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Serbian Epic Poems
Tuesday, 05 August 2008 02:53

 

prince marcoSerbian epic poetry is oral folk poetry that emerged between the 14th and 19th centuries. The poems were passed from generation to generation, until Serbian linguist and language reformer Vuk Karadzic wrote them down in the 19th century, thus saving them from oblivion. The poems are usually long and narative, featuring a host of historical and mythological figures. The complete Serbian epic poetry is divided into cycles, according to the time of the creation. The poems are characterised by the ten-syillabic verse, and were traditionally sung accompanied by a string musical instrument called "gusle". One of the most famous characters from the Serbian epic poems is Prince Marco (Marko Kraljević), a historical figure who was a medieval Serbian prince from the late 14th centrury and ruled from Prilep, in today's Macedonia.

 

HOW STARÍNA NOVAK BECAME A HAYDUK

NOVAK and Rado drank the wine near Bosna the river cold,
With Bógosav. When they had drunk as much as they could hold,
Prince Bogosav began to speak:
 “Starína Novak,” said he,
“My brother sworn, now speak the truth, so may God prosper thee!
Why didst thou join the outlaws? What constraint on thee was laid
To go to the wood to break thy neck, and to ply a wretched trade?
And in thine age, moreover, when thy season was past and sped?”
 Starína Novak spake to him:
 “Prince Bógosav,” he said,
“My brother sworn, since thou askest me, I will even tell thee the truth;
But it was through a hard constraint that I fled, in very sooth.
Thou mayst remember, when Yérina did Sméderevo rear,
She made me a day laborer. I labored there three year.
Wood and stone did I haul for her with my oxen and my wain,

And in the space of full three years not a penny did I gain;
Not even bark sandals for my feet could I win my labor by.
And that I should have pardoned her. When the town was builded high,
She would build towers and gild the doors and windows of the hold.
Each house in the vilayet she taxed three measures of gold,
That is three hundred ducats. Who gave, in the place might live;
But I was poverty-stricken, and had no gold to give.
With the mattock, wherewith I had labored, to the outlaws I fled amain.
I could not stay where Yérina, the accursèd one, did reign,
But ran to the cold Drina, and to rocky Bosnia fled.
When I came near Romániya, there Turkish wooers led
A Turkish damsel homeward. In peace they passed by me.
There remained the Turkish bridegroom; on a great brown steed was he.
In peace that Turkish bridegroom he would not let me pass,
But forth he drew a triple whip with three knobs of yellow brass.
Thrice he smote me on the shoulders. Thrice I prayed him in God’s name:

 “ ‘I pray thee, Turkish bridegroom, mayst thou have courage and fame!
Mayst thou have a happy marriage, but pass me by in peace!
Thou seest how poor a man am I.’
 “But the bridegroom would not cease;
But rather in his anger began to smite the more.
Then at last was I angry, for my shoulders were waxen sore.
With the mattock on my shoulder, the bridegroom did I smite
With one blow from the brown steed’s back, though the stroke was passing light.
And then I leaped upon him, and smote him where he lay,
Twice or thrice, till his spirit from the body fled away.
I reached my hand in his pockets, and there found purses three;
I put them in my bosom, and girt his saber on me.
I left the mattock at his head that the Turks might have withal
Something to bury him with; the steed I mounted, brown and tall.
To the wood of Romániya I went; the wooers saw me there;
But wished not to pursue me, or haply did not dare.
 “It is forly year. The forest is better known to me

Than the house of my habitation was ever wont to be.
The roads across the mountains I watch them and I hold.
From the youths of Sárayevo I take their silver and gold,
And their linen and velvet for me and mine; and I can go abroad
And stand in the place of danger, for I fear none but God.”

 

PRINCE MARKO’S PLOWING

WITH his mother, Yévrosima, his thirst did Marko slake
On the red wine. When they had drunk, to him his mother spake:
 “O thou, Prince Marko, prithee cease from the ravage and the raid;
Never on earth is evil with a good deed repaid.
Weary is thy mother of washing from thy shirts the crimson stain.
But do thou now yoke ox to plow, and plow the hill and the plain.
Sow thou the white wheat, little son, that thou and I may sup.”
 Marko harkened his mother, and he yoked the oxen up;
He plows not the hill, nor the valley; but he plows the tsar’s highway.
Some janissaries came thereby; three packs of gold had they:
 “Plow not the tsar his highway, Prince Marko,” said they then.
 “Ye Turks, mar not my plowing!” he answered them again.
 “Plow not the tsar his highway, Prince Marko,” they said anew.
 “Ye Turks, mar not my plowing!” he answered thereunto.
 But Marko was vext; in anger he lifted ox and plow,

And the Turkish janissaries he slew thero at a blow,
And their three packs of treasure to his mother he bore away:
 “Lo, mother, what my plowing hath won for thee to-day!”

 

THE WIFE OF HASAN AGA

WHAT shows white in the wood? A flock of swans or a bank of snow?
Swans would have flown and a snow bank would have melted long ago.
It is not snow, nor a milk-white swan, but Hasan Aga’s tent;
Sore wounded was he. His mother and sister to him went;
For very shame his wife came not. When his wounds were healed aright,

He charged his faithful wife withal:
 “Come not into my sight;
Await me never, woman, my fair white house within;
Nor yet do thou abide me in the houses of my kin.”
 When the faithful woman heard it, sad was her heart indeed.
Suddenly from the house she heard the trampling of the steed.
To the window she ran, to break her neck by leaping down from the tower;
But the daughters of Hasan Aga pursued her in that hour:
 “Return to us, dear mother! Our father comes not,” said they;
“It is thy brother, our uncle, Pintórovich the Bey.”
 The wife of Hasan Aga, to her brother’s breast she came:
“Ah, brother, from my children five doth he send me! It is shame!”
 Naught said the bey; in his silken pouch forthwith his hand he thrust
For a bill of divorce that granted her her dower held in trust,1
And bade her go to her mother. When the purport thereof she wist,

Forthwith upon the forehead her two fair sons she kissed,
And on their rosy cheeks she kissed her little daughters twain.
But the little son in the cradle she could not leave for pain.
Her brother took the lady’s hand; and hard it was to lead
That wretched woman from her babe, but he threw her on the steed;
He brought her unto the white house, and there he took her in.
A little while, but scarce a week, she stayed among her kin.
Good is the matron’s parentage, men seek her in marriage withal;
But the great Cadi of Imoski desires her most of all.
 “So should I not desire it,” imploringly she said.
“Brother, I prithee, give me not to any to be wed,
That my heart break not with looking on my children motherless.”
 But the bey no whit he cared at all because of her distress;
To the great Cadi of Imoski he will give her to be wed.
Still the matron with her brother most miserably she pled,
That he a milk-white letter to the cadi should prepare,
And send it to the cadi:
 
 “The matron greets thee fair,
And implores thee: when that thou hast brought the wooers from every side,
And when thou comest to her white house, do thou bring a veil for the bride,
That she see not by the aga’s house her children motherless.”
 When the letter came to the cadi, with pomp and lordliness
He gathered many wooers; ah, nobly did they come!
And splendidly the wooers they brought the fair bride home!
But when they were by the aga’s house, forth looked her daughters fair,
And her two sons came before her, and spoke to their mother there:
“Return with us, dear mother, to eat with us again!”
When the wife of Hasan Aga heard, she spake to the groomsman then:
 “Brother in God, my groomsman, stop the steeds, of gentleness,
By my house, that I may give fair gifts to my children motherless.”
 They checked the steeds at the house for her. She gave her children gifts;
To either son a gilded knife, to her daughters fair long shifts,

To her babe in the cradle a garment in a bit of linen tied.
When Hasan Aga saw it, to his two sons he cried:
 “Hither, my children motherless! and from her stand apart!
Pity and mercy hath she none within her stony heart!”
 She heard. Her face smote on the ground in the deep of her distress,
And her soul departed as she saw her children motherless.

 

translated by George Rapall Noyes and Leonard Bacon, 1913

More Serbian epic poems can be found at http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/hbs/index.htm

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