The Song of Igor's Campaign,
Igor son of Svyatoslav and grandson of Oleg.

Great prince Vsevolod!
Do you not think of flying here from
afar
to safeguard the paternal golden
throne?
For you can with your oars
scatter in drops the Volga,
and with your helmets
scoop dry the Don.
If you were here,
a female slave would fetch
one nogata,
and a male slave,
one rezana;
for you can shoot on land live bolts-
[these are] the bold sons of Gleb!
You turbulent Rurik, and [you] David!
Were not your men's gilt helmets
afloat on blood?
Do not your brave knights roar like
bulls
wounded by tempered sabers
in the field unknown?
Set your feet, my lords,
in your stirrups of gold
to avenge the wrong of our time,
the Russian land,
and the wounds of Igor,
turbulent son of Svyatoslav.

Eight-minded Yaroslav of Galich!
You sit high on your gold-forged
throne;
you have braced the Hungarian
mountains
with your iron troops;
you have barred the [Hungarian] king’s
path;
you have closed the Danube's gates,
hurling weighty missiles over the clouds,
spreading your courts to the Danube.
Your thunders range
over lands;
you open Kiev's gates;
from the paternal golden throne
you shoot at sultans
beyond the lands.
Shoot [your arrows], lord,
at Konchak, the pagan slave,
to avenge the Russian land,
and the wounds of Igor,
turbulent son of Svyatoslav!

And you, turbulent Roman, and
Mstislav!
A brave thought
carries your minds to deeds.
On high you soar to deeds
in your turbulence,
like the falcon
that rides the winds
as he strives in turbulence
to overcome the bird.
For you have iron breastplates
under Latin helmets;
these have made the earth rumble,
and many nations-
Hins, Lithuanians, Yatvangians,
Dermners, and Kumans-
have dropped their spears
and bowed their heads
beneath those steel swords.

But already, Prince Igor,
the sunlight has dimmed,
and, not goodly, the tree sheds its
foliage.
Along the Ros and the Sula
the towns have been distributed;
and Igor's brave troops
cannot be brought back to life!
The Don, Prince, calls you,
and summons the princes to victory.
The brave princes, descendants of
Oleg,
have hastened to fight.
Ingvar and Vsevolod,
and all three sons of Mstislav,
six-winged [hawks?] of no mean brood!
Not by victorious sorts
did you grasp your patrimonies.
Where, then, are your golden helmets,
and Polish spears, and shields?
Bar the gates of the prairie
with your sharp arrows
to avenge the Russian land
and the wounds of Igor,
turbulent son of Svyatoslav.

No longer indeed does the Sula flow
in silvery streams
for [the defense of] the town of
Pereyaslavl;
and the Dvina, too,
flows marsh-like
for the erstwhile dreaded
townsmen of Polotsk
to the war cries of pagans.