The first engagement
Early on Friday they trampled the pagan Kuman troops and fanned out like arrows over the field; they bore off fair Kuman maidens and with them, gold, and brocades, and precious samites. By means of caparisons, and mantlets, and furred cloaks of leather they started making plankings to plank marshes and miry spots with all kinds of Kuman weaves.
A vermilion standard, a white gonfalon, a vermilion penant of [dyed] horsehair and a silver hilt [went] to [Igor] son of Svyatoslav.
Night, and dawn of Saturday
In the field slumbers Oleg's brave aerie: far has it flown! Not born was it to be wronged either by falcon or hawk or by you, black raven, pagan Kuman! Gzak runs like a gray wolf; Konchak lays out a track for him to the Great Don.
Saturday: the Kumans counterattack
Here lances shall break, here sabers shall blunt against Kumar helmets, on the river Kayala by the Great Don. 0 Russian land, you are already behind the culmen!
Now the winds, Stribog's grandsons, in [the guise of] arrows waft from the sea against the brave troops of Igor! The earth rumbles, the rivers run slugily, dust covers the fields. The banners speak: "The Kumans are coming from the Don and from the sea and from all sides!" The Russian troops retreat. The Fiend's children bar the field with their war cries; the brave sons of Rus bar it with their vermilion shields. |