The Song of Igor's Campaign,
Igor son of Svyatoslav and grandson of Oleg
Translated by Vladimir Nabokov
Exordium
Might it not become us,
brothers,
to begin in the diction of yore
the stern tale
of the campaign of Igor,
Igor son of Svyatoslav?
Let us, however,
begin this song
in keeping with the happenings
of these times
and not with the contriving of
Boyan.
For he, vatic Boyan
if he wished to make a laud for
one,
[like the nightingale] over the
tree;
like the gray wolf
across land;
like the smoky eagle
up to the clouds.
For as he recalled, said he,
the feuds of initial times,
"He set ten falcons
upon a flock of swans,
and the one first overtaken,
sang a song first"-
to Yaroslav of yore,
and to brave Mstislav
who slew Rededya
before the Kasog troops,
and to fair Roman
son of Svyatoslav.
To be sure, brothers,
set ten falcons
upon a flock of swans:
his own vatic fingers
he laid on the live strings,
which then twanged out by
themselves
a paean to princes.
So let us begin, brothers,
this tale-
from Vladimir of yore
to nowadays Igor.
who girded his mind
with fortitude,
and sharpened his heart
with manliness;
[thus] imbued with the spirit of
arms,
he led his brave troops
against the Kuman land
Boyan apostrophized
O Boyan, nigh tingale
of the times of old!
If you were to trill [your
praise of]
these troops,
while hopping, nightingale,
over the tre e of thought;
[if you were] flying in mind
up to the clouds;
[if] weaving paeans around these
times,
[you were] roving the Troyan
Trail,
across fields onto hills;
then the song to be sung of
Igor,
that grandson of Oleg [, would
be]:
"No storm has swept falcons
across
wide fields;
flocks of daws flee toward the
Great
Don";
or you might intone thus,
vatic Boyan, grandson of Veles:
"Steeds neigh beyond the Sula;
glory rings in Kiev;
trumpets blare in
Novgorod[-Seversk];
banners are raised in Putivl."
Vsievolod's speech
Igor waits for his dear brother
Vsevolod.
And Wild Bull Vsevolod [arrives
and]
says to him:
"My one brother, one bright
you Igor!
We both are Svyatoslav's sons.
Saddle, brother, your swift
steeds.
As to mine, they are ready,
saddled ahead, near Kursk;
as to my Kurskers, they are
famous
knights-
swaddled under war-horns,
nursed under helmets,
fed from the point of the lance;
to them the trails are familiar,
to them the ravines are known,
the bows they have are strung
tight,
the quivers, unclosed,
the sabers, sharpened;
themselves, like gray wolves,
seeking for themselves honor,
and for their prince glory."
The Eclipse and Igor's speech
Then Igor glanced up at the
bright sun
and saw that from it with
darkness
his warriors were covered.
And Igor says to his Guards:
"Brothers and Guards!
It is better indeed to be slain
than to be enslaved;
so let us mount, brothers,
upon our swift steeds,
and take a look at the blue
Don."
A longing consumed the prince's
mind,
and the omen was screened from
him
of the Great Don:
"For I wish," he said,
"to break a lance
on the limit of the Kuman field;
with you, sons of Rus, I wish
either to lay down my head
or drink a helmetful of the
Don."
Igor sets out; accumulation of omens
Then Igor set foot
in the golden stirrup
and rode out in the Champaign.
The sun blocks his way with
darkness.
Night, moaning ominously unto
him,
awakens the birds;
the whistling of beasts
[arises?];
on the top of a tree,
bids hearken the land unknown-
the Volga,
and the [Azov] Seaboard,
and the Sula country,
and Surozh,
and Korsun,
and you, idol of Tmutorokan!
Meanwhile by untrodden roads
the Kumans make for the Great
Don;
[their] wagons screak in the
middle of
night;
one might say - dispersed swans.
Igor rides on
Igor leads Donward his warriors.
His misfortunes already
are forefelt by the birds in
oakscrub.
The wolves, in the ravines,
conjure the storm.
The erns with their squalling
summon the beasts to the bones.
The foxes yelp
at the vermilion shields.
O Russian land,
you are already behind the
culmen!
Long does the night keep
darkling.
Dawn sheds its light.
Mist has covered the fields.
Stilled is the trilling of
nightingales;
the jargon of jackdaws has
woken.
With their vermilion shields
great
prairie,
seeking for themselves honor,
and for their prince glory.
The first engagement
Early on Friday
they trampled the pagan Kuman
troops
and fanned out like arrows
over the field;
they bore off fair Kuman maidens
and, with them, gold,
and brocades,
and precious samites.
By means of caparisons,
and mantlets,
and furred cloaks of leather
they started making plankings
to plank marshes
with all kinds of Kuman weaves.
A vermilion standard,
a white gonfalon,
a vermilion penant of [dyed]
horsehair
and a silver hilt
[went] to [Igor] son of
Svyatoslav.
Night, and dawn of Saturday
In the field slumbers
Oleg's brave aerie:
far has it flown!
Not born was it to be wronged
either by falcon or hawk,
or by you, black raven,
pagan Kuman!
Gzak runs like a gray wolf;
Konchak lays out a track for him
to the Great Don.
bloody effulgences
herald the light.
Black clouds come from the sea:
They want to cover
the four suns,
and in them throb blue
lightnings.
There is to be great thunder,
there is to come rain in [the
guise of]
arrows
from the Great Don.
Saturday: the Kumans counter-attack
Here lances shall break,
here sabers shall blunt
against Kuman helmets
on the river Kayala by the Great
Don.
O Russian land,
culmen!
Now the winds, Stribog's
grandsons,
in [the guise of] arrows waft
from the sea
against the brave troops of
Igor!
The earth rumbles,
the rivers run sludgily,
dust covers the fields.
The banners speak:
"The Kumans are coming
from the Don and from the sea
and
from all sides!"
The Russian troops retreat.
The Fiend's children bar the
field
with their war cries;
the brave sons of Rus bar it
Vsevolod in battle
Fierce Bull Vsevolod!
You stand your ground,
you spurt arrows at warriors,
you clang on helmets
with swords of steel.
Wherever the Bull bounds,
darting light from his golden
helmet,
there lie pagan Kuman heads:
cleft with tempered sabers
are [their] Avar helmets-
by you, Fierce Bull Vsevolod!
What wound, brothers,
can matter to one
who has forgotten
honors and life,
and the town of Chernigov -
golden throne of his fathers -
Gleb's fair daughter,
the wonts and ways!
Recollections of Oleg's feuds
There have been the ages of
Troyan;
gone are the years of Yaroslav;
there have been the campaigns of
Oleg,
Oleg son of Svyatoslav.
That Oleg forged feuds with the
sword,
and sowed the land with arrows.
He sets foot in the golden
stirrup
in the town of Tmutorokan:
a similar clinking
had been hearkened
by the great Yaroslav of long
ago;
every morn [that he heard it]
stopped his ears in Chernigov.
As to Boris son of Vyacheslav,
vainglory brought him to
judgment
and on the Kanin [river]
spread out a green pall,
for the offense against Oleg,
the brave young prince.
And from that Kayala
Svyatopolk had his father
conveyed--
cradled between Hungarian pacers
[tandemwise]-
to St. Sophia in Kiev.
Then, under Oleg, child of
Malglory,
sown were and sprouted discords;
perished the livelihood
among princely feuds;
human ages dwindled.
Then, across the Russian land,
seldom did plowmen shout
[hup-hup
to their horses]
but often did ravens croak
as they divided among themselves
the
cadavers,
while jackdaws announced in
their
own jargon
that they were about to fly to
the feed.
Thus it was in those combats
and in those campaigns,
but such a battle
had never been heard of.
Termination of battle
and from eve to dawn,
tempered arrows fly,
sabers resound against helmets,
steel lances crack.
In the field unknown, midst the
Kuman land,
the black sod under hooves
was sown with bones
and irrigated with gore.
As grief they came up
throughout the Russian land.
What dins unto me,
what rings unto me?
Early today, before the
effulgences,
Igor turns back his troops:
he is anxious about his dear
brother
Vsevolod.
they fought another;
on the third, toward noon,
Igor's banners fell.
Defeat and Lamentations
Here the brothers parted
on the bank of the swift Kayala.
Here was a want of blood-wine;
here the brave sons of Rus
finished the feast-
got their in-laws drunk,
and themselves lay down
In defense of the Russian land.
The grass droops with
condolements
and the tree with sorrow
bends to the ground.
For now, brothers, a cheerless
tide has
set in;
strong;
Wrong has risen among the forces
of Dazhbog's grandson;
in the guise of a maiden
[Wrong] has stepped into
Troyan's
land;
she clapped her swan wings
on the blue sea by the Don,
[and] clapping, decreased rich
times.
The strife of the princes
against the pagans
has come to an end,
for brother says to brother:
"This is mine,
and that is mine too,"
and the princes have begun to
say
of what is small:
"This is big,"
while against their own selves
they forge discord,
[and] while from all sides with
victories
the pagans enter the Russian
land.
O, far has the falcon gone,
slaying
birds:
to the sea!
But Igor's brave troops
cannot be brought back to life.
In their wake the Keener has
wailed,
and Lamentation has overrun the
Russian land,
shaking the embers in the
inglehorn.
The Russian women
"Henceforth our dear husbands
cannot be thought of by [our]
thinking,
nor mused about by [our] musing,
nor beheld with [our] eyes;
as to gold and silver
none at all shall we touch!"
And, brothers, Kiev groaned in
sorrow,
and so did Chernigov in
adversity;
anguish spread flowing
over the Russian land;
abundant woe made its way
midst the Russian land,
while the princes forged discord
against their own selves,
[and] while the pagans, with
victories
took tribute of one vair
from every homestead.
Victories of Svyatoslav III recalled
All because the two brave sons
of
Svyatoslav,
Igor and Vsevolod,
stirred up the virulence
that had been all but curbed
by their senior,
dread Svyatoslav, the Great
[Prince] of
Kiev,
[who kept the Kumans] in dread.
He beat down [the Kumans] With
his
mighty troops
and steel swords;
invaded the Kuman land;
leveled underfoot
hills and ravines;
drained torrents and marshes;
and the pagan Kobyaka,
out of the Bight of the Sea,
from among the great iron Kuman
troops,
he plucked like a tornado,
and Kobyaka dropped in the town
of
Kiev,
in the guard-room of Svyatoslav!
Igor blamed
Now the Germans,
and the Venetians,
now the Greeks,
and the Moravians
sing glory
to Svyatoslavm,
but chide
Prince Igor,
for he let abundance sink
[and] filled up Kuman rivers
with Russian gold.
Now Igor the prince
has switched
from a saddle of gold
to a thrall's saddle.
Pined away
have the ramparts of towns,
and merriment
has dropped.
Svyatoslav's dream
And Svyatoslav saw a troubled
dream
in Kiev upon the hills:
"This night, from eventide,
they dressed me, "he said, "with
a black
pall
on a bedstead of yew.
blue wine mixed with bane. From
the empty quivers
of pagan tulks
they rolled great pearls
onto my breast,
and caressed me.
Already the traves
lacked the master-girder
in my gold-crested tower!
All night, from eventide,
demon ravens croaked.
On the outskirts of Plesensk
there was a logging sleigh,
and it was carried to the blue
sea!"
The Boyars explain their sovereign's dream
And the boyars said to the
Prince:
"Already, Prince, grief has
the mind;
for indeed two falcons
have flown off the golden
paternal,
throne
in quest of the town of
Tmutorokan - or at least to drink a helmetful
of the
Don.
Already the falcons' winglets
have been clipped
by the pagans' sabers,
and the birds themselves
entangled in iron meshes."
Indeed, dark it was
on the third day [of battle]:
two suns were murked,
both crimson pillars
were extinguished,
Oleg and Svyatoslav,
were veiled with darkness
and sank in the sea.
"On the river Kayala
darkness has covered the light.
Over the Russian land
the Kumans have spread,
like a brood of pards,
and great turbulence
imparted to the Hin.
"Already disgrace
has come down upon glory.
Already thralldom
has crashed down upon freedom.
Already the daeva
has swooped down upon the land.
And lo! Gothic fair maids
have burst into song
on the shore of the blue sea:
they sing demon times;
they lilt vengeance for
Sharokan;
and already we, [your] Guards,
hanker
after mirth."
Svyatoslav's speech
Then the great Svyatoslav
let fall a golden word
mingled with tears,
and he said:
"O my juniors, Igor and
Vsevolod!
Early did you begin
to worry with swords the Kuman
land,
and seek personal glory;
but not honorably you triumphed
for not honorably you shed
Your brave hearts are forged of
hard
steel
and proven in turbulence;
[but] what is this you have done
to my silver hoarness!
"Nor do I see any longer
the sway of my strong,
and wealthy,
and multimilitant
brother Yaroslav -
with his Chernigov boyars,
with his Moguts, and Tatrans,
and Shelbirs, and Topchaks,
and Revugs, and Olbers;
for they without bucklers,
with knives in the legs of their
boots,
vanquish armies with war cries,
glory.
"But you said:
Let us be heroes on our own,
let us by ourselves grasp the
anterior
glory
and by ourselves share the
posterior
one.
Now is it so wonderful,
brothers,
for an old man to grow young?
When a falcon has moulted,
he drives birds on high:
he does not allow any harm
to befall his nest; but here is
the trouble:
princes are of no help to me."
The Author apostrophizes contemporaneous prnces
turned.
Now in Rim [people] scream
under Kuman sabers,
and Volodimir [screams]
under wounding blows.
Woe and anguish to you,
[Volodimir]
son of Gleb!
Great prince Vsevolod!
Do you not think of flying here
from
afar
to safeguard the paternal golden
throne?
For you can with your oars
scatter in drops the Volga,
and with your helmets
scoop dry the Don.
If you were here,
one nogata,
and a male slave,
one rezana;
for you can shoot on land live
bolts-
[these are] the bold sons of
Gleb!
You turbulent Rurik, and [you]
David!
Were not your men's gilt helmets
afloat on blood?
Do not your brave knights roar
like
bulls
wounded by tempered sabers
in the field unknown?
Set your feet, my lords,
in your stirrups of gold
to avenge the wrong of our time,
and the wounds of Igor,
turbulent son of Svyatoslav.
Eight-minded Yaroslav of Galich!
You sit high on your gold-forged
throne;
you have braced the Hungarian
mountains
with your iron troops;
you have barred the [Hungarian]
king's
path;
you have closed the Danube's
gates,
hurling weighty missiles over
the clouds,
spreading your courts to the
Danube.
Your thunders range
over lands;
from the paternal golden throne
you shoot at sultans
beyond the lands.
Shoot [your arrows], lord,
at Konchak, the pagan slave,
to avenge the Russian land,
and the wounds of Igor,
turbulent son of Svyatoslav!
And you, turbulent Roman, and
Mstislav!
A brave thought
carries your minds to deeds.
On high you soar to deeds
in your turbulence,
like the falcon
that rides the winds
as he strives in turbulence
to overcome the bird.
For you have iron breastplates
these have made the earth
rumble,
and many nations-
Hins, Lithuanians, Yatvangians,
Dermners, and Kumans-
have dropped their spears
and bowed their heads
beneath those steel swords.
But already, [O] Prince Igor,
the sunlight has dimmed,
and, not goodly, the tree sheds
its
foliage.
Along the Ros and the Sula
the towns have been distributed;
and Igor's brave troops
cannot be brought back to life!
The Don, Prince, calls you,
and summons the princes to
victory.
of
Oleg,
have hastened to fight.
Ingvar and Vsevolod,
and all three sons of Mstislav,
six-winged [hawks?] of no mean
brood!
Not by victorious sorts
did you grasp your patrimonies.
Where, then, are your golden
helmets,
and Polish spears, and shields?
Bar the gates of the prairie
with your sharp arrows
to avenge the Russian land
and the wounds of Igor,
turbulent son of Svyatoslav.
No longer indeed does the Sula
flow
in silvery streams
Pereyaslavl;
and the Dvina, too,
flows marsh-like
for the erstwhile dreaded
townsmen of Polotsk
to the war cries of pagans.
Izyaslav recalled
Alone Izyaslav son of Vasilko
made his sharp swords ring
against Lithuanian helmets-
[only] to cut down the glory
of his grandsire Vseslav,
and himself he was cut down
by Lithuanian swords
under [his] vermilion shields,
[and fell] on the gory grass
[as if?] with a beloved one upon
a bed
And [Boyan] said:
"Your Guards, Prince,
birds have hooded with their
wings
and beasts have licked up their
blood: '
Neither your brother Bryachislav
nor your other one-Vsevolod-was
there;
thus all alone
you let your pearly soul drop
out of your brave body
through your golden gorget.
Conclusion of Apostrophe
Despondent
are the voices;
drooped
has merriment;
[only?] blare
the town trumpets.
Yaroslav, and all the
Vseslav!
The time has come
to lower your banners,
to sheathe your dented swords.
For you have already departed
from the ancestral glory;
for with your feuds
you started to draw the pagans
onto the Russian land,
onto the livelihood
of Vseslav.
Indeed, because of those
630 quarrels
violence came
from the Kuman land.
Vseslav's fate recalled
In the seventh age of Troyan,
Vseslav cast lots
for the damsel he wooed.
propping himself upon mounted
troops,
he vaulted toward the town of
Kiev
and touched with the staff [of
his lance]
the Kievan golden throne.
Like a fierce beast
he leapt away from them [the
troops?],
at midnight,
out of Belgorod,
having enveloped himself
in a blue mist.
Then at morn,
he drove in his battle axes,
opened the gates of Novgorod,
shattered the glory of Yaroslav,
[and] loped like a wolf
On the Nemiga the spread sheaves
are heads,
the flails that thresh
are of steel,
lives are laid out on the
threshing floor,
souls are winnowed from bodies.
Nemiga's gory banks are not
sowed
goodly-
sown with the bones of Russia's
sons.
Vseslav the prince judged men;
as prince, he ruled towns;
but at night he prowled
in the guise of a wolf.
From Kiev, prowling, he reached,
before the cocks [crew],
Tmutorokan.
as a wolf, prowling, he crossed.
For him in Polotsk
they rang for matins early
at St. Sophia the bells;
but he heard the ringing in
Kiev.
Although, indeed, he had
a vatic soul in a doughty body,
he often suffered calamities.
Of him vatic Boyan
once said, with sense, in the
tag:
"Neither the guileful nor the
skillful,
neither bird [nor bard],
can escape God's judgment."
Alas! The Russian land shall
moan
recalling her first years
Vladimir of yore, he,
could not be nailed to the
Kievan hills.
Now some of his banners
have gone to Rurik and others to
David,
but their plumes wave in
counterturn.
Lances hum on the Dunay.
The voice of Yaroslav's daughter
is
heard;
like a cuckoo, [unto the field?]
unknown,
early she calls.
Yaroslavna's incantation
"I will fly, like a cuckoo," she
says,
"down the Dunay.
I will dip my beaver sleeve
I will wipe the bleeding wounds
on the prince's hardy body."
Yaroslav's daughter early weeps,
in Putivl on the rampart,
repeating:
"Wind, Great Wind!
Why, lord, blow perversely?
Why carry those Hinish dartlets
on your light winglets
against my husband's warriors?
Are you not satisfied
to blow on high, up to the
clouds,
rocking the ships upon the blue
sea?
Why, lord, have you dispersed
my gladness all over the feather
grass?"
Yaroslav's daughter early weeps,
repeating:
"O Dnepr, famed one!
You have pierced stone hills
through the Kuman land.
You have lolled upon you
Svyatoslav's galleys
as far as Kobyaka's camp.
Loll up to me, lord, my husband
that I may not send my tears
seaward thus early."
Yaroslav's daughter early weeps,
in Putivl on the rampart,
repeating:
"Bright and thrice-bright Sun!
To all you are warm and comely;
Why spread, lord, your scorching
rays
on [my] husband's warriors;
[why] in the waterless field
with thirst,
close their quivers
with anguish?"
Igor's escape
The sea plashed at midnight;
waterspouts advance in mists;
God [?] points out to Igor
the way from the Kuman land
to the Russian land,
to the paternal golden throne.
The evening glow has faded:
Igor sleeps;
Igor keeps vigil;
Igor in thought measures the
plains
from the Great Don
to the Little Donets;
[bringing] a horse at midnight,
Ovlur whistled beyond the river:
Igor is not to be [held in
bondage].
[Ovlur] called,
the earth rumbled,
the grass swished,
the Kuman tents stirred.
Meanwhile, like an ermine,
Igor has sped to the reeds,
and [settled] upon the water
like a white duck.
He leaped upon the swift steed,
and sprang off it,
[and ran on,] like a demon wolf,
and sped to the meadowland of
the
Donets,
and, like a falcon,
flew up to the mists,
killing geese
and swans,
and for dinner,
and for supper.
And even as Igor, like a falcon,
flew,
Vlur, like a wolf, sped,
shaking off by his passage the
cold
dew;
for both had worn out
their swift steeds.
Says the Donets:
"Prince Igor!
Not small is your magnification,
and Konchak's detestation,
and the Russian land's
gladness."
Igor says:
"O Donets!
Not small is your magnification:
a prince on [your] waves;
who carpeted for him
with green grass
your silver banks;
who clothed him
with warm mists
under the shelter of the green
tree;
who had him guarded
by the golden-eye on the water,
the gulls on the currents,
the [crested] black ducks on the
winds.
Not like that," says [Igor],
"is the river Stugna:
endowed with a meager stream,
having fed [therefore]
on alien rills and runners,
she rent between bushes
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 chatter;
only the woodpeckers, in the
osiers
climbing,
with taps marked [for Igor] the
way to
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,
to beat us
in the Kuman field."
Igor's return
Said Boyan, song-maker
[of the campaigns] of the kogans
- Svyatoslav, Yaroslav, Oleg:
"Hard as it is for the head
to be without shoulders
to be without head," -
for the Russian land
to be without Igor.
The sun shines in the sky:
Maidens sing on the Danube;
[their?] voices weave
across the sea
to Kiev.
[slope]
to the Blessed Virgin of the
Tower;
countries rejoice,
Conclusion
After singing a song
to the old princes
one must then sing to the young:
to Wild Bull Vsevolod;
to Vladimir son of Igor!
Hail, princes and knights
fighting for the Christians
To the princes glory, and to the
knights
[glory]-Amen.