horses was strewn with bones, and out of this sowing affliction will rise in the land of the Russians."
Then comes one of the best bits of early Russian poetry—the lamentations of Yaroslávna, Igor's wife, who waits for his return in the town of Putívl:
"The voice of Yaroslávna resounds as the complaint of a cuckoo; it resounds at the rise of the sunlight.
"I will fly as a cuckoo down the river. I will wet my beaver sleeves in the Káyala; I will wash with them the wounds of my prince—the deep wounds of my hero.
"Yaroslávna laments on the walls of Putivl.
"Oh, Wind, terrible Wind! Why dost thou, my master, blow so strong? Why didst thou carry on thy light wings the arrows of the Khan against the warriors of my hero? Is it not enough for thee to blow there, high up in the clouds? Not enough to rock the ships on the blue sea? Why didst thou lay down my beloved upon the grass of the Steppes?
"Yaroslávna laments upon the walls of Putívl.
"Oh, glorious Dniéper, thou hast pierced thy way through the rocky hills to the land of Pólovtsi. Thou hast carried the boats of Svyatosláv as they went to fight the Khan Kobyák. Bring, oh, my master, my husband back to me, and I will send no more tears through thy tide towards the sea.
"Yaroslavna laments upon the walls of Putivl.
"Brilliant Sun, thrice brilliant Sun! Thou givest heat to all, thou shinest for all. Why shouldest thou send thy burning rays upon my husband's warriors? Why didst thou, in the waterless steppe, dry up their bows in their hands? Why shouldest thou, making them suffer from thirst, cause their arrows to weigh so heavy upon their shoulders?"
This little fragment gives some idea of the general character and beauty of the Saying about Igor's Raid.[1]
- ↑ English readers will find the translation of this poem in full in the excellent Anthology of Russian Literature from the Earliest Period to the Present Time, by Leo Wiener, published in two volumes, in 1902, by G. P. Putnam & Sons, at New York. Professor Wiener knows Russian literature perfectly well, and has made a very happy choice of a very great number of the most characteristic passages from Russian writers, beginning with the oldest period (911), and ending with our contemporaries, Górkiy and Merezhkóvskiy.
