A Death Lament — from the 1882 Collection

This song is Song XL from the first volume of Образцы мордовской народной словесности (Samples of Mordovian Folk Literature), published in 1882 by the Orthodox Missionary Society of Kazan. The collection presents songs in the Erzya original with parallel Russian prose translations, gathered from Erzya Mordvin villages in what is now the Republic of Mordovia.

The lament is built on a single descending image. A vast field narrows to a mound, the mound to a birch tree, the birch to its two crowns — one white with viburnum, one red with raspberry. Beneath the tree, a feast is laid that no one will eat: white felt, copper jug, silver ladle, golden cup. And at the root of the birch, beneath the uneaten feast, lies a man struck down — his wife at his feet, his mother at his head, both crying out the same questions: How shall we lay out the body? How shall we bury the face? How shall we part from him?

The birch with two crowns is the world-tree of Mordvin cosmology — the axis connecting earth and sky, the sacred tree at which offerings were made and beneath which the dead were mourned. The two crowns may represent life and death, or the upper and lower worlds. The feast laid beneath the tree is the funeral feast — the copper, silver, and gold of the ritual vessels marking the passage between worlds. The song's power lies in its compression: nineteen lines contain an entire cosmology of grief.

This is the first English translation. The English is independently derived from the Erzya original, with the 1882 Russian parallel used for semantic verification of OCR-damaged passages.

A vast, a great field.
In the great field, a great mound.
On the mound, a white birch.
That birch with two crowns:
On one crown, the viburnum blooms.
On the other, raspberries glow red.
Beneath that birch, a table laid:
On the table, white felt;
On the felt, a copper jug;
In the jug, a silver ladle;
Beside the jug, a golden cup.
At the birch's root, a stricken man,
At the birch's root, a slain man!
At his feet, his wife weeps,
At his head, his mother wails:
"How shall we lay out his white body!
How shall we bury the apple of his face!
How shall we part from him!
From his very birth he was most worthy!" . . .

Colophon

Song XL from Образцы мордовской народной словесности, Выпуск 1: Песни на эрзянском и некоторые на мокшанском наречии (Samples of Mordovian Folk Literature, Volume 1: Songs in the Erzya and Some in the Moksha Dialect). Published by the Orthodox Missionary Society at Kazan, 1882. The collection was compiled from fieldwork among Erzya Mordvin communities in the Kazan governorate.

The Erzya title Хавто прясо килей (Khavto pryaso kiley) means "Two-topped birch" — кавто (two) + пря (head, crown) + килей (birch). The Russian parallel title reads Двухъ вершинъ берёза (Birch with Two Crowns).

The word умарь (umar') in line 17, translated "apple," is used as a term of beauty for the face — the "apple-face" of the dead man. The Erzya expression умарь тусозо (the apple of his appearance) appears in laments as a standard epithet for a beloved face.

Translated from Erzya Mordvin by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. The 1882 Russian parallel translation was consulted for OCR verification. The English follows the Erzya text.

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Source Text: Хавто прясо килей

Erzya Mordvin source text from Образцы мордовской народной словесности, Выпуск 1 (Kazan, 1882), Song XL. OCR from the Internet Archive digitisation (identifier: vyp_1_obraztcy_mordovskoi_narodnoi_slovesnosti__pesni_na_erzianskom_i_nekotorye_). Presented here for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.

Пошли неть, покшъ пакся.
Покшъ паксясонть покшъ губра.
Губрасть прясо ашо килейне.
Сэ килеесть кавто пирянзо:
5. Ве пир'ясонть калинатъ свѣтить.
Омбоцесэсіь малинатъ палыть.
Се килеесть ало таргапь столь:
Се столесть лангсо ашо ябуися;
Ябунсясть лангсо пижень яндава:
10. Се яндавасость сіянь кече;
Яндавасть ваксвэ сырнень стопка.
Килеесть корёнсо чавозь ломанъ,
Килеесть корёнсо маштозь ломанъ!
Пильгэ песэнзэ ранги полазо,
15. Пря песэнзэ лайши авазо:
„Кода пурнасынэкъ ашо тѣлазо!
Кода калмасывекъ умарь тусозо!
Кода явданокъ сонзо эстэда!
19. Пекъ удалакіпнось сонъ шачмадо!" . . .

Source Colophon

The Erzya Mordvin text above is from the 1882 Kazan collection, digitised and hosted on the Internet Archive. The collection uses pre-reform Russian orthography for both the Erzya transcription (in Cyrillic) and the parallel Russian translation. The OCR contains minor garbling; obvious errors have been noted but the text is reproduced as found.

The 1882 collection is the earliest substantial publication of Erzya Mordvin folk songs and is in the public domain.

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