“ He gave his kiss to one alone;
The other maid grew jealous then:
“Most faithless thou of faithless men!”
She said—and he replied—“Fair maid!
I fain would kiss thy cheeks of red,
But thou hast got a bickering brother,
Who loves to quarrel with another,
And I no quarrel seek, my love!”
She hied her to the darksome grove—
Silent—she turn’d o’er many a rock,
And look’d ’neath many a broken stock ”

“ Then exclaim’d one of the youthful travellers—
“Lo! the moon is on the waters shining!”
And another traveller thus retorted—
“Brother! it is not the moon that shineth.”
But the third is silent—no word utters—
Turns him to the east—the sun’s uprising—
Then he speaks, and prays to God the righteous;
Prays to God and to the holy Nicholas—
“Help me, God! and thou, O father Nicholas!”
And he sought again the fountain-water;
Drew the holy head from out the water—
Holy head of holy Servian monarch;
Threw it on the verdant turf, and pouring
Water, swiftly fill’d the travelling vessel. ”

“ From the forest-hill the Vila told me,
That we should no longer waste our treasures
In the vain attempt to raise the fortress
On a shifting, insecure foundation.
Said the Vila of the forest-mountain,
‘Each of you a faithful wife possesses;
Each a faithful bride that keeps your dwellings:
Her who to the fortress comes to-morrow,
Her who brings their rations to the workmen—
Her immure within the wall’s foundations;
So will the foundations bear the fortress:
So Bojana’s fortress be erected.’
p. 69Now then, brothers! in God’s holy presence
Let each swear to keep the awful secret ”

“ The Vila, always capricious, and frequently malevolent, is a most important actor in all the popular poetry of Servia. The Trica polonica is sacred to her. She is equally renowned for the beauty of her person and the swiftness of her step:—“Fair as the mountain Vila,” is the highest compliment to a Servian lady—“Swift as the Vila,” is the most eloquent eulogium on a Servian steed. ”

“ To the green grass bend thy spreading branches;
Let me mount upon thy branches, fir-tree!
From those branches see the white-wall’d Buda,
And in Buda see the Budan Jovan.
Does he bear himself as once he bore him;
Does the feather wave upon his Kalpak; [84b]
Does his steed still bear his high head proudly?”
Thus she spoke and thought that no one heard her;
But the Ban of Transylvania heard her,
Even her lord, the Ban, and thus address’d her:
“Now, by heaven, thou Erdelskan Banitza;
p. 85Why is Buda fairer than Erdelska?
Why is Jovan nobler than thy husband?” ”

“ Schaffarik, in describing the different Slavonic tongues, says, fancifully but truly, that “Servian song resembles the tune of the violin; Old Slavonian, that of the organ; Polish, that of the guitar. The Old Slavonian in its psalms, sounds like the loud rush of the p. xxmountain stream; the Polish, like the bubbling and sparkling of a fountain; and the Servian like the quiet murmuring of a streamlet in the valley.”
The Servian alphabet consists of only twenty-eight letters, which is twenty less than the old Slavonic, and seven less than the Russian. ”

“ With a grievous wound sinks down Vukashin,
He is trodden on by Turkish horses,
And the warriors perish with their leaders.
Now the ducal Stephan presses forward:
Strong and mighty is the ducal army;
Strong and powerful; sixty thousand warriors.
And the battle with the Turks is raging;
Nine pashas are soon o’erwhelm’d and perish;
p. 80But the tenth pasha comes boldly onward;
And the ducal Stephan is o’erpower’d,
And his warriors perish with their leader.
Then Lasar, the noble lord of Servia;
Seeks Kossova with his mighty army;
Seven and seventy thousand Servian warriors. ”

“ Banat also, to the river Danube.
Bogdan took the level plains of Sermia,
And the even country of the Sava;
Servia, too, as far as Ujitz’s fortress.
Dmitar took the lower fortress’d cities,
And Neboisha’s tower upon the Danube;
Bogdan took the upper fortress’d cities,
And the church-possessing town, Rujitza.
Then a strife arose about a trifle,—
Such a trifle; but a feud soon follow’d,—
A black courser and a grey-wing’d falcon!
Dmitar claims the steed, as elder brother
Claims the steed, and claims the grey-wing’d falcon.
Bogdan will not yield or horse or falcon. ”

“ Then be his heart with anguish laden!
And let Heaven smite his path with woe!
p. 137FROZEN HEART. Thick fell the snow upon St. George’s day;
The little birds all left their cloudy bed;
The maiden wander’d bare-foot on her way;
Her brother bore her sandals, and he said:
“O sister mine! cold, cold thy feet must be.”
“No! not my feet, sweet brother! not my feet—
But my poor heart is cold with misery.
There’s nought to chill me in the snowy sleet:
My mother—’tis my mother who hath chill’d me,
Bound me to one who with disgust hath fill’d me.” ”

“ At last the eye fixes them between the Sava and the Danube, and Belgrade grows up as the central point round which the power of Servia gathers itself together, and stretches itself along the right bank of the former river, southwards to the range of mountains which spread to the Adriatic and to the verge of Montengro. Looking yet closer, we observe the influence of the Venetians and the Hungarians on the character and the literature of the Servians. ”

“ I had once one venerable mother,
And one brother, too, Predrag—one brother:
He my elder and my only brother,
Whom to seek through all the world I wander
Forth, to still my soul’s impassion’d longings ”

“ The Servians possess a translation of the Bible, made in the ninth century, written in the Pannonian dialect, which is now obsolete. This Bible, however, has served, and still serves, as a standard of the Servian language; and its authority has been rather increased than diminished from the circumstance of its phraseology being far removed from what is deemed the vulgar idiom. That the vulgar idiom, however, is amply sufficient for all the common purposes of language, and for the communication even of the most exquisite shades of thought and feelings, is sufficiently exemplified. ”

“ The earliest poetry of the Servians has a heathenish character; [0l] that which follows is leagued with Christian legends. But holy deeds are always made the condition of salvation. The whole nation, to use the p. xxxviiidea of Göthe, is imaged in poetical superstition. Events are brought about by the agency of angels, but the footsteps of Satan can be nowhere traced;—the dead are often summoned from their tombs;—awful warnings, prophecies, and birds of evil omen, bear terror to the minds of the most courageous.
Over all is spread the influence of a remarkable and, no doubt, antique mythology. ”

“ Murad was stabbed by the Servian Molosh p. xiiiObilich, and Lazar was executed in the Mussulmans’ camp. Murad’s brother (Bajazet) , divided Servia between the two sons of Lazar, who did homage and paid heavy tribute. Since then, no dawn of liberty has shone upon Servia. Reduced to be the bloody theatre of the fierce wars which have been carried on between the Turks and Hungarians, every struggle for freedom—each feebler than the former one, has only served to deteriorate her condition, and to destroy her hopes. ”

“ The collection of popular songs, Narodne p. xliisrpske pjesme, from which most of those which occupy this volume are taken, was made by Vuk, and committed to paper either from early recollections, or from the repetition of Servian minstrels. These, he informs us, and his statement is corroborated by every intelligent traveller, form a very small portion of the treasure of song which exists unrecorded among the peasantry. How so much of beautiful anonymous poetry should have been created in so perfect a form, is a subject well worthy of inquiry. ”

“ Who the kissers and kiss’d of the reapers shall be.
Take hold of your reeds, till the secret be told,
If the old shall kiss young, and the young shall kiss old.
Take hold of your reeds, youths and maidens! ”

“ In the middle of the seventh century, a number of Slavonian tribes stretched themselves along the Sava and the Danube, down to the Black Sea, and founded, at different times, no less than six separate kingdoms, those of Bulgaria, Croatia, Servia, Bosnia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia; under the name Srb, the four last of these nations must be considered as comprised. ”

“ The poetry of a people is a common inheritance, which one generation transfers sanctioned and amended to another. Political adversity, too, strengthens the attachment of a nation to the records of its ancient prosperous days. The harps may be hung on the willows for a while, during the storm and the struggle, but when the tumult is over, they will be strung again to p. xlivrepeat the old songs, and recall the time gone by.
The historical ballads, which are in lines composed of five trochaics, are always sung with the accompaniment of the Gusle. ”

“ The various idioms of the Slavonian language may, without exception, be traced up to one single stem, the old or church p. xviiSlavonic. From this one source, two great streams flow forth; the northern, comprehending the Bohemian, Polish, and Russian; and the southern, composed of the Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Servian tongues. The latter branches were much less extensively employed than the former. About a million and a half of men speak the Hungarian; not more than half a million the Bulgarian, which in Macedonia has been superseded by the Romaic, the Albanian, and the Turkish ”

“ It had never found a pen to record it, but has been preserved by the people, and principally by those of the lower classes, who had been accustomed to listen and to sing these interesting compositions to the sound of a simple three-stringed instrument, called a Gusle; and it is mentioned by Göthe, that when some Servians who had visited Vienna were requested to write down the songs they had sung, they expressed the greatest surprise that such simple poetry and music as theirs should possess any interest for intelligent and cultivated minds. ”

“ What sweeter than the honey dew,
What dearer than a brother is?”
A fish thus answer’d from the sea:
“O maid! thou art a foolish girl.
The heaven is broader than the sea;
The sea is longer than the field;
The eye is swifter than the steed;
Sugar more sweet than honey dew;
Dearer than brother is thy love.”
p. 185DOUBT. Three young travellers travell’d forth to travel:
On their travels met a lovely maiden:
Each will give the lovely maid a present:
One presents her with a fresh-pluck’d apple:
One presents her with bosilka [185a] flowering:
One a gold ring for the maiden’s finger. ”

“ In 1459, Servia was treated solely as a conquered province,—her most respectable families banished or destroyed, while, from time to time, vast numbers of Servians emigrated into Hungary. In 1481, prince p. xivPavo Brankovich made an irruption into Servia, and after defeating the Turks in several battles, headed 50,000 Servians, who fixed themselves as colonists under the protection of Hungary. In 1689, many thousand Servians flocked to the army of Leopold the First. The following year, the patriarch Tzernovich led into Sirmia and Slavonia nearly sixty thousand Servian families. ”

“ A Servian girl who has lost a brother never hears a cuckoo without shedding tears.—“I a poor cuckoo,” is equivalent to “woe is me!”
[206] Lado, the vocative of Lada, the goddess of love, in the old Slavonian mythology. Lado! is a melancholy interjection in Servian, whereas Lele! the vocative of Lela, the god of love, has frequently a cheerful association: Polela (after love) , the goddess of marriage, is also sometimes apostrophised.
Talvj remarks, that Ljad, in Russ, signifies misfortune. In common parlance, Lele mene (Servian) imports Woe is me! ”

“ But of late the influence of those who have endeavoured to make literature subserve the interests and the happiness of the many rather than the few, has led to the dismissal of Slavonian, and the substitution of Servian books. A controversy, with much controversial bitterness, is at the present moment carried on in Servia (where, as elsewhere, to be dignified is by some thought better than to be useful, and to please a few pedants is deemed more worthy of ambition than to instruct a whole people) , between the advocates of the antiquated Slavonic, and p. ”

“ Of the descendants from the ancient Slavonic, it is more closely allied to the Russian and p. xixWindish idioms, than to the Bohemian or Polish. Vuk Karadjich divides it into three distinct dialects, the Herzegovinian, or that spoken in Bosnia, Montenegro, Dalmatia, and Croatia; the Sirmian, which is used in Sirmia and Slavonian and the Resavian. No doubt the Servian language has been considerably influenced by the Turkish, but though it has been enriched by oriental words, it has not adopted an oriental construction. ”

“ Stephanovich Karadjich Vuk was born on the 26th October, O. S., in the year 1787, at Trshich, an obscure village in Turkish Servia (Iadar) , near the town of Losnitza and the river Drina, at a short distance from the Austrian and Hungarian p. xxxifrontier, where, however, the Servian language is spoken with far more purity than in the larger towns. In his early youth he passed the borders, and received his education at the Gymnasium of the dissidents from the Greek church at Karlovitz. ”

“ Thou, too, prince, wilt perish with thy army!”
When the Tzar Lasar had read the writing,
Many were his thoughts and long his musings.
“Lord my God! what—which shall be my portion,
Which my choice of these two proffer’d kingdoms?
Shall I choose heaven’s kingdom? shall I rather
Choose an earthly one?—for what is earthly
Is all fleeting, vain, and unsubstantial;
Heavenly things are lasting, firm, eternal.”
p. 78So the Tzar preferr’d a heavenly kingdom
Rather than an earthly.—On Kossova
Straight he builds a church, but not of marble ”