The Ballads of Marko Kraljević/Introduction

by Unknown

INTRODUCTION

I

IN the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, before Western Europe suspected the existence of a great traditional folk-poetry among the Southern Slavs, the literati of Ragusa had occasionally amused themselves by writing down the songs and ballads current among the people. These manuscript copies were handed round and read within the very small and select circle of the initiate, but remained unknown to the outer world until the middle of the nineteenth century. There was one important exception. This was the work of the Franciscan monk Andrija Kačić Miošić^[1], who, in 1756, published in Venice his Razgovor ugodni naroda slovinskoga, a book which had immediate success in Dalmatia and the islands. It was not a collection of genuine folk-songs, although the old traditional themes formed the basis of it. Kačić was fired with a missionary zeal for what he conceived to be historical truth, and as he was deeply read in the chronicles of his race, he altered, adapted and supplemented his material accordingly^[2]. The result which he aimed at, and which he achieved, was to produce an ordered account of Slavonic kings and heroes in such form as would make the strongest appeal to his fellow-countrymen by stimulating their pride of race. In the whole collection there are only two or three indubitable folk-ballads, and even these have been manipulated in the interest of an illusory truth to fact. Notwithstanding the artifice of the work, Kačić made such skilful use of his themes, his additions and alterations were made with such easy mastery of traditional epithet and formula, that the South Slavs themselves overlooked the signs of modern treatment and accepted the book as a genuine record of the past. Numerous manuscript copies were made, certain pieces found their way into the rustic repertory, so that peasants and countrymen sang songs from Kačić in the fields.

Hitherto, the interest in Kačić had been entirely confined to the narrow limits of his own people, and even there, although the songs in the Razgovor were remembered and repeated, the name of the maker tended to sink into oblivion. But in 1760, the very year in which Kačić died, there was published in Edinburgh the first instalment of Macpherson's Ossian^[3]. The effect on the weary literature of the time was magical. Here was something strange and fresh and compelling! A wind from the wide spaces of sea and moorland blew into the crowded haunts of men, and under the new influence the forgotten treasures of ballad poetry were eagerly sought after and as eagerly displayed. The appearance of Percy's Reliques marks a turning-point in literary history. It is true that Percy manipulated his material with less adroitness than either Kačić or Macpherson, he nevertheless rescued a number of venerable ballads from impending destruction, the new spirit breathed authentically in him and his book became an inspiration^[4].

Immense as was the influence of Ossian and the Reliques in Britain, it was perhaps even greater in Germany and on the Continent generally. The world was ripe for a breach with a monotonous literary convention. The polished age, the age of good sense, yearned in its heart for the primitive and the passionate. Ossian became a fever, an obsession that revealed itself often in childish and extravagant ways. All over Europe rocking-cradles lulled infant Oscars to sleep, the Royal House of Scandinavia adopted the name as one worthy of its kingly line, and on Goethe's youthful hero the Celtic Muse produced all the symptoms of intoxication. "Homer," cries Werther, "has been superseded in my heart by the divine Ossian. Through what a world does this angelic bard carry me!" The sentiment is, doubtless, a not unfaithful reflection of the poet's own attitude at the time, and he was one of many.

In Italy we can trace the same chain of cause and effect, and it is to an Italian, the Abbate Alberto Fortis, that the credit is due of acting as the first interpreter between the Serbs and the more cultured peoples of the West. A well-known naturalist in his day, he was personally acquainted with Cesarotti the translator of Ossian, and was himself a profound admirer of Macpherson's gloomy genius. The importance of this preoccupation is that when he made his expeditions to Dalmatia and the Adriatic islands, his mind was already prepared to observe and note any evidence there might be of the existence of an oral tradition among the people^[5]. Being but very imperfectly acquainted with the Serbian language, he was unable to address himself directly to the peasants, and was therefore entirely dependent in this respect on the good offices of his learned Dalmatian friends. These latter supplied him with examples of alleged folk-song and helped in the task of translating them into Italian.

In 1771 Fortis published his Saggio d' Osservazioni sopra l' isola di Cherso ed Osero, in which there appeared the first translation from the Serbian into a modern tongue. It was the "Canto di Milos Cobilich e di Vuko Brankovich^[6]." The poem as here given comes from Kačić, a fact of which Fortis was evidently ignorant, although how it happened that his Dalmatian friends did not enlighten him is a point that has never been explained. They may have regarded Kačić as a mere compiler of national ballads, and so considered his name as of small importance, or they may possibly have committed the piece to writing as it was actually sung by the country-folk, but this is conjecture.

Three years later Fortis published his Viaggio in Dalmazia, a work of much greater importance. A complete section of the book is devoted to the manners and customs of the "Morlacks^[7]" (De' Costumi de' Morlacchi), and to a chapter on their poetry and music there is appended as an example of the former, the poem afterwards made famous by Goethe under the title of "Klaggesang von der edlen Frauen des Asan Aga."

This ballad was printed by Fortis in the original Serbian together with a parallel translation in Italian, and is presented with the apologetic air common to the early collectors^[8]. "I have translated several heroic songs of the Morlacchi," he writes, "and several of them appear to me to be both well-conducted and interesting, but I very readily allow that they cannot be put in comparison with the poems of the celebrated Scotch bard which we have lately had the pleasure of seeing translated into our own language with true poetical spirit by the Abbé Cesarotti^[9]."

The source from which the "Klaggesang" was derived remained for long a mystery. It is not in Kačić and only in 1883 when Miklošić published the text of a manuscript sent to him by friends in Ragusa, was the problem at last solved^[10]. It is now clear that Fortis must have had this MS. or a close variant of it before him when he made his own copy, and as luck would have it, this particular poem is a perfect specimen of its kind.

In 1775 a translation by Werthes of the Morlacchian section was published at Berne as Die Sitten der Morlacken, and next year the same author produced the complete work under the title of Reise in Dalmazien^[11]. With Teutonic fidelity he reproduced the Serbian text of the "Klaggesang" including misprints—and gave an accurate rendering of Fortis' Italian version. This book, containing the Serbian original and the German translation of the Italian translation, was the material before Goethe when he set to work on that rendering of his own which has taken its place as a little masterpiece of the translator's art.

Although it has been shown that Fortis was first in the field, it must be stated here that the specimens of Serbian folk-song to which he drew the attention of the learned, owed their wider publicity to the efforts of Herder and the happy collaboration of a poet of world-wide renown. Stimulated thereto by the romantic revival in England, Herder had begun his celebrated collections of folk-poetry. He did not confine his labours to the German field, his taste was catholic and he laid under contribution all nations and all tongues. Thus in the first part of the Volkslieder (1778) we find two pieces from the Serbian: the first, translated by Herder himself, is entitled "Ein Gesang von Milos Cobilich^[12] und Vuko Brankovich, Morlakisch." The other, the "Klaggesang von der edlen Frauen des Asan Aga," is the work of Goethe^[13].

In 1779 Herder published the second volume of Volkslieder. It contained two additional pieces from the Serbian, namely, "Radoslaus. Eine Morlakische Geschichte," and "Die schöne Dolmetscherin. Eine Morlakische Geschichte." These four ballads derived one and all from Fortis, but it was their appearance in Herder's collection that definitely marks the introduction of Serbian literature to the reading public of the West. No great development, however, took place until Vuk Stefanović Karadžić began his monumental labours in Vienna^[14]. With the unfailing encouragement and support of the Slovene scholar Jernej Kopitar, Vuk completed in the course of his long life an almost incredible amount of work of first-rate importance. It was in 1813 that Kopitar showed him Goethe's translation. The following year Vuk published his Kleine Serbische Grammatik, and the first modest instalment of his unrivalled collections of Serbian folk-song. In 1815 he made the acquaintance of Jacob Grimm who had come to Vienna as a delegate to the International Congress then sitting. The possibilities of the work in which Vuk was engaged immediately arrested his attention. The translations in the Volkslieder whilst indicating the quality of Serbian song had given no hint of the quantitative aspect, and Grimm was filled with astonishment at the unsuspected richness of the hoard which Vuk was then revealing to the world. He addressed himself at once to the study of the language, and his zeal increased with his knowledge. Goethe's interest in the Volkslied faded, flickered up again and failed, but Grimm remained true to his first conviction that the most significant literary event of his time was the discovery of the traditional poetry of the Serbs. He himself translated a number of Vuk's pieces, and in articles, reviews and prefaces insisted on the unique value of the Serbian minstrelsy. More than any other of foreign birth he contributed to place the study of this literature on a sound and solid basis.

In 1818 the first edition of Vuk's Dictionary appeared, which in its later form became an encyclopaedia of information and remains to this day an indispensable work of reference. The same year saw the publication in Berlin of Forster's Sängerfahrt, of interest here as it contained nineteen Serbian songs^[15] translated by Jacob Grimm. Grimm held very definite opinions on the manner in which such renderings should be made. In his view there were two alternatives: either an almost word for word prose translation, or a version of the sort that was possible only to a Goethe^[16].

The cult of the Serbian folk-song in Germany did not fail to attract attention in France. Madame de Stael hastened to assure Goethe that she was "ravie de la femme morlaque." In 1788 Justine Wynne published Les Morlaques, a book based on the work of Fortis^[17]. Charles Nodier followed in 1821 with his Smarra, purporting to be a collection of Slavonic songs and tales. These, like the songs in Les Morlaques, were largely spurious; nevertheless, they served a certain purpose—as did Mérimée's literary jest, La Guzla—in preparing the way for honest and serious work such as Dozon's Poésies populaires serbes (1859).

To return to the main stream of German endeavour, we find a woman, Fräulein von Jacob, taking the lead in the task of translation. Her full name was Therese Albertine Luise von Jacob, whence she derived her somewhat awkward pseudonym of Talvj. Introduced by Grimm to the work of Vuk, and learning that her idol Goethe was interested in the subject, she was carried away by an eager desire to do something that would attract his attention to herself. Forthwith she plunged impetuously into correspondence with the veteran poet, and her hopes were not disappointed, for Goethe proved not unwilling to play the part of benevolent counsellor and friend to a young and charming lady of literary talent. Thus encouraged Talvj went enthusiastically to work. In 1825 the first volume of her Volkslieder der Serben appeared, and was followed by the second volume the year after. It is an important book, for although Talvj lacked poetical insight and worked at a speed incompatible with a fastidious choice of words, she was the first to present to the German public, and so to the world at large, a copious and systematic selection of the rich material collected and printed by Vuk^[18].

Her work was well received and was fruitful in many directions. One particular result deserves special notice, for it was the publication of the Volkslieder der Serben that prompted Sir John Bowring to produce his Servian Popular Poetry^[19] (1827), the first attempt to introduce the subject to English readers. The dedication, in verse, is addressed to "Dr Steph. Vuk Karadjich." It is uncommonly bad verse. Fortunately it is by far the worst thing in the book. The introduction is instructive, but in the course of it the author makes the curious mistake of referring to the gusle as a "three-stringed instrument." "The historical ballads," he continues, "which are in lines composed of five trochaics, are always sung with the accompaniment of the Gusle. At the end of every verse the singer drops his voice and mutters a short cadence. The emphatic passages are chanted in a louder tone. 'I cannot describe,' says Wessely, 'the pathos with which these songs are sometimes sung. I have witnessed crowds surrounding a blind old singer and every cheek was wet with tears—it was not the music, it was the words that affected them.'" (Introduction, p. xliv.)

With regard to his predecessors Bowring remarks: "The translations which have appeared in Germany under the name of Talvj, are the work of an amiable woman (Theresa von Jacob) who, having passed the earlier part of her life in Russia, and possessing a mind cultivated by literature and captivated by the natural beauties of Servian poetry, has most successfully devoted herself to their diffusion. Professor Eugenius Wessely, of Vinkovcze in Slavonia, has also published a small volume of Translations from the Nuptial Songs of the Servians^[20]. The renderings have the merit of perfect fidelity, and his introduction contains many interesting illustrations of Servian manners.... To fidelity at least, this volume may lay an honest claim. I have endeavoured to avail myself of all the authors who have written on the subject, particularly of the valuable criticisms of Dr Kopitar in the Vienna Jahrbuch der Literatur, of the works of Goethe, Grimm and Vater. The notes attached to Talvj's translation I have employed without any special reference to them."

On comparing the Servian Popular Poetry with her own Volkslieder der Serben, Talvj came to the conclusion that Bowring was indebted to her for more than the notes, and the lady cherished a certain resentment against the author for concealing, as she thought, the extent of his indebtedness. He had a certain fluent and agreeable knack, which, although it urged him sometimes to the verge of the namby-pamby, is employed, upon the whole, effectively enough. It would be unjust as well as ungenerous to decry the work of Bowring, but it is the date of his book and the complete absence of rival translations which give him a place apart^[21]. A whole generation elapsed before another Englishman came to glean in the same rich field.

In 1828 Wilhelm Gerhard published at Leipzig his Wila: Serbische Volkslieder und Heldenmärchen. His work included a good deal of material from Vuk untranslated by Talvj, and contained also pieces not given by Vuk but communicated by Gerhard's friend Milutinović, together with a selection from Kačić. To the second volume was attached a bulky "Appendix," consisting of a translation of Merimee's Guzla, for he was one of those who were completely deceived by the Frenchman's tour de force^[22]. Gerhard alone was responsible for the unfortunate blunder. The rest of the book, which was the joint work of Gerhard and Milutinović, may be regarded as a satisfactory amplification of the translations of Talvj.

It must strike the reader of this sketch as remarkable that hitherto the name of no Austrian translator has been mentioned. Vuk, the great mainspring of the movement, had his home in Vienna; moreover the Austrian capital for geographical and political reasons was in much closer touch with the Southern Slavs than any other city in Europe, yet characteristically enough Austrian savants and men of letters neglected the opportunity, and so for many years it was left to their more purposeful and energetic fellow-Teutons in Germany to exploit the field. At last, however, Austria bestirred herself. In 1850, Anastasius Grün published a number of translations from the Slovene under the title of Volkslieder aus Krain. Frankl followed with his Gusle, Serbische Nationallieder, dedicated to Vuk's daughter. His object was to present some of the songs in Vuk which had not yet been translated, and he took the greatest pains to reproduce in German the metrical effect of the Serbian originals. A very interesting development now took place. The earliest collectors, from Kačić onwards, had shown a marked and natural disposition to group the heroic songs together so as to form, if possible, some sort of coherent sequence. Vuk had already attempted to arrange the Marko ballads^[23]. Vogl made a more ambitious effort in the same direction, supplementing Vuk's material with other Marko songs from Milutinović, and the method was pushed to its logical conclusion by Kapper who, in his Lazar der Serbencar, knit together the ballads of the Kossovo cycle and produced therefrom a single complete poem^[24].

Before our eyes, as it were, we have a demonstration of the genesis of an epic. It is true that Kapper's Lazar is an artificial product. The conditions essential to the birth, or rebirth, of the epic were passing rapidly away, but it is as certain as such things can be that if the Turkish dominion had endured a century or two longer, the separate ballads of the Kossovo cycle chanted by the Serbian guslari would have fused together as did the Nibelungen songs of the Germanic Spielleute^[25].

In 1859 the French consul at Belgrade published a remarkable book entitled Poésies populaires serbes, consisting of a line-by-line non-metrical rendering of five Kossovo songs, twelve Marko ballads in prose^[26], a number of Hajduk pieces, a selection of seven heroic poems and some of the so-called "domestic" or "family" songs, including "The Wife of Hassan Aga." It is an admirable work. The introduction, the notes and the translations are sound and reliable, and as an introduction to the subject, it is the most generally useful book that has appeared since Talvj.

Two years later, we find in Owen Meredith's Serbski Pesme, National Songs of Servia, another attempt to interpret Serbian folk-song to Englishmen^[27]. Regarded as poetry, these versions are on a much higher level than Bowring's, but the author allowed himself much greater liberty of treatment. As he says himself, "no attempt has been made at accurate verbal translation from the original language. They cannot, indeed, be called translations in the strict sense of the word. What they are, let the reader decide." The first seventy-five pages are devoted to a spirited rendering of the Kossovo ballads and the second half of the book consists of "Popular or Domestic Pesmas" among which is to be found once more "The Wife of Hassan Aga^[28]."

The wide attention that had been given to Serbian literature was part of the universal romantic movement. But it was no longer new. Foreign interest had reached its high-water mark and was now failing rapidly. Writing in 1905, Dr Ćurčin deplored the fact that Germans knew less about Serbian literature

then than they did half a century before. Since then, however, the political destiny of the Serbs has brought home to the world the great qualities of these people, their unswerving loyalty to their friends, their indomitable courage in disaster, their moderation in the hour of victory.

By its own intrinsic excellence the Serbian folk-poetry takes a very high place indeed, but there is another reason in a different order of ideas why the ballads should be read and studied. All the members of the Serbian race, so long politically held apart, are now united in the new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The rivalries of the component parts are certainly bitter; the forces of disintegration are powerful and even dangerous but the Serbian race has become the Serbian nation, a gifted and imaginative nation with a future of brilliant promise before it. To understand this people, to grasp the circumstances that have shaped their mentality, has become a matter of practical importance, and to this end there is no surer guide than the national poetry: it leads straight to the people's heart. "You may still find many an illiterate person in Serbia, but you will not find one who would not be able to tell you something about Stephan Nemanya, the first king of mediaeval Serbia, about his son St Sava, Tsar Doushan, his young son Ourosh, King Voukashin, the Royal Prince Kralyevitch Marko, Tsar Lazar, and the heroes who fell in the famous battle at Kossovo^[29]." That is truly said, and of all the old traditional heroes Marko is the best-beloved. There is no key to the soul of Serbia like a wise and sympathetic study of the ballads of Marko Kraljević.

II

MARKO KRALJEVIĆ

History has very little to say concerning Marko. The facts can be stated in a few words. He was the son of Vukašin, King of Prilep, hence the appellation Kraljević, or King's son, by which he is universally known.

In 1371, Vukašin and his brother Uglješ, as members of a very loose species of Balkan League, made an attempt to repel the Turkish invaders. But the Turks surprised and routed the Serbian army at Tchermen on the Marica, and Vukašin was drowned in the river along with thousands of his men^[30]. Marko succeeded his father as King of Prilep but the Ottoman pressure was irresistible, and in order, presumably, to retain his lands and local authority, Marko went over to the service of the Turk (1385). One of the Serbian MSS. in the Khludov collection at Moscow says that Marko was married in this town to Helen, daughter of the Vojvod Chlapen. There is no record of his having been present at the battle of Kossovo, although it is probable that he did play some part in the struggle. He was killed, according to tradition, at the battle of Rovina in 1394, while fighting for the army of the Sultan Bajazet against the Roumanians^[31].

That is practically all the information we have and there is no body or substance in it. Yet every Serb knows and loves Marko, and reveres him as the greatest hero of the race. It is the traditional poetry that has wrought this marvel, that has atoned for the silence of history, that has endowed Kraljević with a robust vitality. Without it the great Marko would have been but the shadow of a shade.

Before dealing with the epic ballads wherein the exploits of the Serbian Hercules are recorded, let us look for a little at the historical picture of his time. He lived at one of the great turning-points of history: the period of the Turkish irruption into Europe. It is a confused and confusing period, through the tangled mazes of which Gibbon is still the best guide.

In 1354, Suleiman, a son of the Emir Orkhan, occupied Gallipoli, the key of the Hellespont, and the forward sweep of Ottoman conquest had begun. The following year. Tsar Stepan Dushan, the maker and the Emperor of Great Serbia, left Prizren his capital and moved eastwards. It was his wish to be recognised as the champion of Christendom. Unfortunately he had failed to obtain either the whole-hearted support of the Pope at Avignon or the assistance of the Venetian fleet^[32]. He had just concluded a severe struggle with the King of Hungary and his Magyars, by whom he had been wantonly attacked. None the less, having reorganised his forces, he now pressed forward against the Turk with reasonable prospect of success. It is quite clear that, better than any of his contemporaries, he had grasped the significance of the advent of the invaders, and it was his present purpose to thrust them back into Asia, seize Constantinople from the hands of the effete Cantacuzenus and convert the city into the seat of government of a huge consolidated Slavonic Empire. Dushan was one of the great captains of his age, his plans were boldly yet carefully conceived, but when almost within sight of the goal the Serbian Emperor died a mysterious death^[33]. The succession passed to his young son Urosh, who proved utterly unable to control the disruptive elements in the State, and the imposing edifice reared by the father began to crumble to pieces under the son. The house was divided against itself and its fall was only a matter of time. Released from the compelling power of a master-spirit, the Serbs split up into factions under Vukašin, Lazar and others, and the crowd of vassal potentates, refusing allegiance to Urosh, strove each to establish complete independence within his own domain^[34].

It is quite possible, as Freeman thought, that if Tsar Dushan had lived to seize Constantinople, a bulwark would have been raised capable of withstanding the Turks: "Servia would have been the body and Constantinople the head. As it was the Turks found in Servia a body without a head, and in Constantinople a head without a body^[35]."

In 1359, four years after Tsar Dushan's untimely death, the warlike Suleiman was thrown from his horse and killed, but his brother. Sultan Murad I, carried on with resistless energy the policy of aggression. "By the pale and fainting light of the Byzantine annals," says Gibbon, "we can discern that he subdued without resistance the whole province of Romania or Thrace from the Hellespont to Mount Haemus and the verge of the capital, and that Adrianople was chosen for the royal seat of his government in Europe." Adrianople fell to Murad in 1361, Philippopoli in 1363. In 1371 he overthrew Vukašin in the battle on the Maritza—the ancient Hebrus—and in 1375 he took Nish (Nissa), the birthplace of Constantine^[36]. Events were now moving to a crisis. The capture of Nish gave the Turks a position of such military advantage that unless they could be ejected it was certain that the invaders would ultimately reduce the Balkans to servitude. Once more the dire need of some sort of united action seems to have penetrated the Slav consciousness, and roused the chiefs to at least a partial realisation of the extremity of their common peril. It was now that the Lord of North Serbia, Knez Lazar (the Tsar Lazar of the ballads), made a supreme effort to stem the advancing tide. In alliance with Tvrtko, King of Bosnia, he won a victory over the Turks on Toplitza river in 1387. Encouraged by this success, the Bulgarians who had already been compelled to submit to Turkish over-lordship, threw off their allegiance, but in the course of the following year Amurath^[37] succeeded in crushing them once more, and turned about to deal with the Serbian foe. In the meantime the Serbs had rallied to Lazar's standard at Krushevatz, and on the 28th of June (O.S. June 15th), 1389, "Tsar" and Sultan met in bloody strife on the sun-parched plain of Kossovo. "In the battle of Kossovo," writes Gibbon, "the league and independence of the Sclavonian tribes was finally crushed^[38]. As the conqueror walked over the field, he observed that the greatest part of the slain consisted of beardless youths, and listened to the flattering reply of the vizier that age and wisdom would have taught them not to oppose his irresistible arms. But the sword of his janizaries could not save him from the dagger of despair: a Serbian soldier started from the crowd of dead bodies, and Amurath was pierced in the belly with a mortal wound." The struggle thus briefly described by the great historian was one of the decisive battles of the world. The South Slav barrier had broken down, and thereafter the Turkish storm-wave was destined to surge forward across Europe to break furiously at last against the walls of Vienna.

The heroic memory of Kossovo, for all its aftermath of ruin and despair, wrought fruitfully in the Serbian soul in the form of the celebrated ballad-cycle now known as the "Lazarica," which after an age-long existence in the form of oral tradition was set down in writing in the first half of last century. The doughty deeds there recorded are described naturally with a view to the glorification of the vanquished. Gibbon's nameless soldier is none other than Milosh Obilitch who penetrated, under vow, to the Sultan's tent and slew him there^[39]. But the death of the Sultan in no way affected the issue of the battle. Led by his son Bajazet surnamed Yilderim, the Thunderbolt, the same who afterwards threatened to feed his horse on the high altar of St Peter's at Rome, the Turks shattered the Serb confederation and the hope of a strong united Serbian Empire melted away. Covered with wounds, so the ballad runs, the Tsar's faithful body-servant Milutin spurred his steed from the stricken field and bore the dark tidings to the White Tower of Krushevatz where Lazar's wife Militza sat watching and waiting.

Lazar is dead, he says, and

⁠Milosh fell,
Pursued by myriads down the dell,
Upon Sitnitza's rushy brink,
Whose chilly waves will roll I think
So long as time itself doth roll,
Red with remorse that they roll o'er him.
Christ have mercy on his soul,
And blessed be the womb that bore him^[40].

The dead heroes will live in the memory of Serbs as long as a man is left and as long as Kossovo plain endures. But as for Vuk Brankovitch the traitor:

⁠When the worm and mole
Are at work on his bones, may his soul
Eternally singe in Hell-fire.
Curst be the womb that bore him,
Curst be his father before him,
Curst be the race and the name of him
And foul as his sin be the fame of him,
For blacker traitor never drew sword,
False to his faith, to his land, to his lord^[41].

Murad's body was interred at Brussa, Lazar's at the monastery of the New Ravanitsa at Vrdnik in Syrmia^[42], but Milosh Obilitch was buried where he fell. Vuk Brankovitch the traitor, who deserted with twelve thousand men, survived the battle and received recompense from the Turks, and when he died they buried him at Krushevatz, Tsar Lazar's former capital. At the beginning of last century the Serbian patriots dug up the accurséd bones and scattered the dishonoured dust to the four winds of heaven.

III

THE MARKO OF THE BALLADS

In the Marko of the ballads we shall look in vain for any attempt on the part of the makers to relate their hero to any of the great historical happenings of the time^[43]. Marko is all that matters and his adventures are described with the object of elucidating his character and personality.

The story of King Vukašin's wooing gives a lurid picture of the social conditions of the period, its cruelty, its courage, its unflinching loyalty to blood. Even without the Guslar's statement that Marko followed in his uncle's footsteps, we should have known that the child of such stormy passions was himself predestined to a stormy career. As he grew up Marko developed a strong individuality of his own, and we find Vukašin protesting to the dying Dušan that he has no control over his son. Marko, it appears, drinks and brawls and follows his own wayward course, asking leave of none. Physically he dominates his fellows and his terrifying appearance when in full fighting kit is described in detail again and again. His "Samur kalpak" is pulled low over his dark eyes; his huge black moustache is as large as a lamb of six months' growth; his cloak is a shaggy wolf-pelt; at his girdle swings a damascened blade; on his back is slung a war-spear; at his saddle-bow hangs a mighty mace, with a well-filled wineskin to hold the balance lest the saddle should slip this way or that.

The steed he bestrides is a wonder-horse^[44], the piebald Šarac, his inseparable companion and friend.

When Marko drinks he gives Šarac an equal share of the wine—"pola pije, pola Šarcu daje^[45]"—and the startled observer cries truthfully that this knight is not as other knights nor this horse as other horses.

All things considered Marko's character is a surprisingly good one. He has his evil moments, and he does certain deeds which cannot be commended, but these are few in number and are not to be measured against his predominating honesty of purpose, his self-sacrificing loyalty and the fundamental goodness of his nature. Let us look for a little at these unworthy deeds of his and consider their implication. His treatment of Leka's sister appears at first sight to be horrible and revolting to the last degree^[46]. It might be the act of a Sir Breuse Saunce Pité. Yet when we remember what the status of woman was, it is evident that in the preliminaries Marko had made Leka an offer which was more than generous. The damsel had been given the unique privilege of choosing as her husband one of the three most famous warriors of the day. How does she respond to this signal mark of honour? She heaps scorn and insult on the three heroes. Relja she calls a bastard, Obilić a mare's son, and Marko she flouts as a Turkish spy. The situation is impossible, beyond belief intolerable, and a tragic outcome is inevitable. It is the detail of the execution that shocks the modern mind. But although on broad lines we may allow Marko to plead justification in this particular case, what are we to say of his dealings with the daughter of the Moorish King^[47]? Taken prisoner by the Moors, Marko had languished in a dungeon for seven years, and would have perished there had not the King's daughter offered to set him free on condition that he would swear to be her man. In order to regain his liberty without binding himself to her in any way, Marko employs a puerile device. Squatting in the darkness of the dungeon, he places his cap upon his knees and in solemn accents pledges his word to remain ever faithful—to the cap^[48]. The King's daughter, listening at the window, believes naturally that Marko has made oath of fidelity to her. Forthwith she fulfils her part of the bargain, and sets the prisoner free. They ride off together and escape from the country of the Moors. Then comes the tragedy. One morning the dusky beauty approaches Marko with a smile and seeks to embrace him, but a sudden loathing of her swarthy skin overmasters him, he draws his sword and cuts off her head. One other incident may be adduced in illustration of the less admirable side of Marko's nature. On presenting himself at the abode of Philip the Magyar, he is grossly insulted by Philip's wife, and on the spur of the moment he deals her a buffet with his open hand which knocks out "three sound teeth." Assuredly an ungallant deed, but the lady had a vitriolic tongue, and as Marko had taken the trouble to address her with punctilious politeness, her reply causes him to lose his temper. Of the three incidents above mentioned, the killing of the Moorish princess is morally by far the worst. Yet Marko's contemporaries would have thought nothing of such a crime or would have gloried in it as a success gained at the expense of the foe. For by the existing code that deed was virtuous which did scathe to the enemy, to his children or to his children's children. The view that Marko was guilty of treachery in the deceit he practised on the Moorish damsel is out of place here. It was impossible to be treacherous to an enemy; on the other hand it was possible to be generous, and as generosity was such an important part of Marko's make-up, we are disappointed when he falls short in this respect and plays the part of the commonplace ruthless warrior. Yet in the event he again reveals his better self, for in his heart he cannot justify the act by reference to a prevailing code, and the redeeming feature is that he suffers bitter remorse, confesses he has done evil and strives by good works to atone for his crime.

The worst that can be said of Marko has now been said. Although Vukašin lamented his wilfulness^[49], one of Marko's outstanding characteristics is filial devotion. When his father pursues him with murderous intent, the hero flees from before him because he holds that it were unseemly for son to contend with father^[50], and, at a later date, when by chance he meets the Turk who slew Vukašin at the Marica river, Marko exacts fitting vengeance. It is in his relations with his mother, however, that his dutifulness as a son is most strikingly apparent. For her he cherishes an unbounded reverence and love. He constantly seeks her advice and follows it even when it runs counter to all his own natural instincts and desires^[51].

His transparent honesty and high moral courage are conpicuous in the fine poem of Uroš and the Mrnjavčevići, when he brushes temptation aside, and, unmindful of consequences to himself, speaks out the truth that is in him.

Essential simplicity and goodness of heart are equally apparent when he rebukes Beg Kostadin for snobbery and unfilial conduct, and upholds the cause of the poor and the unfortunate^[52]. Like Robin Hood, with whom he has many points of resemblance, he is ever the friend of the poor and the champion of the oppressed. When the Sultan offers him the post of tax-gatherer with the assurance that great wealth is thus to be obtained, Marko declines the offer on the ground that the poor would curse him^[53]. He rescues the distressed damsel from the twelve Moors, and after plying his sabre to such purpose that "of twelve Moors he made twenty-four," he escorts her safely to his own manor where he gives her into his mother's keeping with strict injunctions that she is to be treated as if she were his own sister^[54].

Ever and always he is eager to redress wrong. A black Moor from beyond the seas has installed himself as tyrant of Kossovo. He imposes a wedding-tax on the people and perpetrates shameful outrage on maid and wife. One day as Marko is passing by, a maiden of Kossovo laments that she is unable to marry because her brothers are poor and cannot pay the tax. Marko comforts her by giving her the necessary sum, gallops off on Šarac to the pavilion of the oppressor, penetrates within, kills the ruffian and his attendant satellites and so brings to an abrupt end the outrageous tyranny beneath which the country groaned. "And all the people, both great and small, cried: 'God keep Kraljević Marko^[55].'"

In a country where lavish hospitality is the rule, Marko's hospitality has a distinguishing note of its own. During the celebration of the Slava at Prilep, one of the guests remarks casually that the feast is perfect save for the lack of fish from Ochrida. Touched to the quick in his pride as host, Marko leaves the banquet, saddles Šarac and is about to start for Ochrida when his mother comes to him and begs him to take no weapons lest he should shed blood on his Slava day. By a mighty effort of self-repression, the dutiful son, laying aside his weapons, sets out unarmed, and on the way meets with the adventure which proves him to possess in the highest degree the spirit of self-sacrifice; he is ready to lay down his life for his friends^[56].

Another aspect of his nature which must be mentioned here is his kindly treatment of the lower animals. In the ballad of the falcon that gave him water to drink and with outspread wings shielded his head from the glare of the sun, we have a story worthy of Aesop. Marko in his hour of need is comforted by the humble creature he had once befriended^[57].

Although the times did not encourage the development of what we should call the sporting instinct, Marko was something of a sportsman. When the crafty damsel outwitted him and made him feel particularly foolish, Marko, after a moment of pardonable fury, bursts into a loud laugh at his own discomfiture^[58]. When he receives the message from his friends in Varadin dungeon beseeching him to save them either by ransom or by deed of prowess, he does not hesitate a moment in his choice of the heroic alternative. He takes a desperate chance and braves the unknown in his assault on the mysterious mountain Vila, but he compels her to undo the mischief she has wrought, and gains her lasting allegiance. When he overcomes the monstrous, three-hearted Moussa^[59]—thanks to a useful hint from his Vila friend—Marko grieves because he has slain a better man than himself. He is cunning and humorous in his adventure with Alil-Aga, and in the end shows himself a generous winner, although he cannot resist the temptation of reading the Turk a little lesson on the superior morality of the Serbs^[60].

His delight in the wine-cup is unaffected and sincere. His manifold activities are punctuated by potations, his rough, cheery, convivial spirit is not to be denied. When the Sultan issues a decree forbidding wine to be drunk during the fast of Ramadan, Marko not only ignores the order but compels the gaping bystanders—the hodjas and the hadjis—to drink with him, for he cannot bear to drink alone^[61].

His physical attributes are of the kind that win admiration in every country and in every age, and it is exceedingly probable that there is here a solid basis of fact and that here must be sought the origin of the Marko legend. His strength and skill in the use of weapons are marvellous. Philip, the terrible Magyar, smites the hero with his studded mace, and Marko scornfully begs him not to rouse the slumbering fleas, but when Philip's next blow breaks the golden goblet and spills the wine, Marko rises up in wrath and with one mighty sweep of his sword cuts the Magyar in two^[62]. His hand-grip is such that he can squeeze drops of water out of a piece of dry, hard wood: he overcomes a succession of the doughtiest champions, he fights victoriously against overwhelming odds, and, most wonderful of all, he pursues and captures the dangerous and elusive Vila of the mountain.

What an illuminating glimpse we get in Jevrosima's remark that she is utterly sick and weary of having to wash blood-stained garments. She suggests that her son should try ploughing for a change. Marko tries, in a grimly humorous way of his own, but his peaceful venture ends in a battle with Turkish janissaries. His amazing strength more than atones for his lack of weapons, for he whirls plough and oxen round his head, and with this original bludgeon beats the life out of his enemies^[63].

Yet for all his courage and for all his strength, he is not always unflinching in fortitude nor supreme in the matter of thews and sinews. With true artistry the ballads tell how his spirit quailed in the frightful dungeon of Azak^[64], how his courage halted in the presence of the Perilous Bogdan, how his strength was surpassed by that of Moussa the Outlaw. He is marvellous, indeed, but he is mortal man; he is portrayed neither as a god nor as an abstraction, and these deft touches which reveal his limitations and his weaknesses, serve but to reinforce his warm human vitality.

There remains the interesting question of his allegiance to the Sultan. How is it possible that the Serbs should have as their national hero one who was in the service of their mortal foe? The ballads themselves supply a partial answer. It is clear that the makers recognised the difficulty but turned it to their own advantage by a skilful reversal of the rôles, in such sort that Marko positively bullies his imperial master. That unhappy potentate usually brings the interview hurriedly to an end by plunging his hand into his "silken pocket" and presenting Marko with a fistful of ducats. One of several scenes of the sort takes place when Marko kills the Turk whom he finds in possession of his father's sword. On being made aware of the deed the Sultan sends for his contumacious vassal. Marko stalks fiercely into the presence and speaks the bold words: "If God himself had bestowed the sword on the Sultan, I had slain the Sultan's self^[65]."

The problem really amounts to this—What were the special qualities which gave Marko such a powerful hold on the imagination of his fellows? It must almost certainly have been his possession of unusual physical strength and prowess, for it is never claimed that he had intellectual gifts or that he was even intelligent; he is described indeed as a "dunderhead^[66]." Be that as it may, the significant thing is that somehow or other he made the necessary imaginative appeal, and his exploits as a Serb and as a Christian became the theme of ballad minstrelsy. That the guslari should extol their hero at the expense of the Turk was only natural, they thus turned the tables, as it were, on their conquerors.

Marko's fealty to the Sultan when thus manipulated and adroitly combined with the suggestion that the nominal servant was in reality greater than his lord, could prove no bar to his popular acceptability. On the contrary, it was in this dual aspect that he became the national hero, the ideal exemplar, the proud symbol expressive of the unbroken spirit that lived on in spite of disaster and defeat, and kept alive the confident hope that however long the night, darkness must ultimately give place to the dawn of another day.

There is nothing complex about Marko's character, his is essentially a simple soul. There are no fine shades or subtle distinctions. The contrasts are hard and violent, like the lights and shadows of his native land. But he championed the oppressed and defied the Turkish conqueror, and the simple peasants of his race have enshrined their simple hero in their heart of hearts^[67].

In conclusion, something must be said about the verse in which the heroic ballads are composed, and the manner in which they are chanted by the bards. The poems consist of lines of ten syllables, unrhymed and with no "enjambement." Repetition, the fixed epithet and other devices are of constant occurrence and are often employed with telling effect. "Alles so wie in Homer" was Grimm's comment^[68]. The bard or guslar is often blind, as by the best tradition it is fitting he should be, and his usual custom is to sit down under some shady tree where there is a good prospect of his having a sufficient audience. He then makes ready his gusle which in shape bears a rough resemblance to a mandolin, but the bridge rests upon a covering of vellum as in a banjo. The gusle is often adorned with carvings of kings and heroes. One in my own possession shows the figures of Tsar Lazar, Ivan Kosančić, Toplica Milan and others, the names being cut beneath them, while the neck of the instrument is carved to represent the neck and head of Šarac. The bow is in the shape of a curving snake and is strung with horsehair. Holding the gusle body downwards, the guslar fingers rapidly and draws his bow backwards and forwards across the single string, producing a weird wail that rises and falls. Then suddenly he plunges into his tale:

Ili grmi, il' se zemlja trese?
Niti grmi nit se zemlja trese,
Već pucaju na gradu topovi,
Ha tvrdome gradu Varadinu^[69].

The ballads are not divided into separate verses or stanzas, but as a rule the minstrel pauses after every four or five lines and the plaintive cry of the gusle fills in the pause. It is as if one listened to the thin echo of the recitative, and in the proper surroundings the effect has an impressiveness of its own. Many peasants can perform creditably on the instrument, but naturally their repertoire is small compared with that of the professional bard who is now rarely met with in Serbia^[70]. That, at least, is my own experience, for during a stay of some four years in the course of which I had occasion to travel through the greater part of the country, I came across no more than three men to whom the term "Guslar" might properly be applied.

An interesting point arises in connection with the poems as chanted or even read aloud. The natural accentuation of the words has to yield to the exigencies of the metre in a very remarkable way, and it has been suggested that this marked peculiarity may have some bearing "on the unelucidated question of Greek accent and quantity^[71]."

The epic songs fall into two divisions:

⁠(a) Those having a long line of fifteen or sixteen syllables, caesura after the seventh or eighth syllable, and a short recurring burden or refrain (pesme dugog stiha).

⁠(b) Those having a decasyllabic line, caesura after the fourth syllable, and no refrain (pesme kratkog stiha).

The former are the older of the two and date back at least as far as the fourteenth century. Only about a hundred have survived, whereas there are thousands of specimens of the decasyllabic poems now extant. The themes of the older verses reappear in many of the later ballads but it is important to note that, whereas the ten-syllable poems are known and sung everywhere today, all knowledge of the older forms has vanished completely from the popular memory and hitherto no satisfactory account has been given of how or when they thus sunk into oblivion. The decasyllabic poems as chanted today have been classified under the following groups or cycles:

⁠(a) Non-historical. A small group consisting of fairy-tales and of Christian and pre-Christian legends.

⁠(b) Historical. A very large group containing the following ballad-cycles:

• 1. The Nemanja cycle.
• 2. The„ Kossovo cycle„
• 3. The„ Marko cycle„
• 4. The„ Branković cycle„
• 5. The„ Crnojević cycle„
• 6. The„ Hajduk cycle„
• 7. The„ Uskok cycle„
• 8. The„ Montenegrin Liberation cycle.
• 9. The„ MontenegrinSerbian Liberation„ cycle„

The history of the decasyllabic verse is obscure and difficult to trace. Professor Popović is of opinion that it did not derive directly from the sixteen-syllable line, but sprang originally from a now forgotten intermediate form of eleven or twelve syllables which had borrowed certain themes from the longer metres. The decasyllabic ballad appears to have arisen among the Uskoks of the Coastland, not earlier than the seventeenth century^[72]. Thence, adding to itself in its progress, it passed successively to Bosnia, Herzegovina and Montenegro, and so at last into Serbia where, with the ballads of the great rising against the Turks, the truly national poetry was brilliantly completed and rounded off. The wheel had thus come full circle and the story of the traditional folk-song ends in the country where in its older form it had had its birth^[73].

In translating these admirable ballads, I was faced with the inevitable choice between a free metrical rendering and a more accurate prose translation. I chose the latter, partly because I hoped the book might prove useful to students of the Serbian language and literature, and considered that a large degree of literalness would more than counterbalance the accompanying disadvantages. Moreover, it must be confessed, I had grave doubts of my ability to write even tolerable verse in the required measure, and a few tentative efforts in that direction tended to confirm my diffidence. But as each line of the original makes complete sense in itself it seemed possible to write a line-by-line prose translation and yet keep closely to the text. There are two obvious dangers to be avoided; one is "fine writing," the other is baldness. The ballad is apt to suffer very severely under the touch of the self-appointed embellisher, and Marko would undoubtedly lose much of his naive fascination if the stark manner of his presentment were unduly modified by the translator. Yet, on the other hand, without the insistent haunting monotony of the decasyllables and the incommunicable verbal cunning that is part of their fabric, the too literal translator may find himself lapsing into the second error, and which is the greater evil it is hard to say. I have done my best to maintain a decent equilibrium between the bald and the elaborate, for each, in its own degree, does injustice to the art and to the austerity of the original. I am indebted to my friends Professors Bogdan and Pavle Popović for their assistance in elucidating knotty points and to Mr Alexander Yovitchitch, Major Milan Yovitchitch and Mr W. K. Holmes for help in reading the proofs.

Note (a). I have used throughout the text of Vuk, Srpske Narodne Pjesme, vol. ii. The collections of Bogišić, the Brothers Jovanović and the others have not been drawn upon.

Note (b). In vols. i and vi of Vuk's collection there are thirteen additional Marko poems, but as it is generally recognised that the pieces contained in the second volume are the best of their kind, are fully representative of the character and exploits of Marko and form a complete whole in themselves, I have limited myself to this material. Over two hundred Marko ballads are in existence but they have never been gathered together.

Glasgow, August 1921.

a fact worth noting, however, that this warfare almost invariably takes the form of hand-to-hand fighting and very frequently that of a series of single combats. The national aspect of war is seldom brought into much prominence."

1. Andrija Kačić Miošić (1690-1760) was a native of Makarska in Dalmatia. Generally known as Kačić. The first known edition of the Razgovor ugodni appeared in 1756. In 1757 Bodmer printed the Kriemhilden Rache und die Klage and, as Carlyle remarks, "a certain antiquarian tendency in literature, a fonder, more earnest looking back into the Past, began about that time to manifest itself in all nations." The Nibelungen Lied, p. I.
2. Das serbische Volkslied in der deutschen Literatur, by Dr Milan Ćurčin, Leipzig, 1905, p. 21.
3. Fragments of Ancient Poetry collected in the Highlands of Scotland and translated from the Gaelic or Erse Language, Edinburgh, 1760, 70 pp.
4. "I do not think there is a writer in verse of the present day who would not be proud to acknowledge his obligation to the Reliques." Wordsworth, Appendix to Preface to 2nd ed. of Lyrical Ballads.
5. Ćurčin, op. cit. p. 22.
6. Miloš Obilić is the hero and Vuk Branković the traitor of the Kossovo cycle.
7. A name of disputed origin. For Fortis' opinion on the subject, see Travels into Dalmatia, pp. 46-47. London, 1778.
8. Cf. Percy: "In a polished age like the present, I am sensible that many of these reliques of antiquity will require great allowances to be made for them."
9. Travels into Dalmatia (English trans. of the Viaggio). London, 1778
10. Über Goethes Klaggesang von der edlen Frauen des Asan Aga. Vienna, 1883. See Ćurčin, p. 43.
11. A French translation, Voyage en Dalmatie—par M. l' Abbi Fortis, was published at Berne in 1778.
12. Miloš Obilić or Kobilić. See below, p. xxvi, footnote. He was an intimate friend of Marko's. Vuk Branković was the traitor who is said to have deserted from the Serbs during the course of the struggle at Kossovo.
13. Sir Walter Scott translated the "Klaggesang" under the title of "Morlachian Fragment—after Goethe." Lockhart seems to suggest that this was printed in the Apology for Tales of Terror (1799). Only twelve copies of the Apology were printed (cf. Lockhart, vol. i. p. 275. Macmillan, 1900), of which one is now in the library at Abbotsford. On inspecting this copy, however, I found no trace of the "Morlachian Fragment." On the flyleaf Scott has written: "This was the first book printed by Ballantyne of Kelso—only twelve copies were thrown off and none for sale." The book contains 79 pages and the Table of Contents is as follows:

    1. The Erl-King.

    2. The Water-King. A Danish ballad.

    3. Lord William.

    4. Poor Mary—The Maid of the Inn. By Mr Southey.

    5. The Chase.

    6. William and Helen.

    7. Monzo the Brave and Fair Imogine.

    8. Arthur and Matilda.

    9. The Erl-King's Daughter.

14. Vuk Stefanović Karadžić (1787-1864). See Appendix, p. 180 ff.
15. The first of these is "Marko's Hunting with the Turks." Grimm's title is "Die Jagd Muleys"; cf. (Ćurčin, p. 103, footnote; Grimm's Kleinere Schriften, iv. pp. 455-458. This is the only Marko ballad given by Grimm.
16. Nevertheless Grimm made translations in verse as well as in prose. The pieces in the Sängerfahrt are non-metrical, line by line translations keeping extraordinarily closely to the original, but a number of renderings in the appropriate measures will be found collected in the Kl. Schr. IV. pp. 427-455.
17. Les Morlaques, par J.W.C.D.U. et R. (Justine Wynne, Comtesse de Ursins-Rosenberg). Venice, 1788. Writing in 1825 Goethe says: "Schon sind es fünfzig Jahre, dass ich den Klaggesang der edlen Frauen Asan Agas übersetzte, der sich in des Abbate Fortis Reise, auch von da in den Morlackischen Notizen der Gräfin Rosenberg finden liess. Ich übertrug ihn nach dem beigefügten Französischen, mit Ahnung des Rhythmus und Beachtung der Wortstellung des Originals." Essay on "Serbische Lieder" in Über Kunst und Alterthum, 5 Band, 2 Heft, p. 35. (In Hempel's edition of Goethe's Works, vol. 29, p. 583.) Ćurčin, pp. 47—51. Ćurčin shows conclusively that Goethe suffered from a lapsus memoriae in making the statement above quoted.
18. Народне Српсве Пјесие—Servian Popular Poetry, translated by John Bowring. London, 1827. It should be noted that a book entitled "Translations from the Servian Minstrelsy" was printed for private circulation in 1826. See Quarterly Review in Bibliography.
19. Cf. Grimm, Kl. Schr. iv. pp. 419-421.
20. E. Eugen Wesely was a gymnasium professor at Vinkovce. His book containing metrical translations of fifty wedding-songs from Vuk's collection was published at Pest in 1826. Cf. Grimm, Kl. Schr. iv. p. 421.
21. Only three of the Marko ballads are given by Bowring. They are: "The Moorish King's Daughter," "Marko and the Turks," and the "Death of Kralevich Marko." See pp. 104, 146, 174 of this translation.
22. In the preface to the 2nd edition of La Guzla, Mérimée says that two months after the publication of the book Bowring wrote to him with a request for copies of the originals.
23. A very difficult task. See below, note 3.
24. Kapper had a Serbian predecessor in the person of Joxim Nović-Otoćanin who published his Lazarica at Novi Sad (Neusatz) in 1847. The name "Lazarica" has since been generally adopted to denote the Kossovo cycle.
25. In the Kossovo cycle there is a definite chronological sequence of events highly favourable to the ultimate union of the fragments into a coherent whole.

    The Marko ballads, on the other hand, resist such treatment. It is difficult to establish any satisfactory progression in time and equally difficult to arrange the stories so as to trace any development in Marko's character. It may be that the epic ballads as we have them now are merely recast fragments of longer epic poems now lost. If so then the modern attempts to join up these fragments are in the nature of a reversal of the process of disintegration.

26. 1. Ouroch et les Merniavtchévitch.

    2. Marko et la Vila.

    3. Marko et le faucon.

    4. Les noces de Marko. 5. Marko reconnait le sabre de son père.

    6. Marko et le bey Kostadin.

    7. Marko et Alil-Aga.

    8. Marko et la fille du roi des Maures.

    9. Marko va à la chasse avec les Turcs.

    10. Marko laboureur.

    11. Mort de Marko.

    12. La sœur du Capitaine Léka (Analyse).

27. Owen Meredith, the pen-name of Edward Robert, first Earl of Lytton (1831-1892). He was Viceroy of India in 1876 and was Ambassador in Paris at the time of his death.
28. Owen Meredith in his Introduction acknowledges his indebtedness to Dozon's work, and indeed certain passages are transferred almost literally from the French, e.g. "Il (Marko) est de la famille des Roland, des Cid, des Roustem (et aussi des Gargantua)," Dozon, Introd. p. 20; "féroce comme un Viking scandinave," p. 13. "Marko Kralievitch...a sort of burly, brawling Viking of the land, with just a touch in his composition of Roland and the Cid, but with much more about him of Gargantua," Introd. p. xxvii, Owen Meredith.
29. Chedo Mijatovich in preface to Hero-tales and Legends of the Serbians, by W. M. Petrovitch. London, 1914.
30. See History of Serbia by H. W. V. Temperley (London, 1917), p. 95. Also Dozon, op. cit. p. 70f.
31. Vuk's Rječnik, under art. "Marko Kraljević." See translation in appendix. Also Temperley, pp. 97-98. In the ballads there is certainly an attempt to establish a connection between Marko and Kossovo but it is very perfunctory. See "Marko and the Falcon."
32. Temperley, pp. 76—77. Jireček's account gives the impression that Dushan's chances of success against Constantinople had been almost fatally compromised by the attack made upon him by King Lewis and his Hungarians.
33. Jireček, Geschichte der Serben, pp. 407-412; the place of Dushan's death is unknown. Ranke, History of Servia (Bohn, 1853), p. 15; Temperley, History of Serbia, pp. 76-78.
34. Cf. "Uroš and the Mrnjavčevići" and "The Death of Dushan" in this translation. Uroš was 19 years of age at the time of his succession. He was "a youth of great parts, quiet and gracious, but without experience." This is the description of contemporary Serbian chroniclers quoted by Prof. Tihomir R. Djordjević in The Battle of Kossovo, p. 11, pubHshed by the Kossovo Day Committee, 1917.
35. Freeman, The Ottoman Power in Europe (Macmillan, 1877), p. 106.
36. The date of the permanent Turkish occupation of Nish is uncertain. Prof. Djordjević puts it as late as 1386. Cf. Temperley, p. 99, footnote.
37. This name occurs as "Amurath," "Murad" and "Murat."
38. "Historically," says Sir Arthur Evans, "the battle of Kossovo was essentially a drawn battle.... It was not without reason that the commander of the Bosnian and Primorian contingent, Vlatko Hranitch, who drew off his own forces from the field in good order, sent tidings of victory to his master. King Tvrtko, passed on by him to the citizens of Trail and Florence. In the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Te Deums of thanksgiving for the success of the Christian arms were actually celebrated in the presence of the King of France.... Thus the first impression of the fight was that of an heroic combat between equals. The bards who carried on the Court poetry that had already existed in the days of Tsar Dushan and earlier kings, dramatized the incidents of the battle without any particular reference to historic consequences. It was only the later realization of its far-reaching effects that made the Lay of Kossovo an epic record of what proved to have been the last united effort of the Serbian race to resist the Asiatic invader." Serbia's Greatest Battle, published by the Kossovo Day Committee, 1917.
39. Cf. Richard Knolles, Generall Historie of the Turkes, p. 200 (ed. 1620): "The name of this man (for his courage worthy of eternal memory) was Miles Cobelitz." The name "Obelić" was, and is, believed by many to be a mere variant of "Kobelić," i.e. "Son of a mare." This is what gives point to the jibe of Leka's sister. An example of something of the same sort is to be found in the name Macleod. H. A. Gibbons in his Ottoman Empire, p. 177, says: "It is a commentary on the Serbian character that this questionable act has been held up to posterity as the most saintly and heroic deed of national history." Quoted in Temperley's History of Serbia, p. 101. Mr Temperley has no difficulty in demolishing the argument.
40. Owen Meredith, Serbski Pesme (reprint, Chatto and Windus, 1917), p. 73.
41. Owen Meredith, op. cit. p. 75.
42. To be accurate Lazar's body was at first taken to the monastery of Gračanica on Kossovo polje. Thence it was removed to the monastery of Ravanica from which place, during the great Serbian exodus, it was transferred across the Sava to the monastery at Vrdnik in the Fruška Gora. The monastery was then renamed "Nova Ravanica."
43. Vidovit: the word is associated with the idea of second-sight. A child born with a caul is "vidovit"—it knows more than other children and may safely associate with Vilas (Vuk's Dict.).
44. Cf. Chadwick, The Heroic Age, p. 440 f.: "On the whole warfare is the state of affairs most commonly involved in heroic stories. It is
45. "Marko Kraljević and General Vuča," p. 49, l. 108.
46. "The Sister of Leka Kapetan," pp. 29-45, ll. 530-548. It is interesting to note in this connection that Talvj thoroughly disapproved of Marko. Goethe also thought him a somewhat rough hero—"ein rohes Gegenbild zu dem griechischen Herkules, dem persischen Rustan, aber freilich in scythisch höchst barbarischer Weise." This was the unfortunate impression gained by a reading of "Marko and the Daughter of the Moorish King" (p. 104). Later he modified his opinion and wrote to Talvj asking her to omit from her collection the ballad of "The Perilous Bogdan." Cf. note, p. 26.
47. P. 104 ff. "Marko and the Daughter of the Moorish King."
48. Cf. the words of La Flèche, L'Avare, Act 1, Sc. 3.
49. "The Death of Dushan," p. 10, ll. 43-50.
50. "Uroš and the Mrnjavčevići," pp. 13-20, ll. 212-218.
51. E.g. "Marko and Djemo the Mountaineer," "The Turks come to Marko's Slava." But in "Marko's Ploughing" he obeys his mother in a humorous way of his own.
52. "Marko and Beg Kostadin," p. 84.
53. "Marko and Mina of Kostura," pp. 91-100, ll. 207-232.
54. "Marko and the Twelve Moors," pp. 101-103.
55. "Marko abolishes the Marriage-Tax," p. 139, ll. 247-251.
56. "Marko and Djemo the Mountaineer," pp. 133-138.
57. "Marko and the Falcon," p. 58; cf. also variant, p. 59, and "Marko's Hunting with the Turks," p. 146, ll. 45-46.
58. "A Damsel outwits Marko," p. 46, l. 84.
59. "Marko and the Vila," pp. 21-24. A Vila comes to Marko's aid in "Musa the Outlaw," p. 124, ll. 234-245.
60. "Marko and Alil-Aga," pp. 86-90.
61. "Marko drinks Wine in Ramadan," p. 150. This bibulous trait emphasises the fact that Marko was no Turk.
62. "Marko and Philip the Magyar," pp. 78-83.
63. "Marko's Ploughing," p. 158.
64. "Marko in the Dungeon of Azak," pp. 107-111.
65. "Marko recognises his Father's Sword," p. 70; "Marko's Hunting with the Turks," p. 146; "Marko drinks Wine in Ramadan," p. 150.
66. See "Marko's Hunting with the Turks," p. 146, ll. 31-32:

    Али Марков соко јогуница
    Као што је и негов господар.

    Dickkopf is Dr Ćurčin's rendering of јогуница.
67. During a visit to Belgrade, Kapper made the acquaintance of Knićanin, one of the Serb leaders in the revolution of 1848. Kapper records the conversation as follows. Knićanin asked—"'Kennt Ihr die Geschichte Markos?' Ich bejahte—'Seht Ihr, da kennt Ihr auch die ganze Geschichte des serbischen Volkes, und dann kennt Ihr auch das ganze serbische Volk selbst'" (Südslavische Wanderungen, vol. 1. p. 154).
68. "It is clear enough that Servian heroic poetry bears little resemblance to the Homeric poems as we have them. But we may strongly suspect that at an earlier stage in the history of Homeric poetry the resemblance would be much closer.…" Chadwick, The Heroic Age, p. 313.
69. "Marko Kraljević and General Vuča," p. 49, ll. 1-4.
70. Cf. Slavische Folkforschungen, by Dr Friedrich S. Krauss, ch. xi. p. 183 ff. "Vom wunderbaren Guslarengedächtnis."
71. Owen Meredith, op. cit. Introd. p. xxxii. "The following words, for instance, if pronounced without reference to prosody, would be thus accentuated:

    I pōnĕsĕ | trī tōvără blāgă.

    But when sung to the gouslé as a verse, they are to be scanned thus:

    I pŏnēsĕ | trī tŏvāră blāgă."

72. Soerensen's detailed study of the rise of the short-line verse should be consulted. See Appendix, p. 179 f. for an additional note on the date of the ballads.
73. 2 See Jugoslovenska Književnost, by Professor Pavle Popović, to which I am indebted for the foregoing summary account of the "pesme dugog stiha" and the "pesme kratkog stiha." Chapter, "Pred novim vremenom. Narodna Poezija," pp. 55-68.