them to the village, where the swing stands, and calls the other women and girls to the swing.
Village-women, come to the swing!
Bring your chickens, and bring your eggs,
Bring breeding geese.
Bring ducks by couples,
Bring the feet of swimming fowl.
Come to the swing, and let us swing.
Shove the children into the cradle.
The father will nurse the children.
I went to the swing to swing.
And there I found many black stockings,
Of Anna two striped ribbons,
Of Lisa handsome garters.
Of the Kubija's daughter golden tresses.
Of the poor orphan only false tresses.
By way of conclusion, I will present you with a few more nuptial sonnets, the first of which must incontestably have been written somewhere in the period between the beginning of the year 1580 and the close of the year 1583, when the Swedes, Poles, and Russians, were all in the country at once. The Turks therein mentioned must be synonymous with Tartars, a mistake that may easily be pardoned in a nation so very deficient in the science of geography.
X. A Wedding-song. The good luck of a girl brought up in the mansion-house of the estate with the nobleman's family, who is probably to be married to one of the upper servants, is here celebrated. "Thou knowest thy station, where thou safely sleepest: but we, thy parents (it was doubtless in war time), we know not where we shall sleep. Perhaps the morass of the field will be our death-bed."
Worsted stockings are, it seems, quite a luxury. The female boors wear narrow aprons. Broad aprons, therefore, contrariwise, denote "riches."
Hark, my maid, my little bride!
Thou grewest up in the nobleman's room,
In a room where people go in worsted stockings.
Amongst worsted-stocking company;
Where there are large windows,[1]
- ↑ Large windows. The habitations of the boors are without any, or very small ones, consisting only of one pane of green glass, about a span square.
