DEATH LAMENT OF THE NOBLE WIFE OF ASAN AGA.
[This beautiful poem, purporting to be a translation from the Morlachiau, was first printed in Herder's admirable collection of ballads, translated into German from almost every European language, and published under the title of Volkslieder. The fine poetic instinct of Goethe was signally displayed in this composition; for although, as Mickiewicz has observed ("Les Slaves," tome i. p. 323, Paris, 1849), he had to divine the import of the poem across three bad translations, and was at the same time ignorant of the Slavic language, he produced a perfect version, having instinctively detected and avoided the faults of the previous translators.]
What is yon so white beside the greenwood?
Is it snow, or flight of cygnets resting?
Were it snow, ere now it had been melted;
Were it swans, ere now the flock had left us.
Neither snow nor swans are resting yonder,
'Tis the glittering tents of Asan Aga.
Faint he lies from wounds in stormy battle;
There his mother and his sisters seek him,
But his wife hangs back for shame, and comes not.
When the anguish of his hurts was over,
To his faithful wife he sent this message—
"Longer 'neath my roof thou shalt not tarry,
Neither in my court nor in my household."
When the lady heard that cruel sentence,
'Reft of sense she stood, and racked with anguish;
In the court she heard the horses stamping,
And in fear that it was Asan coming,
Fled towards the tower, to leap and perish.
Then in terror ran her little daughters,
