It would be useless to treat of the rhythm and versification of these poems without publishing the originals. I shall therefore only remark that “Libussa’s Judgment,” the oldest of the three poems not contained in the Queen’s Court Manuscript, is translated line for line into the original metre, which is the same as that which more or less prevails both in the epic poetry in this collection and in that of other Slavonic nations.
The genuineness of the Queen’s Court Manuscript has been called in question, but as no reasons have ever been given for the doubt, we may pass it over as unfounded and unjust.
These translations are offered to the English public in the hope that the countrymen of Wickliffe will vouchsafe to turn their eyes for a moment to wards the intellectual productions of the countrymen of Huss and Jerome. To cite the stirring words of Boleslaw Jablonsky with regard to the resistance of the Bohemians both to the aggressions of the See of Rome and the invasions of the Tatars:
“Bohemia ’twas, amongst the neighb’ring lands
“That lighted erst the torch of wisdom free;
“Bohemia’s sons it was, whose valiant hands
“Won for the whole of Europe liberty.
