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

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Boyan
apostrophized



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70
O Boyan, nightingale
of the times of old!
If you were to trill [your praise of]
these troops,
while hopping, nightingale,
over the tree of thought;
[if you were] flying in mind
up to the clouds;
[if] weaving paeans around these times,
[you were] roving the Troyan Trail,
across fields onto hills;
then the song to be sung of Igor,
that grandson of Oleg [, would be]:

"No storm has swept falcons across
wide fields;
flocks of daws flee toward the Great
Don";
or you might intone thus,
vatic Boyan, grandson of Veles:
"Steeds neigh beyond the Sula;
glory rings in Kiev;
trumpets blare in Novgorod[-Seversk];
banners are raised in Putivl."

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