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Not like that," says [Igor],
"is the river Stugna:
endowed with a meager stream,
having fed [therefore]
on alien rills and runnels,
she rent between bushes
a youth, prince Rostislav,
imprisoning him.
On the Dnepr's dark bank
Rostislav's mother weeps the youth.
Pined away have the flowers with
condolement, and the tree has been bent to the
ground with sorrow."
No chattering magpies are these:
on Igor's trail
Gzak and Konchak come riding.
Then the ravens did not caw,
the grackles were still,
the [real] magpies did not shatter;
only the woodpeckers, in the osiers
climbing,
with taps marked [for Igor] the way to
the river.
Igor's escape (continued)
The nightingales
with gay songs
announce the dawn.
Says Gzak to Konchak:
"Since the falcon to his nest is flying,
let us shoot dead the falcon's son
with our gilded arrows."
Says Konchak to Gza [sic]:
"Since the falcon to his nest is flying,
why, let us entoil the falconet
by means of a fair maiden."
And says Gzak to Konchak:
"If we entoil him,
by means of a fair maiden,
neither the falconet,
nor the fair maiden,
shall we have,
while the birds will start
to beat us
in the Kuman field."
Said Boyan, song-maker
of the times of old,
[of the campaigns] of the kogans
— Svyatoslav, Yaroslav, Oleg:
"Hard as it is for the head
to be without shoulders
bad it is for the body
to be without head,"
— for the Russian land
to be without Igor. |