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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. |