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Igor's escape
The sea plashed at midnight;
waterspouts advance in mists;
God [?) points out to Igor
the way from Kuman land
to the Russian land,
to the paternal golden throne.
The evening glow has faded: Igor
sleeps; Igor keeps vigil;
Igor in thought measured the plains
from the Great Don
to the Little Donets;
[bringing] a horse in midnight,
Ovlur whistled beyond the river:
he bids Igor heed —
Igor is not to be [held in bondage].
[Ovlur] called,
the earth rumbled,
the grass swished,
the Kuman tents stirred.
Meanwhile, like an ermine,
Igor has sped to the reeds,
and [settled) upon the water
like a white duck.
He leaped upon the swift steed,
and sprang off it,
[and ran on,) like a demon wolf,
and sped to the meadowland of the
Donets,
and, like a falcon,
flew up to the mists,
killing geese,
and swans,
for lunch,
and for dinner,
and for supper.
And even as Igor, like a falcon, flew,
Vlur, like a wolf, sped,
shaking off by his passage the cold
dew;
for both had worn out
their swift steeds..
Igor's escape (continued)
Says the Donets:
"Prince Igor!
Not small is your magnification,
and Konchak's detestation,
and the Russian land gladness."
Igor says: "О Donets!
Not small is your magnification:
you it was who lolled
a prince on [your] waves;
who carpeted for him
with green grass
your silver banks;
who clothed him with warm mists
under the shelter of the green tree;
who had him guarded
by the golden-eye on the water,
the gulls on the currents,
the [crested] black ducks on the winds. |