DEDICATED TO THE ASHES OF THE FATHER OF SERBIA [1]
Let this century of ours be the pride of all the centuries,
It shall be a fateful era striking awe for generations.
In this century eight children were born as if from the same womb;
from the cradle of Bellona[2] they made their appearance on earth:
Napoleon; Charles[3]; Blucher[4]; the Duke of Wellington[5], and Suvorov[6];
Karageorge, the scourge of tyrants; Schwarzenberg[7] and Kutuzov[8], too.
Ares[9], the horror of the earth, made them drunk with martial glory
and gave them the earth's arena in which to fight one another.
It is not hard for a lion to come forth from a spacious bush.
The nest of genius is built only among greater nations.
There, above all, he finds the stuff needed for his deeds of glory
and a proud garland of triumph to adorn the hero's bold head[10].
But the hero of Topola[11], the great, immortal Karageorge,
saw many hurdles in his way, yet he reached his grandiose goal.
He roused people, christened the land,[12] and broke the barbarous fetters,
summoned the Serbs back from the dead, and breathed life into their souls.
He is the Immortal's secret: he gave the Serbs the chests of steel
and awakened the lion's heart in those who had lost their courage.
The bands of the Eastern Pharaoh[13] turn to ice in fear before George[14].
Through George the Serbian hearts and arms were instilled with high bravery!
Stamboul, the bloodthirsty father of the plague, trembles before him,
even the Turks swear by his sabre - no other oath have they indeed.
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Yes, a hero's life is always haunted by a tragic ending.
It was destiny that your head had to pay the price for its wreath![16]
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Later generations judge deeds and give to all what they deserve.
Everybody's curse falls on people like Boris[17] and Vukasin[18].
The disgusting name of Piso[19] must not blemish the calendar.
Orestes'[20] justice comes like the bolt from heaven to Aegisthus[21].
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Mean envy vomits forth darkness upon your illustrious grave,
but who can put out the powerful, celestial light of your soul?
Miserable, ugly darkness - can it dim the glow of such light?
Darkness hides from the light, and yet it only makes the light more bright[22].
The life-giving flame of your torch will shine for the Serb forever,
and it will grow more luminous and miraculous for ages.
Serbian women used to give birth to Dusan[23] and nurse Obilic[24],
and now Serbian women give birth to such heroes as Pozarski[25],
all wonderful and noble men! Serbdom breathes nobility now.
Away from the Serbs, you vile curse - the Serbs have now fulfilled their vow![26]
Vienna, New Year's Day. 1847 The Author
THE MOUNTAIN WREATH
DRAMATIS PERSONAE BISHOP DANILO
ABBOT STEFAN
JANKO DJURASKOVIC, Sirdar
RADONJA
VUKOTA
IVAN PETROVIC
KNEZ RADE, brother of Bishop Danilo
KNEZ BAJKO
KNEZ ROGAN
KNEZ JANKO
KNEZ NIKOLA
VOIVODE DRASKO
VOIVODE MILIJA
VOIVODE STANKO (Ljub.)
VOIVODE BATRIC
TOMAS MARTINOVIC
OBRAD VUK RASLAPCEVIC
VUKOTA MRVALJEVIC
VUK TOMANOVIC
MANY VOICES
BOGDAN DJURASKOVIC
VUK MICUNOVIC
VUK MANDUSIC
VUK LJESEVOSTUPAC
POP MICO
THE SISTER OF BATRIC
HADJI-ALI MEDOVIC, Kadi
SKENDER-AGA
MUSTAI-KADI
ARSIAN-AGA MUHADINOVIC
FERAT ZACIR, Kavaz-basha
RIDZAL OSMAN
AN OLD WOMAN
The persons not mentioned in poet's DRAMATIS PERSONAE list:
Vuk Markovic, a Cuca, a soldier, a second soldier,
a Montenegrin wedding guest, a Turkish wedding guest, the student, students
A MEETING ON THE EVE OF WHITSUNTIDE ON THE MOUNT LOVCEN [27]
It is the dead of night. Everyone is asleep.
BISHOP DANILO (talking to himself)
Lo the devil[28] with seven scarlet cloaks,
with two swords and with two crowns on his head,
the great-grandchild of the Turk, with Koran!
Behind him hordes of that accursed litter,
march to lay waste to the whole planet Earth,
just as locusts devastate the green fields.
If the French dike had not stood in the way,
the Arab sea would have flooded it all![29]
Osman[30] was crowned in an infernal dream
and given the half-moon like an apple.
Orkan![31] What an evil guest in Europe!
Now Byzantium is indeed nothing but
a dowry of youthful Theodora;[31]
the star of doom still hovers over it.
Upon Murat[32] Paleologos[32] calls
to bury both Greeks and Serbs together.
Brankovic[33] and Gerluka[34] want the same.
Thanks, Mohammad,[34] for hanging Gerluka!
Besides Asia, where their nest is hidden,
the devil's tribe gobled up the nations -
one every day, as an owl gulps a bird:
Murat Serbia, and Bajazet Bosnia,
Mohammed Greece and Murat Epirus,
the two Selims Cyprus and Africa.
Each took something, nothing was left over;
it is dreadful to hear what's happening.
World is too small for the devil's large maw
to eat his full, let alone overeat![35]
Janko defends the dead King Wladislaw;[36]
but why do so when he failed to save him?
In Skenderbeg[37] beats Obilic's heart,
but he perished as a forlorn exile.
What can I do? Who is there to help me?
There are few hands and all too little strength.
I'am a lone straw tossing in the whirlwind,
a sad orphan without friend or kinfolk.
My people sleep a deep and lifeless sleep;
no parent's hand to wipe away my tears.
Above my head the heaven is shut tight;
it does not hear my cries or my prayers.
The world has now become a hell for me,
people have turned into hellish spirits.
O my dark day! O my black destiny!
O my wretched Serbian nation snuffed out!
I have outlived many of your troubles,
yet I must fight against the worst of all![38]
Yes, when the head on a body is smashed,
the limbs die out in frightful agony.
Plague of mankind, may God's wrath be on you!
Is half a world you've already poisoned
with your mean deeds not large enough for you,
that you had to spew out all the venom
of your black soul on this hard rock as well?[39]
Is Serbia from the Danube River
to the blue sea too small an offering?
You rule the throne you've unjustly taken[40]
and are prideful of your bloody scepter;
you insult God from the holy altar,
a mosque rises where the broken Cross lies.[41]
Why do you want to poison its shadow,
which people took to the mountain shelters
for their lasting pride and consolation,
to remind them of their heroic past?
It is washed in blood so many times over,
a hundred times in yours, as oft in ours!
Behold the work of that wicked monarch,[42]
whom the devil teaches all kinds of things:
"Montenegro I cannot win or tame,
nor call it mine in any real sense;
this is how one should deal with its people."
And so began the devil's Messiah[43]
to offer them sweetmeats of his false faith.
May God strike you, loathsome degenerates,[44]
why do we need the Turk's faith among us?
What will you do with your ancestors' curse?[45]
With what will you appear before Milos[46]
and before all other Serbian heroes,
whose names will live as long as the sun shines?
When I think of today's council meeting,[47]
flames of horror flare up deep inside me.
A brother will slaughter his own brother,
and the arch-foe, so strong and so evil,
will destroy e'en the seed within mothers.
O wretched day, may God's curse be on you!
when you brought me to the light of this world.
A hundred times I've cursed that hour last year
when the Turks failed, or didn't want, to kill me;
my people's hopes I would not betray now.[48]
Vuk Micunovic lies near the Bishop. He is pretending to sleep but can hear everything very well
VUK MICUNOVIC
Don't, my Bishop, if you have faith in God!
What misfortune has come over you now
that you do wail like some sad cuckoo-bird
and drown yourself in our Serbian troubles?
Is today not a festive occasion
on which you have gathered Montenegrins
to cleanse our land of loathsome infidels?
Besides, this is our slava holiday[49]
on which our best and noblest lads gather
to test their strength and their abilities,
the strength of arms, and fleetness of their feet,
to vie also in the target-shooting,
to cleave the roast ram's shoulder in wager,
to hear also the liturgy in church,
dance the kolo[50] all around the churchyard,
and thrust their chests in knightly exercise.
To all brave men that is a holy incense,
making youthful hearts as strong as iron!
Banish, Bishop, such dark and gloomy thoughts!
Men bravely bear, wailing is for women.
A timid chief has no business ruling!
You are not left just to your resources.
Do you not see these five hundred brave lads?
What marvels of strength and fleet-footedness
have we not seen here among them today?
Did you see how they were target-shooting,
how skilfully they played the game of grad,[51]
and how nimbly they did grab the small caps?[52]
As wolf-cubs start to follow their mother,
so they begin playfully to sharpen
their dreaded teeth upon each other's throats.[53]
As soon as the falcon grows his first plumes,[53]
he cannot be peaceful any longer.
Instead, his nest he keeps rearranging,
Grabbing the straws one after another,
he flies shrieking toward the light blue sky,
In this there is a lesson to be learned.
Beside the youths present here around you,
there are six times as many back at home.
Their strength, Bishop, is surely your strength too.
Before the Turks will have conquered them all,
many a wife of the Turk will wear black.
Our struggle won't come to an end until
we or the Turks are exterminated.
What right to hope has anyone of us
except in God and in our own two hands.
The hope we had was buried forever
in one large tomb at the Kosovo Field.[54]
When things go well, 'tis easy to be good;
adversity shows who is the hero.
Crosses have been carried from Lovcen to the hill above the Crkvine.
Men are sitting on the hill, shooting and counting the echoes of each shot.
SIRDAR JANKO DJURASKOVIC
What a fine gun, worth a human head!
Every one of our guns echoes six times,
but dzeferdar[55] of Vuk Tomanovic
keeps echoing nine times of equal strength
SIRDAR RADONJA
Montenegrins, do you see this wonder?
Fifty full years I've spun of my life's yarn.
I've always spent my summers on Lovcen
and have clambered up to this high summit.
Hundreds of times I have gazed at the clouds
sailing in flocks from the sea down yonder
and covering this entire mountain range.
I've watched them float and rush now here, now there
with lightning bolts and with mighty rumble
and with the roar of terrible thunder.
Hundreds of times I have rested up here,
warming myself in the sun peacefully.
I've watched often the lightning beneath me,
listened to the thunder rending the sky,
as in the din of the frightening hail
the clouds below make everything barren
-but this wonder I have yet to witness!
Do you notice, upon your faith in God,
how much there is of the sea and the coast,
of proud Bosnia and Hercegovina,
Albania way down there by the sea,
how much there is of our Montenegro?
The clouds cover all these lands evenly!
The thunder's roar can be heard all around,
all beneath us the lightning keeps flashing,
but we alone are lying in the sun.
It has become rather hot up here now,
since the top of this mountain's always cool.
OBRAD
Did you see this miracle and omen
when two flashes made a cross in the sky?
One flash came from Kom[56] straight on to Lovcen;
the other flashed from Skadar[57] to Ostrog[58].
They formed a cross made out of living fire.
How lovely it is just to look at it!
Never before in this wide world of ours
has someone heard or seen such a cross.
God, help us Serbs in all our misfortune;
this, too, must be a good omen for us!
VUK RASLAPCEVIC
What do you aim at with your gun, Drasko?
VOIVODE DRASKO
I want to kill one of the cuckoo-birds,
but I don't want to waste a single cartridge.
VUK RASLAPCEVIC
Please don't do that, Drasko, upon your life!
It isn't proper to kill a cuckoo-bird.
Do you not know, may the devil take you,
that cuckoos are the daughters of Lazar?[59]
A great commotion arises above the Crkvine,
on the northern side above the lake.
SIRDAR VUKOTA
What's this clamour? What is troubling you now?
So help me God, you are worse than children!
VUKOTA MRVALJEVIC
Straight at us flew a flock of partridges
and we captured each one of them alive.
The great uproar arose for that reason.
EVERYONE SHOUTS AT THE TOP OF HIS VOICE:
Let them all go, may God's grace be with you,
because trouble has driven them our way;
you wouldn't have caught one of them otherwise.
They've fled to you only to find shelter,
and surely not for you to slaughter them.
They let the partridges fly away and returned with crosses
to the place they had taken them from.
AN ASSEMBLY AT CETINJE ON THE DAY OF THE NATIVITY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, CONVENED WITH THE PURPOSE OF RECONCILING SOME LEADERS
The leaders are standing by while the people are dancing the kolo.
KOLO[50]
God is angry with the Serbian people
because of their many mortal sins.
Our kings and tsars trampled upon the Law[60].
They began to fight each other fiercely
and to gouge out each other's very eyes.
They neglected the government and state
and chose folly to be their guiding light.
Their servants ceased to obey their masters
and washed themselves in the blood of their tsars.
Our own leaders, God's curse be on their souls,
carved the empire into little pieces
and sapped the strength of the Serbs wantonly.
Our own leaders, may all their trace vanish,
sowed the bitter seed of disharmony
and thus poisoned the entire Serbian tribe.
Our own leaders, miserable cowards,
thus became the traitors of our nation.
O that accursed supper of Kosovo![61]
It would have been better had you poisoned
all our chieftains and wiped out their traces,
and left Milos standing there on the field,
along with both of his true sworn brothers;[62]
then would the Serb have remained a true Serb!
Vuk Brankovic,[63] O you shameful scoundrel,
was that the way to serve your fatherland?
Was that the way to uphold honesty?
O you, Milos, who does not envy you?
You are the victim of your noble feelings,
you, a mighty military genius,
a terrific thunder that shatters crowns!
The greatness of your noble knightly soul
surpasses the immortal, valiant deeds
of great Sparta and of powerful Rome.
All their brilliant courageous endeavours
your knightly arm places in deep shadow.
Leonidas[64] and Scaevola,[65] can they
match Obilic on any battlefield?
His powerful arm with a single blow
toppled a throne and shook all Tartarus.[66]
The wonder of all valiant knights, Milos,
fell victim at the throne of the world's scourge.
So lies proudly the magnificent duke,
bathed in the spirts of his noble blood,
just as he walked proudly a while ago
among the hordes of the savage Asians,
his chest heaving with a fearsome thought,
devouring them all with his fiery eyes
just as he walked proudly a while ago
to a sacred grave of immortal life,
showing disdain for human worthlessness
and the intrigues of the mad assembly.[67]
God is angry with the Serbian people.
A dragon with seven heads[68] has appeared
and devoured the entire Serbian nation,
the slanderers as well as the slander.[69]
On the ruins of the heroic empire
Milos shone forth with his holy justice.
Made immortal and crowned was the glory o
f both the true sworn brothers of Milos
and the lovely wreath of Jugovics.[70]
The Serbian name has perished everywhere.
Mighty lions have become meek peasants.
Rash and greedy converted to Islam -
- may their Serb milk make them all sick with plague!
Those who escaped before the Turkish sword,
those who did not blaspheme at the True Faith,