anoint these wounds of mine.”
Queen Mílitsa she lifted him down from the steed of war;
She laved him with white water, and red wine from the jar.
And when he was himself again, she questioned him withal:
“Ah, what betid at Kósovo? Did the Tsar Lazar fall?
My father and my brethren, are they fallen on the plain?
Lord Milosh, and Vuk Bránkovich, and Strahin, are they slain?”
The servant spake: “My lady, they are dead at Kósovo, Where Lazar the tsar glorious fell in the overthrow.
The Turk and Servian lances lie shattered everywhere,
But many more of Christian spears, alas, were broken there,
Defending good Tsar Lazar in the fury of the fray.
But Yug Bogdan perished, lady, in the fight of the first day;
Eight of his sons, those champions, were slaughtered side by side;
For they would not use treachery, and by each other died.
Still Boshko’s banner of the cross hurled back the Turks in droves,
To and fro over Kósovo, as a falcon harries doves.
Where the blood flowed up to the knee died Stráhinya the ban;
By Sítnitsa fell Milosh, where the cool waters ran.
There perished many Turks amain; and Milosh in his ire
Hath slain the Sultan Murad—God be gracious to his sire!—
And a good twelve thousand Turks that tide. And aye the Serbs will know
His deeds of war while men are left to tell of Kósovo.
But ask not of the cursèd Vuk! May God’s damnation burst
Upon his sire and all his tribe, and the whole house accurst!
’Twas he betrayed the tsar in war unto the Turkish spear,
And fled with his twelve thousand men, the traitor cavalier!”

Fragments Of Kósovo Ballads

MURAD the tsar hath come in war down upon Kósovo;
He sent a letter to Krúshevats that the tsar his will might know:
“Ho, Lazar, lord of Servia, with sense it scarce accords,
That there should be one empery ’neath the power of two lords,
One rayah that pays double tax! We cannot both rule here!
So render me up your city keys and the taxes for seven year.
But if thou wilt not send them, abide at Kósovo,
That to our hand we may sunder the land with a keen saber blow.”
When the fine-written letter Tsar Lazarus had read,
He looked upon the letter and bitter tears he shed.

Bitter was the tsar’s curse to hear; aye! and a word of woe:
“Who comes not to the battle with me at Kósovo,
Let nothing grow beneath his hand in the field that he shall till;
Let not the white wheat spring in the field, nor the vine shoot on the hill!”

Lazar, the Tsar of Servia, holds his high holiday.
In the secret place, in Krúshevats, with all his lords he lay.
All of the lords and lordings were come with him to dine:
At his right hand sat Yug Bogdan and Yug’s strong children nine;
On his left sat Vuk Bránkovich; at the far end of the board,
With two more Servian voývodas, was Milosh the young lord;
Ivan Kósanchich was the one, the other of the twain
Was Milan Tóplitsa. And the tsar arose a health to drain
Unto the Servian nobles; he lifted the beaker up:
“O voývodas and captains, to whom shall I pledge this cup?
If I pledge it unto the oldest, to Yug shall I drink this hour;
I shall pledge it to Vuk Bránkovich, if I drink because of power;
If I pledge to whomsoever is dear to me and mine,
I’ll drink to my good brethren, Yug Bogdan’s children nine;
For beauty to Ivan Kósanchich, and to Milan for his height;
But unto Milosh Óbilich for the glory of his might.
To none other will I drink it, while I have strength and breath:
A health unto Milosh Obilich, and faith and broken faith!
Faith first and treason to follow! To-morrow at Kósovo
Thou shalt betray me, and after to the tsar of the Turks shalt thou go.
Hail to thee, and a health to thee, and the cup’s delight be thine!
Rise up, Milosh the voývoda, and lightly drink the wine!”
Milosh rose swiftly to his feet, and bowed to the black earth:
“Praise to thee, Lazar the glorious, and a greeting to thy worth!
Praise for thy gift and greeting, but for thy speech no praise!
Since I was never a traitor, by my faith, in all my days,
Nor ever will work treason. But at Kósovo to-morn
Belike for the Cross of Christ and his Faith shall I be overborne.
But treachery is at thy knee, and drinketh before thy face;
There sits the traitor Bránkovich, of the accursèd race.
To-morrow on St. Vitus’ day, on the field of Kósovo,
Who of us twain is true or false, all men shall clearly know.
An God me speed, will I ride indeed to Kósovo in the dawn,
To slash the throat of Murad the tsar and set my foot thereon.
An God give me good fortune, safely returning here,
I will lay hand on Bránkovich, and bind him to this spear,
As flax on the long distaff is bound by a woman’s hand,
And to and fro in Kósovo will I bear him through the land.”

“Ho, brother Ivan Kósanchich, hast thou spied the Turks’ array?
Have the Turks a mighty army? Can we beat them in the fray?”
Quoth Ivan: “Milosh Óbilich, my own good brother dear, I have spied the Turkish army, and a great host have they here.
Should all of us be changed to salt, we scarce should salt their meat.
Full fifteen days throughout their host have I walked with nimble feet,
Nor came on end or number, howsoever I might march;
From the marble to the maple, thence to Sázliya of the arch,
From the arched bridge to Zvechan the whole land have they ta’en;
From Zvechan through Chechan to the wood they seized the mount amain.
Ranks of horses and heroes, spears like a mountain wall,
And like the clouds of heaven are their banners over all;
And like the snows from heaven are their tents upon the plain;
And should a storm rise o’er them, on the earth it would not rain,
But on horses and on heroes would the rain fall from on high.
The tsar took Lab and Sítnitsa and Mazgit field thereby.”
Still Milosh Óbilich questions him: “Ivan, brother in war, Tell me where lieth, brother, the tent of Murad the tsar;
For unto the Tsar Lazarus my word is given and gone,
That I would slash Tsar Murad’s throat and set my foot thereon.”
But Ivan answers him lightly: “Brother, a fool art thou! Where in the center of the camp Tsar Murad lieth now,
Wert thou a wingèd goshawk from out high heaven sped,
Thou couldst not in thine anger hurt a hair upon his head.”
Then Milosh speaketh to Ivan: “Ivan, my brother dear, Speak not thus to Tsar Lazarus, lest he and the host should fear;
But unto the Tsar Lazarus thus and thus shalt thou say:
“ ‘Strong are the Turks, but we, mayhap, will shake them in the fray,
And lightly overcome them, for no host of battle they are,
But priests and pilgrims and merchants, and knaves that know not war,
That are come abroad together to eat Tsar Murad’s bread.
And for the royal army, the half are well-nigh dead
From the grievous ill of heartache, that is a bitter pain,
And the good steeds of that army are glandered on the plain.’ ”

“Who is the great hero that lifted once his hand,
And sundered well twelve Turkish heads with the edges of the brand?”
“That is the brave Ban Strahin.” “What hero cometh here, That spitteth the Moslems two and two on the edges of his spear,
And driveth them before him to Sítnitsa’s gray tide?”
“That is Srija the champion, whom men call the Angry-Eyed.”
“What hero on a white steed bears the flag of the cross in his hands,
And all along he harries the flying Turks in bands,
And chases them in his anger to Sítnitsa the flood?”
“That is Boshko the captain, of old Yug Bogdan’s blood.”

The Battle Of Kósovo

A GRAY hawk from Jerusalem, with a swallow in his beak,
Flew onward into Servia, Tsar Lazarus to seek,
Nay, it was never a great gray hawk with a swallow that flew so far,
But Elijah, our Lady’s messenger, with her tidings to the tsar.
Tsar Lazar read the letter: “O king whom the Serbs revere, Wilt thou choose for thine own the Kingdom of God or an earthly empire here?
For if, instead of a heavenly rule, thou choosest an earthly realm,
Leap astride of the steed this tide and do on hauberk and helm;
Belt about thee the girdle of war and look to saber and dirk,
Tighten at need the girth of the steed—and here shalt thou slaughter the Turk.
But if thou choosest the Empire of Christ, and a kingdom of God’s own,
Build him a church by Kósovo, but not of marble stone;
But found it on silk and satin and its corners in scarlet fine.
Therein shall thine armies take of Christ the white bread and the wine.
Thou shalt marshal the army of the Serbs, and upon that dreadful day
In the van of the war thou shalt die, O tsar, with the whole of thine array.”
When the tsar heard the holy word, his thoughts came two and two:
“Dear God, what is the whole of thine heart, and what is the deed to do?
Which shall I hold for the better realm? Man’s sovereignty may die,
But the Kingdom of the Living God, its power goes on for aye.”
Tsar Lazarus has chosen at last God’s Kingdom for his own;
And he built a church at Kósovo, but not of marble stone;
On satin and on velvet he made the walls to stand,
And he summoned our lord the patriarch, and bishops twelve to hand.
The armies came before him, what time the prayers were said,
And the good priests gave to them Christ’s wine and milk-white bread.
And when on level Kósovo that army up was drawn,
The Turks smote against Kósovo at the breaking of the dawn.
Yug Bogdan with the vanguard came up against their line;
The young gray hawks were with him, his gallant children nine;
And after every standard came thrice three thousand men,
But by Yug Bogdan’s banner were thousands two and ten.
They came upon the infidel, that army of renown,
And slashed and slew among them; seven pashas smote they down.
The eighth gave way before them; Yug Bogdan there was slain;
His nine gray falcons and their host came never home again.
The children of Marnyáva moved on with their array;
Vukáshin, Goyko, Úglyesha were marshals of the fray;
And the ninth Turkish pasha before their charge fell back,
But Úglyesha and Goyko were slain in the attack,
Two of Marnyáva’s children; and terribly, indeed,
Was King Vukáshin wounded, and trampled by the steed.
Now smitten was the center and smitten was the van,
And Ertseg Stepan with the rear into the battle ran.
Brave warriors had Ertseg, full sixty thousand men;
They trampled through the tumult and smote the Turks again.
Nine pashas fell before them, the tenth drew back in dread;
But Ertseg and his army were numbered with the dead.
And now rode out Tsar Lazarus with his whole host along,
Seventy thousand gallant Serbs and seven thousand strong.
They scattered the Turks by Kósovo; they scarce would let them stand
To look upon the army for the lifting of the brand.
Then would the tsar have won the war for Servia by God’s aid—
God’s curse be on Vuk Bránkovich, the dastard that betrayed
The father of his wife that tide!—the tsar of all the land!
The Turks smote down Tsar Lazarus with the edges of the brand.
Seven and seventy thousand men lay dead upon the sod,
All gallant Serbs, and their pure blood was dear unto their God.

How Milosh Óbilich Slew The Sultan Murad

TSAR MURAD sat beneath his tent with the pashas of his power
And his viziers, and counsel took what way to smite the Giaour
And win with least disaster; when lo there came from afar
The vizier Osman running to claim reward of the tsar.
He kissed the hand and the garment, himself to the earth he bowed,
And thus to Murad, the Turkish tsar, the vizier spake aloud:
“Murad, the Sun of all the East, holy Mahomet’s heir!
Rejoice! the Servian empire thou hast conquered everywhere!
Here come three Servian voývodas that have chiefly made us fear;
They come hither to surrender, for down have they turned the spear.”
It pleased the Sultan Murad; it was pleasant in his ears;
Woes plagued him not. He spake unto the pashas and viziers:
“Brave pashas, glorious viziers, my captains of command,
Shall I reach to the Wallachians my foot or my white hand?”
Said the viziers: “O glorious lord, put not thy hand to shame;
Shame were it to reach out to one of the Wallachian name!
Stretch out thy foot unto them, and let them kiss it sweet,
And let them be forever at all times ’neath thy feet.”
Outspake Vizier Ushtúgliya: “Tsar Murad, our crown of gold,
shall we go out before them?” Then answered Murad the bold:
“Go out to the field before them, and three great cloths unfold;
Stretch one of red, the second of white, the third green glorious.
When the slaves drive on their horses, if they come to fight with us,
All three of the cloths beneath their feet will they trample under here.
If they bring me the keys of the cities and the taxes for seven year,
On the red cloth will they trample, the red and the white beside,
But the green will they lift on their lances and thereunder will they ride.”
When the tsar’s troopers heard it, before the three they flew;
Before the Servian voývodas the three great cloths they drew.
When the voývodas drove on the steeds, they trampled the cloths all three;
And when Ushtúgliya saw it, to Murad the tsar said he:
“Lo, tsar, the servants of Lazar have trampled every cloth!
Under foot have they trampled them, for a sign that they are wroth,
And desire to-day their quarrel to undertake with thee,
Tsar Murad; they bring not bither of any city the key.”
The bold Tsar Murad answered: “Not so, my children brave! Had they been eager to quarrel, long since had they drawn the glaive;
Drunk are the Giaours, and in drunkenness have trampled the cloth amain.”
Meanwhile with his brethren was Milosh come, on his steed, the Crane.
Down he got from the charger, and out the tsar’s grooms flew
To hold the Crane for Milosh; no rein to them he threw,
He gave him to Ivan Kósanchich. To the tent of Murad the strong
Forthwith Milosh the voývoda went hastily along.
Murad stretched out his foot to him over the tapestries,
And spoke, for he deemed that Milosh desired his face to kiss:
“Now fair and soft, now soft and fair, O Lazar’s follower;
Trample not on my garment’s edge, but kiss my boot and spur.”
Milosh flashed like a living fire, like a wolf on Murad he sprang;
Over him like a hayduk the biting blade he swang;
From the midriff to the milk-white throat the tsar alive he rent.
Murad gaped wordless on the ground; and underneath the tent
Flashing like lightning hither and yon the blade of Milosh went.
He slaughtered all the tsar’s viziers, Ushtúgliya he slew;
He smote the tsar’s twelve guardsmen and the tent ropes clove in two.
The bodyguard from Yedren, all of them had he slain;
Seventy heads had he smitten off ere he mounted his steed, the Crane.
Then mounted the three sworn brethren and charged through Kósovo.
Dear God, their onslaught on the Turk was no cheap overthrow!
When blood began a-flowing, ’twas good nearby to stand
And see how the Turkish heads split wide beneath the Servian brand.
Fierce slashed the Servian voývodas, they slashed the Turks like grass:
Whither went Milan Tóplitsa, was room for a wain to pass;
Whither went Ivan Kósanchich, lightly had two moved on;
Whither went Milosh Óbilich, abreast could three have gone.
The whole of the Turkish host boiled up, rushing to bar their track;
The voývodas trampled the army like the earth hard and black.
Shame to the Turks not to have ta’en their vengeance for the tsar!
’Neath the standard of Mahomet the whole host came in war;
The pashas and fierce warriors, they flew into the fight
Upon their faëry chargers, the heroes good to smite.
But Milosh and his comrades with the keen blade cut their way.
A saber cuts not a mountain down in the swift course of a day,
Nor the voývodas all the army—and Milan Tóplitsa cried:
“Avenge me, Milosh! At Kósovo have I failed to-day at thy side.”
But Milosh answered softly: “I forgive thee readily,
My brother Milan; quickly shall I lie there by thee.”
Furiously the Turks set on, till Ivan Kósanchich cried:
“Farewell, Milosh! At Kósovo have I perished at thy side.
Avenge me, Milosh, who swarest my brother sworn to be!”
But Milosh the good voývoda, O softly answered he!
“My brother, Ivan, for this gift I hope in perfect faith,
For never yet was gallant man but yearned for a gallant death.”
And the faëry steed he goaded, the battle-charger, the Crane;
He maddened on the maddened steed and smote the Turks again.
Like a dragon over Kósovo the voývoda did pass,
With the hot blood of the cursèd Turks he reddened all the grass.
Furious and shamefaced was the host, yet unavenged for the tsar
’Neath the standard of Mahomet the whole host came in war
On Milosh the weary hero. Of wounds he got no lack;
They beat him from his steed and bound his hands behind his back.
And unto the Tsar Murad, Milosh they led along:
“Here is Milosh the voývoda for thee, Tsar Murad the strong!
Do thou tell us, Lord Glorious, in what wise we shall him slay.”
Murad still lived; unto them in a soft voice did he say:
“Be ye not angry with him, and do not strike him down
For that he slew me; fortune of battle brought it on
That a good hero slew me. Now draw up the host to war,
And smite the Giaour! Let not his power outlive the Servian tsar!”

Musich Stevan

IN Maydan white as silver, in his fair lordly house,
Idle sits Musich Stevan, on the good wine to carouse.
The servant Váistina poured it forth his thirst to slake,
And Stevan drank his fill thereof, and to the henchman spake:
“My good son Váistina, I will lie down to sleep.
Do thou then eat thy dinner, and of the wine drink deep,
And then look forth on the open sky because of my behest,
To see if the day-star stand in the east, or the clear moon in the west;
To see if the time be come at last for us to gird and go
To the meeting place that the tsar hath set on the field of Kósovo.
Thou knowest the oath we took, my son, and the curse that then was laid
On the voývoda or henchman that Tsar Lazarus betrayed:
“ ‘Who springeth of a Servian house, in whom Serb blood doth run,
Who cometh not to battle at Kósovo, may he never have a son,
And no child of his heart whatever! May naught grow under his hand,
Neither the yellow liquor, nor the white wheat in the land!
May he like iron be rusted, and his stock dwindle alway!’ ”
And thereupon brave Stevan on the bolster soft he lay.
Váistina the henchman, he sitteth him down to dine,
And at his good lord’s table he hath his fill of the wine,
And he goeth to look at the open sky because of his lord’s behest,
To see if the day-star stand in the east, or the clear moon in the west.
And he seeth it is the season for them to gird and go
Unto Tsar Lazar’s meeting place in the field of Kósovo.
He went unto the stables and led the horses forth;
He saddled the steeds, and on them set caparisons of worth,
One for himself, and the other is for his lord that tide.
And he bringeth a flag from the palace, with a great cross glorified;
Silk is the flag and golden are the crosses wrought thereon,
And the icon of Stevan’s patron, the icon of St. John.
He set the banner against the wall, and went unto the tower
To wake his lord, but his lady came to him in that hour,
And she greeted and embraced him: “Brother in God,” said she, “My servant Váistina, by God I conjure thee,
And by St. John moreover. A faithful knave art thou,
Henceforth shalt thou be my brother; but awake not thy master now,
Since an evil dream of a flock of doves this night is come to me.
With falcons twain from my lord his place to Kósovo did they flee;
Amid the camp of Murad they lighted nor came again:
That is your omen, brother. So ponder lest you be slain.”
But the servant Váistina, unto the dame said he:
“Sister, I cannot break my faith with the lord of thee and me,
For thou wast not at the swearing, nor knowest what curse was laid
On the voývoda or henchman that Tsar Lazarus betrayed:
“ ‘Who springeth of a Servian house, in whom Serb blood doth run,
Who cometh not to battle at Kósovo, may he never have a son,
And no child of his heart whatever! May naught grow under his hand,
Neither the yellow liquor, nor the white wheat in the land!
May he like iron be rusted, and his stock dwindle alway!’
“And I dare not break my plighted faith to thy lord and mine this day.”
And he went to his lord in the tower: “Rise up, it is time to go!”
Stevan stood up before him, and washed his neck and brow,
And put on lordly raiment and an inlaid saber fine;
To the fair glory of his God he drank the yellow wine,
And to his own good journey and the fair cross did he drain
The wine at his own table: he drank not there again.
They mounted the two good chargers, they spread the banners abroad;
The drums beat and the flutes blew loud, and the chiefs rode forth with God.
Over the field of Kósovo did the white morning stand;
The Maid of Kósovo met them with a cup in either hand.
The cups are golden and empty. On her arm is a tire for the head,
A cap with milk-white feathers that are wound with silver thread,
And all about the midst thereof is it wrought with golden braid,
And a row of pearls, moreover. Unto her Stevan said:
“God’s aid be with thee, my sister! And where hast thou seen the fight?
Where found’st thou the cap? Give unto me the silken cap so white,
That I may find whose is the cap, what marshal’s it may be,
And be lucky upon my journey. And I will keep faith with thee.”
Answered the Maid of Kósovo: “Thou lord of kingly mien, My mother roused me at daybreak; at no fight have I been.
I would draw water in Sítnitsa. He had overflowed his banks;
And, brother, he beareth the horses and the heroes in their ranks,
And turbans, and Turkish fezes, and the Serb caps white as milk.
I plunged into the Sítnitsa, and seized the cap of silk,
And I bear to my little brother the fair cap silken and white,
For I am young, and the feathers are pleasant in my sight.”
She gave the cap to the marshal; I wot he knew it well!
He smote himself, and the sad tears down from his cheeks they fell.
The golden buckle on his sleeve rent the satin on his knee:
“Grief unto God! The prince’s curse hath fallen upon me!”
He gave her the cap, and royally out of his pouch he told
In the hand of the Maid of Kósovo three ducats of yellow gold:
“Take, sister! I go to Kósovo and the battle on the plain.
By Christ, I will give thee a better gift, if I come back again!
But if I die in the fight thereby, aye keep my gift in mind.”
They spurred the steeds and hard away they galloped like the wind;
They forded the flood of Sítnitsa, to the tsar’s camp they drew.
Three Turkish pashas Stevan smote down and overthrew;
Against the fourth was he storming, but the Turks o’erwhelmed him then.
With him died Váistina and twelve thousand of his men.
There did the folly of the Serbs make as of nothing worth
The glory of Tsar Lazar and the Kingdom of the Earth.

The Death Of The Mother Of The Yúgovichi

DEAR God, a mighty marvel is fallen at Kósovo!
In the host were Yug’s nine children and their father the tenth also.
The mother of Yug’s children she prayed God in her pain
For the eyes of a hawk and a swan’s white wing to fly along the plain,
To see her nine strong children and Yug her lord beside.
And what she prayed for, verily, God granted her that tide.
God gave her eagle eyesight and the swan’s pinion white,
And she found low in Kósovo her children slain in fight,
And old Yug Bogdan with them, and beside them nine good spears,
And on the goodly spearshafts there perched nine falcons fierce;
Roaming about the lances the chargers nine did stray;
Amid them were nine lions. And the steeds began to neigh,
And the lions roared together, and the falcons screamed aloud;
But the proud heart of the mother I wot it was unbowed.
But the lions and the horses she took them by the brows,
And the good falcons with them, and brought them to the house.
The wives of her strong children afar they saw her come,
And calling like to cuckoos went out to lead her home.
Moaning before the neighing steeds and the loud beasts thereby
Wept the nine noble ladies, and the hawks took up their cry.
Yet wept not that stern mother, and her heart was undismayed,
About the middle of the night the steed of Damyan neighed.
Then spake the mother to Damyan’s wife: “My daughter, what is this? And wherefore neighs in the nighttide that dappled steed of his?
Is he hungry for the milk-white wheat? Doth he thirst for Zvechan’s wave?”
And the fair wife of Damyan in this wise answer gave:
“My mother, Damyan’s mother, no wheat the steed doth crave,
Nor in the darkened nighttime doth he thirst for Zvechan’s wave;
But aye hath Damyan taught him, and bidden him abide
To champ his oats till midnight, thereafter forth to ride.
Now he sorrows that his master mounts not his back this tide.”
Yet wept not that stern mother, and her heart was undismayed.
That morn flew by two ravens, unto the shoulders red,
Upon the blackness of their beaks the milk-white froth it shone;
And they bare the hand of a hero and a golden ring thereon.
In the bosom of the mother, the dead hand they let fall;
And unto her daughter, Damyan’s wife, in a loud voice did she call:
“My daughter, wife of Damyan, what hero’s hand is this?”
And the daughter made her answer: “Our Damyan’s hand it is;
Shall I not know the ring I gave the day that we were wed?”
The mother lifted the hero’s hand, and fondled it, and said:
“O hand, who plucked thee off, and where apple-like didst thou grow?
Thou grewest in my bosom; thou wast plucked in Kósovo.”
Then swelled her heart within her, and her soul was rent in twain
For her children and their father that at Kósovo were slain.

Tsáritsa Mílitsa And Vládeta The Voývoda

MÍLITSA the tsáritsa went walking up and down
Below the wall of Krúshevats and the ramp of the white town,
And also Vúkosava and Mara, her daughters dear,
When Vládeta, the voývoda, on a charger brown drew near.
Sweated that steed had been, indeed, and the white foam stained his side.
“God aid thee, marshal of the king!” Queen Mílitsa she cried;
“Why sweats the stallion? Hast thou not come from Kósovo this day?
Sawest thou not my lord and thine?” And Vládeta did say: “God aid me, Tsáritsa Mílitsa! I come from Kósovo.
I saw not the tsar, but his white steed the Turks drove to and fro,
Up and down by Kósovo, and I dread that the tsar is slain.”
When Queen Mílitsa had heard it, on her cheeks the tears did rain,
And anew she asketh the voývoda: “What tidings of the tsar? Sawest thou Yug’s nine children at Kósovo that are;
And the tenth, Yug Bogdan, their father?” And Vládeta replied: “I rode by level Kósovo, and I saw them in that tide—
Yug and his nine strong children at Kósovo have I seen.
Their arms were red to the shoulders, and red were the sabers keen;
Weary were their arms at Kósovo with cutting the Moslems down.”
Yet again unto the voývoda the tsáritsa spake on:
“Sawest thou Milosh and Bránkovich, my daughters’ lords that are?”
Vládeta answered: “At Kósovo, in the center of the war, There saw I Milosh Óbilich that leaned on his broken spear;
He is dead ere now, for the Moslems pressed on him very near.
Vuk Bránkovich I saw not. Never may sun him see!
That same betrayed Tsar Lazar, the lord of thee and me.”

The Maid Of Kósovo

UP rose the Maid of Kósovo before the break of day,
On a Sunday morn, ere the bright sun had risen on his way.
Unto her milk-white elbows she drew the white sleeves up;
She bore three loaves in a basket, and in either hand a cup;
Two beakers very beautiful, of hammered gold and fine;
The one held silver water, and the other ruddy wine.
She came to level Kósovo in pity and in ruth,
And weeping walked along the place of the battle of the youth,
The places of the slaughter, where the good Tsar Lazar stood;
And with her hands she lifted up the heroes in their blood.
The gallant lads she found alive, she washed with water fine.
She gave them of the milk-white loaves, and cheered them with ruddy wine.
To Pavle Órlovich she came, the ensign of his lord:
As yet he was alive, although sore smitten by the sword;
But by a shred of flesh his arm at the red shoulder hung,
And the wound showed his shattered rib and the white ghastly lung.
She moved him from the pool of blood, she washed him with water fine;
She gave him of the milk-white loaves and of the ruddy wine.
Gasping for breath he leaned to her, and tremblingly he said:
“My sister, wherefore turnest thou the bodies of the dead?
What hard doom is upon thee, thou Maid of Kósovo,
That thou liftest up the heroes whose crests are fallen low?
Seekest thou then for some young man, whose last good day is done?
For thy father, or thy brother, or thy dear brother’s son?”
Answered the Maid of Kósovo: “O champion unknown! I seek not father, nor nephew, nor a brother of mine own.
Knowest thou, O my brother, how the good Tsar Lazar went
With the squadrons of the army to take the sacrament?
By the fair church in Samodrezha the thirty mass-priests stood
For three weeks, with the offering of Christ his flesh and blood.
Thereby there came three captains, that to communion passed,
Milosh and Ivan Kósanchich, and Milan Tóplitsa last.
Milosh, the hero of the earth, through the gate before me strode;
The clanking saber at his side rattled along the road;
His silver plume flashed on his cap, of silk was his raiment fair;
His scarf and his spotted mantle, likewise of silk they were.
And forth and round about him his eyes went wanderingly,
Glancing in pride from side to side, until they fell on me.
He doffed the spotted mantle; aloud to me did he cry:
“ ‘Take now the spotted mantle, to remember me thereby.
Lo, I go to perish, dearest, in the leaguer of the tsar!
Pray for me, now, belovèd, that I ride back from the war,
Returning from the battle with a great victory home.
Pray now for me, belovèd, that the good hap may come.
To Milan, my brother sworn to me by God and by St. John,
I will give thee to plight thy troth, when the good morn comes on;
To my brother, my sworn comrade, of the living and the dead,
For I shall be his groomsman whene’er he shall be wed.’
“After him Ivan, the hero of the earth, before me strode;
The clanking saber at his side rattled along the road;
His silver plume flashed on his cap, of silk was his raiment fair;
His scarf and his spotted mantle, likewise of silk they were.
On his hand he wore a golden ring, and his eyes went wanderingly,
Glancing in pride from side to side, until they fell on me.
He took the ring from his finger; aloud to me did he cry:
“ ‘Take, maiden, now the golden ring, to remember me thereby.
Lo, I go to perish, dearest, in the leaguer of the tsar!
Pray for me now, belovèd, that I ride back from the war,
Returning from the battle with a great victory home.
Pray now for me, belovèd, that the good hap may come.
To Milan, my brother sworn to me by God and by St. John,
I will give thee in marriage, when the good morn comes on.
It is my right in all men’s sight before the priest to stand,
And like a brother give thee for a bride into his hand.’
“After him Milan, the hero of the earth, before me strode;
The clanking saber at his side rattled along the road;
His silver plume flashed on his cap, of silk was his raiment fair;
His scarf and his spotted mantle, likewise of silk they were.
On his shoulders was a golden cloak, and his eyes went wanderingly,
Glancing in pride from side to side, until they fell on me.
He took the cloak from his shoulders, and aloud to me did he cry:
“ ‘Take, maiden, now the golden cloak, to remember me thereby.
Lo, I go to perish, dearest, in the leaguer of the tsar!
Pray for me now, belovèd, that I ride back from the war,
Returning from the battle with a great victory home.
Pray now for me, belovèd, that the good hap may come—
A fair and lovely fortune in the season when I shall ride
Hither again from the slaughter and the battle to my bride.’
“They went out of the city and the altars where they kneeled,
And through the broken battle I seek them o’er the field.”
Quoth Pavle to the maiden: “Sister, incline thine ear! Seest thou yonder, sister, the splendor of that spear.
To the stirrups of the stallion, the brave blood flowed thereby,
And the horses of the heroes were drenchèd bridle-high;
Stained was the shining armor, their girdles and their greaves.
They are dead, sister. In their blood dip not thy milk-white sleeves,
But get thee from the battle to thy home of the white hall.”
And the maid heard, and with a cry upon her love did call.
She came unto her white-walled home, weeping and wild and pale,
And there she mourned her loss alone, with moaning and with wail:
“Ah miserable! If I reach forth to touch the good green pine,
So will the green bough wither in this sad hand of mine.”

The Head Of Tsar Lazar

WHEN the Turks smote off Tsar Lazar’s head in Kósovo, the fair,
No Serb came forth to find it, but a young Turk found it there;
He was a Turk that a Servian slave to a Moslem master bore.
And the young soldier thereupon he spoke his friends before:
“Brethren, most shameful would it be before God who is One,
That this lord’s head should the eagles tear, and the steeds trample thereon,
And the legions of the heroes.” In the skirt of his spotted cloak He bore Saint Lazar’s head where forth a spring of water broke.
Into the spring of water he lowered the holy head,
And there it lay in the cool spring till forty years were sped.
But the fair body at Kósovo, that was so white and wan,
The eagles did not tear it, nor the steeds trample thereon,
Nor the legions of the heroes. Now praise to the Lord God’s might! There were young carters that went forth from the town of Skupi the white;
To Nissa and to Vidin had they set out to go
With Greeks and Bulgars; and they camped one night at Kósovo.
The carters ate their dinner, and thirsty they became;
And the candle of their lantern they lighted at the flame;
Over Kósovo up and down a water-spring they sought,
And them their fortune at that hour to the spring of water brought.
One of them spake: “A shining moon behold in the water fair!”
And the second answered: “Brother, no shining moon is there.”
The third was silent and nothing said, but he turned his eyes abroad
To the east, and called on Saint Nicholas, and on the very God:
“O God and Father Nicholas, succor me now!” he said,
And he stepped into the spring therewith, and forth he drew the head
Of Lazar the Saint of Servia, and threw it on the grass;
Then he drank the water in a cup, for a thirsty man he was.
Before the thirsty lads had drunk, they looked where the head had been
On the black earth, but no head at all on the green grass was seen.
Forth went the sacred head alone, on the way across the plain,
Till it came to the holy body and was one with it again.
And when was risen the morning that broke so free and fair,
To the priests their tidings the carters bore, and many priests came there.
There were full three hundred ancient priests and twelve great bishops more,
And likewise at that season there came the patriarchs four;
In Pech the one was ruler, and one of Tsárigrad,
One in Jerusalem, and the last the earth for his province had.
And they put on the sacred robes with monks’ hats for the head,
And with them took the holy book, and mighty prayers they said.
And three days that great vigil and three nights did they keep;
They sat not down, nor rested, nor laid them down to sleep,
But aye they prayed Saint Lazar, that he would grant them to know
What church he loved: Would he rest in Krushédol or Ópovo,
Beshénovo, or Yasak, or perchance he fain would lie
In Shíshatovats or Rákovats, Kuvézhdin, or Jifsha thereby,
Or haply in Macedonia? He will have no churching there;
He will go to the church that he founded, Ravánitsa, the fair.
Under Kuchay he stablished it, the mountain sheer and dread;
He built it here among us with his treasure and his bread;
And because of it no wretched tears by the fatherless were shed.

Ballads of Prince Marko Kralyevich

Urosh And The Sons Of Marnyáva

IN the fair field of Kósovo were four pavilions pight
By the fair church of Kósovo, Samódrezha the white.
Vukáshin lay in one fair tent, and Lord Úglyesha was nigh;
Goyko the duke and Urosh, the tsar’s son, lay thereby.
The tsars rob one another of the empire of the tsars,
And they yearn to slay each other with the gilded scimitars.
They know not whose is the empire. “It is mine,” Vukáshin saith,
But the great Lord Úglyesha answers: “It is mine, upon my faith.”
And Goyko, the proud voývoda, saith likewise: “It is mine”;
But the son of the tsar, Prince Urosh, in silence must he pine,
For he dares not break his silence before those angry ones,
Before the three great brothers, Marnyáva’s mighty sons.
Vukáshin writeth a letter, and a herald doth he send,
To Nédelko, the archpriest, in the city of Prizrend;
And he bids him come to Kósovo, that he may there decide
To whom of the four princes the realm belongs, this tide;
For he had given the sacrament unto the glorious tsar,
And shriven him; and the ancient books, with the archpriest they are.
Úglyesha writeth a letter and a herald doth he send
To Nédelko, the archpriest, in the city of Prizrend;
And Goyko, the great voývoda, he writeth yet a third,
And sendeth a fiery messenger to the archpriest with his word;
And the son of the tsar, Prince Urosh, sent a letter likewise away.
In secret the fiery heralds went with their letters on that day.
By the house of the Archpriest Nédelko, in Prizrend, the white town,
The heralds met, but the archpriest out of his house was gone,
For he sat at the service in the midst of matin song.
So fierce were those fierce heralds, so keen the strong of the strong,
That they came not down from the chargers, but through the door did dash,
And the good Archpriest Nédelko they smote with the woven lash:
“Come swift, thou priest, to Kósovo, that there thou mayst decide
To whom of the four princes the realm belongs, this tide;
For thou didst give the sacrament unto the glorious tsar,
And shrovest him, and the ancient books of learning with thee they are.
If thou comest not to Kósovo, forthwith thou shalt lose thy head.”
Then wept the Archpriest Nédelko, and unto them he said:
“Till we are done with the service, get hence, ye strong of the strong,
And it will be shown hereafter to whom doth the realm belong.”
Out rode the heralds straightway. When the liturgy was done,
Forth came the Archpriest Nédelko, and spake to all and one:
“With me the tsar took sacrament, to me he did confess;
But I asked not of his kingdom, but of his wickedness.
But to the house of Marko in the town of Prilip hie,
For Marko was my pupil to read in charactery;
And the good Marko Krályevich was a scribe before the tsar,
And the books of yore with their ancient lore, this day with him they are;
And who shall have the kingdom, Prince Marko shall make known.
He speaketh the truth, for he feareth none save the true God alone.”
To Prilip, to Prince Marko’s house, went on the heralds four;
They came unto the milk-white house, and smote with the ring on the door.
And Yévrosima heard it and called unto her son:
“Do thy father’s heralds at the door with the ring strike thereon?”
Marko arose and opened the door. They bowed where they did stand:
“God bless thee, Marko!” But Marko, he stroked them with his hand:
“Now welcome, sons! With the champions and the tsars are all things well?”
But thereupon the heralds down on their knees they fell:
“The lords are well, Prince Marko, but they are not at peace this night;
In Kósovo they quarrel, by Samódrezha the white;
The tsars rob one another of the empire of the tsars,
And they yearn to slay each other with the gilded scimitars;
But to whom the realm belongeth, no man of them doth know,
Wherefore they cite thee to tell them on the field of Kósovo.”
Prince Marko went into the house: “My mother of delight, In Kósovo they quarrel, by Samódrezha the white;
The tsars rob one another of the empire of the tsars,
And they yearn to slay each other with the gilded scimitars;
But to whom the realm belongeth, no man of them doth know.
Therefore they cite me to tell them on the field of Kósovo.”
Though greatly Marko loved the truth, she conjured him the more:
“Let not my rearing be accurst in thee, the son I bore,
For thy father or his brethren speak not false, whate’er the stress,
But according to the living God speak out his righteousness.
Hurl not the spirit, Marko; save thou the soul, my son.
Rather lose life than that the soul should have a stain thereon.”
Marko brought forth the ancient books, and mounted Dapple the gray;
On Dapple’s back he rode the track to Kósovo that day.
And when he came to the king’s tent Vukáshin stood thereby:
“Here is my good son Marko, and fortunate am I!
For he will say, I trow, this day, the realm of the tsars is mine.
Then from the father to the son shall the realm stand in our line.”
Marko heard, but said naught; from the tent he turned away.
Voývoda Úglyesha saw him, and aloud his thought did he say:
“Here is my nephew Marko, and a lucky man am I!
For I trow he will say to me this day that mine is the empery.
Say, Marko, that the realm is mine. We will share the government.”
But Marko the Prince said nothing, nor turned unto the tent.
Goyko, the voývoda, saw him, what time he went thereby:
“Here is my nephew Marko, and a lucky man am I!
He will say that unto me, Goyko, the empire doth belong,
Because I erstwhile loved him, when he was weak and young.
For I loved him very dearly, and in the bosom fold
Of my mantle did I keep him like an apple of red gold;
Where’er I went upon my steed was Marko wont to ride.
Say then, Prince Marko, in this wise, what time thou shalt decide,
That all the empire of the tsars is given unto me,
And thou shalt be the overlord, and I the tsar at thy knee.”
But Marko aye kept silence, and turned not to the tent.
To Urosh’ white pavilion upon his way he went;
Unto the tsar’s fair tent he rode. Urosh leaped up awake
From the fair silken cushions, and to the prince he spake:
“A lucky man am I to-day; my godfather I see!
Marko the Prince will say to whom the Servian realms shall be.”
Then they embraced each other, and wished each other well;
And sate upon the cushions until the evening fell.
When the dark night was over, and the white morning shone,
They rang the bells for matins, and to church the lords are gone.
They came forth from the service before the church to dine,
And then they ate the sugar, and drank the brandy-wine.
Marko looks on the ancient books, and a great word saith he:
“O thou, my sire, Vukáshin, is thy realm too small for thee?
May a curse go out and through it, for ye seize another’s reign!
And Úglyesha, my uncle, too small is thy domain?
May a curse go out and through it, for another’s realm would ye seize!
And thou, my uncle, Goyko, to a strait are thy provinces?
May a curse go out and through them, for an other’s realm would ye steal!
See—and may God forget you!—what the book doth reveal!
For the realm belongeth to Urosh, from the father to the son;
The child is of the tsar his house, and in him the line goes on,
And the tsar left it to him at the season when he died.”
Vukáshin, when he heard it, drew the dagger from his side;
On his son leaped Vukáshin, to stab him in that hour,
And Marko fled before him, for he had not will nor power
In arms against his father to lift the hand and fight.
Marko ran round about the church, Samodrezha the white;
Three times round white Samodrezha the circle did they make;
The king well-nigh had caught him, when a voice to Marko spake:
“Into the church, Prince Marko!” the voice from the church did say,
“For the sake of truth thou wilt perish at thy father’s hand this day.”
Marko ran hard into the church as the doors wide open drew;
Vukáshin fell against them as again the doors shut to,
And smote the beam with his dagger. Therefrom did the red blood drain.
The king repented: “By the one God, I dread my son have I slain.”
A voice spoke to him from the church: “Dost hear where thou dost stand?
Thou smot’st not thy son, but an angel, with the dagger in thy hand.”
The king was wroth at Marko, and cursed him thereupon:
“My son, God slay thee! Mayst thou have nor sepulcher nor son!
May the soul go not from thee till thou servest the Turk in war!”
His father cursed him, but he won the blessing of the tsar:
“O my godfather Marko, may God thee ever shield!
May thy face shine in the council; thy saber slash in the field!
May none excel thee in battle, and thy name far and wide
Be everywhere remembered while the sun and moon abide!”
So spake Vukáshin and the tsar, and so did it betide.

Prince Marko And The Vila

Two sworn brothers were riding over Miroch, the mountain fair;
Voývoda Milosh and Marko were the two heroes there.
Side by side the steeds did they ride as they bore the spears that day;
One kissed the face of the other: such loving brothers were they.
Then Marko on Dapple yearned to sleep; he spake to his brother sworn:
“Voývoda Milosh, heavily by sleep am I overborne.
Sing to me, brother, and cheer me.” “Prince Marko, brother mine,” Said Milosh, “I would sing to thee, but, Marko, I drank the wine
In the mountain with Ravíyoyla, the vila, yesternight.
She forbade me; if she hears me, my throat and heart will she smite.”
Prince Marko spake: “Sing brother, nor ever the vila fear,
While Dapple and I and the war-club with six gold knobs are here.”
Then sang Milosh, the voývoda, a great and beautiful song
Of our elders and our betters that held the kingdom long
In famous Macedonia, and the troop that with each did go.
The song was pleasing to Marko, and he bowed on the saddlebow.
Prince Marko slept in the saddle, and Milosh sang on the track;
And the vila Ravíyoyla heard him, and sang in answer back.
Milosh sang, and the vila again unto him sang.
The better voice had Milosh, and angrily she sprang
Away to the mountain Miroch; with two white arrows she smote
Voývoda Milosh through the heart and likewise in the throat.
Said Milosh: “Alas, my mother! And woe unto Marko, too! Alas, my brother, the vila has shot me through and through!
Did I not tell thee I must not sing on Miroch in our course?”
Marko started from slumber, and sprang from the dappled horse.
Well did he stretch the girth-straps for Dapple the good gray;
He kissed him, and embraced him, and to the steed did he say:
“Ah, Dapple the steed, of all my strength the great right wing art thou;
Ravíyoyla, the vila, do thou overtake her now.
I will shoe thee with pure silver and gold of the seventh proof;
I will cover thee with silk to the knee, with tassels thence to the hoof;
And all thy mane, moreover, shall be mingled with the gold;
And I will deck thy trappings with small pearls manifold.
If thou dost not overtake her, I will put out both thine eyes;
I will break thy legs, all four of them, and leave thee in evil guise;
And thou shalt struggle from fir to fir, abandoned and forlorn,
Even as I, Prince Marko, without my brother sworn.”
Prince Marko on gray Dapple’s back forthwith himself he threw;
They raced across Mount Miroch. O’er the trees the vila flew,
And desperately Dapple galloped the midst of the forest through.
At first nowhere could the vila be seen or heard thereby;
But at last, when Dapple saw her, he leaped three spear-lengths high
And a full four spear-lengths forward. Dapple gained on her swift;
In her distress she leaped aloft amid the clouds and lift.
Up Marko hurled the golden mace, the weapon of great worth,
And smote her between the shoulders, and beat her to the earth.
Left and right he did her smite with the golden club that day.
“Why shottest thou my brother, vila? May the good God thee slay!
Give thou herbs for the hero. Ere long thou shalt lose thine head.”
The vila besought him in God’s name. Imploringly she said:
“Prince Marko, my sworn brother, God and St. John before,
Release me alive in the forest, to search Mount Miroch o’er
For herbs to heal the hero, and his fierce wounds abate.”
Marko harkened her prayer, for his heart was compassionate;
Alive into the forest he let the vila go.
She gathered herbs on Miroch, as she wandered to and fro,
And she called often: “My brother, I am coming from the field.”
The vila gathered many an herb, and the hero’s wounds she healed;
And the lordly throat of Milosh was better than before,
And the strong heart of the hero was stronger than of yore.
The vila went unto Miroch. With his sworn brother good,
Went Marko to Porech country, and forded Timok flood,
Till he came to the great town Brégovo and the Vidin country-side.
But Ravíyoyla, the vila, to the other vilas cried:
“Hear ye, my friends, the vilas, and harken, and give ear:
Shoot no hero on the mountain when Marko the Prince is near,
Or while Dapple and he and the war-club with six gold knobs are here.
What I have suffered at his hands, I have not strength to say,
And hardly out of them at last alive I got away.”

Prince Marko And The Sword Of Vukáshin

THE sultan with an army is come to Kósovo;
An hundred thousand men had he where Sítnitsa doth flow.
With a saber of Damascus his herald goeth forth,
And full three hundred ducats the naked blade is worth;
And likewise was the scabbard worth ducats fifteen score,
And the cost of the cord of the scabbard three hundred ducats more.
No one was found for money to buy that scimitar,
But chance brought the Prince Marko on the herald of the tsar.
Said Marko: “The Damascus blade, thou herald, show to me.”
The herald heard and gave over the blade, but not a word said he.
Marko said to the herald, as he looked on the saber cold:
“Forty-five score of ducats will I give thee of yellow gold;
But harken, herald, let us go to some safe place hereabout,
That I may count before thee the yellow ducats out,
For I would not ungird me of the three gold belts this tide,
Since I am much in the Turkish debt in the camp on every side,
And I deem that for the saber they will not let me pay.”
The Turk would hardly await him, and hastened on the way,
And along the water of Sítnitsa they speedily are gone.
Prince Marko there ungirded him ’neath the white bridge of stone;
He spread a mantle of the green, he took the belts of gold,
And out he shook the golden belts while the Turk the ducats told.
Marko looked on the saber, and saw thereon displayed
Three Christian words engraven upon the shining blade;
And last of all upon the blade stood King Vukáshin’s name.
Marko saw and forthwith spake: “O herald of the tsar, By the one God I adjure thee; whence came the scimitar?
Was it left by thy father? Did thy wife bring it to thee?
Or was it won in battle, perchance, from an enemy?”
The Turk spake unto Marko: “By God, thou chief unknown, Unto thee now the inward of this matter will I own.
It was not left by my father, my wife brought it not to me;
But, chief unknown, I won it from a single enemy.
When with the Servian empire fell both tsars at Kósovo,
Murad and Lazar, then I won the saber from the foe.
Early to water my fat steed to Sítnitsa I went,
And there my fortune brought me to a green silken tent.
Within was a wounded warrior most fierce—God strike him dead!—
The black beard of his lip that tide over his breast it spread.
He wore a great green mantle, and by him lay the sword.
When the wounded one beheld me, by God he me implored:
“ ‘Brother, thou champion unknown, now smite not off mine head;
Soon will my soul go from me, for my wounds are deep and dread.
Wait half an hour; by Sítnitsa there shalt thou set my grave.
Three belts of gold are on me, and a Damascus glaive
That is worth a thousand ducats, and here is my silken tent.’
“But I would not harken his prayer, and out with him I went,
Dragging the wounded hero. My saber then I drew,
And cut off his head; his leg I grasped, and his arm, and straightway threw
The hero into Sítnitsa, where swiftly the waters run.
There with the marvelous booty this saber for thee I won.”
When the Prince Marko heard it, to the herald did he say:
“O herald of the Turkish tsar, may God reward thee this day!
That was my own dear father, even Vukáshin, the king.
Hadst thou waited his soul’s departure, it had been a better thing,
And thou, O Turkish herald, wouldst have had a better grave.”
He drew, and cut the Turk’s head off with the Damascus glaive.
He grasped the milk-white hand and leg, and in Sítnitsa he threw
The herald of the tsar and said: “Go thou my father unto!”
To the army Marko wended with the gold and the scimitar;
Said the janissaries: “Prithee, where is the herald of the tsar?”
But to them said Marko: “I pray you, janissaries, begone!
He took his ducats and pennies to the sea to trade thereon.”
Said the Turks one to the other: “Hard must the Moslem strive,
Who cometh to Prince Marko a bargain with him to drive!”

Prince Marko And The Eagle

MARKO lay on the tsar’s highway, and green was all his gear.
A silver cloth was on his face; by his head was planted his spear.
By the spear stood Dapple, but on it a great white eagle stayed;
It spread its wings above the prince and gave the hero shade,
And water in its beak it bore, the wounded hero, to slake.
But a vila of the mountain unto the eagle spake:
“In the name of God, white eagle, how hath Marko stood thine aid,
That thou spreadest thy wings above him to give the hero shade,
And bringest water in thy beak, the wounded hero to slake?”
But thereupon the eagle unto the vila spake:
“Be silent, vila, and hold thy tongue. What, good hath come to me,
Hath aye come at Prince Marko’s hands. Keepest thou the memory
Of the day the army perished on the field of Kósovo,
And both tsars, Lazar and Murad, died in the overthrow?
Up to the stirrups of the steed that day the red blood ran,
Unto the silken girdle of many a fighting man;
Horses and heroes swam, steed by steed, and hero hero by,
And we flew up hungry and thirsty, the vultures of the sky;
We fed on human flesh, we drank our fill of human blood:
My wings were wet. Forth flamed the sun in heaven where he stood:
My wings grew stiff; my feathers in flight I could not wield;
My comrades flew, and I was left upon the level field.
Heroes and steeds rushed onward, and me they trampled o’er.
God sent Marko; he lifted me up from the heroes’ gore
And put me behind on Dapple. To the green wood amain
He bore me and tossed me into a fir; and down the gentle rain
Descended there upon me. My wings were washen clean,
That I might fly thereafter over the forest green;
And there I met my comrades. “One more good deed to me Did the good Marko Krályevich. Hast thou in memory
How the town burned at Kósovo? Burnt was Ajága’s tower:
Therein my little eaglets were hidden in that hour,
And Marko gathered all of them in his silken bosom fold,
And a full month he nourished them in the white house of his hold,
And let them go to the green wood, when a month and a week were told.
And this did Marko for me, that I met my eaglets dear.”
Prince Marko is remembered like a fair day in the year.

The Marriage Of Prince Marko

PRINCE MARKO with his mother one evening sate alone.
Said his mother: “Marko, my little son, old is thy mother grown; No more can she prepare for thee the meal whereon to dine;
She cannot light a torch for thee or serve the ruddy wine.
Marry, my son, a woman forthwith to take my place.”
Marko unto his mother shortly he spake apace:
“In God’s name, my ancient mother, I have been nine realms around,
And a tenth, the Turkish empire. When a girl to my taste I found,
She would not have been to thy liking; when I found a friend for thee,
Then she was not to my liking, nor desirable to me.
Except for one, my mother, in the Bulgarian land;
I saw her in Shíshmanin’s palace; by a cistern did she stand.
When I looked on her, my mother, the grass swam under me;
There is the maid for me, mother, and a dear friend for thee.
Get me food for the journey; I will ask for the maiden’s hand.”
She waited not, nor abided till the dawn shone in the land,
But she baked him bread with sugar. When the dawn broke clear and fine,
Marko girded himself and the steed and filled a skin of wine;
He hung it on Dapple’s saddle, and his mace on the other hand;
On Dapple he went to Shíshmanin’s house in the Bulgarian land.
Afar the king perceived him. Marko he came before;
They embraced and kissed each other, and asked how they them bore.
The servant to the cellars went with the faithful steed,
But the king, the good Prince Marko to his white house did lead.
They sat down at the ready board the dark-red wine to drain;
When they had drunk their fill thereof Marko leaped up again.
He doffed his cap, he bowed to the earth, and he asked for the maid of the king.
The king said naught, but gave her; on the ground he laid a ring,
And an apple thereby; moreover for the girl he let cut a shift.
To her sisters and kinswomen Marko gave many a gift,
He gave three packs of treasure; and there a month he spent,
Ere to gather gay-clad wooers to Prilip the white he went.
The maid’s mother bespoke him: “My son-in-law,” she cried,
“My Marko, let no stranger be the bringer of the bride,
But rather thine own brother or some nephew of thy name,
For the maid is passing lovely and we fear some open shame.”
There bode Prince Marko of Prilip the remnant of the night;
At dawn he saddled Dapple and rode to Prilip the white.
Near the town his mother saw him, and drew near a little space,
And in her arms she took him and kissed him on the face.
And his mother asked Prince Marko, as he kissed her milk-white hand:
“My son, Prince Marko, art thou come in peace across the land?
And hast thou as yet discovered a daughter dear for me,
A maid to be my daughter and a true wife to thee?”
Marko answered: “My mother, I am come in peace through the land; I have asked and won in marriage a maiden to my hand.
When I set out for my white house, then the maid’s mother cried:
“ ‘My Marko, let no stranger be the bringer of the bride,
But rather thine own brother or some nephew of thy name,
For the maid is passing lovely and we fear some open shame.’
“But, mother, I have not a brother, no nephew at all have I.”
His mother spake: “Son Marko, be troubled not thereby. A letter in fine characters, my son, thou shalt indite
Unto the Doge of Venice, and bid him come forthright
To be groomsman at thy wedding, with five hundred wooers beside.
Thou shalt write to Stevan Zemlyich to be bringer of the bride,
With five hundred wooers likewise. No shame at all shalt thou fear.”
When Marko understood her speech, he harkened his mother dear.
He wrote the letters on his knee, and one to the doge is borne,
And one to Stevan Zemlyich, that is his brother sworn.
Time passed; the Doge of Venice came, and five hundred wooers beside;
He went to the slender tower, but they to the lealand wide.
In a little while came Stevan and five hundred wooers fine.
They gathered at the slender tower and drank their fill of the wine.
Then they went to the court of Shíshmanin in the Bulgarian land,
And King Shíshmanin received them, and open was his hand
To the heroes in the houses and the horses in the stall,
And three white days he kept them, and they rested one and all.
When out broke the fourth morning, spake the heralds in this wise:
“What ho, ye gay-clad wooers, it is time that ye arise!
Short are the days, and the delays at nightfall long are they;
Ye should take thought, ye wooers, to wend the homeward way.”
King Shíshmanin brought gracious gifts. Fair hose he gave to one,
To another he gave a gallant cloth with embroidery thereon;
He gave unto the groomsman a table of gold well-tried,
And he gave a golden garment to the bringer of the bride,
And a great war-steed furthermore, and charged him with the maid;
And to the bringer of the bride the king moreover said:
“Here is the steed and the maid likewise to take to Marko’s place:
Give him the maid; the steed is thine, a gift of honor and grace.”
Forth marched the gay-clad wooers through the Bulgarian land.
Where comes good fortune, also ill fortune is at hand;
For on that tide both far and wide the wind blew in the field,
The wind stirred lightly the maiden’s veil and the maiden’s face was revealed.
The Doge of Venice saw her. His head for grief ached sore.
He scarce could wait till evening the land had fallen o’er.
When they came to the night encampment, the Doge of Venice sped
To the tent of Stevan Zemlyich, and soft to him he said:
“O Stevan, the bringer of the bride, give me thy sister dear
One night for my love, and thou shalt have this bootful of treasure here.
Lo, Stevan, the yellow ducats!” But Stevan to him did cry: “Be silent, doge, mayst thou change to stone! Has it entered thy mind to die?”
The Doge of Venice turned him back. At the second camp he went
And spoke to Stevan Zemlyich in the midst of the white tent:
“I prithee, Stevan Zemlyich, give me thy sister dear
One night for my love. Thou shalt have therefor two bootsfull of treasure here.
Lo, Stevan, the yellow ducats!” Said Stevan thereupon: “Go, doge! Mayst thou perish straightway! Shall my sister be undone?”
To his tent went the doge. When the third camp was pitched at eventide,
The doge went unto Stevan, the bringer of the bride:
“O thou, the bringer of the bride, give me thy sister dear
One night for my love. Thou shalt have therefor three bootsfull of ducats here.”
Thereupon Stevan Zemlyich was finally cajoled
To give the doge his sister for three bootsfull of yellow gold.
Stevan took up the ducats and the doge led the maid
By the white hand within his tent and softly to her said:
“Sit down, sweet bride, that thou and I may fondle each other now.”
But answered the Bulgarian bride: “A shameful groomsman art thou! O Doge of Venice, beneath us the earth will open wide,
The heaven will crack above us! What man shall fondle a bride?”
The Doge of Venice answered: “Speak not like a fool confessed! I have already, dearest, nine christened brides caressed,
And of wives four and twenty. The earth it gaped not wide,
Nor did the heaven crack o’er us. Sit down, let me fondle thee, bride!”
But the bride said: “Doge of Venice, my groomsman, harken this. My mother dear adjured me no bearded man to kiss,
But a young and beardless hero, such as Prince Marko is.”
When the Doge of Venice heard it, he called swift barbers there;
One bathed him, and the second he shaved him clean and fair.
And the lovely bride bowed over in the place where she stood,
And picked up the beard and wrapped it in a piece of linen good.
Thereafter the Doge of Venice the barbers drove outside,
And said unto her softly: “Now sit thee down, sweet bride!”
Then answered the Bulgarian girl: “When Marko of this shall hear, Three heads, O Doge, my groomsman, from our bodies he will shear.”
The doge said unto the sweet bride: “Speak not so foolishly! There in the midst of the wooers is Marko plain to see,
Where his fair white pavilion he did himself unfold.
Upon the summit of the tent is an apple of red gold,
With gems so bright that by their light are half the wooers seen clear.
But at my side sit down, O bride, that we may fondle here.”
The bride said: “Wait in the tent a space, thou dearest groomsman of mine, Till I look on the sky above the clouds, if it be foul or fine.”
When she had came without the tent, she fled to Marko in fear;
The girl sprang through the wooers like a fawn of a single year,
To the tent of the Prince Marko, that down to sleep had lain;
And the girl stood before him, and her tears ran down like rain.
Then Marko leaped to his feet and spake to the Bulgarian bride:
“What a wretch, Bulgarian, art thou! Couldst thou not e’en abide
Till we came to my white dwelling, and in Christian guise were wed?”
He seized the saber silver-wrought, but the bride bowed down and said:
“Marko, mine is no wretch’s line, but a house of power and pride!
The wretches are thine, thy groomsman and the bringer of the bride!
Thine own bride Stevan Zemlyich to the Doge of Venice sold
For three bootsfull of treasure, ducats of yellow gold.
Prince Marko haply will not believe—if thou believest not me,
The beard of the Doge of Venice, I have brought it unto thee.”
And thereupon she opened the cloth that held it wide.
When the Prince Marko saw it, he spoke unto the bride:
“Sit down, fair bride; on the morrow I will look the matter o’er.”
Then Marko laid him down again to slumber there once more.
But when on the morrow morning the mighty sun outbroke,
Marko leaped nimbly to his feet, and fastened back his cloak;
In his hand he took the heavy mace, and then away he hied,
To bid the groomsman good morrow, and the bringer of the bride.
“Good morrow, bringer of the bride, and groomsman mine,” said he;
“Bringer of the bride and groomsman, say, where now the bride may be.”
Still was the bringer of the bride, no answer would he make;
But unto the Prince Marko the Doge of Venice spake:
“How now, friend Marko the bridegroom, of such strange whims men are,
That hardly a man may make a jest without begetting a war!”
“Evil is the jest of thine, O doge!” thereto did Marko say,
“No jest is a shaven beard! Where now is thy beard of yesterday?”
Yet more to him in answer had the Doge of Venice said;
Marko swung the great saber, and cut off the doge’s head.
Forthwith fled Stevan Zemlyich, but Marko ran amain,
And smote him with the saber, and cut him right in twain.
In the tent himself he girded, and saddled Dapple aright;
Forth went the gay-clad wooers, and came to Prilip the white.

Prince Marko And Alil Aga

THERE once were two sworn brothers; through Tsárigrad rode they:
The one is the Prince Marko, the other Kostádin the Bey.
Said Marko: “Bey Kostádin, sworn brother of mine own, Now that I ride in Tsárigrad some woe may strike me down.
Mayhap they will summon me to the lists; a sickness will I feign,
Heartache, the evil illness, that is so fierce a pain.”
So Marko feigned a sickness, though none he had indeed;
Of his grievous cunning he bowed him on the back of Dapple the steed;
He leaned his breast on the saddlebow, through Tsárigrad he rode.
Good meeting befell him. Before him one Alil Aga strode,
The tsar his man, and thirty were his janissaries there.
Said Alil Aga to Marko: “To the lists now let us fare, Thou hero good, Prince Marko; with the shafts let us make play.
And if God and good luck serve thee, and thou shootest beyond me this day,
Be there given thee my white houses, that heritage of mine,
And the Turkish matron, my faithful wife. But if my shot pass thine,
To thy houses and thy faithful wife faith I will pay no heed;
I only hope to hang thee high and seize on Dapple the steed.”
Said Marko: “Let be, thou Turk accurst, how shall I shoot with thee, When such a bitter sickness has taken hold of me,
Heartache, the evil illness, that is so fierce a pain?
I cannot hold myself on the steed: how shall we shoot amain?”
But the Turk, Alil Aga, he will not let him alone.
The right skirt of Marko’s tunic, he set his hand thereon;
Marko drew from his belt the knife and cut the skirt away:
“Go to, wretch, Alil Aga! May a plague strike thee this day!”
But the Turk Alil Aga he will not let him alone.
The left skirt of Marko’s tunic, he set his hand thereon;
Marko drew the knife from his belt and cut the skirt away:
“Go to, wretch, Alil Aga! May God in heaven thee slay!”
But the aga will not let him be. With his right hand Dapple’s rein
He seized; his left hand thrust therewith in Marko’s bosom amain.
Marko flashed like the living fire; straight he rose on the steed;
He grasped the reins, and Dapple pranced as he were mad indeed.
Hero and horse ran the wild course. He called Kostádin Bey:
“To the cloth market, Kostádin, my brother, take thy way;
Bring thence a Tatar arrow with nine hawk-feathers white.
I will go forth with the aga, that the cadi may judge aright,
And no matter arise hereafter, sufficient cause for a fight.”
The bey went to the cloth market; with the aga Marko hied
To the cadi. The aga his slippers doffed and sat at the cadi’s side;
And out he took twelve ducats that he laid on the cadi’s knee:
“Set no just terms for Marko; and here are ducats for thee!”
But Marko knew the Turkish tongue. No coin had he in the place;
Forthwith before his bosom Prince Marko held his mace:
“Dost thou hear me, master cadi; set thou just terms for me!
Since my club with the six spikes of gold thou easily mayst see.
If I strike thee with the war club, thou wilt need no plaster therefor;
Thou wilt forget the courtroom, nor want the ducats more.”
Fever fell on the master, the cadi, to behold
The great war club before him, with the six spikes of gold.
He straightway wrote the terms for them, but his hands shook for dread.
Then out to the single combat at once the heroes sped;
And thirty janissaries with Alil Aga strode,
But none but Greeks and Bulgars on Marko’s part abode.
When they came to the lists spoke Alil, the aga of the tsar:
“Shoot, captain, thyself that vauntest for a great man of war,
With thy brag in the tsar’s council that thy shooting is so strong
Thou canst hit an eagle of the cross, that leads the clouds along.”
Said Marko: “I am a hero good, but older than I art thou; For, hero, thine is the lordship, and thine is the empire now;
Thine is the right of the elder, and since thou hast summoned me,
Shoot now, Turk, in the order of thy seniority.”
Thereupon Alil Aga his first white arrow shot;
An hundred yards and twenty was it measured from the spot.
Marko his first white arrow two hundred yards he drave;
The Turk a full three hundred hath sent his second stave.
Prince Marko the second arrow five hundred yards he sent,
But the Turk’s third white arrow a full six hundred went.
Meanwhile the Bey Kostádin by Marko did alight,
And bore the Tatar arrow with nine hawk-feathers white.
Marko unloosed the Tatar shaft; through the dust and mist it blazed,
And forthwith vanished from them, however hard they gazed;
Nor could it e’er be measured. Hot tears the aga shed;
With Marko, calling on God’s name, in his despair he pled:
“Marko, who art my brother sworn, in the name of God and St. John,
By thy good law; my house is thine, for thee to seize thereon,
And the Turkish matron, my true wife, is thine to lead away:
Only I prithee, brother, hang me not up this day!”
But Marko spake: “May God on high forthwith destroy thy life! If thou callest me brother, wherefore dost thou offer me thy wife?
Thy wife is not needful to me. We are not as the Turks in this;
With us the wife of a brother even as a sister is.
I have a faithful wife at home, even Yélitsa nobly born.
And I would forgive thee all, brother, but my tunic hast thou torn;
Give me three loads of money to patch my skirts apace!”
Merrily then the Turk leaped up and kissed Prince Marko’s face.
Marko for three white days he kept within the lordly hall,
And gave him three loads of money; and his lady therewithal
Gave to the prince a mighty shirt sewn with a thread of gold,
And also a silver towel. Three hundred horsemen bold
The aga gave him for escort, when he rode to his house afar.
Long they abode thereafter, and held the land for the tsar:
When the foe invaded, Marko and Alil beat them back;
Wherever fortresses were ta’en, they marshaled the attack.

Prince Marko And Mina Of Kostur

PRINCE MARKO and his mother had sat them down to dine;
On the dry bread they feasted, and they drank the yellow wine.
And unto the prince Marko came letters three that day:
One was from Bajazét the tsar, in white Stamboul that lay;
One from the town of Budim, from the king thereof had come;
And one from Yanko the voývoda, in Sibin that had his home.
The letter from Stamboul city, that was written of the tsar,
To the army summons Marko for the keen Moorish war.
In the letter out of Budim, the second of the three,
The king with the wooers bids him that the groomsman he may be,
That the king may lightly marry the queen of whom he is fain.
The letter from Sibin the city, it beareth a message plain,
That as godfather he shall christen the children of Yanko twain.
Marko speaks to his mother: “My mother, old art thou; Council me, mother, shall I go to the tsar’s army now?
Shall I go among the wooers, to marry the king amain?
Or unto Yanko of Sibin, to christen his children twain?”
His mother speaketh to Marko: “My little son,” saith she,
“A man goes unto the wooers because of jollity;
As a godfather a man goes forth because of the law of God;
But a man goes to the army because of the fear of the rod.
Go, my son, to the army, for God will hold his hand;
But the Turks, an thou come not thither, they will not understand.”
Marko obeyed his mother. To the host he marched away;
He took Golúban the servant; to his mother did he say:
“Hear, mother! Of my fortress do thou early shut the gate,
And when ariseth the morning, do thou throw it open late;
Since with Mina accurst of Kostur at odds am I, and I fear,
Mother, that my white houses the rogue will plunder here.”
Marko to the tsar’s army with Golúban the servant went.
On the third evening of the march, when they had pitched the tent,
Marko supped, and Golúban served out the yellow wine.
Marko took up the goblet, and slumber fell on his eyne;
He dropped the cup on the table, but the wine spilled not on the board.
Golúban the servant waketh him; “Prince Marko,” he saith, “my lord,
Ere this hast thou gone to the army, but thou hast not slumbered so deep,
Nor dropped the cup from thy fingers.” But Marko started from sleep, And said: “Golúban, my servant, thou art faithful, as I deem. I closed mine eyes for a little, and I dreamed a wondrous dream.
Exceeding strange was the dream, and exceeding strange the hour.
A tuft of mist blew outward from Kostur the white tower:
The mist enveloped Prilip; in the white mist Mina came.
He will plunder my white houses and burn them with the flame;
Over my mother’s body will he trample with the steed;
My faithful bride upon that tide a captive will he lead;
My horses from the stables, he will drive them all away;
The money in my treasury he will carry off that day.”
To Marko said Golúban: “Fear not, Prince Marko. In sooth,
Good heroes ever dreamed good dreams. Dreams lie, but God is truth.”
When they were come to Tsárigrad, the tsar sent forth his host,
Over the blue sea went they forth to the fierce Moorish coast;
And four and forty cities have they ta’en over sea.
They came under Kara Okan, and years they fought there three;
Okan they smote, and never could they storm it in the war.
Marko smote down the Moorish chiefs and bore their heads to the tsar.
The tsar gave bakshish to Marko, and wroth the Turks did it make;
And they came in anger to the tsar, and unto him they spake:
“Tsar Bajazét, this Marko, no hero at all is he;
He cleaveth and bringeth for bakshish the heads of the slain to thee.”
Marko heard it, and forthwith to the great tsar did he pray:
“My father by adoption, to-morrow is the day
Of St. George, my own good patron, and let me, tsar, withdraw
To hold my patron’s festival by custom and by law;
And Alil Aga, my brother sworn, likewise do thou release,
That he and I together may drink the wine in peace.”
The tsar sent forth Prince Marko, for naught else could he do,
To hold his patron’s festival, and released his brother too.
And into the green forest forthwith Prince Marko sped,
Nor far from the tsar’s army his white pavilion spread;
To tipple on dark liquor he sat him on the grass,
And with him Alil Aga, his brother sworn that was.
And the Moorish watch discovered, when the fair daybreak shone,
How forth from the tsar’s army Marko the Prince was gone.
Then shouted all the Moorish watch: “O furious Moors, set on!
The hero on the great gray steed—the terrible is gone!”
The Moors set on, and of the host slew thirty thousand men;
And the tsar wrote a letter unto Prince Marko then:
“My good son by adoption, come quickly here again,
For thirty thousand men of mine have been in battle slain!”
But Marko said: “How then may I come quickly, father mine?
For as yet I have not drunken my fill of the yellow wine,
And much less have I started my holiday to hold.”
And lo, upon the morrow, when broke the morning cold,
Then shouted all the Moorish watch: “O furious Moors, set on!
The hero on the great gray steed—the terrible is gone!”
The Moors set on, and of the host slew sixty thousand men;
Once more the great Tsar Bajazét wrote to Prince Marko then:
“My good son by adoption, come quickly here again,
For sixty thousand men of mine have been in battle slain!”
But Marko said: “My father, a little must thou wait;
I have not yet regaled my friends as well befits their state.”
On the third day shouted the Moorish watch: “O furious Moors, set on!
The hero on the great gray steed—the terrible is gone!”
The Moors set on, and slaughtered an hundred thousand men;
And the tsar wrote a letter unto Prince Marko then:
“Before God for my foster child thee, Marko, will I own;
Come very quickly, for the Moors my camp have overthrown!”
Marko mounted on Dapple, he rode to the tsar’s array;
When day broke, the two armies they clashed in the mêlée.
When the Moorish watch saw Marko, they cried: “Ye Moors, begone!
The hero on the great gray steed—the terrible, comes on!”
Marko smote on the Moorish host; three ways their host he drave.
He slashed throughout one army with the edges of the glaive,
The second of the armies on Dapple he trampled o’er
And herded the third before the tsar. But Marko was wounded sore;
Seventy wounds at the Moors’ hands on Marko’s body there are.
On the tsar’s breast falleth Marko, and to him saith the tsar:
“Marko, my good foster child, by thy wounds now art thou slain?
Can the doctors with their wrappings recover thee again?”
Prince Marko then made answer: “No deadly wounds they are,
And I deem that I shall recover.” And thereupon the tsar
Thrust hand into pouch and to him a thousand ducats gave,
That the Prince Marko might go forth his wounds to heal and lave;
And the tsar sends forth two faithful lads, lest Marko the Prince should die.
But Marko sought not a doctor; from inn to inn did he hie,
And ever sought Prince Marko where the best wine was to drain.
Scarce had he drunk his fill thereof, when his wounds were healed again.
But a fine-written letter to the Prince Marko came,
That his houses all were plundered and ravaged with the flame,
And the body of his mother trampled over by the steed,
And his faithful wife a captive his enemy did lead.
Then Marko mourned and to the tsar, his foster father, said:
“My foster father, my white house is ravaged in the raid;
My faithful bride upon this tide a captive do they lead;
Over my mother’s body have they trampled with the steed;
The money in my treasury is stolen from me this day:
Mina of Kostur, he it was who carried it away.”
The tsar spake comfort: “Foster son, my Marko, do not fear. If these thine houses have been burned, I will build thee better here;
Beside my houses and like to mine shall they be built for thee.
If thy gold is stolen, a farmer of my taxes shalt thou be,
And thou shalt gather treasure. If thy wife is led away,
I will give thee a better lady upon the wedding day.”
Said Marko: “My foster father, glory to thee again! When thou buildest the houses for me, orphans will curse me then,
Saying: ‘This rascal Marko, his houses were burned of late;
Now may these new-built for him be likewise desolate!’
If thou makest me farmer of taxes, till I bind poor, needy men,
I cannot gather the taxes, and orphans will curse me then,
Saying: ‘This rascal Marko, what gold he had of late
Was stolen; what he hath presently, may it too be desolate!’
To another how wilt thou wed me, while yet my wife doth live?—
Three hundred janissaries I prithee to me give;
Forge for them crooked pruning hooks and of slender hoes no lack;
And to white Kostur will I go, if perchance I may win her back.”
Three hundred janissaries were his at the tsar’s command;
The tsar forged crooked pruning hooks and slender hoes to their hand.
To the three hundred Marko his counsel gave aright:
“Go, my three hundred brethren; go now to Kostur the white.
When ye are come to Kostur, the Greeks will be merry thus:
‘Here are laborers; cheap enow will they tend our vines for us!’
But do ye naught, my brethren. Abide in Kostur the town;
Drink the clear wine and brandy, till thither I come down.”
The three hundred janissaries they went to Kostur the white,
But Marko to Mount Athos, unto the holy height;
And there he took communion and moreover did confess
For the blood he had shed, then clad him in a black cáloyer’s dress;
He let his beard to the girdle grow, and a monk’s hat put on his head.
Then he leaped to the back of Dapple, to Kostur the white he sped.
When he came to Mina of Kostur, there Mina sat to dine,
And Marko’s wife served Mina the cups of yellow wine:
“In God’s name, thou black cáloyer,” did Mina to him say,
“Tell me, prithee, where gottest thou the little dapple gray?”
Prince Marko said: “Friend Mina, by the true God do I swear, In the fierce Moorish country, with the tsar’s host was I there.
There was a fool, Prince Marko, that dying there I saw,
And I buried him according to our custom and our law.
A gift for his soul’s salvation they gave this steed to me.”
When Mina of Kostur heard it, he leaped up joyfully,
And said: “Nine years have I waited until these tidings came! For Marko’s house have I plundered and ravaged with the flame;
His faithful wife have I made a slave, but I would not break her vow,
Black priest, till Marko perished, and thou shalt marry me now!”
Up Marko took the holy book, and thereupon did wed
Mina unto the woman he had ta’en to his own bed.
Then sat they down to speak fair words and drink the yellow wine.
Said Mina: “Hearest thou, Yélitsa, O heart and soul of mine? Till now wast thou Marko’s lady; henceforth thou art Mina’s wife!
Go now to the treasure house below, I prithee, soul of my life,
And bring three cups of ducats to give the cáloyer black.”
Yélitsa brought from the treasure three cups of ducats back;
She took not Mina’s money, but Marko’s. A rusty glaive
She brought up with the money, and to the priest she gave:
“Here is for thee, black cáloyer, a gift for Marko’s sake.”
Marko took up the saber, and looked at it, and spake:
“Mina, the lord of Kostur, is it seemly in thine eyes,
To dance here at thy wedding after the monkish wise?”
Quoth Mina of Kostur to him: “Black cáloyer, to thee
Surely it is permitted. Wherefore should it not be?”
Marko leaped on his nimble feet twice and thrice him about;
The tower’s foundations trembled as he drew the saber out.
He drew the rusty saber, he swung it left and right;
The head from Mina’s shoulders at one stroke did he smite.
From his white throat he shouted: “Lord Mina’s days are done;
Ho, all my janissaries! my laborers, come on!”
Three hundred janissaries through Mina’s mansions came;
They plundered his white palace and ravaged it with flame.
Marko brought home his faithful wife and Mina’s horde along,
And went unto white Prilip with chanting and with song.

Prince Marko And Bey Kostadin

PRINCE MARKO and Bey Kostádin, brothers in God were they;
They rode their steeds together. Outspoke Kostádin the Bey:
“Prince Marko, now I prithee, thou art my brother sworn;
Come to me in the autumn, on St. Demetrius’ morn,
The feast day of my patron saint. Much honor wilt thou see,
And a fair feast and a welcome becoming my degree.”
Said Marko: “Boast not of thy feast! When I sought for my brother born, Ándriya, I dwelt in autumn with thee. On St. Demetrius’ morn,
The feast day of thy patron saint, I saw the feast of thy pride,
And also in the selfsame hour three cruel deeds beside.”
Said Bey Kostádin: “Marko, my brother sworn art thou;
Say to me of what cruel deeds thou speakest to me now.”
Said Marko: “The first cruel deed after this wise befell. There came two orphans unto thee that thou mightst feed them well
With the white bread, and give them the ruddy wine to drain.
But thou saidst: ‘Ye mere scull of the earth, now get you hence amain!
Ye shall not defile the wine before my gentlefolk this day.’
Bey, I pitied the orphans and with them went away;
And I took them to the market and fed them on white bread,
And gave them to drink of the ruddy wine, and clad them in satin red,
And in green silk moreover. Unto thy house again
I sent them, and looked to see thee, how them thou wouldst entertain.
One thou tookest on either hand; to the table thou leddest them then:
‘Eat and drink,’ thou saidst, ‘ye sons of gentlemen!’
“Thy second cruel deed was this. When ancient squires forlorn
Came there, who had lost their money, and whose scarlet was outworn,
Thou evermore didst set them at the foot of the table there;
But whoso of the younger squires at thy festival that were,
Who had gained new hordes of money, and whose scarlet was fresh and new,
Evermore thou broughtest them the head of the board unto;
Thou didst pour the wine and brandy before them fast and free;
There was a feast and welcome, befitting thy degree.
“This is thy third cruel deed, O bey. Father and mother are thine;
Neither is ever at thy board nor draineth first the wine.”

Prince Marko And The Daughter Of The Moorish King

HIS mother asks Prince Marko: “Marko, my little son, So many monasteries wherefore hast thou begun?
Hast thou sinned before God? Or by good hap hast thou won the gold abroad?”
Marko of Prilip answered: “I will tell in the name of God. Once, when I was in the Moorish land, at dawn to a cistern fair
I went, that Dapple might drink thereof; and behold, at the water there,
Were twelve Moors. Out of my due time I wished to water the steed;
The twelve Moors would not let me, and a battle did we breed.
Thereat I drew the heavy mace, and smote a black Moor down.
We smote against each other, eleven against one.
Two I smote down, and ten of them came furiously at me.
Then nine of them must I abide, for I had stricken three.
The fourth fell; eight were the champions against me that did drive.
But I struck again; on the red ground lay ruddy corpses five.
I slew the sixth, but was taken by the six that were left alive.
They bound me, and they bore me to the Moorish king along;
And the king of the Moors threw me into the dungeon strong.
Seven years was I in it: when summer was at hand
I knew not, nor when winter had come across the land;
Except that, when in winter the girls the snowballs cast,
Then would they toss a snowball into the dungeon fast;
And then I knew it was winter, as I lay within the tower.
In the summer, they would throw me a sprig of basil flower,
And I knew it was summer. The eighth year in prison that I was,
I wearied not of prison, but of a Moorish lass.
Unto the Moorish Sultan the daughter dear was she;
Night and morn to the window of the tower she summoned me:
“ ‘Marko, poor lad, in the dungeon I prithee rot not here,
But give true pledge thou wilt take me to be thy true love dear,
If I free thee from the dungeon, and thy Dapple from the hold.
Marko, unto thy heart’s desire will I gather ducats of gold.’
“When I saw that might was against me, and strength compelling me,
I took my cap from off my head, and swore to it on my knee,
A firm pledge to the cap I swore: ‘Thee I will never leave; A firm pledge, and moreover, ne’er will I thee deceive.
E’en the sun is false; he warms not winter as summertide—
Never will I renounce the pledge; thereby will I abide.’
“Then thought the Moorish maiden that unto her I swore.
One night, at fall of darkness, she opened the dungeon door
And led me out of the dungeon, and Dapple from the hold,
And a better horse for herself. On both were holsters full of gold;
She brought a silver-hilted sword. On the horses we laid hand,
And forthwith galloped onward over the Moorish land.
When the dawn shone, my mother, I sat me down to rest;
And the Moorish maid, with her black arms she clasped me to her breast.
When I looked on her, my mother, she was black and her teeth were white,
And it was a thing unpleasing and dreadful in my sight.
The silver-hilted saber forth from the sheath I drew;
I smote her under her silken belt; the blade cut through and through.
I seized on Dapple; still the head of the Moorish maid spake on:
‘My brother Marko, wretched lad, leave me not here alone.’
Then, mother, I sinned in the sight of God, but gained much gold and gear,
Whereby the monasteries and churches fair I rear.”

Prince Marko’S Plowing

WITH his mother, Yévrosima, his thirst did Marko slake
On the red wine. When they had drunk, to him his mother spake:
“O thou, Prince Marko, prithee cease from the ravage and the raid;
Never on earth is evil with a good deed repaid.
Weary is thy mother of washing from thy shirts the crimson stain.
But do thou now yoke ox to plow, and plow the hill and the plain.
Sow thou the white wheat, little son, that thou and I may sup.”
Marko harkened his mother, and he yoked the oxen up;
He plows not the hill, nor the valley; but he plows the tsar’s highway.
Some janissaries came thereby; three packs of gold had they:
“Plow not the tsar his highway, Prince Marko,” said they then.
“Ye Turks, mar not my plowing!” he answered them again.
“Plow not the tsar his highway, Prince Marko,” they said anew.
“Ye Turks, mar not my plowing!” he answered thereunto.
But Marko was vext; in anger he lifted ox and plow,
And the Turkish janissaries he slew thero at a blow,
And their three packs of treasure to his mother he bore away:
“Lo, mother, what my plowing hath won for thee to-day!”

Marko Drinks Wine In Ramazán

THERE was an edict sent abroad by the Tsar Suleymán
That none should drink the yellow wine in the month of Ramazán,
That none should wear green tunics, nor silver-inlaid dirks,
And that none should dance, moreover, with the women of the Turks.
But Marko dances among them, and inlaid with silver wan
Is his blade, and green is his tunic, and he tipples in Ramazán.
And the Turkish priests and pilgrims, he maketh them drink likewise.
And the Turks go to the palace unto Suleymán’s assize:
“Father and mother of us an art thou, Tsar Suleymán.
Saith not thine edict: none shall drink liquor in Ramazán;
And that none shall wear green tunics, nor silver-inlaid dirks;
And that none shall dance, moreover, with the women of the Turks?
Now Marko dances among them; and inlaid with silver wan
Is his blade; and green is his tunic; and he tipples in Ramazán.
Wine he may drink and welcome, if it seem good in his eyes,
But the Turkish priests and pilgrirns, he maketh them drink likewise.”
When the tsar heard their story, he summoned his heralds twain:
“Go, heralds, to Prince Marko, bid him come hither amain.”
Forth issued the two heralds; upon their way they went,
And they found Prince Marko drinking in the shadow of his tent.
And a cup that held twelve measures is ready to his hand.
The heralds twain gave unto him the word of the tsar’s command:
“Dost thou then hear, Prince Marko? It is good in the tsar’s eyes
That thou come to his council, and the court of his assize.”
O, angry was Prince Marko! He snatched the goblet up,
And he smote the tsars two heralds in his anger, with the cup.
The cup rang and the head rang; the blood and wine ran free.
And Marko went to the tsars assize, and sat at the tsar’s right knee.
And the black cap of sable fur he pulled across his face,
And he laid his saber across his breast, and his hand upon his mace:
“My foster child, Prince Marko,” said the Tsar Suleymán,
Mine edict saith: none shall drink wine in the month of Ramazán;
And none shall wear green tunics, nor silver-inlaid dirks,
And none shall dance, moreover, with the women of the Turks.
Now here be worthy Moslems that have spoken evilly.
Alas, my poor son Marko, I wot they have slandered thee!
That thou dancest with Turkish matrons, and inlaid with silver wan
Is thy blade; and green is thy tunic; and thou tipplest in Ramazán;
And the Turkish priests and pilgrims, thou makest them drink likewise!
Now wherefore pullest thou, my son, thy cap across thine eyes?
Why is thy mace beside thee, and thy saber across thy breast?”
And forthwith strong Prince Marko Tsar Suleymán addressed:
“O thou, my foster father, the great Tsar Suleymán,
It is permitted of my faith to drink in Ramazán.
And for the priests and pilgrims, my honor would be gone,
If they should look upon me, and I should drink alone.
If I wear a good green tunic, I am young; it becomes my youth.
If I gird an inlaid saber, I paid my money in sooth,
If I dance with the Turkish women, O tsar, I am yet unwed,
And once, O tsar, a woman had come not to thy bed,
If I pull my cap on my forehead, it burns, for I speak with the tsar,
And for the freeing of my mace, and drawing the scimitar,
O tsar, in my heart I fear me that battle is hard at hand:
It is ill in battle the nearest to Marko, the Prince, to stand,”
The tsar looked in all quarters another man to see,
But nearer to Prince Marko there was no man than he;
Nearest was the Tsar Suleymán. He drew back in the hall,
But Marko followed onward, and drove him to the wall,
From his pouch drew Tsar Suleymán an hundred ducats fine,
And gave them to Marko, saying: “Marko, go drink the wine.”

The Death Of Marko Krályevich

PRINCE MARKO rose up early on Sunday before the sun,
On Mount Úrvina by the seacoast. And as he rode thereon,
Dapple the stallion staggered sore; from his eyes ran bitter tears.
Marko it grieved. He spake to the steed: “A hundred and sixty years, Dapple, my gallant stallion, are gone since I came on thee.
Never hast thou staggered; yet to-day hast thou staggered under me,
And thou sheddest tears. God knoweth there is no good from the sign:
The one of us is in danger; thy life it is or mine.”
While Marko spake, a vila on Úrvina’s steep side
In summons to Prince Marko lifted her voice and cried:
“Knowest thou, Marko, my brother sworn, why stumbles Dapple, thine horse?
He sorrows for thee, his master, since soon will ye part perforce.”
Said Marko to the vila: “May thy throat ache for this! How should I part with Dapple? Cities and emperies
Have I not passed over and traversed, from the east unto the west?
And Dapple, my steed, was ever of all good steeds the best;
And I was the best of the heroes. He shall not from me be led,
While upon Marko’s shoulders remaineth Marko’s head.”
Said the vila: “Marko, my brother sworn, none shall take Dapple so. Neither shalt thou die at a hero’s hands by any saber blow,
Nor by the shock of the heavy mace, nor piercing of the spear;
For any hero of the earth, Prince Marko, have no fear.
But Marko, God shall slay thee, the ancient slayer of men.
If thou wilt not believe me, go up to the mountain then.
Aloft shalt thou see two slender firs on the left and on the right;
They have overhung the mountain with the summits of their might.
And all the air is spicy with their fair needles green;
And there runneth a spring of water the slender trees between.
There turn and dismount from Dapple; to a tree the steed shalt thou tie.
Raise thyself over the water-spring that bubbles up hard by,
And look at thy face in the water. Thou shalt see when thou shalt die.”
Marko obeyed. Aloft he looked on the left and on the right
At the firs that overhung the mount with the summits of their might,
And all the air was spicy with the fair needles green.
There Marko halted Dapple in a little space between,
And to a fir tree in the midst the charger did he tie.
He raised himself o’er the water-spring that bubbled up hard by;
And when Marko looked on the water, he saw when he should die.
He wept apace and spake apace: “Ah, lying world, fair flower— Fair wast thou and too little have I roamed thee in my hour,
Three hundred years; and now must part from thy pleasure and thy power!”
From his girdle the Prince Marko drew out the iron glaive,
And he went to the steed Dapple, and Dapple’s neck he clave,
That Dapple might come never to a Turk, a prize of war,
And do him bitter service bearing water in the jar.
When he had slaughtered Dapple, he buried Dapple the steed;
A better grave the horse he gave than to Andrew, his brother, indeed.
The mighty glaive, thereafter, he broke in pieces four,
Lest it should come into Turkish hands, and the Turks should be glad therefor,
And rejoice for the sword of Marko to their hand that had fallen then;
And lest, moreover, he should be curst by any Christian men.
When he had broken the saber, in seven the spear broke he,
And threw it among the fir twigs. The rough mace mightily
He grasped, and from Úrvina hurled it into the thick blue sea;
And Marko said: “When that club of mine ariseth out of the main,
Then will there be a hero upon the earth again.”
When he had ruined his weapons, then pen and ink he drew
From his belt, and from his pocket white paper fresh and new.
And he writes a letter: “Whoever over Ùrvina shall fare To the cold spring between the firs, and finds brave Marko there,
Let him know forthwith that perished at last is Marko the bold.
About him are three money-belts. What treasure do they hold?
Therein is a lordly treasure of ducats of yellow gold.
One belt will I give with my blessing to him who buries me;
With the second belt let churches be sculptured splendidly;
And the third belt I bequeath it to the maimed and to the blind,
That they may sing of Marko and his fame be kept in mind.”
When the letter was written, he thrust it upon a twig of the fir,
Whence from the road it might be seen by any wayfarer.
The golden writing-set therewith into the spring he threw,
And his good mantle of the green from off his shoulders drew.
He spread the mantle beneath the fir, and the sign of the cross made then;
He pulled the sables over his eyes, and lay there, nor rose again.
Dead was Marko beside the spring. For a week, from day to day,
Whoever saw Prince Marko that traveled along that way,
Deemed that the good Prince Marko asleep was lying there;
And, fearing to awake him, a long way round would they fare.
Where’er is found good fortune, misfortune cometh apace,
And wherever evil hap is found, good cometh soon in the place.
Abbot Basil of Athos from the church Vilíndar the white,
He it was spied Prince Marko, with Isaias his acolyte.
He held his hand: “Lightly, my son, see that thou wake him not.
After sleep is Marko moody; he may kill us on the spot.”
But the monk saw how Marko slept. The letter he espied,
And he read throughout the letter that told how Marko died.
The monk dismounted from the steed, and raised up Marko the bold.
Marko was dead. The bitter tears down Basil’s cheek they rolled,
And he sorrowed sore for Marko. The belts of golden pelf
He ungirded from the hero, and belted on himself.
On many a grave he pondered, where to bury Marko dead.
He chose; and got him on the horse, and to the seashore sped.
In a ship he laid Prince Marko. And to Athos the Holy Height
He bore him, to Vilíndar, the stately and the white,
And there the funeral liturgy over the prince he read
And likewise sang the requiem before they graved the dead.
There the old man buried Marko. No mark he placed him o’er,
That none might say where the hero lay, and mock at him therefore.

Servia Under Turkish Rule

The Maiden Márgita And Rayko The Voývoda

NOT yet the dawn had whitened, nor the day star shown its face;
Men thought not of day—forth Márgita the maid walked in the place,
In Sriyem over Slánkamen; barefoot the damsel sprang
Over the stone so early. In delicate wise she sang,
But Rayko in the song she cursed: “Rayko, may God thee slay! The Turks have plagued us grievously in Sriyem, since the day
When thou becamest voývoda. When Mirko ruled the land,
We heard of no Turk, nor ever saw one before us stand;
But now they plague us grievously. Their horses’ feet are sore
For riding night and morning in our country evermore.
The very fields on their horsehoofs are lifted and stolen away,
And the air is full of javelins and their throwing-darts to-day.”
So sang the girl of Sriyem, and deemed that none could hear,
But Voývoda Rayko saw her, and the curse came to his ear;
And he called the maiden Márgita: “Sister,” he saith, “do thou No more curse Rayko the voývoda. What more can he do now?
What may he do for himself? And what for Sriyem in this hour?
What shall he do in Sriyem against the Turkish power?
While Mirko was the voývoda, in our cities in their turn
Were many voývodas. Stay thou; their number thou shalt learn.
. . . . . . .
At Pótserye on Sava his dwelling Milosh made.
He was vizier of Lazar in many-towered Belgrade.
. . . . . . .
In Krúshevats, the white city, glorious Lazar had his hall,
With his fair son beside him, the good lad Stevan the Tall.
Yug Bogdan, the old hero, with the nine sons of his might,
Dwelt in another city, Prókuplye the white.
At the white town of Kurshúmliya was Strahin, the great ban;
At Tóplitsa, Milan Tóplitsa, where the chill waters ran.
At flat Kósaynitsa, Ivan Kósanchich, the mighty man,
. . . . . . .
In Travnik, the white, Vuk Bránkovich was Lazar’s high vizier;
Duke Stepan in Herzegovina ruled the country without fear.
. . . . . . .
At Skadar on the Bóyana, Vukáshin was the king.
With his brethren Goyko and Úglyesha, to help in governing.
And in Prizrend, where the plowland reacheth so fair and far,
With his little son, Prince Urosh, was Stepan the Servian tsar.
. . . . . . .
Starína Novak held the rule on Stara, the mountain old;
And with him Rádivoye, his brother, called the bold,
And Tátomir and Grúitsa dwelt with them in the hold.
. . . . . . .
And, moreover, Bey Kostádin dwelt in Kúmanovo white.
. . . . . . .
And Prince Marko in white Prilip, in the mansion of his might.
“Harken thou, sister Margita, our voývodas were they;
All of them were among us, and all have passed away.
Some died in their beds, sister, and some in battle were slain;
To-day doth Rayko alone of them in Sriyem yet remain,
Like a dry tree in the mountain grove. What shall he do in this hour?
What shall he do in Sriyem against the Turkish power?”
From his belt he drew a dagger—through his live heart it sped;
On the black earth Rayko of Sriyem, the voývoda, lay dead.
And Márgita ran to him; with a wailing cry she said:
“My brothers, Servian voývodas; you have been and have passed away!
How have you left your children and your faithful wives this day?
Are they not now a footstool, that Turkish feet may rest?
Are not your monasteries become a Turkish jest?”
She snatched the dagger of Rayko, through her live heart smote it well,
And dead the wretched maiden by the dead Rayko fell.

How Starína Novak Became A Hayduk

NOVAK and Rado drank the wine near Bosna the river cold,
With Bógosav. When they had drunk as much as they could hold,
Prince Bogosav began to speak: “Starína Novak,” said he, “My brother sworn, now speak the truth, so may God prosper thee!
Why didst thou join the outlaws? What constraint on thee was laid
To go to the wood to break thy neck, and to ply a wretched trade?
And in thine age, moreover, when thy season was past and sped?”
Starína Novak spake to him: “Prince Bógosav,” he said, “My brother sworn, since thou askest me, I will even tell thee the truth;
But it was through a hard constraint that I fled, in very sooth.
Thou mayst remember, when Yérina did Sméderevo rear,
She made me a day laborer. I labored there three year.
Wood and stone did I haul for her with my oxen and my wain,
And in the space of full three years not a penny did I gain;
Not even bark sandals for my feet could I win my labor by.
And that I should have pardoned her. When the town was builded high,
She would build towers and gild the doors and windows of the hold.
Each house in the vilayet she taxed three measures of gold,
That is three hundred ducats. Who gave, in the place might live;
But I was poverty-stricken, and had no gold to give.
With the mattock, wherewith I had labored, to the outlaws I fled amain.
I could not stay where Yérina, the accursèd one, did reign,
But ran to the cold Drina, and to rocky Bosnia fled.
When I came near Romániya, there Turkish wooers led
A Turkish damsel homeward. In peace they passed by me.
There remained the Turkish bridegroom; on a great brown steed was he.
In peace that Turkish bridegroom he would not let me pass,
But forth he drew a triple whip with three knobs of yellow brass.
Thrice he smote me on the shoulders. Thrice I prayed him in God’s name:
“ ‘I pray thee, Turkish bridegroom, mayst thou have courage and fame!
Mayst thou have a happy marriage, but pass me by in peace!
Thou seest how poor a man am I.’ “But the bridegroom would not cease; But rather in his anger began to smite the more.
Then at last was I angry, for my shoulders were waxen sore.
With the mattock on my shoulder, the bridegroom did I smite
With one blow from the brown steed’s back, though the stroke was passing light.
And then I leaped upon him, and smote him where he lay,
Twice or thrice, till his spirit from the body fled away.
I reached my hand in his pockets, and there found purses three;
I put them in my bosom, and girt his saber on me.
I left the mattock at his head that the Turks might have withal
Something to bury him with; the steed I mounted, brown and tall.
To the wood of Romániya I went; the wooers saw me there;
But wished not to pursue me, or haply did not dare.
“It is forly year. The forest is better known to me
Than the house of my habitation was ever wont to be.
The roads across the mountains I watch them and I hold.
From the youths of Sárayevo I take their silver and gold,
And their linen and velvet for me and mine; and I can go abroad
And stand in the place of danger, for I fear none but God.”

Starína Novak And The Bold Rádivoye

STARÍNA NOVAK drank the wine on Romániya the green hill,
And Rádivoye, his brother, drank with him with a will;
And Grúitsa, Stárina’s son, Rádivoye sat before;
With Grúitsa was Tátomir and thirty hayduks more.
When the hayduks in good fellowship had drunk the liquor cold,
Then spake unto his brother Rádivoye, called the bold:
“Hearest thou, brother Novak? I will leave thee behind me now.
Thou canst not go a-raiding; too grievous old art thou.
Thou dost not love to gallop on the highway any more,
To lie in wait for traders that come from the seashore.”
So spake bold Rádivoye. He leaped from the ground to his feet,
He seized on Breshka by the waist; the thirty followed fleet.
Rado went over the black mount; ’neath a green fir Novak lay,
With his two young sons. Brave Rado came to a crossing in the way.
A wretched chance befell him, for Mehmed the Moor rode there;
With thirty heroes and three great packs of treasure the Turks did fare.
When Mehmed saw the hayduks, he shouted to his men.
The champions drew their sabers and rushed on the outlaws then.
They had no chance in that short time their muskets to let drive.
The Turks smote thirty heads off, and Rado seized alive;
They bound his hands behind him; they led him o’er the hill,
With insult, but bold Rado sang to them with a will:
“God slay thee, Mount Romániya! Dost thou breed no hawk in thee?
Flew a flock of doves with a raven before their company;
A white swan led they, and treasure beneath their wings had they.”
Child Grúitsa heard Rado as he sang on the highway.
He spake to Starína Novak: “My father, harken thou, For out on the broad highway is some one singing now,
And speaks of Mount Romániya and the mountain-falcon gray.
It is like our Uncle Rado. He has gained a treasure this day,
Or else he has fallen on evil. Let us go to give him aid.”
He seized on his Damascus gun and went to the ambuscade
On the tsar’s highway, and after him young Tátomir lightly ran;
And after the children followed Novak the ancient man.
On the highway in the ambuscade, there Novak took his ground;
And beside him his two children. O’er the mountain came a sound,
And presently thirty champions before them did appear,
And every champion carried a hayduk’s head on his spear.
And Mehmed the Moor before him drove the bound Rado still,
And likewise three loads of treasure on the high road over the hill,
Till into the ambuscade he marched with the squadron of his might.
Novak shouted to his children. They fired the muskets light;
Mehmed the Moor they hit in the belt. He did not yell one yell—
Dead was Mehmed the mighty Moor, ere to the ground he fell.
The Moor fell there on the green grass. Stárina Novak sped,
And swung his saber in the air, and straight cut off his head,
And then he rushed to Rado; from his hand he cut the cord
And gave him the saber of a Moor. Now glory to God the Lord!
They made a rush upon the Turks, they cut them into bands,
And pursued them hither and yonder. Who ’scaped from Rado’s hands
Young Tátomir awaited. From him who got away,
Them awaited child Grúitsa in eagerness to slay;
And them who ’scaped from Grúitsa old Novak waited for.
They slew the thirty champions, and spoiled the Turks in war;
They won in that same hour three packs of treasure fine.
Then sat they down together to drink the yellow wine.
Said Novak: “Tell me truly, Rado, my brother bold,
Which is better—thirty hayduks, or Starína Novak the old?”
To him said Rado: “My brother, the thirty better were they—
The good friends; but thy fortune they had it not this day.”
It is ill for the hero who hears not what his elders have to say.

The Death Of Ivo Of Senye

Ivo’s mother dreamed that darkness was risen Senye around,
That the clear sky was broken and the bright moon fell to the ground
On Rúzhitsa church in Senye, and the stars fled far and wide,
And the daystar rose up bloody, and the cuckoo to her cried—
In Senye’s midst on the holy roof of Rúzhitsa did he perch.
The woman awoke and took her crutch and hastened to the church,
And told the Archpriest Nédelko what dream was come to her,
And to her the priest made clear the dream as an interpreter:
“Hearest thou, mother! Ill hast thou dreamed and evil soon will be.
In that darkness rose round Senye, ’twill be desolate for thee.
In that the sky was broken and the bright moon fell to the ground
On Rúzhitsa, Ivo will perish; he hath reached his term and bound.
In that the stars fled far and wide, will many a widow moan.
In that bloody rose the daystar, thou wilt be as a cuckoo alone.
In that it sang on the Rúzhitsa, the Turks will overthrow
Rúzhitsa, and, though old I be, the Turks will lay me low.”
Hardly had he done speaking, when before them Ivo stood.
The great black steed he rode upon was soaked with the dark blood;
He had seventeen wounds; in his left hand his cleft right hand he bore.
He drove the black steed onward the great white church before.
To his mother he spake: “From the black steed take me down, mother mine,
And wash me with cold water and purify with wine.”
Swift she obeyed: she took him down from the steed fierce and fine;
She washed him with cold water, and o’er him poured the wine.
His mother asked him: “What, my son, in Italy befell?”
Ivo spake: “Mother, in Italy all things went swift and well; Enough slaves we took, mother, and enough of treasure bright;
Safe we turned home. When we were at the camp of the first night,
A first pursuit o’ertook us, black warriors that sped
Upon black steeds; black turbans they wore about the head.
We fired one volley, mother, we slew them all in fight;
Of us none perished, mother. At the camp of the second night
The second pursuit o’ertook us; the furious heroes sped
Upon white steeds, white turbans they wore about the head.
We fired one volley, mother; we slew them all in fight.
Of us none perished, mother. At the camp of the third night
The third pursuit o’ertook us; black cloaks, long guns did they bear.
We fired a single volley, and began to fight them there;
Of them none perished, mother; of us all fell in the fray,
Excepting thy son Ivo, at last that got away.
And he is wounded; in his left hand his right hand hath he brought.”
So Ivo spake, and forthwith with his dear soul he fought;
He breathed, and released from prison thereby was the spirit light.
He died, and his ancient mother—O evil was her plight!
May God give him a dwelling place in pleasant paradise,
And health to us, my brethren, and merriment likewise!

The Marriage Of Stoyan Yánkovich

WHILE still men dreamed not of the dawn, the gates were opened wide
In Údbina, and from the town a squadron forth did ride.
Four and thirty friends are there; before them is Mustay Bey,
The lord of Lika; to Kunor wood he went to hunt that day.
For half a week he hunted, but nothing came to hand;
To Údbina and Lika he went homeward through the land;
When down through the fir forest to a spring be turned aside,
To drink and rest. He cast his eye ’neath a green fir that tide;
But when Mustay Bey of Lika came, the twigs of the fir tree shone.
A drunken warrior lay asleep in the fir wood alone;
All in the pure gold was he clad and in the silver fine;
On his head he wore a splendid cap with silver feathers nine,
And set beside the feathers a great wing silver-wrought;
For a thousand ducats and no less the silver wing was bought.
On his shoulders the hero weareth a mantle great and green,
And thirty knobs of yellow gold thereon are to be seen,
Each one of a golden measure; and one ’neath the neck is worn,
Three measure weight with a screw that opes, and brandy that holds in the morn.
On the mantle are three golden plates, of the weight of four good pound;
Two were of twisted goldwork, and one did the smelters found.
His breeches had golden buckles; and yellow, rich to see,
Were his legs as any falcon’s from the ankle to the knee.
From the buckles hung fine golden chains, and from them trinkets fair,
Such as the slender maidens aye at their sweet throats wear.
At his splendid belt were pistols of the Damascus gold,
Silver-inlaid was the great blade, with three gold hilts to hold;
In them are set three precious stones; it is worth three towns of the tsar.
On his breast was a musket, and golden the thirty hoops of it are,
And each hoop worth ten ducats, and thirty, one by the sight;
There was more of gold on the musket than of steel hammered and bright.
When the hero rose upward from the grass, the fir twigs crackled then,
But the Bey of Lika pinned him down with his four and thirty men.
When the hero looked up from the grass with a black and lowering eye,
He saw that the Turks had pinned him down, and his weapons were not by.
One of his foes with his great arms he gripped as with a girth;
The living heart was burst in the Turk as he hurled him to the earth;
And seven others, moreover, he slaughtered of the band,
Before the Turks could master the strength of the white hand.
But they captured him, and forthwith the white hand did they bind,
And drove him to white Údbina with his weapons tied behind,
That great and small might marvel how Mustay, of Lika the Bey,
Such a warrior with his weapons had taken in the fray.
And Mustay spake to him as through the open field they came:
“God’s love! Whence comest thou, lord unknown? What do men call thy name?
Whither wast thou going, and whither have thy comrades gone away?”
Saith he: “What sayst thou, Mustay, of Lika that art Bey? Hast thou heard of the Latin seacoast, and Kotári set thereon,
And of Stoyan, the son of Yanko? I am Stoyan, Yanko’s son,
And I had no other comrade than God and myself alone;
And I had taken counsel to descend beneath thy tower,
And the slender maiden, Haýkuna, to lure her in that hour,
And take her to Kotári—but it was not God’s decree;
The thrice accursèd liquor it overmastered me!”
Said Mustay, the Bey of Lika: “Stoyan, well mayst thou speed!
Thou hast fallen into a hero’s hands who will find thee a wife indeed!”
Amid their speech to Údbina at last they made their way,
Beneath the tower of Mustay, of Lika that was Bey;
And great and small came out to gaze on the squadron in that hour,
And Haýkuna, Mustay’s sister dear, looked down from the slender tower.
At the tambour frame of coral a needle of glass doth she hold,
And she weaveth through the linen white a gallant thread of gold.
And when she saw the squadron forth from the forest come,
That led a fettered hero with his shining weapons home,
The tambour frame before her with her hand she thrust away—
Two of its legs were shattered—and to herself did she say:
“Dear God, a mighty marvel, a hero in evil stead!
By what guile did they bind him, for he is not wounded nor dead?”
But when she reckoned the squadron, were lacking seven men.
When the squadron came ’neath the white tower, she took his weapons then,
And bore away his weapons in the treasury to keep.
Stoyan they cast in a prison that was fifty fathom deep;
Therein to the knees of the hero the water doth arise,
And the bones of captive Christians to his shoulder reach likewise.
The bey went unto the new inn, with his men the wine to drain,
And to boast to the Turks of Údbina what a captive he had ta’en.
The fair maid went to the dungeon door with a bucket of wine that tide;
She lowered it with a strong cord, and unto the hero cried:
“O hero, God protect thee, nor slay thee here in shame!
Whence art thou? what is thy country? what dost thou call thy name?
How did the Turks deceive thee, when thine arms behind they tied?”
Stoyan drank of the yellow wine, and to the damsel cried:
“Who calls from the white dungeon? My throat hath drunken full.
With the windlass half way up the hold the hero shalt thou pull;
From thence will I tell the story.” The maiden harkened thereto; The rope with hooks of steel let down, and half way up she drew.
Stoyan the son of Yanko. He questioned her and said:
“Who calls from the white dungeon?” Then appeared the Turkish maid:
“Even I, unknown hero, the sister of Mustay Bey.”
Stoyan answered: “O Haýkuna, may God in heaven thee slay! I am Stoyan the son of Yanko, and in prison because of thee.
The Turks beguiled me when I was drunk, and bound have they taken me.”
The Turkish maid spake to him: “O Stoyan, of Yanko born, Fain would the Turks destroy thee. They will question thee tomorn
Whether to be a Moslem thy faith thou wilt put aside.
Become a Moslem, Stoyan; and I will be thy bride.
My brother, the Bey of Lika, two treasure towers hath he,
One his, one mine; if he dieth first, mine and thine shall they be.”
Spake Stoyan: “Thou: damsel, Haýkuna, no more like a mad girl rave! Though Údbina and Lika into my hand they gave,
By God I would not turn Moslem! In Kotári my treasure lay,
More than the Turks’, and a hero better am I than they.
If God it grant, fair damsel, before the noon hour ring,
The captains of Kotári over Údbina shall spring,
Over and roundabout it, and hence shall they rescue me.”
Said the maid: “Speak not like a madman; ere that they will slaughter thee. But to take me to be thy wedded wife, firm will thy faith remain,
If I free thee out of the dungeon?” And Stoyan answered again: “Firm is my faith, fair damsel, I will take thee before all;
Verily on mine honor I will not deceive thee at all.”
When the damsel heard, in the prison she lowered him in that hour,
And she wended her own way forthwith unto the slender tower.
A little time went after this; from the inn came forth the bey,
And the maiden staggered before him, as a fit were on her that day.
Mustay the Bey asked of her: “What aileth thee, sister dear?”
She said: “A pain of the head and the heart is fallen upon me here; A chill is come upon me; ’twere better, brother, to die.
But seat thee on the soft cushions, that I on thy breast may lie,
And there at last surrender my spirit in its sin.”
Mustay the Bey was sorry, for he had no other kin,
And over his white features the bitter tears he shed.
He sat upon the cushions, on his bosom she drooped her head;
One hand she laid on his bosom, with the other did she seize
In her dear brother’s pocket the stable and prison keys,
And the key of the treasure likewise. Then tossed she where she lay
On the cushion, and to his sister made question Mustay the Bey:
“Has not God granted thee, sister, that the pain should pass away?”
“Brother, he has, may God be thanked!” And he went to the roof outside,
To counsel with them of Údbina how Stoyan should die that tide.
But the maiden leaped to her feet, and wide the treasury door she threw;
And saddlebags of ducats and Stoyan’s armor, too,
She gathered in that hour from the dungeon white and cold.
She let out Stoyan, and led him from the cellars of the hold;
And released the steeds from the stables: the good white steed of the bey,
That ever more he rode upon in the heroic fray,
And the black steed of his lady; swifter is none in the land.
The damsel mounted the white, but the black is under Stoyan’s hand,
And forthwith over the broad field swiftly they got them gone
Over Ogóryelitsa, and from Kunor the wood, and on
From Kunor to Kótari. Then the son of Yanko said:
“Grievously am I weary, O Haýkuna the maid!
Dismount from the white charger; of sleep I have sore need.”
But she said: “By thy courage, Stoyan! Drive forward the black steed On unto flat Kotári; sleep cometh with little aid.
But for some squadron of the Turks yet am I sore afraid!”
But he harkened not. From the horses they descended on the grass;
With his head on her bosom Stoyan slept; like a foolish lamb he was.
But the maiden cannot slumber. Before the white day’s hour
The bey’s wife rose to visit the girl in the slender tower.
Very sick was the damsel, when darkness fell yestreen,
But now in the slender tower no more the girl is seen;
And the money from the treasury is gathered up and gone,
And no longer in the dungeon lieth Stoyan, Yanko’s son.
Forthwith came back the woman into the slender tower;
She fired the great alarum gun suddenly in that hour.
On the green roof the bey heard it; what was come to pass he knew,
And swiftly with his fingers he searched his pockets through,
And found that from his pockets the keys were stolen away.
“My brothers, men of Údbina!” then shouted Mustay Bey,
“Stoyan, the son of Yanko, with the maid is fled abroad.
Up on your feet, my brethren, as ye believe in God!”
Strange is the Turkish use. Their steeds were ready saddled there;
They seized their steeds and over the wide field did they fare.
They reached the Kunor wood, and through the forest did they pass
Unto Kotári. Haýkuna looked up from the green grass;
Often she looked to Kunor. A crest rose far away,
The dust of horses and heroes, and she knew her brother, the bey,
And the thirty men of Údbina. Stoyan she dares not wake,
But above the face of Stoyan she weepeth for his sake.
When Stoyan started from slumber, he bespake her in this wise:
“What ails thee, Turkish damsel, that the tears run from thine eyes?
Dost thou weep for thy brother, Mustay Bey, and his great treasury?
Or haply is it that Stoyan no longer pleases thee?”
Quoth the maiden: “Sorrow-stricken may thy mother be this tide! I weep not for my brother nor the treasure of his pride.
We have brought the treasure with us, in the midst of my heart art thou;
But the bey with the thirty of Údbina is hard upon us now.
Ride the black to Kotári; our lives are thrown away!”
When Stoyan heard the damsel, unto her did he say:
“By God, I will not, maiden! They have stirred my anger up;
They pinned me down on the grass when I had drunken of the cup.
Now will I make exchange of gifts with thy brother, dear indeed!
Do thou ride the black charger, and give me the white steed;
The white is a little better, when I go thy brother to meet.”
Stoyan leapt on the good white steed; the black she mounted fleet,
And galloped to white Kotári; but Stoyan against the bey.
And it were worth the trouble, to sit and watch the fray,
And behold a mighty marvel, how thirty smote at one:
The palace that sent thirty forth waits the return of none.
Stoyan smote off the thirty heads, and he seized on Mustay Bey;
Hands bound behind, he drove him to where the damsel lay.
He spake to the damsel as he drew the silver-hilted blade:
“Thus, Haýkuna, ’twixt brothers exchange of gifts is made!”
He swung the silver-hilted sword, but she threw her arms on high:
“By thy courage, leave a sister a brother for swearing by!
For thee also a sister might weep, and be full of woe.
Turn him now back to Údbina, and give him leave to go.”
Stoyan turned back the saber; tighter he bound the bey,
And set his face toward Údbina, and unto him did say:
“When thou comest unto Údbina, to drink with the men thereby,
Tell thou the whole truth to them, nor ever speak a lie;
And here will I grant thy life to thee in the fierce single fray.”
Forth in his bonds to Údbina alone went back the bey;
But to flat Kotári Stoyan the Turkish damsel takes,
And his christened wife he kisses whensoever he awakes.

The Captivity Of Stoyan Yánkovich

WHEN the Turks took Kotári, great havoc did they make
With the house of Yánkovich Íliya Smílyanich did they take
And likewise Stoyan Yánkovich; bereft was Íliya’s bride
Of fifteen days; ungently from his wife’s youthful side
Was Stoyan taken also, ere a week they had been wed.
The Turks to Stamboul city captive the husbands led.
To the tsar whom all men honor, with the prisoners of their spears
Came the Turks; and the two were holden for the space of nine long years
And seven months. And Moslems the tsar hath made them there,
And likewise built them houses beside his palace fair.
Spake Íliya Smílyanich: “Stoyan, dear brother,” did he say,
“To-morrow will be Friday, the Turkish holiday;
The tsáritsa walks with the Turkish dames and the tsar with the Turks at heel.
Do thou steal the key of the treasury, and the stable key will I steal;
Let us gather the guardless treasure and take two steeds amain,
And run to level Kotári and see our wives again,
That never enemy caressed nor foeman carried away.”
They harkened each other. On the morn of the Turkish holiday
The tsáritsa walked with the Turkish dames and the tsar with the Turks at heel.
One stole the treasury key, and one did the key of the stable steal;
They took much treasure and two good steeds, and to flat Kotári fled.
When they were near Kotári, Stoyan Yánkovich said:
“O Íliya, my dear brother, unto the white house go;
And I will unto the vineyard that mine own hand did sow,
That I may look on the vineyard, to see who binds the vine
And prunes it—in whose possession the place has gone from mine.”
To the white house went Íliya, to the vineyard Stoyan came;
In the vineyard he found his mother, the weary and ancient dame.
And standing in the vineyard she cut the strands of her hair,
And with them to the stanchions she bound the grapevines there,
And with tears she watered the vine sprouts and the tendrils where they twined,
And ever her own son Stoyan was present in her mind:
“Stoyan, my golden apple, is forgot of his mother old;
But I will remember Yela his wife, fair as the unworn gold!”
Stoyan in God’s name greeted her: “Old dame, whom God defend!—
Hast thou none younger than thyself for thee the vines to tend?
Thou totterest wretched and feeble.” But bravely she replied:
“Live well, thou unknown champion, and all good thee betide!
I have none younger save Stoyan, sole son of my desire.
The Turks took him with Íliya, the nephew of his sire;
And in that bitter hour bereft was Íliya’s bride
Of fifteen days; ungently from his wife’s youthful side
Was Stoyan taken also, ere a week they had been wed.
My daughter of Adam waited until nine years were sped,
And seven months of the tenth year; she weds another to-day.
And I—I could not endure it; to the vineyard I ran away!”
When Stoyan understood it, he went to the white house,
And well the wooers welcomed him with revel and carouse.
He went from the steed to table, his thirst with wine to slake;
When he had drunk his fill of it, softly to them he spake:
“My brothers, gay-clad wooers, to sing is it granted me?”
Said the wooers: “It is, thou hero unknown; wherefore should it not be?”
Then Stoyan sang unto them in a high voice and a clear:
“A swallow plaited her fair nest; she plaited her nest nine year;
To-morrow will she unplait it. But there flew to her from afar
A mighty falcon green and gray, from the city of the tsar;
And the mighty falcon green and gray lets her not unplait the nest.”
In all this to the wooers was nothing manifest,
But the inward of the matter the wife of Stoyan spied.
Thereupon she departed from the bringer of the bride;
She went to the lookout place and spoke to Stoyan’s sister dear:
“Sister-in-law, my sister, thy brother my lord is here!”
When the sister of Stoyan heard it, she ran from the lookout place;
Thrice she looked round the table, till she saw her brother’s face.
When she saw the face of her brother, wide then their arms they spread;
They kissed each other on the face, and the sweet tears they shed;
One washes the cheeks of the other with the tears of their desire.
But the gay-clad wooers said: “Stoyan, what get we for our hire?
For we spent a deal of money ere we won thy wife to wed.”
“Stand aside, gay-clad wooers,” Stoyan Yánkovich said,
“Until I have gazed on my sister! We will look to your money then;
Easily shall we pay it, if we in truth be men.”
When he had gazed on her, gifts he gave unto the wooers there;
A kerchief to one, to another a shirt of linen fair;
To the bridegroom he gave his sister: and the wooers went their way.
Wailing came home the mother at the ending of the day,
Wailing even as a cuckoo the hawthorn leaves behind,
And ever her son Stoyan was present in her mind:
“Stoyan, my golden apple, is forgot of his mother old;
But I will remember Yela his wife, fair as the unworn gold!
Who will wait for the ancient mother? Who will come forth for me,
And say to the weary woman, ‘Hath thy toil wearied thee?’ ”
When the wife of Stoyan heard it, before the house she sped;
She took her mother in her sweet arms, and to the dame she said:
“Wail not, O ancient mother! On thee has the warm sun shone,
For returned unto thy bosom is Stoyan, thy only son.”
She looked on her son Stoyan, and dead on the earth she fell.
And Stoyan buried his mother most royally and well.

The War Of The Montenegrins With Mahmud Pasha

VIZIER MAHMUD on Bóyana in Scútari the white
Hath gathered his viziers and the captains of his might,
Picked Turkish chiefs. When they were come, he spake unto them then:
“Here is a chance for us at last, my gallant fighting men,
To win the great Black Mountain and the flat coast of the sea
That we have long desired. Some friends of mine there be,
Black Mountaineers that I will bribe; their country they will sell,
And I will do thereafter whatever seemeth well.
But the men of Brida have closed the roads, and there my wound is found,
And I cannot gather an army all Bosnia around,
Or in Herzegovina either or the Albanian bound.
Let us stir up Albania, that our fiery winds may fall
On the Píperi and also on the Children of White Paul.
Let us burn everything with fire and capture great and small,
Till we come to Nikshich, brethren; there our pavilion white
We will pitch, and we will gather the army of our might
From the land of Herzegovina and from the country round,
And from the land of Bosnia and the Albanian bound.
We will divide the host in three, and one of those three powers
We will send unto white Novi that in ancient time was ours;
When we come to Ragusa we will choose a viceroy of the tsar,
Ibrahim my broilier for pasha, that the wonder be heard afar.
The second host shall travel by the fords along the sea,
With food and shell and powder and the artillery,
That they may fight, nor to parley of any peace delay.
There is not left a single youth about Cattáro Bay;
They are gone to Italy, Venice from the Frenchmen to defend.
And over the Black Mountain must the third army wend,
To win the great Black Mountain and the flat coast of the sea,
That by the coast we may water our horses easily,
Till we are come to Cattáro. When at the town we are,
There, friends, my nephew. Mehmed shall be viceroy of the tsar;
A lord and pasha shall he be that the Latins thereof may know.
It is my very strong desire that thus should the matter go.”
So Mahmud spake, and nimbly to his feet sprang the vizier;
Quickly he seized a writing-set and wrote a letter clear:
To Petar the Bishop in Tsétinye the letter doth he send:
“Prince-Bishop of Montenegro, if thou still wilt be my friend,
The champions of Brida in no way shalt thou relieve,
Nor in little Montenegro their families receive;
For now in my displeasure the fiery winds shall fall
On the Píperi and also on the Children of White Paul.
I shall burn everything with fire and capture great and small,
And either I shall perish or drive out utterly
The men of Brida to Ostrog the mount. And harken yet to me!
Prince-Bishop of Montenegro, if thou shalt them relieve;
If in Montenegro their families haply thou shalt receive,
Into my own Albania will I betake me then,
So that thou shalt not be able to give aid unto the men.”
The Turk said not, “If God permit”; he trusted in his might;
God only giveth strength, and he will aid no Turk in fight.
When the letter reached the bishop, he looked thereon and read;
And when he knew its import, the bitter tears he shed.
The chiefs of the Black Mountain, the chosen of the land,
The heroes of Tsétinye by chance were ready to his hand.
Said the bishop: “Ye Black Mountain men, hath come a letter here, From Mahmud, my dear brethren, the terrible vizier.
He hath boasted he will scatter all Brida hither and yon
To Mount Ostrog. Our Black Mountain youth, with bribes they shall be won;
They will take the bribe of Mahmud, and be conquered by his fee,
And sell him the Black Mountain and the flat coast of the sea
Unto Ragusa. His will will he do! But ye, dear brothers, know
How the cursèd Turks reproach the Serbs because of Kósovo,
The woful fray; Vuk Bránkovich betrayed the nation there:
May he know eternal torment for his treason everywhere!
Are any wounds more terrible or deadlier found than when
An arrow out of heaven strikes down a king of men?
There is not any arrow or any flying dart
Like unto such reproach and shame, to tear a hero’s heart.
Your fathers fought their battles for faith and freedom’s sake,
That never Turkish overlords should them for bondmen take.
With men it were reproach and shame, and with God a mighty sin,
To forsake the men of Brida, that are our nearest kin;
But, brethren, as you trust in God, to the Children of Paul the White
Let us go; the heroes of Brida we will succor in the fight.
Had not the Turks made themselves strong, when here before they came,
Scatheless the church of Tsétinye they had not burned with flame,
Nor without a wound have ruined our monasteries fair;
They had not known Kóshchelitsa, nor would thus our entrails tear.”
When the Black Mountain youth had heard, to the bishop then swore they,
That the champions of Brida they never would betray,
But along with them would perish. When the bishop had seen the sight
Of their good will and freedom, a letter did be write
All in the fine-penned character; to Mahmud he sent it on:
“Mahmud Vizier! in Brida let the fatherless alone!
Tear not the fierce wounds, pasha, that thy strong right hand gave!
God will soon grant them, haply, that a vengeance they will have.
And if thou grewest strong, pasha, when here thine army came,
When scatheless the church of Tsétinye thou burnedst with the flame,
And without a wound couldst ruin our monasteries white—
When thou burnedst the church, then all our youth in their live hearts didst thou smite.
As for burning our monasteries, sore didst thou wound us there,
And through knowing Kóshchelitsa our entrails dost thou tear.”
When that the bishop’s letter to the vizier was brought,
And he knew thereof the purport, he gave it not a thought,
But he stirred up all Albania and to level Dólyani went;
O’er Pódgoritsa in Zlátitsa the vizier pitched his tent,
And far and wide on every side his camp abroad he spread.
And the rumor ran to the bishop. Then forth the bishop sped
To the green Mount Vrítiyelka, and fired the cannon of war,
And gathered somewhat of the host from Tsétinye and afar.
Then over the Black Mountain he marched with one and all,
Till he was come to the houses of the Children of White Paul;
In the fair house of Bóshkovich the bishop spent the night.
And when upon the morrow the dawn brake fair and bright,
They crossed cold Zeta and they came where Slátina water ran,
Before the church of the Leeches, Cosmas and Damian;
And there the bishop made his camp, and there the tents were pight.
And Mahmud saw it, and nearer drew from Spuzh the city white;
Over Spuzh, against Derdémezi, under the mountain green,
There Vizier Mahmud made his camp, and there his tents were seen.
When the Bishop of Tsétinye saw it, then letters fine he penned;
To the chiefs of the Black Mountain the letters did he send.
But when the letters had crossed the hills and to the chiefs had come,
And the captains knew their purport, they left their wives at home;
The shepherds left their flocks of sheep in the upper grazing land,
And up they took the knapsack and the musket in the hand;
They went o’er the Black Mountain; in haste went every man,
Asking of the prince. They found him where Slátina water ran,
Before the church of the Leeches, Cosmas and Damian.
There at the church was gathered a fierce and stalwart host;
With the bishop scarce an army, fifteen hundred at the most,
But indeed of the little army that by the bishop stood,
All the soldiers in it were black wolves of the wood;
The generals of the army, wingèd eagles were they;
And the young ensigns along the lines were even as falcons gray.
And Mahmud sent his herald his army through that said:
“Who leads the bishop to me alive or brings me the bishop’s head,
To him shall be given forthwith all Zeta’s level land,
And three white cities in Zeta, and three packs of gold in hand.”
Yakup Aga Serdárevich and Mehmed Kokótliya said
Boastingly they would take him alive or bring the bishop’s head.
But the Turks said not, “If God permit”; they trusted in their might;
God only giveth strength, and he will aid no Turk in fight.
For three weeks stood the armies; drew near the time and the day;
They yearned for fight—on Thursday they got ready for the fray;
The Turks will strike on Friday. But the bishop, the prudent man,
Before the church of the Leeches, Cosmas and Damian,
Gathered his host, and gave them the blessing of God thereby,
And commended all the army to the care of the most high,
That God for a great captain might with the vanguard go,
And swiftly all the armies of the Turk might overthrow.
And when on Friday morning the fair dawn clearly shone,
Then against the Montenegrins the Turks rushed fiercely on.
The armies charged on the battlefield till the middle of the day,
But by noon the Turks had turned their backs and begun to run away.
It was worth the while of any man a bit thereby to stand,
And watch Mahmud, the great vizier, flee fast across the land;
Hardly about the heavy lout once dared to turn his head,
Till to Spuzh, the milk-white city, in his terror he had fled,
And to gay-decked Mártiniche. Of the Turks there died the flower,
Of all of their foot soldiers and champions in that hour,
And pashas and silíktars, and heralds quick that ran,
And the agas and spahis, the remnant of Ushchup and Álbasan,
And likewise from Alesso and Durazzo on the coast,
From Kavay and from Oblom the heroes of their boast,
From Tiran and from Dibran, the chosen of the town,
From Prizrend and from Vúchitrin, their best that had sent down;
Syénitsa, Mítrovitsa their foremost had sent there,
And many champions were come from Jákovitsa fair,
Oraovats and Ocha, Pech and As supplied the war,
And Gúsinye and Vútsinye, and the white town of Bar;
And the men of Lyéshkopolye, the heroes of great fame,
And the chiefs of Spuzh the bloody, and the champions that came
From gay-decked Pódgoritsa to Vizier Mahmud’s side,
Were dead with the lords of Scútari. Mehmed Kokótliya died,
Likewise Yakup Serdárevich, who boastingly had said
That they would take the bishop alive, or else would bring his head.
All of the vizier’s army was slaughtered there and then,
But of the bishop’s army there fell but eighteen men.
And the three good friends died with them; they were a trusty three:
Kritsun Savo was one of them, from Byélitsa was he;
And Stanko of Lyubótin, ensigns worth standing by;
And Bego Voývodicha—their honor will not die!
God gave them habitations in the peace of paradise,
But to the rest he giveth health and merriment likewise.

Ballads Without Historical Foundation

Predrag And Nenad

A MOTHER reared two tender sons, in a hungry time and year,
At her left and right. And Predrag, that is to say, “Most Dear,”
She named the first with a fair name; also the second son
Nenad she named, that is to say, “the Sudden, Unlooked-for one.”
Predrag grew strong to wield the spear and the steed to ride upon:
He ran away from his mother; unto the wood he sped,
To the hayduks and the outlaws. Nenad his mother bred;
Nenad forgot his brother, nor pondered him upon.
Nenad grew strong to wield the spear and the steed to ride upon:
He ran away from his mother; unto the wood he sped,
To the hayduks and the outlaws. Three years that life he led.
He was a hero fortunate and lucky amid the spears;
His comrades made him their captain; he was their chief three years.
But woe was him for his mother; to his comrades all he spake:
“Comrades,” said he, “now woe is me for my dear mother’s sake!
Let us divide our treasures and go to our mothers dear.”
Gladly his comrades thereunto harkened and gave an ear.
When they took out their treasures, each man a great oath sware,
For one sware by his brother and one by his sister fair.
But when Nenad took his treasure, he spake to his comrades by:
“Comrades, my brothers, brother nor sister at all have I;
But—so may the one God hear me!—may this arm be withered and lean,
May the mane of the stallion fall, may rust devour the saber keen,
If any of the treasure I have kept from other men!”
When they had divided the treasure, he mounted his charger then,
The little and the nimble; to his mother forth he went,
And well did she receive him, and they feasted in content.
When they sat down at dinner, said Nenad to the dame:
“My gentle mother, surely before all men is it shame!
I would say thou wert not my mother, ’fore God were it not a sin.
Why didst thou bear me no brother, or sister of my kin?
When my comrades divided the treasure, each man among them sware
A great oath, by his brother or by his sister fair;
But, mother, by myself I sware, and my weapons fair to see,
And also in that hour by the good horse under me.”
“Speak not foolishly, Nenad!” his mother laughed in his face;
“A brother indeed, and one ‘Most Dear,’ have I borne unto thy race.
But yesterday did I hear of him; with the hayduks he abides
In the wood of Gárevitsa, and chief of them all he rides.”
Said Nenad: “Mother, now make me new raiment of the green; Short shalt thou make it, fitting in the forest to be seen,
That forth in the wood to find him in this hour I may go,
And that thus may pass from my spirit the weight of living woe.”
His mother dear bespake him: “Speak not like a fool,” said she;
“Nenad, my son, in very truth thou wilt perish miserably.”
But Nenad heard not his mother, nor would harken what she said;
Whate’er was pleasing in his sight, he did that thing instead.
He made himself new raiment; he wrought it of the green;
And short he made it, fitting in the forest to be seen.
He mounted the steed; to his brother through the forest did he go,
That thereby might pass from him his weight of living woe.
He made no sound, he spat not, to the steed he spake not at all;
When to Gárevitsa wood he came, like a gray hawk did he call:
“Green wood of Gárevitsa, holdest thou hidden in thee;
The ‘Most Dear,’ my true brother?—My mother’s son is he!
Keepest thou not the hero that will bring my brother to me?”
’Neath a green fir sat Predrag and drank the yellow wine.
When he heard the voice, he spake to his men: “Ho, comrades good of mine!
Go forth to the road in ambush; for the champion unknown
Ye shall wait; ye shall not rob him, nor shall ye strike him down:
Bring him alive to me, hither. Whate’er his lineage shows,
He is kin to me.” And thereupon full thirty lads arose. In three places were they ambushed, in every place ten men;
But none dared go before him, when he came to the tirst ten,
To seize his steed; and forthwith they shot against him then.
Nenad spake ’mid the arrows: “Wood-brethren, shoot me not,
Lest woe for a brother smite you, such as drove me to this spot.”
The outlaws of the ambush, in peace they let him past.
When he came on to the second ten, the shafts flew fierce and fast.
Said Nenad ’mid the arrows: “Wood-brethren, shoot me not,
Lest woe for a brother smite you, such as drove me to this spot,
For sorrow of him hath smitten me.” In peace they let him past.
When he came to the third ambush, the shafts flew fierce and fast.
Then Nenad the young was angry; he smote the thirty then.
With the edges of the saber he smote on the first ten;
The second ten he trampled with the stallion as he could;
And the third ten he scattered in his anger through the wood,
Some of them in the forest, and some beside the flood.
One shouted unto Predrag: “A plague on thee alight!
A hero unknown in the forest hath slain thy friends in fight.”
To his nimble feet leaped Predrag; he took his arrows and bow;
Down to the road to the ambush behind a fir did he go.
With an arrow from the stallion he smote down Nenad the young.
In the heart was he hit; he shrieked like a hawk; to the saddlebow he clung,
Crying: “Hero of the green wood, may thy right hand wither and dry! God slay thee alive and the right hand the arrow that let fly.
May thy right eye be blasted wherewith thou hast looked on me!
May woe for a brother smite thee, as erst it smote on me,
Which drove me wretchedly hither, in evil luck to die!”
When Predrag heard, he questioned from the fir tree on high:
“Who art thou, wounded hero, and of what race art thou?”
Said Nenad: “Foh! and wherefore thereof dost thou question now? Dost thou seek a maiden in marriage? In faith I will give thee none!
I am the hero Nenad, and my mother liveth alone,
And I have but one born brother, a brother born ‘Most Dear,’
And in a bitter hour I sought to find him here,
That thereby at last should pass away the weight of my living woe;
And I came on evil fortune and life’s very overthrow.”
Predrag heard, and let fall the shafts; in bitter terror he was;
He ran to the wounded hero and laid him on the grass:
“Is it thou, my brother Nenad? I am Predrag, thy brother dear.
Canst thou mend of the wound? My raiment I will rend in pieces here,
And heal thee well, and bandage thee with the strips of linen fine.”
And the wounded Nenad answered: “Is it thou, brother mine? Glory to God the highest, that I have looked on thee.
The burden of my living woe is passed away from me.
I cannot mend, but of my hurt bloodguiltless mayst thou be!”
So Nenad spake, and thereupon forth his strong spirit went,
And Predrag lifted up his voice with a miserable lament:
“Ah, Nenad, my fair splendid sun, early for me didst thou rise,
And early set! Ah, basil flower of my green paradise,
Early didst thou bloom, and early didst thou wither here for me!”
From the scabbard at his girdle he wrenched the poniard free;
Right through his heart he plunged it. The blood ran swift and red;
Down brother fell by brother: the dead lay with the dead.

Sister And Brother

NINE dear sons and a daughter, a mother bore and bred;
She reared them up till they were grown and the sons were ready to wed,
And the maiden ripe for marriage. And straightway asked for her
Three suitors, a ban, and a marshal, and a neighbor villager.
To the neighbor the mother would give her, but her brethren to the man
From over sea would give her. They said to her: “Marry the ban,
The great lord from beyond the sea. In every month of the year
We will come, and every week in the month, to see thee, sister dear.”
The sister obeyed them, and the ban from over sea she wed.
But behold a marvel! God’s pestilence struck her nine brethren dead,
And the solitary mother was left. So passed three years.
In her grief little Yélitsa the sister mourned with tears:
“Dear God, a mighty marvel! What great sin have I done
To my brethren, that of all of them cometh to me not one?”
The wives of her lord’s brethren reviled her sharp enow:
“O wife of our lords’ brother, a wanton one art thou,
Hateful unto thy brethren now hast thou come to be,
That not one of thy brethren comes here to visit thee.”
And little sister Yélitsa wept much both day and night;
But the dear God, in mercy, took pity on her plight,
And sent forthwith two angels: “Go down, ye angels of mine, To the white tomb of Yovan, the youngest of the nine;
Breathe light upon him with your breath; from the tomb frame him a steed;
From the earth make cakes for the festival all ready to his need;
Of his shroud make gifts, and get him in readiness to appear
Upon his wedding visit at the house of his sister dear.”
To the white tomb of Yovan the angels of God made speed;
They breathed upon him with their breath; from the tomb they framed him a steed,
And cakes from the earth for the festival all ready to his need;
Of his shroud they made gifts, and got him in readiness to appear
Upon his wedding visit at the house of his sister dear.
Swiftly went Yovan the feeble. When the house before him lay
His sister saw, and to meet him came forth a little way;
And O her tears fell bitter, all for her sorrow’s sake!
They spread their arms, and each other kissed, and sister to brother spake:
“Did ye not promise, brother, when ye gave me in marriage here,
That ye would come to see me every month in the year,
And every week in every month, to visit your sister dear?
But ye never came to see me, though three full years have fled.”
And little Yélitsa further unto her brother said:
“Why hast thou grown so dark, brother? ’Tis as though beneath the sod
Thou hadst been.” Said Yovan the feeble: “Be still, as thou lovest God.
A hard constraint is on me. I have wedded eight brothers well,
And served eight sisters by marriage; and, sister, it befell
That, when my brothers were married, we made nine houses white.
Therefore, my little sister, am I grown as black as night.”
And little sister Yélitsa got ready. She fashioned then
Gifts for her brethren and sisters; silken shirts for the men
She made, and, for her sisters, fair rings and bracelets fair.
And ever Yovan her brother besought her strongly there:
“Dear little sister Yélitsa, I prithee go not home,
Till on their wedding visit thy brethren to thee come.”
But Yélitsa would not turn back; her fair gifts she prepared.
Thence Yovan started homeward, and his sister with him fared.
When they were come to their home again, a white church stood thereby.
Said Yovan the feeble: “Sister, I prithee tarry nigh, Until I go behind the church; for here at the marrying
Of the fourth of our eight brethren, I lost my golden ring.
Let me go to seek it, sister.” To his tomb went Yovan straight, And little sister Yélitsa for Yovan there did wait.
She waited and sought him. Nigh the church a fresh grave she espied;
Suddenly she knew in sorrow that Yovan the weak had died.
Quickly she went to the white house. When she was come to the hall,
In the hollow rooms of the white house she heard a cuckoo call.
Nay, it was not a cuckoo blue, but her mother crying sore.
Yélitsa lifted up her voice as she came unto the door:
“Open the door, poor mother.” Said the mother thereunto:
“Get hence, thou pestilence of God, nine sons of mine that slew!
Their ancient mother, also, wilt thou smite stark and dead?”
And little sister Yélitsa lifted her voice and said:
“Poor mother, open now the door! No pestilence is here;
It is only little Yélitsa, and she is thy daughter dear.”
She opened the door. Each other they clasped their arms around,
Wailing like cuckoos. Mother and child fell dead upon the ground.

Muyo And Aliya

MUYO and Áliya were brothers, and nobly did they live;
Their very steeds and armor to each other would they give.
They came unto a turbid lake, and a duck went swimming by,
With golden wings; and Muyo let his gray falcon fly,
And Áliya a tame lanneret. Them happed the duck to slay.
Said Muyo: “The falcon took it.” But Áliya said, “Nay,
’Twas the lanneret.” Then was Muyo sore cast down in that place. They seated them ’neath a green fir to drink the wine apace,
And sleep and the wine o’ercame them. They were seen of three vilas white;
Then said the oldest: “Here be now two noble heroes of fight. I will give an hundred sequins to whomsoever of you
Shall make the heroes quarrel.” Then forth the youngest flew On her white wings, and settled on the ground by Muyo’s head;
And over face and forehead the bitter tears she shed.
Burned Muyo’s face; as he were mad, he leaped at his brother’s side.
When he looked, he saw the damsel; to his brother then he cried:
“Arise now, Áliya, my brother! Let us hasten home away.”
Up leaped the Turk: “Nay, brother, now may a plague thee slay!
Now hast thou got two damsels, but there is none for me.”
Muyo was grieved; forth from his belt he wrenched the dagger free,
And there smote Áliya to the heart. He fell on the green grass;
But Muyo seized the milk-white steed, and threw behind the lass;
And unto his own homestead o’er the mountain did he ride.
Neighed the black steed of Áliya, and the wounded hero cried:
“O Muyo, brother and kinsman! turn back upon the way;
Take the black steed, lest masterless on the mountain side it neigh—
But thy fame shall be forever, as though thou hadst blinded thine eyes.”
Muyo turned back unto him, and took the steed likewise,
And threw the girl thereon. Across the mountains did they pass;
And when about the middle of the journey home he was,
He came upon a raven with the right wing gone from the side;
And unto the black raven he raised his voice and cried:
“Ho, raven! Without the black right wing, prithee how dost thou fare?”
And with a wail the raven gave answer to him there:
“Without my wing is it with me as without a brother to be;
As without Áliya, Muyo, is it even now with thee.”
Said the Turk to himself: “Ah, Muyo, alas for thy might this day!
If even the birds reproach me, what will my brethren say?”
Said the vila to him: “Muyo, return on thy track again.
Perchance I might heal thy brother; I was once a healer of men.”
Muyo turned back upon the track. When at the lake they were,
He looked behind at the black steed, but the maiden was not there.
By his friend he knelt, but the spirit had hasted to depart;
When he saw, he drew his dagger and thrust it through his heart.

The Miracle Of St. Nicholas

DEAR God, great marvel is it unseen wonders to behold!
In St. Paul’s white monastery were tables of the gold,
And all the saints in order were seated. At the head
Was the Thunderer Elijah; where the midst of the board was spread,
Were Máriya and Sava; at the bottom of the board
Were Holy Friday and Sunday. To the glory of Christ the Lord
To drink, and begin the festival, St. Nicholas stood up,
But he fell asleep in a little and in slumber dropped the cup.
It fell on the golden table, but broke not, nor spilled the wine.
Elijah then rebuked him: “Nicholas, brother mine, We have not slumbered, brother, though we drank cool wine ere now,
Nor dropped cups from our fingers. Why dost thou slumber so?”
Said St. Nicholas: “Elijah the Thunderer, let be! I closed my eyes for a little and a strange dream came to me.
There were three hundred cáloyers set sail on the blue sea,
And they bore sacrificial gifts to the famous Holy Height
Of Athos; yellow wax they bore and also incense white.
The wind arose among the clouds; the waves of the sea it smote,
To drown three hundred cáloyers. But they cried as from one throat:
‘Aid us, God and St. Nicholas! Come, wherever thou mayst be!’
And I aided them and the cáloyers came home again from sea;
Safe home came the three hundred, and O their hearts were light!
They bore the sacrificial gifts unto the Holy Height
Of Athos; yellow wax they bore and white incense as well.
At that time did I slumber, and the cup from my fingers fell.”

The Serpent Bridegroom

I WILL tell you a marvel, brethren, how the King of Budim was wed,
And nine full years passed over, yet there was no child to his bed.
Forth issued King Milútin; he went to the forest-close;
But God and fortune granted him not to strike the stags and does.
And his thirst was great; to a chilly spring Milútin went his way,
And drank the chilly water. Then down ’neath a fir he lay.
Three vilas of the hill came then, thereby their thirst to slake,
And gossip by the water; and the eldest of them spake:
“Harken, belovèd daughters! Harken me now, and hear!
Since the King of Budim married, now is it full nine year;
And yet no child of his heart hath he to cherish and hold dear.”
Said the vila also: “Of any herb doth either of you know,
By the virtue whereof, hereafter, his wife with child shall go?”
But the younger twain said nothing. Only the eldest said:
“If the king knew all my knowledge, he would gather every maid
In Budim, and before them the dry gold would he set,
Until their hands should have woven thereof a splendid net.
Down on the quiet Danube, he would throw the fair net in.
In it, a great fish would he take; and golden is every fin.
He would take the right fin from it; then back the fish would he throw,
And give the fin to the queen to eat. Straightway with child would she go.”
But King Milútin saw them, and heard whate’er was said;
And he went to the town of Budim and gathered every maid
In Budim, and before them the good dry gold he set,
Until their hands had woven thereof a splendid net.
Down on the quiet Danube he threw the fair net in.
In it he took a mighty fish, and golden was every fin.
He took the right fin from it; and back the fish did he throw;
He gave the fin to his queen to eat. Straightway with child did she go.
A year she carried her burden; and then the time came on
Of the bringing forth of the kingly child, but she did not bear a son.
Nay, a fierce serpent was it! On the earth when it did fall,
Straightway the serpent crept away through a crevice in the wall.
And straight the queen departed; unto the king she spake:
“For the child of thy heart, it is hard, O king, to be merry for his sake.
No son but a serpent! What time on the earth the snake did fall,
Forthwith the serpent crept away through a crevice in the wall.”
Then said the king: “Now glory to God for his gift’s sake.”—
Then seven years passed over. From the wall the serpent spake:
“Wherefore, thou King of Budim, findest thou no bride for me?”
Sore was Milútin troubled, but at length aloud said he:
“My serpent, my evil offspring, who will give a maid to a snake?”
But thus to him the serpent raised up his voice and spake:
“My father, the King of Budim, do thou saddle Swallow, and wend
To the tsar. He will give thee a maid for me in the city of Prizrend.”
When the King of Budim heard it, he saddled Swallow, the steed;
There went unto a hero, a hero then indeed!
He came to the city of Prizrend. When he came ’neath the tsar’s tower,
The tsar looked down upon him, and saw him in that hour.
The tsar came down unto him, and in the open square
The heroes spread out wide their arms, and kissed each other there,
And each asked how fared the other. The tsar the king did lead
To the palace; to the new stable the servants took the steed.
For three white days with yellow wine their thirst the kings did slake,
Till they had ta’en their fill thereof, and then the brandy spake.
Sore was the King of Budim by his embassy distressed.
The Tsar of Prizrend saw it, and thus the king addressed:
“I conjure thee, King of Budim; what trouble troubles thee,
That thou art distressed in spirit before my lords and me?”
The king to the tsar spake likewise: “O tsar of Prizrend, hear! When I married, no son of my heart was born for the space of full nine year.
When that their term was over, and the nine year course was run,
To me was born a serpent instead of a little son;
And, at its birth, unto the earth did the fierce serpent fall,
And forthwith the serpent crept away through a crevice in the wall.
When seven years were over, therefrom did the serpent call:
‘Wherefore, thou King of Budim, dost thou find no bride for me?’
And unto the fierce serpent I answered finally:
‘My serpent, my evil offspring, who will give a maid to a snake?’
But thereupon the serpent lifted his voice and spake:
“ ‘My father, the King of Budim, do thou saddle Swallow and wend
To the tsar. He will give thee a maid for me in the city of Prizrend.’
“And tsar, a wretch am I in this. But I labored and came from afar.”
And unto the king in answer outspake at last the tsar:
“Hearest thou, King of Budim? To Budim for me thou shalt go.
There shalt thou ask the serpent in the wall, whether or no
He will lead the wooers from Budim to Prizrend through the land,
So that no sun shall warm them, nor dew upon them stand.
If in such wise the serpent will venture them to lead,
Then for a bride to the serpent I will give the maid indeed.”
When the King of Budim heard it, forth was steed Swallow led.
He threw himself on the back of the steed, and forth away he sped,
Over the level country, like a star in the lucid sky.
And the king thought within him, when Budim he came nigh:
“Alas! In the name of God the One, now whither shall I wend,
To give to the serpent in the wall the greetings the tsar doth send?”
Before the gates of Budim but a little space was he.
Spake the serpent: “My father, gave the tsar his maiden unto me?”
Said the king: “My evil offspring, if thou darest, snake, to wend With the crowd of gay-clad wooers from Budim to Prizrend,
So that no sun shall warm them, nor dew upon them stand,
The tsar will lightly surrender the maiden to thy hand.
But if the crowd of wooers thou wilt not venture to lead,
No maiden of his whatever will the tsar give thee indeed.”
But the serpent said: “The wooers, now get them ready to hand. We will go hence for the maiden; I will lead them through the land,
So that no sun shall warm them, nor dew upon them stand.”
They gathered a host of wooers, a thousand with all speed;
They came to the king’s courtyard. They brought forth Swallow the steed;
Alone in the courtyard stood the steed. Then the quick heralds cried:
“Make ready, gay-clad wooers! Make ready, groom of the bride!”
And when in the wall’s crevice the serpent heard the call,
Forthwith crawled down the serpent from the crevice in the wall;
By the knee he gripped the charger; on the saddle he coiled and lay.
Then out through Budim the city they hastened on their way.
From Budim to Prizrend a dark blue cloud drave o’er them through the land,
So that no sun could warm them, nor dew upon them stand.
When they came to Prizrend, they led their steeds through the tsar’s courtyard there;
But the serpent guided not Swallow that went alone through the square.
Gloriously the tsar welcomed them with gifts that were splendid indeed,
To every wooer a shirt of silk, to the groom a hawk and a steed,
And moreover the maiden of Prizrend. Then the quick heralds cried:
“Make ready, wooers, and groomsman, and bringer of the bride!
Make ready, maiden of Prizrend! It is time for us to ride.”
The wooers and the maiden, they mounted one and all.
When the serpent heard it, down he came from the crevice in the wall;
He gripped the charger by the knee; on the saddle he coiled and lay.
Then out through Prizrend the city they hastened on their way,
But evermore above them drave on the dark blue cloud.
The wooers spurred their horses, until they trampled proud;
And thereupon the serpent on Swallow that did ride,
He made the charger trample on the pavement in his pride.
He goaded him so fiercely, that the steed from end to end
Hath ruined all the pavement in the city of Prizrend.
Plague strike on it! In twelve full years the masons scarce will mend
The damage that upon that time unto the tsar was done.
And merrily and with good heart to Budim they were gone,
And anew the marriage festival they held a full week more,
And solemnized it duly until the rites were o’er.
Then each returned unto the house, and the serpent to the wall,
And the king remained a season within the council-hall.
Time came to bring together the bridegroom and the bride.
They brought her to the tower; to the highest room they hied;
They left her in the highest room. At the middle of the night
There was a sound of voices in the chamber in the height;
And the Lady Queen in the tower stole on from floor to floor,
Till she reached the highest story; then she opened the chamber door.
What saw she in the chamber? A mighty marvel therein!
On a cushion in the chamber, there lay a serpent-skin;
On the pillow a good hero in slumber deep was laid;
And the damsel out of Prizrend, he held the lovely maid.
A mother has joy of her children. She stole the serpent-skin;
She bore it to the living fire, and swiftly threw it in.
To the king, her lord and master, she ran forth hastily:
“O king, upon this hour it is well with thee and me!
I went to the high chamber, and opened the door. Therein
On a cushion in the chamber there lay a serpent-skin;
On the pillow a good hero in slumber deep was laid;
The damsel out of Prizrend, he held the lovely maid.
And forthwith from the chamber I stole the serpent-skin,
And took it to the living fire, and quickly threw it in.”
“What is this, wife? May the serpent now seize thee and devour!”
And they hastened forth together to the summit of the tower.
What saw they? A mighty marvel! On the pillow a hero dead;
The maid of Prizrend embraced him. She lifted her voice and said:
“Alas! In the name of the one God, I am widowed and alone!
My mother, for me—God slay thee!—little enow hast thou done,
And this woe hast thou brought upon thyself.” So the mother lost her son.
We give you the song, but God on high gives health unto the wise!
Our fathers lied unto us, and we repeat their lies.

The Wife Of Hasan Aga

WHAT shows white in the wood? A flock of swans or a bank of snow?
Swans would have flown and a snow bank would have melted long ago.
It is not snow, nor a milk-white swan, but Hasan Aga’s tent;
Sore wounded was he. His mother and sister to him went;
For very shame his wife came not. When his wounds were healed aright,
He charged his faithful wife withal: “Come not into my sight; Await me never, woman, my fair white house within;
Nor yet do thou abide me in the houses of my kin.”
When the faithful woman heard it, sad was her heart indeed.
Suddenly from the house she heard the trampling of the steed.
To the window she ran, to break her neck by leaping down from the tower;
But the daughters of Hasan Aga pursued her in that hour:
“Return to us, dear mother! Our father comes not,” said they;
“It is thy brother, our uncle, Pintórovich the Bey.”
The wife of Hasan Aga, to her brother’s breast she came:
“Ah, brother, from my children five doth he send me! It is shame!”
Naught said the bey; in his silken pouch forthwith his hand he thrust
For a bill of divorce that granted her her dower held in trust,
And bade her go to her mother. When the purport thereof she wist,
Forthwith upon the forehead her two fair sons she kissed,
And on their rosy cheeks she kissed her little daughters twain.
But the little son in the cradle she could not leave for pain.
Her brother took the lady’s hand; and hard it was to lead
That wretched woman from her babe, but he threw her on the steed;
He brought her unto the white house, and there he took her in.
A little while, but scarce a week, she stayed among her kin.
Good is the matron’s parentage, men seek her in marriage withal;
But the great Cadi of Imoski desires her most of all.
“So should I not desire it,” imploringly she said.
“Brother, I prithee, give me not to any to be wed,
That my heart break not with looking on my children motherless.”
But the bey no whit he cared at all because of her distress;
To the great Cadi of Imoski he will give her to be wed.
Still the matron with her brother most miserably she pled,
That he a milk-white letter to the cadi should prepare,
And send it to the cadi: “The matron greets thee fair, And implores thee: when that thou hast brought the wooers from every side,
And when thou comest to her white house, do thou bring a veil for the bride,
That she see not by the aga’s house her children motherless.”
When the letter came to the cadi, with pomp and lordliness
He gathered many wooers; ah, nobly did they come!
And splendidly the wooers they brought the fair bride home!
But when they were by the aga’s house, forth looked her daughters fair,
And her two sons came before her, and spoke to their mother there:
“Return with us, dear mother, to eat with us again!”
When the wife of Hasan Aga heard, she spake to the groomsman then:
“Brother in God, my groomsman, stop the steeds, of gentleness,
By my house, that I may give fair gifts to my children motherless.”
They checked the steeds at the house for her. She gave her children gifts;
To either son a gilded knife, to her daughters fair long shifts,
To her babe in the cradle a garment in a bit of linen tied.
When Hasan Aga saw it, to his two sons he cried:
“Hither, my children motherless! and from her stand apart!
Pity and mercy hath she none within her stony heart!”
She heard. Her face smote on the ground in the deep of her distress,
And her soul departed as she saw her children motherless.

The Serbian heroic ballads were preserved for centuries in oral tradition and collected in writing primarily by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić (1787–1864), the Serbian linguist, folklorist, and language reformer. His collections — Mala prostonarodna slaveno-serbska pesnarica (1814) and Srpske narodne pjesme (1841–1862) — established the canon of the tradition. Goethe translated Karadžić's ballads into German; Jakob Grimm wrote a study of Serbian poetry. The tradition attracted Prosper Mérimée, Walter Scott, and others. The Kosovo ballads became central to Serbian national identity and were invoked throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

D.H. Low's translation was published by John Murray, London, 1922.

Archival text. Transcribed from the sacred-texts.com digitisation of the 1922 John Murray edition.

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