Chapter I: WISH the happy time were nigh,

When youths are sold, that I might buy.
But for an azure-eyed _Milinar_, {219}
I would not give a single dinar,
Though for a raven-black eyed youth,
A thousand golden coins, in truth.
Alas! alas!—and is it true?
My own fair youth has eyes of blue;
Yes! they are blue—yet dear to me—
Will he forgive my levity?
Ye maidens! pray him to forgive me;
Nay! spare me now—and rather leave me
To tell him “I am yours”—and smile
In fond affection all the while.

THE WIDOW.

ROSE! O smile upon the youth no longer;
He, in his impatience to be wedded,
Chose a widow for his years unsuited,
And where’er she goes, where’er she tarries,
She is mourning for her ancient husband.

“O my husband! first and best possession!
Happy were the days we spent together!
Early we retired and late we waken’d.
Thou didst wake me kissing my white forehead,
‘Up, my heart! the sun is high in heaven,
And our aged mother is arisen.’”

ALARMS.

FAIREST youths are here—but not the fairest!
Could I hear him now, or could I see him,—
Could I know if he be sick, or faithless!
Were he sick, my ears would rather hear it,
Than that he had loved another maiden.
Sickness may depart, and time restore him,—
If enamour’d,—never! never! never!

FOND WIFE.

O! if I were a mountain streamlet,
I know where I would flow;
I’d spring into the crystal Sava,
Where the gay vessels go,
That I might look upon my lover—
For fain my heart would know
If, when he holds the helm, he ever
Looks on my rose, and thinks
Of her who gave it;—if the nosegay
I made of sweetest pinks
Is faded yet, and if he wear it.
On Saturday I cull
To give him for a Sabbath present
All that is beautiful.

UNHAPPY BRIDE.

THE maiden gave the ring she wore
To him who gave it her before:
“O take the ring,—for thou and thine
Are hated,—not by me,—but mine:—
Father and mother will not hear thee,
Brother and sister both forswear thee:
Yet, think not, youth,—O think not ill
Of her who needs must love thee still!
I am a poor unhappy maid,
Whose path the darkest clouds o’ershade;
I sowed sweet basil, and there grew
On that same spot the bitterest rue:
And wormwood, that unholy flower,
Is now alone my marriage dower;
The only flower which they shall wear
Who to the maiden’s marriage come,
When for my marriage altar there
The guests shall find the maiden’s tomb.”

LAST PETITION.

UPON her mother’s bosom lay
Young Mira, and she pined away.
’T was in her own maternal shed;
And thus the anxious mother said:—
“What ails thee, tell me, Mira! pray?”

“O ask me not, my mother dear!
I feel that death approaches near;
I shall not rise from this my bed;
But, mother mine! when I am dead—
O mother mine! call round me all
My playmates to my funeral:
And let the friends I loved receive
The little gifts that I shall leave;
Then let me sleep in peace beneath.—
There’s one, my mother, I should grieve
To be divided from in death.
Then call around me priests divine,
And pious pilgrims, mother mine!
The forehead of thy dying daughter
Steep in the rose’s fragrant water.
And, mother, let my forehead be
Dried with the rose-leaves from the tree;
And pillow not thy daughter’s head,
O mother! with the common dead;
But let me have a quiet tomb
Adjacent to my Mirjo’s home,
And near my Mirjo’s nightly bed;
So when he wakes his thoughts shall dwell
With her he loved, and loved so well.”

LOVE FOR A BROTHER.

THE sun sank down behind the gold-flower’d hill;
The warriors from the fight approach the shore:
There stood young George’s wife, serene and still:
She counted all the heroes o’er and o’er,
And found not those she loved—though they were three:—
Her husband, George; her marriage friend, another,
Who late had led the marriage revelry;
The third, her best-beloved, her only brother.

Her husband, he was dead; she rent her hair
For him.—Her friend was gone,—for him she tore
Her cheeks.—Her only brother was not there:
For him she pluck’d her eye-balls from their bed.
Her hair grew forth as lovely as before;
Upon her cheeks her former beauties spread;
But nothing could her perish’d sight restore:
Nought heals the heart that mourns a brother dead.

REBUKE.

“MAIDEN! hast thou seen my steed?”
‘Faithless one! not I, indeed!
But I heard that thou hadst tied him
To the mountain-maple tree;
When a stranger pass’d beside him,
Full of scorn and rage was he:
With his hoofs the ground he beat;
Of his master’s guilt he knew.
Not one maiden did he cheat:
No; that master cheated two:
One has borne a wretched child;
One with grief and shame is wild!’

MAN’S FAITH.

SAY! dost thou remember when under the vine,
Thy tears fell in streams on the breast of thy maid;
When thy heart burst in joy as I own’d thee for mine?
Alas! for the maiden whose peace is betray’d,
By the tears and the vows of a falsehood like thine!
As the changeable sky—now o’erclouded, now bright,
Is the faith of thy race—their language to-day,
“I will wed thee to-morrow, my love and my light!”
To-morrow—“Let’s wait till the harvest’s away.”
The harvest is ended, the winter is nigh,
And another maid dwells in their hearts and their eye.

MAIDEN’S AFFECTION.

“BLACK is the night—an outcast lad
Is wandering in our village, mother!
Thy daughter’s heart is very sad,
Sad even to death! He has no home:
O give him ours, he has no other,
And bid the lad no longer roam!”
‘Nay! daughter, let this outcast stray,
He is a proud and city youth;
Will ask for wine at break of day,
And costly meats at eve, forsooth,
And for his city-tutor’d head
Will want a soft and stately bed.’

“O mother! In God’s name divine,
Give the poor lad a shelter now:
My eyes shall serve instead of wine,
For costly meats my maiden brow.
My neck shall be his honey comb:
His bed the dewy grass shall be,
And heaven his stately canopy.
His head shall rest upon my arm.
O mother! give the youth a home,
And shelter, shelter him from harm.”

MARRIAGE SONGS.

THE MARRIAGE LEADER.

“MAKE ready! make ready,”
To his sister the youth is repeating;
“Make ready my steed for the wedding,
O sister! the young Doge {231} is waiting:
I’m bid to the wedding, I’m summon’d to guide
To the wedding the maiden—the Doge’s young bride.”

APPROACHING BRIDEGROOM.

WHAT is shining on the verdant mountain?
Sun—or moon—so beautifully shining?
’Tis not sun, or moon that shines so brightly,
’Tis the bridegroom {232} hasting to the marriage.

PARTING OF THE BRIDE.

SWEETEST of maidens! O be still,
Be silent—prithee weep not now,
Thy mother she will weep—wilt fill
Her sorrowing eyes with tears, for thou
Wilt leave thy cherish’d home ere long:
And when thy young companions go
To the fresh stream, amidst the throng
She’ll seek thee—will she find thee? No!

DEPARTURE OF THE WEDDING GUESTS.

O THOU young bridegroom, thou rose in its beauty,
Lo! we have brought thee a rosemary branch;
And if the rosemary branch should decay,
Thine will the shame be, the sorrow be ours.
Scatter the rosemary leaves o’er thy way;
Let not destruction disparage its flowers.

TO THE BRIDE, WHEN THE MARRIAGE HOOD {233} IS FIRST PUT ON.

MAID! from a distant forest tree,
A verdant leaf is blown to thee;
And that green leaf has fixed it now,
In the green garland on thy brow:
The garland green, that we have bound,
Maiden! thy auburn ringlets round:
O no! it is no leaf, that we
Have braided in a wreath for thee;
’Tis the white hood that thou must wear,
The token of domestic care:
Thou hast no mother now—another,
A stranger must be called thy mother;
And sister-love thy heart must share,
With one who was not born thy brother.

AT THE MARRIAGE.

AN apple tree at Ranko’s door was growing,
Its trunk was silver, golden were its branches;
Its branches golden, and of pearls its foliage,
Its leaves were pearls, and all its apples corals.
And many dovelets, on the branches seated,
Coo’d in their fond affection to each other;
Coo’d loudly, and they pluck’d the pearls—one, only
One, only one was silent, one was silent—
It coo’d not, pluck’d no pearls from off the branches:
That one was terrified by Ranko’s mother:
“Begone—gray dovelet! thou art an intruder!
Was not the apple-tree by Ranko planted?
By Ranko planted, and by Ranko watered,
That it might shade the guests at Ranko’s marriage,
Shade all his guests beneath its joyous branches.”

* * * * *

THE END.

Footnotes

{0a} Instit. Ling. Salv. p. 154.

{0b} The origin of this word is rather oriental than Roman. It is the Persian Shah, and not the Cæsar of Rome, nor the Kaiser of Germany.

{0c} The best sources of Servian history are:

_George Brankovich’s_ History of Servia, MS. in Karlovitz.

_Julinac’s_ vvedencie v istoria slaveno-serbskag Naroda.

_Raicz’s_ Kratkaia Serblii, Rassii, Bosny i Ramy Istoria; and by the same author, Istoria Slavenskich Narodov, &c.

_Von Engel’s_ Geschichte von Servien und Bosnien.

_Neshkovicz’s_ Istoria Slaveno-bolgarskog Naroda, and _Davidovicz’s_ Jeianija k Istoria Srbskoga Naroda. See Schaffarik’s Slawische Sprache und Literatur, p. 196.

{0d} Geschichte der Slawischen Sprache und Literatur, p. 201.

{0e} Grimm’s Introduction to Vuk’s Servian Grammar, p. x.

{0f} Adelung, who has only given a fragment of the Servian language in his Mithridates, calls the Servian and Bosnian dialects “the clearest and purest of all the Illyrian tongues.”

{0g} The Servians possess a translation of the Bible, made in the ninth century, written in the _Pannonian_ dialect, which is now obsolete. This Bible, however, has served, and still serves, as a standard of the Servian language; and its authority has been rather increased than diminished from the circumstance of its phraseology being far removed from what is deemed the vulgar idiom. That the vulgar idiom, however, is amply sufficient for all the common purposes of language, and for the communication even of the most exquisite shades of thought and feelings, is sufficiently exemplified.

{0h} He was born in 1645. He represented the princes of Transylvania at Constantinople, where he served Leopold so faithfully, that the latter determined to unite in his person the Hungarian and the Servian crowns. It was he who, associated with the archbishop of Ipek, led 36,000 Servian families into Lower Hungary, and, as a reward for his exertions, he was made a baron (Freiherr), and afterwards a count; but ere long he became the object of suspicion; he was confined at Vienna, banished as a state prisoner to Eger in Bohemia, where he wrote his History of Servia, and died in 1711.

{0i} He frequently refers to the Servian ballads as historical authorities, though he seems to have formed no correct estimate of their poetical merits.

{0j} Dr. Vuk is at the present hour, I believe, a member of the household of the Hospodar of Servia, and engaged in collecting a farther supply of popular poetry.

Dr. Vuk has also published Narodne Srpske Pripovijetke. A collection of Servian tales. Vienna, 1821.

A Comparison between the Servian and other Slavonic Idioms. Vienna, 1822.

A Specimen of a Translation of the New Testament into Servian. Vienna, 1824.

{0k} Göthe, Ueber Kunst und Alterthum, V. ii. 40–42.

{0l} Among all the Slavonic tribes, many vestiges of idolatry are yet found. The songs with which a wedded pair are accompanied to and from the church contain frequently allusions to _Lada_ (the Slavonian Venus), and the bride wears a wreath of _wasilok_ and _ruta_ (evergreens), and is called a _Queen_.

{0m} Serbische Hochzeitslieder. Pest. 1826.

{3} A ruined fortress on the banks of the river Morava.

{7} _White_ is a favourite Slavonic appellation. In the Russian popular ballad of “Vladimiz and his Round Table,” _White Kiev_ is the title constantly given to that capital, and the lower Russians almost always call Moscow, “Mother Moscow, the _white-walled_.”

{9} “Thou in the Lord my sister,”—“Thou in God my brother,”—“Mother in God,” are common Servian expressions.

{15a} Predrag—the well-beloved.

{15b} Nenad—the unhoped-for,—the unexpected.

{25} Governor of a province—commander.

{27} An extensive plain near the Narenta, in Herzegovina, on which is a village of the same name.

{28} I pay cheerful homage to the poetical beauties of the translation of this ballad in “The Servian Minstrelsy,” quoted in the Quarterly Review, No. LXIX. p. 71. The tasteful author has no doubt greatly embellished the original; but the words in italics are not to be found there.

Stately was she, as the _mountain_ pine tree;
White and rosy-colour _intermingled_
Were her cheeks, as _she had kiss’d_ the dawning;
_Dark and flashing_, like two noble jewels,
Were her eyes; _and over them were_ eyebrows,
_Thin and black_, like leeches _from the fountain_;
_Dark the lashes too_; _although the_ ringlets
_Hung above_ in clusters _rich and golden_.
_Softer_ were her eyelids _than_ the pinions
Of the swallow _on the breeze reposing_;
Sweeter were the maiden’s lips _than_ honey;
_White_ her teeth, as pearls _in ocean ripen’d_;
White her breasts, two little _panting_ wild doves;
_Soft_ her speaking, as the wild dove’s murmur;
_Bright_ her smiling, as the _burst_ of sunshine.

{29a} In Bosnia, on the river Una.

{29b} A town on the frontiers of Dalmatia.

{32} Brother-in-law. The Servians have a number of words to express the shades of relationship. _Brat_ is brother; _Sever_, the husband’s brother; _Shura_, the wife’s brother; _Snaa_, the brother’s wife; _Pobratim_, the adopted friend.

{36a} A large commercial town on the river Narenta.

{36b} “Salve!” the Mahommedan greeting.

{38} A translation very slightly varying from Talvj’s is given by Göthe, in his _Kunst und Alterthum_, Vol. V. ii. p. 60.

{39} Ovo _j’glava_ jednog _gospodara_, the head of a Hospodar; man of high rank.

{40a} Scupi, in Macedonia.

{40b} Vidin, a large fortress in Bulgaria, on the Danube. Nisha, a large fortified city on the Servian frontier.

{42a} Ipek, a city in Albania.

{42b} Tzarigrader, Zarigrad, the city of the Tzar—Constantinople. The four Greek patriarchs are those of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria. Ipek (in Servia) was the fifth patriarchate, though the first in the eyes of the Servians. Vassilenski is no other than Constantinople (Vselenski), though constantly confounded by the uninstructed.

{43} All these are Sirmian convents. Krushedol was founded in 1509, by Bishop Maximus Brankovicz, and is celebrated in many Servian legends. It is famous for its collection of reliques.

{44} A renowned convent built by the Tzar Lazar, on the Ressava. It was destroyed by the Turks in 1435.

{45} _Ban_, a title frequently used in Servia. Its general acceptation is governor. It may be derived from _Pan_, the old Slavonic for _Lord_.

{55} Conductors of the marriage festival.

{57} The translation of this poem by Goethe, who disclaims any knowledge of the original, is perfectly admirable. It first directed attention to the literature of Servia. His account of it is as follows: “It is now fifty years since I translated the Lament of the noble Bride of Hassan Aga, which is found in the Travels of the Abbé Fortis, and in the Morlachian Notices of the Countess Rosenberg. I rendered it from the French version, preserving the rhythmus and the measure of the original.” When Vuk printed his first collection of Servian songs, Goethe was greatly delighted at finding it among them. It was omitted in his other editions, because Vuk had not himself heard it in the Servian language; and it was his determination to publish nothing for whose authenticity he could not himself personally vouch.

{58} A translation of this ballad, by Grimm, will be found in the fourth volume of Goethe’s _Für Kunst und Alterthum_, p. 66.

{59a} Kavavlashka.

{59b} Karabogdanska.

{62} Belgrad.

{63} Chekmel-Juprija.

{64a} Scutari.

{64b} King, monarch.

{64c} Governor.

{65} Dok ne najesh dva slichna imena
Dok ne najesh _Stojy_ i _Stojana_.

These are both Servian names, and the point of the ballad must be seen in their affinity to the verb _stojiti_, to stand, _stojnitza_, standing (statio).

{74} Neimar.—Master.

{75a} A small stream of liquid carbonate of lime is still shown on the walls of Scutari, as evidence of the truth of this story.

{75b} A translation of the poem by Grimm is to be found in the 2d part of the fifth volume of the _Kunst und Altherthum_, p. 24, and Goethe observes, that it is equally remarkable for its polish and for its barbarously superstitious sentiment. It represents a human victim as murdered in its most disgusting shape. A young woman is immured in order that the fortress of Scutari may be built; and the sacrifice seems less accountable, since oriental usages have generally only required the entombment of consecrated pictures or talismans in order to make castles and asylums impregnable.

{76} The _Polje Kossova_. Amselfeld (German) or Field of Thrushes, was the scene of Servia’s heaviest calamity, and is the subject of her most melancholy songs.

{77} A church in the camp.

{81a} Gromovnik Ilija.

{81b} I napija u slavu Ristovu.

{84a} Erdelska Banitza. The wife of the seven-city’d (Transylvanian) Ban.

{84b} Kalpak—the Hungarian cap.

{95a} Adrianople.

{95b} A commercial town in Servian Macedonia, where Dushan built a palace. It was the abode of Marko.

{98} Grlo te boleto!—literally, “May thy neck ache!”

{99} Starog Krvnika.

{101} A large water vessel.

{103} Sable cap.

{104a} _Iguman_, _ἡγουμενος_. Hegumenos cœnobii.

{104b} _Svetogortza_, Holy Mountain, Mount Athos.

{105} Of the Servian heroes, _Marko_ (ob. 1392) is without comparison the most illustrious. He (says Goethe) is represented as holding almost equal intercourse with the Adrianople sultan, and appears like a coarser representation of the Grecian Hercules or the Persian Rustan, though indeed in a most Scythian and barbaric shape. He mounts a steed (Sharaz), aged a century and a half, himself being three centuries old. He perishes at last in all the plenitude of his strength; nor is it easy to discover why.

{106} There are other accounts of Marko’s death, which are more accordant with historical records. Some state that he fell in a battle between the Turks and the Wallachian Voivode Mirscheta, which took place near the village of Rovine. Others say that he perished with his horse in a morass, in Krania, not far from the Danube; and the morass is yet pointed out, where the ruins of an old church are said to mark his burial-place. Others narrate that he was miraculously conveyed away from the field of battle above mentioned, to a mountain-cavern, where his wounds were healed, and where he still lives.—Talvj, vol. i. p. 285.

{112} Of this little poem, which Goethe calls “wonderful,” the following is an almost literal translation:—

Full of wine, white branches of the vine-trees
To white Buda’s fortress white had clung them:
No! it was no vine-tree, white and pregnant!
No! it was a pair of faithful lovers,
From their early youth betrothed together.
Now they are compell’d to part untimely.
One address’d the other at their parting,
“Go! my soul! burst out and leave my bosom!
Thou wilt find a hedge-surrounded garden,
And a red-rose branch within the garden;
Pluck a rose from off the branch, and place it,
Place it on thy heart, within thy bosom;
Then behold!—ev’n as that rose is fading,
Fades my heart within thy heart thou loved one!”
And thus answer’d then the other lover:
“Thou, my soul! turn back a few short paces.
There thou wilt discern a verdant forest;
In it is a fount of crystal water;
In the fount there is a block of marble;
On the marble block a golden goblet;
In the goblet thou wilt find a snow-ball.
Love! take out that snow-ball from the goblet,
Lay it on thy heart within thy bosom;
See it melt—and as it melts, my lov’d one!
So my heart within thy heart is melting.”

{116} _Smilia_, the _grapharium arenarium_, or “lovely love.” Also a woman’s name.

{117} This song is sung at the close of the harvest, when all the reapers are gathered together. Half as many reeds as the number of persons present are so bound that no one can distinguish the two ends which belong to the same reed. Each man takes one end of the reeds on one side, each of the women takes one end at the other:—The withes that bind the reeds are severed, and the couples that hold the same reed kiss one another.

{118} _Kalpak_—the fur cap of the Servians.

{120a} This is one of the songs sung at the breaking up of the company, addressed to the giver of the festival.

{120b} Mushko chedo (male child). The male sex are in Servia, as elsewhere, deemed entitled to more care and attention than the other.

{122} Herzegovina. S. Sabba.

{127a} Svszde, star, is of the feminine gender.

{127b} Sun is feminine in Servian.

{152} Smederevo—a Servian fortress on the Danube.

{153} The _Leech_, _Sanguisuga_; but in Servian there is no disagreeable association with the word. It is the name usually employed to describe the beauty of the eyebrows, as swallows’ wings are the simile used for eye-lashes. See p. 27.

{157a} _Vishnia_, the universal Sclavonian name of the Vistula cherry-tree. The _Cerasum apronianum_ of Linné.

{157b} The Vila nearly corresponds to the _Peri_ of the Persians, and the _Wöla_ of the Scandinavians.

{157c} _Radisha_, is the name of a man. _Radovanic_—joy.

{158} Lepota as the Servian word for _Beauty_.

{168} I shall be accused of having _decorated_ this. The translation is more free than I have generally given; but in order to show how little I have deviated from the thoughts of the original, I give the conclusion.

“Ako bi te u pjesmu pjevala,
Pjesma ide od usta do usta,
Pa che dochi u pogana usta;
Ako bi te u rukave vesla,
Rukav che se odma isderati,
Pa che tvoje ime poginuti;
Ako bi te u Knigu pisala
Kniga ide od ruke do ruke,
Pa che dochi u pogane ruke.” Vuk i. p. 200.

{176} One of the distinguishing titles of the Vila is that here given; _sabejam oblake_, the cloud-gatherer. Νεφεληγερετης, in the classical mythology, is one of the names of Jupiter.

{181a} Sarajevo—A large commercial city in Bosnia, on the river Miljazka.

{181b} The popular national dance of the Servians.

{185a} Bosiljak—the _Ocimum basilicum_ of Linné.

{185b} Sudija.

{190a} _Kaloper_. Balsamita vulgaris. Linné.

{190b} _Bosiljak_, see p. 185.

{199} The cuckoo (kukavitza) according to Servian tradition, was a maiden who mourned so unceasingly for a dead brother, that she was changed into a bird, and thence continues without rest her melancholy note. A Servian girl who has lost a brother never hears a cuckoo without shedding tears.—“I a poor cuckoo,” is equivalent to “woe is me!”

{206} Lado, the vocative of _Lada_, the goddess of love, in the old Slavonian mythology. _Lado_! is a melancholy interjection in Servian, whereas _Lele_! the vocative of Lela, the god of love, has frequently a cheerful association: _Polela_ (after love), the goddess of marriage, is also sometimes apostrophised.

Talvj remarks, that _Ljad_, in Russ, signifies misfortune. In common parlance, _Lele mene_ (Servian) imports Woe is me!

{219} _Milinar_. The Miller.

{231} Wesely imagines that this expression has got introduced into Servian poetry by the influence of the interesting ballad on the marriage of Maximus Tzernojevich (see Quarterly Review for Dec. 1826). The intimate intercourse which existed between Servia and Venice may account for the phraseology.

{232} Original, _son-in-law_. I have only chosen a few of the songs used during the marriage festival. But a volume might be filled with them. Every step of the ceremony, which lasts many days, is accompanied by music and poetry. A very interesting description of it will be found in the introduction to Talvj’s second volume.

{233} Aulimarama.