Songs of the Slav/The Daughter of Sláva
SONGS OF THE SLAV
THE DAUGHTER OF SLÁVA
Jan Kollár
Canto III.Sonnet 62
A hundred times I spoke, but now I call
To you divided, O Slavonians!
Let's be a whole and not a part in clans;
Be one in harmony or naught at all.
A dove-like nation we in scorn are styled.
But doves you know are come of such a stock
That loves to live within a common flock,
And so may you apply this trait reviled.
O Slavs, thou race of many fragments!
United forces e'er results will show,
But waste and dry the circling currents.
O Slavs, who are of many heads a race!
The wise indeed a death no worse can know
Than life that sloth, void, darkness doth embrace.
Canto III.Sonnet 110
What will become of Slavs in hundred years?
What will the whole of Europe come to be?
Slav life, just as a mighty flow appears,
Shall everywhere extend its boundary.
That tongue, which German henchmen falsely low
Proclaimed a tongue of slaves to all around,
Shall 'neath our rival's palace ceilings sound
And even spoken be by lips of foe.
Sciences shall likewise Slav channels see;
Our people's customs, dress and music will
On both the Seine and Danube modish be.
O would that I had rather been born when
The Slavs shall rulers be! Or better still,
I shall then rise up from my grave again.
This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.
| Original: |
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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| Translation: |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929. The longest-living author of this work died in 1973, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 50 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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