Svyatoslav's
speech
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Then the great Svyatoslav
let fall a golden word
mingled with tears,
and he said:
"O my juniors, Igor and Vsevolod!
Early did you begin
to worry with swords the Kuman land,
and seek personal glory;
but not honorably you triumphed
for not honorably you shed
pagan blood.
Your brave hearts are forged of hard
steel
and proven in turbulence;
[but] what is this you have done
to my silver hoarness!"Nor do I see any longer
the sway of my strong,
and wealthy,
and multimilitant
brother Yaroslav —
with his Chernigov boyars,
with his Moguts, and Tatrans,
and Shelbirs, and Topchaks,
and Revugs, and Olbers;
for they without bucklers,
with knives in the legs of their boots,
vanquish armies with war cries,
to the ringing of ancestral glory.
"But you said:
Let us be heroes on our own,
let us by ourselves grasp the anterior
glory
and by ourselves share the posterior
one.
Now is it so wonderful, brothers,
for an old man to grow young?
When a falcon has moulted,
he drives birds on high:
he does not allow any harm
to befall his nest; but here is the trouble:
princes are of no help to me." |
