'The Tale of the Host of Igor Igor the Son of Svyatoslav Grandson of Oleg' English Translation
English Translation of the Tale from the Old Russian, by Dennis Ward
Would it not be fitting for us, brothers, to open with the words of old
The grievous tale of the host of Igor, Igor the son of Svyatoslav?
But we should begin this song in accordance with the facts of this, our time,
And not with the devices of Boyan.
Boyan the wizard, if he wished to compose a ballad for a man,
Then would he hurtle in thought through the tree,
Like a grey wolf over the earth,
Like a tawny eagle under the clouds.
For he could recall, he said, the warfare of the early times.
10 Then would he let loose ten falcons upon a flock of swans:
Whichever falcon stooped the first, that one's swan would sing its song -
To ancient Yaroslav,
Valiant Mstislav,
(He who slew Rededya before the hosts of the Circassians),
To handsome Roman, the son of Svyatoslav.
But, brothers, it was not ten falcons Boyan would loose upon a flock of swans, -
Rather his wizard fingers on the living strings he would lay,
And of themselves they thundered glory to the princes.
20 Let us then begin, brothers, this tale from the Vladimir of old to the Igor of our time,
Who girded his mind with his fortitude,
And sharpened his heart with manliness,
And, filling himself with a warlike spirit, led out his valiant hosts
Against the land of the Polovtsians,
For the land of Russia.
О Boyan, you nightingale of ancient times!
If only you had warbled these hosts,
Leaping, nightingale, through the tree of thought,
30 Flying in spirit under the clouds,
Weaving together the glories of both halves of this time,
Racing on the path of Troyan over plains and up mountains, -
Thus would it have been sung for Igor, scion of Troyan:
"Not the tempest falcons sweeps over the endless plains, -
Jackdaws in swarms are in flight to the great river Don."
Or would it not thus be sung, wizard Boyan, scion of Veles? -
"The horses whinny beyond the Sula,
Rings out the glory in Kiev,
The bugles blare in Novgorod,
40 The standards strain in Putivl."
Igor awaits his dear brother Vsevolod,
And that fierce bull Vsevolod says to him:
"My one brother, my one bright light are you, Igor.
We both are sons of Svyatoslav!
Saddle then, brother, your swift horses:
Mine are ready for you, saddled in Kursk beforehand.
And my men of Kursk are warriors of renown, -
Under trumpets swaddled,
Under helmets fostered,
50 With the spear's point nurtured;
The paths are known to them,
The gorges familiar to them;
Their bows are tautened,
Their quivers opened,
Their sabres sharpened;
Themselves, they race like the grey wolves in the plain,
Seeking for themselves honour,
For their prince - glory!"
Then Igor looked up at the brilliant sun
60 And saw all his warriors covered with the darkness it cast.
And Igor spoke to his bodyguard:
"Brothers and bodyguard!
Better it would be to be hewn down than to be taken prisoner;
Let us then, brothers, mount our swift horses
So we may look upon the blue river Don."
Bowed had the Prince's mind to his whim,
And his longing to attempt the mighty Don had shielded the omen from him -
"For I want," he said, "to shatter a lance at the edge of the land of the Polovtsians;
70 With you, sons of Russia, I want either to lay down my head
Or else drink my fill of the Don in my helmet."
Then did Igor the Prince step into his golden stirrup,
And he set out upon the open plains.
The sun with its darkness barred the way against him,
Night, as if to warn him, groaned and awakened the birds;
Howling of beasts arose,
Deev was enraged -
He calls in the top of the tree,
80 Orders the unknown land to listen to him -
Volga and the coastal land and the land of the Sula and Surozh and Korsun,
And you, о idol of Tmutorokan!
The Polovtsians hastened by unprepared ways to the mighty Don river.
Their waggons cry out at midnight: swans, you would say, set at liberty.
Igor to the Don his warriors is leading:
Already the birds in the oak-trees await his misfortunes,
The wolves raise their threatening cries in the gullies,
90 The eagles with squawks call the beasts to the bones, 90 The foxes yelp at the scarlet shields.
О land of Russia - now are you already beyond the hill!
Long is the night's darkness.
Glow of dawn- is delayed.
A mist has covered the fields. -
Nightingales' twitter is stilled,
Cawing of crows is aroused.
The sons of Russia have barricaded the mighty plains with their shields of scarlet,
Seeking for themselves honour,
100 For their prince - glory!
From the dawning on the Friday they pounded upon the pagan troops of the Polovtsians
And, scattering like arrows over the plain, swept up the beautiful maidens of the Polovtsians
And with them gold and silken materials and precious cloths of samite.
With coverlets, with dolmans and with leather jerkins
They began to lay down pathways over morasses and the marshy places,
And with all manner of Polovtsian damasked fabrics.
Scarlet the banner, white is the flag,
110 Scarlet the pennon, silver the staff
For the valiant son of SVyatoslav.
Slumbers in the plain the valiant brood of Oleg.
Afar have they flown!
Not to suffer offence were they begotten,
Not from falcon, nor gerfalcon, nor from you,
Swarthy raven, pagan Polovtsian!
Gzak races like a grey wolf,
Konchak shows him the way to the mighty Don.
On the following day, very early, a blood-red glow announces the dawn.
120 Heavy black clouds approach from the ocean:
Their aim is to cover the four suns,
And in them are flickering deep-blue lightnings.
There will be a mighty thunderstorm!
The rain like arrows will come from the mighty Don.
Here will the lances be shattered,
Here will the sabres thunder on the Polovtsian helmets,
On the river Kayala by the mighty Don.
О land of Russia - now are you already beyond the hill!
Behold the winds, scions of Stribog, waft from the ocean arrows on the valiant hosts of Igor.
130 The earth moans and the rivers flow turbid.
The dust clouds cover the plains and the standards speak.
The Polovtsians come from the Don and the ocean
And on all sides they have surrounded the hosts of the Russians.
The devil's brood have barred the plains with their shrieks
But the valiant Russians have barred the plains with their shields of scarlet.
Fierce bull Vsevolod!
You stand in the midst of the battle,
140 You shower arrows upon the warriors,
You thunder upon their helmets with swords of tempered steel.
Wherever you, the bull, leap with your golden helmet glittering,
There lie the pagan heads of the Polovtsians.
Cloven by you with the tempered sabres are the Avarian helmets,
Fierce bull Vsevolod!
What matter wounds to him, brothers, forgetful of honour and riches,
The city of Chernigov and his father's golden throne
And his dearly beloved's, beautiful Glebovna's ways and her wonts?
There have been the ages of Troyan, gone are the years of Yaroslav;
150 There have been the campaigns of Oleg, Oleg the son of Svyatoslav.
For this Oleg with his sword forged dissension and scattered his arrows over the land.
He steps into his golden stirrup in the town of Tmutorokan -
And that same sound was heard by great Yaroslav of old,
And Vsevolod's son Vladimir every morning stopped his ears in Chernigov.
But lust for glory brought Vyacheslav's son Boris to judgment
And on the river Kanina spread him a green coverlet,
Young and valiant prince,
-And all for the offence of Oleg.
160 From that same Kayala, Svyatopolk ordered his father to be carried
Between Hungarian amblers to St Sophia in Kiev.
Then in the time of Oleg Gorislavich intestine warfare was sown and grew rife
And the substance of Dazhbog's scion was destroyed.
In the princes' dissensions the lifetime of men was shortened.
Then through the Russian land rarely the plowmen called
But often the ravens cawed as they shared out the corpses,
And the speech of the jackdaws was heard -
They were ready to fly to the feast.
170 Thus it was in those battles and in those campaigns.
But such a battle as this is unknown.
From the dawning till the evening,
From the evening till the light
Fly the red-hot arrows,
Thunder the sabres on the helmets,
Crash the lances of tempered steel,
In the unknown plain amid the land of the Polovtsians.
The black earth under the hooves was strewn with bones and watered with blood,
180 And as grief they come up throughout the land of Russia.
What is this noise, what is this ringing afar early before the dawning?
Igor is wheeling his forces: he takes pity on his dear brother Vsevolod.
They fought for a day and they fought for a second;
On the third day towards noon fell the standards of Igor.
Here the two brothers were parted on the bank of the swift Kayala,
Here the bloody wine ran short,
Here they finished the feast, the valiant Russians:
They had given their guests to drink, and themselves lay down for the sake of the land of Russia.
190 Droops the grass for pity and the tree is bowed to earth with sorrow.
For now, brothers, an unhappy time had arisen
And already the desert places had covered the hosts.
Injury was arisen among the hosts of Dazhbog's scion,
Had come like a maiden to the land of Troyan,
Was splattering her swan-wings by the Don on the deep blue ocean;
Splashing, she scattered the times of abundance.
The war of the princes on the pagans was ended,
For brother said to brother:
"This is mine, and that is mine too,"
200 And the princes began to say of that which was small: "This is a great thing,"
And themselves against themselves forged dissension.
And the pagans from every side triumphantly entered the land of Russia.
O, afar has flown the falcon, striking the birds - to the sea!
And the valiant host of Igor will not rise again.
Karna and Zhlya bewailed them,
Raced through the land of Russia,
Scattering fire on the people from their flaming horn.
The women of Russia lamented, saying:
210 "Our dearly loved ones no more can we think in our thoughts,
nor mind in our minds,
nor see with our eyes,
Let alone our gold and our silver hold in our hands."
And Kiev, brothers, moaned with grief,
And Chernigov with affliction.
Anguish overflowed the land of Russia,
Sorrow in abundance ran through the Russian land.
But the princes forged themselves dissension for themselves
And the pagans, triumphantly racing upon the Russian land,
220 Took tribute of a squirrel-skin from every household.
For those two valiant sons of Svyatoslav, Igor and Vsevolod,
Had with their dissension awakened that evil
Which their father, great Svyatoslav of Kiev, the dread, had put to sleep by fear.
He had beaten it down with his powerful hosts and his swords of tempered steel.
He entered the land of the Polovtsians,
Trampled the hills and ravines,
Muddied the rivers and lakes,
230 Dried up the streams and the swamps.
And that pagan Kobyak, from the bend of the ocean,
Out of the great iron hosts of the Polovtsians,
Like a whirlwind he tore.
In Kiev city Kobyak fell, in Svyatoslav's banquet-hall.
Here the Germans and Venetians,
Here the Greeks and the Moravians
Sing the glory of Svyatoslav
And revile Prince Igor,
Who plunged his abundance to the bed of Kayala, Polovtsian river,
240 And poured in the gold of Russia.
Here Prince Igor stepped out of his saddle of gold
Into the saddle of a slave.
The ramparts of cities are downcast and their joy has drooped.
And Svyatoslav dreamed a troubled dream in Kiev on the mountains:
"Last night from evening onwards they clothed me," he said,
"In a funeral robe upon a bed of yew wood.
They poured for me blue wine that was mingled with grief,
They strewed from the empty quivers of the pagan strangers
Great pearls upon my breast and tenderly cherished me.
250 Now are the boards without a roof-tree in my chamber topped with gold.
All night from evening onwards the smoke-grey ravens were croaking at Plesensk,
On the ground before the city were the serpents of the gullies
And they crawled towards the blue ocean."
And the boyars said to the Prince:
Grief, о Prince, has taken your mind prisoner,
For the two falcons have flown from their father's golden throne
To seek out the city of Tmutorokan
260 Or drink deep of the Don in their helmets.
Already the falcons' wings have been clipped by the pagan sabres
And they themselves are fettered in fetters of iron.
For dark it was on the third day:
The two suns were dimmed,
Both purple columns were extinguished
And with them the two young moons, Oleg and Svyatoslav,
With darkness were swathed,
And into the ocean were plunged,
And great was the boldness they roused in the Hinovians.
270 On the river Kayala darkness hid the light.
Over the Russian land the Polovtsians spread like a brood of pards.
Now has shame fallen upon glory,
Now has force struck upon freedom,
Now has Deev fallen upon the land.
For, see, the beautiful Gothic maidens have raised their
song on the shore of the blue ocean,
Ringing with the gold of Russia
They sing of the times of Booss
And cherish the vengeance of Sharokan.
280 While we, the bodyguard, are athirst for joy."
Then the mighty Svyatoslav let fall his golden word commingled with tears and said:
"O my children, Igor and Vsevolod!
Early have you begun to harry the land of the Polovtsians with your swords
And for yourselves to seek glory.
But it is without honour you have conquered,
For without honour you have shed the blood of the pagans.
Your valiant hearts from unyielding steel are forged
290 And in boldness have been tempered.
See how you have sullied my silver grey hairs.
No longer do I see the power
Of my mighty, of my wealthy, of my brother rich in warriors, Yaroslav,
With his boyars of Chernigov and his generals,
With his Tatrans,
With his Shelbirs,
With his Topchaks,
With his Revoogs,
300 With his Olbers.
For they, without shields, armed only with hunting-knives,
Conquer the hosts with their cries,
Ringing out their forefathers' glory.
But you said: 'Let us take courage ourselves.
The future glory we ourselves will steal
And the former glory we too will share.'
Is it a marvel, brothers, that an old man should grow young?
If a falcon has been through the moult
It falls on the birds up on high,
310 It allows no offence to be done to its nest.
But here is the evil: the princes are no help to me,
And the passage of the years has been annulled.
At Rimov they cry out under the Polovtsian sabres
And Vladimir cries under his wounds.
Grief and despair for the son of Gleb!"
***
Great Prince Vsevolod!
Are you not thinking of flying here from afar
To guard your father's golden throne?
For you can scatter the Volga with your oars
320 And drain the Don with your helmets.
If only you were here
A slave-girl would cost but a farthing
And a slave but a mite.
For you on dry land can shoot with your living lances,
With your valiant sons of Gleb.
You, fierce Rurik and David!
Did not your golden-helmeted warriors swim in blood?
Does not your valiant bodyguard below like bulls wounded by tempered sabres in the unknown land?
330 Then step, my lords, into your golden stirrups -
For the offence of this age,
For the land of Russia,
For the wounds of Igor, fierce son of Svyatoslav.
Galician Osmomysl Yaroslavl
You sit there aloft on your throne forged of gold,
You stayed the Hungarian mountains with your hosts of iron,
Barring the way against the king,
Closing the gates of the Danube,
Hurling your massive weights across the clouds,
340 Meting out justice as far as the Danube.
Your threats flow through the lands,
You open the gates of Kiev,
You shoot from your father's golden throne at the Sultans many lands away.
Shoot then, my lord, at Konchak, the pagan slave,
For the land of Russia,
For the wounds of Igor, fierce son of Svyatoslav.
And you, fierce Roman, and Mstislav!
Brave is the thought that carries your mind to the exploit.
350 Aloft you soar to the exploit in hardihood,
Like a falcon that's spread on the winds,
In his boldness ready to slaughter the birds.
For you have warriors of iron beneath their Latin helmets.
They made the earth quiver,
And many nations - Hinova, Lithuania, Yatvaghi, Deremela, and the Polovtsians -
Cast down their lances
And they bowed down their heads beneath those swords of tempered steel.
But now, Prince Igor, the light of the sun has faded
360 And to no purpose has the tree shed its leaves.
On Sula and Ros they have'shared out the cities,
And Igor's valiant host will not rise again!
The Don, Prince, calls to you, summons the princes to victory.
The scions of Oleg, valiant princes, have reached the fray.
Ingvar and Vsevolod and all three scions of Mstislav!
You are falcons of no evil nest,
Though not by the fortune of victories did you win power for yourselves.
Where then are your golden helmets and your Polish lances and shields?
Fling a barrier across the gate of the plain with your sharp-edged arrows,
370 For the land of Russia,
For the wounds of Igor, fierce son of Svyatoslav.
For now the Sula no longer flows with silvery streams to the city of Pereyaslavl,
And the Dvina like a bog flows for those dread men of Polotsk under the shrieks of the pagans.
Only Izyaslav, the son of Vasilko, rang with his sharp-edged swords upon the helmets of the Lithuanians,
Shattered the glory of his grandfather Vseslav -
He and his favourite, under scarlet shields, on the bloody grass,
380 Were beaten down into the grass by the Lithuanian swords.
And his favourite said:
"The birds, Prince, have cast the shadow of their wings over your bodyguard,
And the wild beasts have begun to lick at their blood."
Here was neither his brother Bryacheslav nor his other brother Vsevolod:
Alone he let fall his pearl-like soul from his valiant body past his golden necklet.
Voices are lowered, Happiness has wilted,
390 The bugles blare at Gorodno.
Yaroslav and all the scions of Vseslav!
Now you must lower your banners,
Plunge your shattered swords into their sheaths,
For you have departed from your forebears' glory,
For with your dissensions you opened the way for the pagans into the land of Russia,
Against the estate of Vseslav,
For through your feuds came violence from the land of the Polovtsians.
In the seventh age of Troyan Vseslav cast his lot for the maiden dear to him.
400 Cunningly he mounted his horses and galloped to the city of Kiev,
And with the shaft of his lance touched the golden throne of Kiev.
He galloped thence like a raging beast at midnight from Belgorod.
He was swathed in a blue mist.
In the morning he plunged in his axes,
Opened the gates of Novgorod,
Shattered the glory of Yaroslav,
Raced like a wolf to Nemiga from Dudutki.
On Nemiga they are laying out sheaves of heads,
410 They are threshing with flails of tempered steel,
Life is laid out on the threshing-floor,
And the soul is winnowed from the body.
Nemiga's banks were sown with no good seed -
They were sown with the bones of Russia's sons.
Vseslav Prince meted justice to the people,
Allotted to the princes their cities,
And himself raced at night like a wolf:
From Kiev he raced before cock-crow to Tmutorokan,
And cut across great Khors's path like a wolf.
420 They rang for mattins for him at Polotsk early
Upon the bells of St. Sophia,
And he in Kiev heard the sound.
And though he had a wizard's soul in his brave body
Yet he often suffered misfortunes.
For him wizard Boyan long ago uttered, most shrewdly, this saying:
"Not the cunning man, nor the subtle, nor the bird that is subtle
God's judgment will escape."
O, moan must the Russian land,
Remembering the early times and the early princes.
430 That Vladimir of old could not be nailed down to the hills of Kiev.
And now also the standards of Rurik have risen,
And others - those of David.
But at variance their banners flutter and their lances sing.
On the Danube Yaroslavna's voice is heard.
Like a cuckoo that's unknown she early calls:
"I will fly," she says, "like a cuckoo along the Danube,
I will wet my beaver sleeve in Kayala river,
I will wipe clean for the Prince the bloody wounds on his mighty body."
440 Yaroslavna early weeps in Putivl on the rampart, saying:
"O wind, mighty wind,
Why, lord, do you blow so strongly?
Why do you sweep the heathen arrows upon your light little wings against my beloved's warriors?
Were you not content to blow up high under the clouds, gently rocking the boats on the deep-blue ocean?
Why, lord, did you blow away my happiness across the feather grass?"
Yaroslavna early weeps in Putivl city upon the rampart, saying:
450 "O Dnieper Slovutich,
You have broken through the stony mountains into the land of the Polovtsians,
You have rocked on your waves as far as the host of Kobyak the galleys of Svyatoslav -
Then rock, lord, my beloved back to me that I might not send him too early my tears across the ocean."
Yaroslavna early weeps in Putivl on the rampart, saying:
"Brilliant and thrice brilliant sun!
You are warm and beautiful for all -
460 Why then, lord, have you spread your burning rays upon my beloved's warriors,
Bent up their bows with thirst in the waterless plain and choked with grief their quivers?"
***
The sea spurted at midnight,
Waterspouts come like mists.
To Igor the Prince God shows the way from the land of the Polovtsians to the land of Russia,
To his father's golden throne.
The evening afterglow has faded.
470 Igor sleeps, Igor wakes.
Igor in his mind measures the plains from the great river Don to the little Donets.
A horse stands ready at midnight.
Ovlur has whistled beyond the river:
He orders the Prince to understand -
Prince Igor must not delay!
He called, The earth rumbled,
The grass rustled,
480 The tents of the Polovtsians stirred.
And Igor Prince raced like an ermine to the reeds,
Like a white duck on to the water.
He threw himself upon the swift horse
And leapt from it like a grey wolf.
And he ran to the bend of the Donets
And flew like a falcon under the mists,
Slaying geese and swans for his breakfast and his dinner and his supper.
And while Igor like a falcon flew,
So Ovlur like a wolf ran,
490 And their bodies scattered the icy dew -
For they had overridden their swift horses. The Donets said:
"Prince Igor, for you there is no dearth of greatness,
And for Konchak - chagrin,
And for the land of Russia - joy!"
Igor said:
"O Donets, for you there is no dearth of greatness,
For you rocked the prince upon your waves,
You spread for him the green grass upon your silver banks,
500 You clothed him with warm mists under the shadow of the green tree,
You guarded him with a duck upon the water, With gulls upon the streams, With mallards upon the winds."
"Not such," he said, "is the river Stugna with its evil stream.
It devoured other rivers and ground boats into the bushes on its banks,
And closed over Prince Rostislav.
On Dnieper's banks weeps the mother of Rostislav for her young prince Rostislav.
510 The flowers drooped for grief and the tree was bowed to the earth with sorrow."
That is not the chattering of magpies:
It is Gzak and Konchak riding in pursuit of Igor.
Then the ravens did not caw,
The jackdaws fell silent,
The magpies did not chatter,
They only crept through the branches.
The woodpeckers' clatter indicates the water.
520 The nightingales with their merry songs proclaim the light.
Gzak says to Konchak:
"If the falcon flies to its nest,
Let us shoot down the young falcon with our golden arrows."
Konchak says to Gzak:
"If the falcon flies to its nest,
Let us ensnare the young falcon with a beautiful maiden."
And Gzak says to Konchak:
"If we ensnare him with a beautiful maiden,
We shall have neither the young falcon nor the beautiful maiden,
530 And the birds will begin to assail us in the Polovtsian plain."
Boyan has told of the campaign of Svyatoslav against the Kagan,
He, the poet of ancient times,
Of Yaroslav and of Oleg:
"Though the head is heavy, parted from the shoulders,
It goes ill with the body without its head" -
And thus is the Russian land without Igor.
The sun is shining in the sky:
Igor Prince is in the Russian land.
The maidens sing on the Danube,
540 Their voices weave across the sea to Kiev.
Igor rides up Borichev hill to the towered Ikon of the Holy Virgin.
The villages are happy, the cities joyful!
We have sung a song to the old princes, now to the young we should sing:
Glory to Igor, son of Svyatoslav, to fierce bull Vsevolod, to Vladimir, son of Igor!
Prosper the princes and the bodyguard, who fight for Christians against the pagan hosts!
To the princes - glory! - and to the bodyguard!
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