PART IV. (continued 2)
Reading edition
The number and variety of the Servian heroic poems is immense. The oldest legendary cycle is formed by their great Tzar Dushan Nemanyitch and his heroes; by the pious prince[pg.378] Lazar, their last independent chief, who was executed by the Turks after having been made prisoner in battle; and by the death of his faithful knights on the field of Kossovo. The two battles fought here, in 1389 and 1447, put an end to the existence of the Servian empire. In immediate connection with these epic songs are those of which Marko Kralyewitch, i.e. Marko the king's son, the Servian Hercules, is the hero; at least thirty or forty in number. The pictures, which these ballads exhibit, are extremely wild and bold; and are often drawn on a mythological ground. Indeed both the epic and the lyric poetry of the Servians are interwoven with a traditional belief in certain fanciful creatures of Pagan superstition, which exercise a constant influence on human affairs. Witches (Vjashtitzi), veiled women who go from house to house, carrying with them destruction; the plague, personified as an old horrible looking female; and also the saints, and among them the thunderer Elias and the fiery Mary who sends lightning; these all appear occasionally. But the principal figure is the Vila, a mountain fairy, having nearly the same character as the northern elementary spirits; though the malicious qualities predominate, and her intermeddling is in most cases fatal.
There are various features which serve to allay the extreme wildness and rudeness of the oldest Servian poems. As one of the principal of these we consider the solemn institution of a contract of brotherhood or fraternal friendship, which the Servians seem to have inherited from the Scythians.[373] Two men or two women promise each other before the altar, and under solemn ceremonies, in the name of God and St. John, eternal friendship. They bind themselves by this act to all the mutual duties of brothers and sisters. Similar relations exist also between the[pg.379] two sexes, when a maid solemnly calls an old man her "father in God," or a young one her "brother in God;" or when a man calls a woman his "mother or sister in God." This is mostly done in cases of distress. When a person, thus appealed to, accepts the appellation, they are in duty bound to protect and to take care of the unfortunate, who thus give themselves into their hands; according to the prevailing notion, a breach of this contract is severely punished by Heaven. Marko Kralyevitch was united in such an alliance with the Vila; in modern times we find it sometimes between Turks and Servians in the midst of their most bitter feuds.
The traditional ballads of the Servians, referring to the heroes of their golden time, are undoubtedly in their groundwork of great antiquity; but as until recently they have been preserved only by tradition, it cannot be supposed, that they have come down in their present form from the original time of their composition; which was perhaps nearly cotemporary to the events they celebrate. In most of them frequent Turcisms show, that the singer is familiar with the conquerors and their language. According to Vuk, very few are in their present form older than the fifteenth century.
The more modern heroic ballads—for the productiveness of this remarkable people is still alive—are essentially of the same character. They may be divided into two parts. One division, probably composed during the last two centuries and down even to the present time, is devoted to a variety of subjects, public and private. Duels, love stories, satisfaction of blood-revenge, domestic quarrels and reconciliation, are alternately related. The variety of invention in these tales is astonishing; the skill of the combinations and the final development surpasses all that hitherto has been known of popular poetry. One of the most remarkable of them is a narrative of 1227 lines; which relates to the marriage of a young man, Maxim Tzernovitch, son of[pg.380] Ivan Tzernovitch, a wealthy and powerful Servian. The father goes to Venice to ask in marriage for his son the daughter of the Doge. He describes him as the handsomest of young men; but, when he comes home, he finds him metamorphosed by the smallpox into the ugliest. By the advice of his wife, he substitutes another handsome young man to fetch home the bride with the procession of bridal guests; promising him the principal share in the bridal gifts; for he commits the fraud less from covetous views than from pride, being afraid of being put to shame as unable to keep his word before the haughty Venetians. They succeed in bringing away the bride; but the cheat is discovered on the road; a contest arises, and the whole affair ends in a horrible slaughter.
Vuk Stephanovitch has heard this tale repeatedly, and with several variations; but the principal features, for instance a rich and elaborate description of the bridal gifts, were always recited exactly in the same words. It was chanted in the most perfect manner by an old singer, named Milya, whom prince Milosh often had to sing it before him; and from whose lips Vuk at last took it down.
Another section of more modern ballads narrates events from the latest war between the Servians and Turks, between 1801 and 1815. Who of our readers has not heard of Kara George? His companions, Yanko Katitch, Stoyan Tchupitch, Milosh of Potzerye, are in Servia as well known and admired as Kara George himself. They and their comrades are the heroes of these ballads. The gallant Tchupitch rewarded the blind poet Philip, who chanted to him a long and beautiful poem of his own composition, with a white horse. The subject of his narrative was the battle of Salash; where Tchupitch himself had been the Servian commander.[374][pg.381]
The same ballad singer Philip is the author of most of the modern heroic poems. Of others the authors are not known. Little stress is laid on the art of poetry; exercised with such extraordinary power. These productions of our day are by no means inferior to the ancient. There is indeed no essential difference, either in their diction or in their conception; and it is easy to be perceived, that old and young have been nursed from their infancy on tales of "the days of yore." Some passages of Philip's ballads are really Homeric.[375] Fortunately, the period is past when our admiration for hyperborean poetry needed to be justified by its similarity with the classics. We have learned that real poetry is not spell-bound to names, nor to any nation or age; and the beautiful has obtained in our time an independent existence, no longer subject to certain forms and conditions, but resting on itself and its divine gifts.
The difficulties Vuk Stephanovitch met with in collecting these wonderful ballads, were not small. He was often hardly able to prevail on the young men and girls to recite, still less to sing them before him; partly from a natural shyness to exhibit themselves before a stranger; partly because his search after effusions which had so little value in their eyes, and his attempt to fix them by writing, seemed to them an idle and useless occupation. The only reason which they could conceive for it was, that the learned idler meant to ridicule them; and his request was frequently answered by the words: "We are no blind men to sing or recite songs to you."
Of the heroic poems, he tells us, that they are not only chanted, but often recited, as we are accustomed to read; and that in this latter way, old people teach them by preference to the[pg.382] children. His own father, grandfather, and uncle, were wont to recite and to sing them; and the two latter even composed not a few. Among those from whose lips he took down the present collection, were lads, peasants, merchants, as also hayduks, i.e. highwaymen, in Servia a mode of life less disreputable than with us, and somewhat approaching to heroism. Further, at least seven or eight were blind men; all of them professional bards, and almost the only persons willing to satisfy him. The shenske pjesme, or female poems, he had to catch by chance; and short as they are, it was easy to keep them in memory after having heard them once or twice.
While these latter poems are mostly sung without any instrumental accompaniment in the spinning-rooms, in the pastures, or at the village dances; on the other hand the tavern, the public squares, the festive halls of the chiefs, are the places where the Guslè is heard which accompanies the heroic ballads. The bard chants two lines; then he pauses and gives a few plaintive strokes on his primitive instrument; then he chants again, and so on. He needs these short pauses for recollection, as well as for invention. Although these ballads are chiefly sung by blind men, yet no hero thinks it beneath him to chant them to the Guslè. Pirch, a Prussian officer, who travelled in Servia some twenty years ago, tells us, that the Knjas, his host, took the instrument from the hands of the lad, for whom he had sent to sing before his guest, because he did not satisfy him, and played and chanted himself with a superior skill. Clergymen themselves are not ashamed to do it. Nay, even Muhammedan-Bosnians, more Turks than Servians, have preserved this partiality for their national heroics. The great among them would not, indeed, themselves sing them; but they cause them to be chanted before them; and it happened, that a Christian prisoner in Semendria obtained his liberty by their intercession with the Kadi, which he owed merely to their fondness for his ballads. A considerable number of fine songs[pg.383] are marked in Vuk's collection as having been first heard from Muhammedan singers.
Although the same ballads are not heard every where, yet the poetical feeling and productiveness seem to be pretty equally distributed over all the region inhabited by the Servian race. The heroic ballads originate mostly in the southern mountains of Servia, in Bosnia, Montenegro, and its Dalmatian neighbourhood. Towards the North-East the productiveness diminishes; the songs are still known in the Austrian provinces, but the recitation of them, and the Guslè itself, are left to blind men and beggars. Pirch heard, nevertheless, the ballads of Marko Kralyevitch in the vicinity of Neusatz, in Hungary. On the other hand, the amatory Servian ballads, and all those comprised under the name of female songs,—although by no means exclusively sung by women,—originate chiefly in those regions, where perhaps a glimpse of occidental civilization has somewhat refined the general feeling. The villages of Syrmia, the Banat, and the Batchva, are the home of most of them; in the Bosnian towns also they are heard; while in the cities of the Austrian provinces they have been superseded by modern airs of less value, perhaps, and certainly of less nationality.
It remains to remark, that while in all the other Slavic popular poetry, the musical element is prominent, it is in the Servian completely crowded into the background. Even the little lyric pieces, or female ballads, are not only in a high degree monotonous, but even without the peculiar sweetness of most popular airs. They also are chanted rather than sung.
The Bulgarian language is said to be particularly rich in popular ballads; and it would hardly be credible, that the numerous nations with which they mixed for centuries, should not have influenced their poetry as well as their language. Nevertheless, those ballads we have met with are not distinguished in any way from the Servian; especially from those Servian ones[pg.384] sung in the provinces where intercourse with a Turkish population is more frequent. One specimen will be sufficient.
THE SLAVE GANGS.[376]
O thou hill, thou high green hill!
Why, green hill, art thou so withered?
Why so withered and so wilted?
Did the winter's frost so wilt thee?
Did the summer's heat so parch thee?
Not the winter's frost did wilt me,
Nor the summer's heat did parch me,
But my glowing heart is smothered.
Yesterday three slave gangs crossed me;
Grecian maids were in the first row,
Weeping, crying bitterly:
"O our wealth! art lost for ever!"
Black-eyed maidens from Walachia
Weeping, crying in the second:
"O ye ducats of Walachia!"
Bulgar women in the third row,
Weeping, crying, "O sweet home!
O sweet home! beloved children!
Fare ye well, farewell for ever!"
The SLOVENZI or VINDES, that is, the Slavic inhabitants of Camiola and Carinthia, have of course their own ballads, which have been recently collected. That the influence of the German population, with whom they live intermingled, has been very great, even in these songs, cannot be matter of surprise. It is, however, chiefly discernible in the melodies they sing; which are said to be the same familiar to the German mountaineers of Styria and Tyrol. Several narrative ballads of some length are[pg.385] still extant among them, similar to the Servian, but rhymed. These have been communicated to the German public in a translation by their poet Anastasius Grun. They are all too long to be given here as specimens; we therefore confine ourselves to the following pretty little song:
THE DOVELET.
"Where were you, and where have you stray'd
In the night?
Your shoes are all with dew o'erlaid;
In the night, in the night."
I strayed there in the cool green grove,
In the night.
There flutters many a turtle dove,
In the night, in the night.
They have such little red cheeks, they all,
In the night;
And bills so sweet, and bills so small,
In the night, in the night.
There I stood, lurking on the watch,
In the night;
Till one little dovelet I did catch,
In the night, in the night.
It had of all the sweetest bill,
In the night;
Red rose, its cheeks were redder still,
In the night, in the night.
[pg.386]
That dovelet now caresses me
In the night;
And kissing each other we'll ever be,
In the night, in the night.
The field of popular poetry, which the Slavic nations of the WESTERN STEM present to us, promises a gleaning of a comparatively inferior value.
It appears from the Königshof manuscript, that five centuries ago the BOHEMIANS had a treasure of popular poetry. This document exhibits also the extraordinary fact, that almost the same ballads were sung in Bohemia in the thirteenth century, which are now heard from the lips of Russian and Servian peasant girls. The reader may compare the following songs, all of them faithfully translated.
ANCIENT BOHEMIAS SONGS.
I.
O my rose, my fair red rose,
Why art thou blown out so early?
Why, when blown out, frozen?
Why, when frozen, withered?
Withered, broken from the stem!
Late at night I sat and sat,
Sat until the cocks did crow;
No one came, although I waited
Till the pine-torch all burned low.
Then came slumber over me;
And I dreamed my golden ring
[pg.387]
Sudden slipp'd from my right hand;
Down my precious diamond fell.
For the ring I looked in vain,
For my love I longed in vain!
II.
O, ye forests, dark green forests,
Miletinish forests!
Why in summer and in winter,
Are ye green and blooming?
O! I would not weep and cry,
Nor torment my heart.
But now tell me, good folks, tell me,
How should I not cry?
Ah! where is my dear good father?
Wo! he deep lies buried.
Where my mother? O good mother!
O'er her grows the grass!
Brothers have I not, nor sisters,
And my lad is gone!
SERVIAN SONG.[380]
O my fountain, so fresh and cool,
O my rose, so rosy red!
Why art thou blown out so early?
None have I to pluck thee for!
If I plucked thee for my mother,
Ah! poor girl, I have no mother;
If I plucked thee for my sister,
Gone is my sister with her husband;
If I plucked thee for my brother,
[pg.388]
To the war my brother's gone.
If I plucked thee for my lover,
Gone is my love so far away!
Far away o'er three green mountains,
Far away o'er three cool fountains!
PASSAGES FROM SEVERAL RUSSIAN BALLADS.
current at the present day.
I.
Last evening I sat, a young maid,
I sat till deep in the night;
I sat and waited till day-break,
Till all my pine-torch was burnt out.
While all my companions slept,
I sat and waited for thee; love!
II.
No good luck to me my dream forebodes;
For to me, to me, fair maid, it seemed,
On my right hand did my gold ring burst,
O'er the floor then rolled the precious stone.
The Bohemians preserved their nationality, and very probably with it their ancient popular songs, down to the seventeenth century. During the thirty years' war, of which Bohemia was in part almost uninterruptedly the seat, a complete revolution in manners, institutions, and localities, took place. Whole villages emigrated, or were driven into the wide world, wandering about in scattered groups as fugitives and mendicants. Most of the ancient songs may have died at that time. The German influence increased rapidly during the remainder of the seventeenth century, mostly by force and reluctantly; still more during the[pg.389] eighteenth century by habit, intermarriages, education, etc. The Bohemians, the most musical nation in the world, are still a singing people; but many of their ditties are evidently borrowed from the German; in others, invented by themselves, they exhibit a spirit entirely different from that of their ancestors. These modern songs are mostly rhymed. The following specimen of songs still current among the peasantry of Bohemia, will show well the harmless, playful, roguish spirit that pervades them.
THE FORSAKEN MAIDEN.
Little star with gloomy shine,
If thou couldst but cry!
If thou hadst a heart, my star,
Sparks would from thee fly,
Just as tears fall from mine eye.
All the night with golden sparks
Thou wouldst for me cry!
Since my love intends to wed,
Only 'cause another maid
Richer is than I.
LIBERAL PAY.
Flowing waters meet each other,
And the winds, they blow and blow;
Sweetheart with her bright blue eyes
Stands and looks from her window.
Do not stand so at the window,
Rather come before the door;
If thou giv'st me two sweet kisses,
I will give thee ten and more.
[pg.390]
HAPPY DEATH.
In a green grove
Sat a loving pair;
Fell a bough from above,
Struck them dead there.
Happy for them,
That both died together;
So neither was left,
To mourn for the other.
THE LYING BIRD.
What chatters there the little bird,
On the oak tree above?
It sings, that every maid in love
Looks pale and wan from love.
My little bird, thou speak'st not true,
A lie hast thou now said;
For see, I am a maid in love,
And am not pale, but red.
Take care, my bird; because thou liest,
I now must punish thee;
I take this gun, I load this gun,
And shoot thee from the tree.
In the following fine ballad the German influence is manifest. It is extant in two different texts. We give it in Bowring's version, which has less of amplification and embellishment than is usual in English translations.
THE DEAD LOVE.
I sought the dark wood where the oat grass was growing;
The maidens were there and that oat grass were mowing.
[pg.391]
And I called to those maidens: "Now say if there be
The maiden I love 'midst the maidens I see?"
And they sighed as they answered: "Ah no! alas no!
She was laid in the bed of the tomb long ago."
"Then show me the way where my footsteps must tread,
To reach that dark chamber, where slumber the dead."
"The path is before thee, her grave will be known,
By the rosemary wreaths her companions have thrown."
"And where is the church in church-yard, whose heaps
Will point out the bed where the blessed one sleeps?"
So twice to the church-yard in sadness I drew,
But I saw no fresh heap and no grave that was new.
I turned, and with heart-chilling terror I froze,
And a newly made grave at my feet slowly rose.
And I heard a low voice, but it audibly said,
"Disturb not, disturb not the sleep of the dead!
"Who treads on my bosom? what footsteps have swept
The dew from the bed where the weary one slept?"
"My maiden, my maiden, so speak not to me,
My presents were once not unwelcome to thee!"
"Thy presents were welcome, but none could I save,
Not one could I bring to the stores of the grave.
"Go thou to my mother, and bid her restore
To thy hands every gift which I valued before.
"Then fling the gold ring in the depth of the sea,
And eternity's peace shall be given to me.
[pg.392]
"And sink the white kerchief deep, deep in the wave,
That my head may repose undisturbed in the grave!"
The Slovaks, the Slavic inhabitants of the north-western districts of Hungary, are considered, as we have seen above, as the direct descendants of the first Slavic settlers in Europe. Although for nearly a thousand years past they have formed a component part of the Hungarian nation, they have nevertheless preserved their language and many of their ancient customs. Their literature, we know, is not to be separated from that of the Bohemians. Their popular effusions are original; although, likewise, between them and the popular poetry of their Bohemian brethren, a close affinity cannot be denied. The Slovaks are said to be still exceedingly rich in pretty and artless songs, both pensive and cheerful; but the original Slavic type is now very much effaced from them. The surrounding nations, and above all the Germans, have exercised a decided and lasting influence upon them.
The following ballads are still heard among the Slovaks. The first of them is also extant in an imperfect German shape. As the coarse dialect, in which the German ballad may be heard, is that of the "Kuhländchen," a small district of Silesia, where the Slavic neighbourhood has not been without influence, we have no doubt that the more complete Slavic ballad is the original.
THE MOTHER'S CURSE.
The maiden went for water,
To the well o'er the meadow away;
She there could draw no water,
So thick the frost it lay.
The mother she grew angry;
She had it long to bemoan;
[pg.393]
"O daughter mine, O daughter,
I would thou wert a stone!"
The maiden's water-pitcher
Grew marble instantly;
And she herself, the maiden,
Became a maple tree.
There came one day two lads,
Two minstrels young they were;
"We've travelled far, my brother,
Such a maple we saw no where.
"Come let us cut a fiddle,
One fiddle for me and you;
And from the same fine maple,
For each one, fiddlesticks two."
They cut into the maple,—
There splashed the blood so red;
The lads fell on the ground,
So sore were they afraid.
Then spake from within the maiden:
"Wherefore afraid are you?
Cut out of me one fiddle,
And for each one, fiddlesticks two.
"Then go and play right sadly,
To my mother's door begone,
And sing: Here is thy daughter,
Whom thou didst curse to stone."
The lads they went, and sadly
Their song to play began;
The mother, when she heard them,
Right to the window ran:
[pg.394]
"O lads, dear lads, be silent,
Do not my pain increase;
For since I lost my daughter,
My pain doth never cease!"
SUN AND MOON.
Ah! if but this evening
Would come my lover sweet,
With the bright, bright sun,
Then the moon would meet.
Ah! poor girl this evening
Comes not thy lover sweet;
With the bright, bright sun,
The moon doth never meet.
The reader will perceive that these Slovakian songs are rhymed. There are however also rhymeless verses extant among them; the measure of which seems to indicate a greater antiquity, and brings them nearer to the nations of the Eastern stock.[382]
Of all the Slavic nations, the POLES, as we have already remarked, had most neglected their popular poetry. There were indeed several collections of popular ballads published, partly by Polish editors, with the title of popular poetry in Poland. But they all, without exception, so far as we know, refer to the Ruthenian peasantry in Poland, who use a language different from the Polish, and essentially the same as the Malo-Russian. These tribes, inhabitants of Poland for centuries, may indeed be[pg.395] called Poles with perfect propriety. Yet this name is in a more limited sense applied to the Lekhian race exclusively; and it is in respect to them that we remarked above, that their songs had been collected for the first time only a few years ago.[383]
That they also had national ballads of their own could hardly be a matter of doubt; and the neglect may easily be explained, in a nation among whom all that has any reference to mere boors and serfs has always been regarded with the utmost contempt. Their beautiful national dances, however, known all over the world, the graceful Polonaise, the bold Masur, the ingenious Cracovienne, are just as much the property of the peasantry, as of the nobility. Their dances were formerly always accompanied by singing; just as it was customary in olden times every where, and as it is still the usage among the Russian and Servian peasantry, to dance to the music of song instead of instruments. But these songs are always extemporized; and in Poland probably were never written down. The early refinement of the language secured to the upper classes a greater or lesser share in their national literature, which gave them apparently better things; although we have seen above, that, far from developing itself from its own resources, their literature was alternately ingrafted on a Latin, Italian, or French stock. Among the country gentry, and even at the convivial parties of the nobility, the custom of extemporizing songs, probably full of national reminiscences, continued even down to the beginning of our own century. Very little stress was naturally laid upon them; since the interest for all that is national, historical, or in any way connected with the people, belongs only to the most recent times. In our day, the local scenes of Lithuania have excited some interest, and the Ukraine has become the favourite theatre of Polish poets.[pg.396]
The Polish nation has an ancient hymn, which may be said to belong in some measure to popular poetry. It is known under the name of Boga Rodzica, or God's Mother; and is said to have been composed by St. Adalbert, who lived at the end of the tenth century. According to Niemcewicz, the Polish poet, it was still chanted in the year 1812 in the churches of Kola and Gnesen, the places where St. Adalbert lived and died. It is a prayer to the Virgin, ending with a sixfold Amen; and was formerly sung by the soldiers when advancing to battle. For that reason probably we find it frequently called a war song.
The popular ballads, published by Woicicki and Zegota Pauli, are not distinguished in any way from those still extant among the Slovakians, Bohemians, and Lusatian Sorabians. It can only be matter of surprise, that they have imbibed no more of the wild and romantic character of the ballads sung by the Ruthenians, with whom they live intermingled in several regions. They are ruder in form; and alternately rhymed, or distinguished from prose only by a certain irregular but prosodic measure, sometimes trochaic, but mostly dactylic. With the classical beauty of the Servian songs they can bear no comparison; in which latter the perfect absence of vulgarity may perhaps be partly accounted for, by their having been produced among a people where no privileged classes exist. Only in their wedding songs, and other similar ones, is there a striking affinity; it is in general in these relics of ancient times, that the popular poetry of the nations of the Eastern and of the Western Stems meet in one distinct and fundamental accord.
Many of the more ancient ballads extant among the Poles we find also in one or other of the Western Slavic languages. For example, the following; which exists in the Vendish language in a shape more diffuse and twice as long; and also in Slovakian, still more sketchlike. That the Polish ballad is derived from a time, when the horrid invasions of the Tartars[pg.397] were at least still distinctly remembered, we may safely conclude. In the Slovakian ballad the invaders are called Turks; in the Vendish ballad, probably the latest of the three, they have lost all individual nationality, and have become merely "enemies," or "robbers."
THE INVASION OF THE TARTARS.
Plundering are the Tartars,
Plundering Jashdow castle.
All the people fled,
Only a lad they met.
"Where's thy lord, my lad?
Where and in what tower
Is thy lady's bower?"
"I must not betray him,
Lest my lord should slay me."
"Not his anger fear,
Thou shalt stay not here,
Thou shalt go with us."
"My lord's and lady's bower
Is in the highest tower."
Once the Tartars shot,
And they hit them not.
Twice the Tartars shot,
And they killed the lord.
[pg.398]
Thrice the Tartars shot—
They are breaking in the tower,
The lady is in their power.
Away, away it goes,
Over the green meadows,
Black, black the walls arose!
"O lady, O turn back,
To thy walls so sad and black.
"O walls, ye dreary walls!
So sad and black are you,
Because your lord they slew!
"Because your lord is slain,
Your lady is dragged away
Into captivity!
A slave for life to be,
Far, far in Tartary!"
Among the ballads of almost all nations we find some that illustrate the mournful and destitute state of motherless orphans. There seems to be hardly any feeling, which comes more directly home to the affectionate compassion of the human heart, than the pitiable and touching condition of helpless little beings left to the tender mercies of a stepmother; who, with her traditional severity, may be called a kind of standing bugbear of the popular imagination. The Danes have a beautiful ballad, in which the ghost of a mother is roused by the wailings and sufferings of her deserted offspring, to break with supernatural power the gravestone, and to re-enter, in the stillness of the night, the neglected nursery, in order to cheer, to nurse, to comb and wash the dear seven little ones, whom God once intrusted to her care. It is one of the most affecting pieces of popular poetry we ever have met with. The Slavic nations have nothing that can be[pg.399] compared with it in beauty; but most of them have several ballads on the same subject; and in a general collection, the "Orphan Ballads" would fill a whole chapter.[385] The simple ditty which we give here as another specimen of Polish popular poetry, exceedingly rude as it is in its form, and even defective in rhyme and metre, cannot but please and touch us by its very simplicity.
POOR ORPHAN CHILD.[386]
Poor little orphan is wandering about,
Seeking its mother and weeping aloud.
Jesus Christ met it, mildly to it spake:
"Where art thou roaming, poor little babe?
"Go not, go not, babe, too far thou wilt roam,
And goest e'er so far, not to thy mother come.
"Now turn and go, dear babe, to the green cemetery,
From out her deep grave thy mother will speak to thee."
"Wo! at my grave who's knocking so wild?"
"Mother! dear mother! it's I, thy poor child!
"Take me to thee, take me,
Ill I fare without thee!"
"Go home, my babe, and thy strange mother tell,
She'll wash thy tattered shirt and comb and clean thee well!"
"When my shirt she washes,
Sprinkles it with ashes.
[pg.400]
"When she puts it on to me,
Scolds so grim and bitterly!
"When she combs my head,
Runs the blood so red.
"When she braids my hair,
Pulls me here and there!"
"Go thee home, my babe, the Lord thy tears will dry!"
And the babe went home, laid her down to cry.
Laid her down to cry, one day only cried;
Groaned the second day, and the third day died.
From his heaven our Lord did two angels send,
With the poor babe they did to heaven ascend.
From the hell our Lord did two devils send;
They took the bad stepmother and down to hell they went.
Of all the surviving Slavic tribes, we have seen that the nationality of the VENDES of Lusatia is most endangered. If formerly, as a race, they suffered from persecution and oppression, they have now for several centuries shared all the advantages of an enlightened education and wise institutions with their German countrymen; and it would therefore be erroneous to consider them still in the light of an oppressed or subjugated nation. Although their language cannot be said to be favoured by the government, they have their schools, their worship, their courts of justice, and, above all, their ballads, without let or hinderance; and if nevertheless the statistics of each year, especially in the plains of Lower Lusatia, show a diminution of the Slavic speaking population, we must attribute it rather to the natural and irresistible effect of time and circumstances, than to any despotic or arbitrary measures of the government. The Vendish villages[pg.401] are flourishing; the costumes of the peasants are heavy and rich; and to their general welfare the cheerful merry character of their ballads seems to bear testimony. Their melodies resemble the Bohemian, as much as their ballads do those of their neighbours; but German melodies also are frequently heard among them, and many translations of German popular ballads have become perfectly naturalized. That the language of Upper Lusatia approaches very near to the Bohemian, we have stated above. It is, however, much more interspersed with German words; although not to such a degree as the Lower Lusatian dialect.
Of all the Slavic popular ballads, we find in those of the Lusatians least of that chaste feeling, which is in general characteristic of Slavic love songs. The pleasures of illicit intercourse and their consequences, which make also a favourite theme of the common English and German ballads, are often grossly described; and we may conclude that the talent of extemporizing, or in general making pretty verses, has forsaken the female villagers in this German neighbourhood, and passed over to the men.
We give here two characteristic ballads of the Upper Lusatian language.
THE ORPHAN'S LAMENT.[387]
Far more unhappy in the world am I,
Than on the meadow the bird that doth fly.
Little bird merrily flits to and fro,
Sings its sweet carol upon the green bough.
[pg.402]
I, alas, wander wherever I will,
Every where I am desolate still!
No one befriends me, wherever I go.
But my own heart full of sorrow and woe!
Cease thy grief, oh my heart, full of grief,
Soon will a time come that giveth thee relief.
Never misfortune has struck mo so hard,
But I ere long again better have fared.
God of all else in the world has enough;
Why not then widows and orphans enough?
GOOD ADVICE FOR LADS.
Let him who would married be,
Look about him and take care,
That he does not take a wife,
Take a wife;
He'll repent it till his life.
If thou shouldst make up thy mind,
And shouldst take too young a wife,
Youthful wife has boiling blood,
Boiling blood;
No one thinks of her much good.
If thou shouldst make up thy mind,
And shouldst take too old a wife,
[pg.403]
In the house she'll creep about,
Creep about;
And will frighten people out.
If thou shouldst make up thy mind,
And shouldst take a handsome wife,
Nought but trouble she will give,
Trouble give;
Others' visits she'll receive.
If thou shouldst make up thy mind,
And shouldst take too short a wife,
Lowly thou must stoop to her,
Stoop to her,
Wouldst thou whisper in her ear.
If thou shouldst make up thy mind,
And shouldst take too tall a wife,
Ladders thou to her must raise,
Ladders raise,
If thou wouldst thy wife embrace.
If thou shouldst make up thy mind,
And shouldst take a snarling wife,
Thou wilt want no dog in the house,
Dog in the house;
Thy wife will be the dog in the house.
As for poor ones, let them be,
Nothing they will bring to thee,
Every thing will wanting be,
Wanting be;
Not a soul will come to thee.
If thou shouldst make up thy mind,
And shouldst take a wealthy wife,
[pg.404]
Then with patience thou must bear,
Thou must bear,
If the breeches she should wear.
Pretty, modest, smart, and neat,
Good and pious she must be;
If thou weddest such a wife,
Such a wife,
Thou'lt not repent it all thy life.
Merry ballads like these are usually sung at wedding feasts, where several of the old Slavic ceremonies are still preserved; among other things the bringing home of the bride in solemn procession. Many old verses, mostly fragments of half forgotten ballads, familiar to their ancestors, are in like manner occasionally recited. But the poetical atmosphere, which still weaves around the Russian or Servian maiden a mystical veil, through which she gazes, as in a dream full of golden illusions and images, into that condition of new existence feared and desired by her at once—that atmosphere is destroyed by the lights of the surrounding civilization, which show the sober reality of things in full glare. The flowers are withered that were wound around the chains; but the chains themselves have become lighter. The ancient wedding songs, full of pagan allusions, have been supplanted by glees mostly composed by their half German pastors; the only educated men who still speak their language. Indeed, not a few of their most popular ballads are written by their curates. How soon these will be superseded by German songs, no one can say; but it requires no great stretch of prophetic power to predict, that the time is near at hand.[pg.405]