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But full stiff-necked[1] was Marko's falcon,
Even as his lord and master,
He yielded not up the duck of golden wing,
But strake the Vizier's falcon,
And strewed abroad his grey feathers.
And when Murad perceived it,
He was wonderly wroth,
And forthwithal he took Marko's falcon,
And dashed him against the green fir-tree,
That he brake his right wing. 40
And with that Murad returned back through the greenwood,
With his brave fellowship of twelve with him.
Marko's falcon hissed
Like angry snakes among the rocks.
Marko took his falcon,
And began to bind up his wing,
And with wrathful voice he said:
"Alas for thee and for me, falcon,
To go on hunting with the Turks without fellowship of Serbs,
For so they give us but a sorry share." 50
When he had bound up the falcon's wing,
Marko sprang on the back of Sharatz,
And pursued after through the black forest.
Sharatz went like the mountain Vila,
Swift and far he went,
And within a while they came to the edge of the dark forest,
And on the plain below they saw the Vizier,
With his fellowship of twelve with him.
The Vizier Murad looked about him,
And when he was ware of Kraljević Marko, 60
He said to his fellowship:
"My children, my brave fellowship of twelve,
- ↑ "Stiff-necked"; јогуница is rendered as "der Eigensinnige" in Vuk's Dict., also as "pertinax."
