Vseslav's
fate recalled
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In the seventh age of Troyan,
Vseslav cast lots
for the damsel he wooed.
By subterfuge,
propping himself upon mounted
troops,
he vaulted toward the town of Kiev
and touched with the staff [of his lance]
the Kievan golden throne.Like a fierce beast
he leapt away from them [the troops?],
at midnight,
out of Belgorod,
having enveloped himself
in a blue mist.
Then at morn,
he drove in his battle axes,
opened the gates of Novgorod,
shattered the glory of Yaroslav,
[and] loped like a wolf
to the Nemiga from Dudutki.
On the Nemiga the spread sheaves
are heads,
the flails that thresh
are of steel,
lives are laid out on the threshing floor,
souls are winnowed from bodies.
Nemiga's gory banks are not sowed
goodly-
sown with the bones of Russia's sons.
Vseslav the prince judged men;
as prince, he ruled towns;
but at night he prowled
in the guise of a wolf.
From Kiev, prowling, he reached,
before the cocks [crew], Tmutorokan.
The path of Great Hors,
as a wolf, prowling, he crossed.
For him in Polotsk
they rang for matins early
at St. Sophia the bells;
but he heard the ringing in Kiev.
Although, indeed, he had
a vatic soul in a doughty body,
he often suffered calamities.
Of him vatic Boyan
once said, with sense, in the tag:
"Neither the guileful nor the skillful,
neither bird [nor bard],
can escape God's judgment."
Alas! The Russian land shall moan
recalling her first years
and first princes!
Vladimir of yore, he,
could not be nailed to the Kievan hills.
Now some of his banners
have gone to Rurik and others to David,
but their plumes wave in counterturn.
Lances hum on the Dunay.
The voice of Yaroslav's daughter is
heard;
like a cuckoo, [unto the field?]
unknown,
early she calls. |
