own province had inspired among his boyarins and courtiers a fear which might on occasion become dangerous. 1177 And the occasion arrived, when one summer’s evening a band of twenty conspirators, including the chamberlain of his household, burst into the old man’s sleeping-chamber in his palace at Bogolubov (a suburb of Vladimir) and stabbed wildly at him in the uncertain twilight. Favoured by the dusk and confusion, Andrei managed to crawl away into hiding; a light was procured, and by the track of his streaming wounds he was hunted down and the assassins finished their task. Vladimir, which he had raised to the position of his capital over the older towns of Souzdal and Rostov, mourned the grim fate of her patron, but throughout the rest of the province the long-repressed feelings of the inhabitants ran riot in bloodshed and pillage. The affrighted clergy, clad in their priestly vestments and bearing the sacred ensigns of their religion, went in solemn processions through the towns, invoking the assistance of the Most High God to quell a revolt which threatened the submersion of their world. Andrei had tried to weld into a disciplined kingdom materials that were as yet only fitted for a modified anarchy, tempered by attachment to a loosely-ordered succession of princes; dreaming of despotism, he had at least died the death of a despot.
And while they do to death the only prince who had shown them the way to the safety which lay in union and centralisation, far away on the banks of the Okon, in the desert region which borders Northern China and Manchuria, is growing from insignificance to an overmastering weight of supremacy the tribe, horde, locust-swarm of the swarthy Mongols.
The disorders which marked the disappearance of Andrei’s overshadowing personality from the throne of Souzdal were soothed, after a long struggle between his reflucted kinsfolk, by the final establishment of Vsevolod, brother of the murdered prince, surnamed “Big-nest” in allusion to his large family.29 Applying himself to the ordering of his own province, he meddled but languidly in the seething troubles of the Dniepr-watered principalities, where the house of Olgovitch was enjoying a fitful revival of importance. A scion of that strenuous family at this time embarked on an enterprise which, though fruitless from a military point of view, was crowned with a halo of glory and immortalised in an epic poem of great beauty. “The Song of the Expedition of Igor, Prince of Sieverski,” or, more shortly, the Song of Igor, one of the earliest Slavonic folk-songs that has been handed down from the dead past, has been translated into many languages, but never before into English, so that it is well worth reproducing in part in a history of Russian development. It deals with a campaign undertaken by Igor Sviatoslavitch, Prince of Severski, and his brother Vsevolod, against the Polovtzi in their own country, of its disastrous result, and the ultimate return of Igor.
Brothers, were it not well that we, after the old custom, began the song of the unlucky campaign of Igor, the seed of Sviatoslav? That we celebrate him in the heroic songs of our time, and not in the manner of Bōyan? If the sage Bōyan wished to tune to one a song, it was as if a squirrel sprang up the tree, or a gray wolf hied along the plain, or a blue eagle soared to the clouds....
Igor looked forth and saw that the sun had hidden his face, and a mist had enveloped his warriors. Then spoke Igor to his army: “Brothers and soldiers, it is better to fall in battle than to yield one’s life; so will we mount our mettlesome horses and gain the Blue Don by daylight.” Yearning filled the soul of the Prince, and the wish to see the noble Don led him to forget many evil tokens. “I will break a lance,” cried he, “on the farthest verge of the Polovtzi land, or bow my head with you, Russians, and with my helmet draw water from the Don.” O Bōyan, thou nightingale of the olden days, if thou hadst inspired these warrior-bands, alighting on the Tree of Thought and hovering in the spirit of the clouds, thou hadst, O nightingale, united this severed time (that which is Past with that which Is).... Not a storm-wind drove the falcons over the wide plain, nor hurried the flocks of daws to the glorious Don. Or thou mightest, sage Bōyan, thus have sung: The steeds are neighing this side the Sula, the war-song resounds in Kiev, the trumpets are crashing in Novgorod. The standards wave in Poutivl, where awaits Igor his loved brother Vsevolod. And to him saith the bold, war-lusting Vsevolod, “O Igor, my only brother, my bright Sun, truly are we twain the seed of Sviatoslav. Brother, let thy spirited war-horses be saddled; already are mine saddled and waiting at Koursk, and my Kourskies are right warriors, born ’neath the blare of the trumpets, and nurtured at the point of the lance. The roads are familiar to them; they know the passes, their bows are strung, the quiver is open, the sabres are burnished, and they themselves press forward, like gray wolves on the bleak wold, in pursuit of honour and princely renown.” Then set Prince Igor his foot in the golden stirrup and rode forth into the wide plain. The sun blurs the way through the gloom, the night groans in storm and wakes the birds, swells in chorus the howling of beasts, the evil Div shrieks down from the tree-tops and summons the strange lands to listen, from the Volga, and the sea-coast, and along the Sula and to the Suroz and Khorsun, to the idol at Tmoutorakan. The Polovtzi hastened by pathless ways to the glorious Don; at midnight shrieked the wheels of their carts, as though flight-circling swans screamed loud. Igor pressed with his war-men to the Don. But already the bird on the oak warned him of misfortune, the wolves set the ravines in alarm, the eagles with loud screams called hither the beasts to the banquet, the foxes barked at the purple shields.
O Russian band, already art thou this side the hill!
Long lasts the night, the twilight dawn not yet foretells the coming of the Sun, darkness clothes the fields, the flute of the nightingale is hushed, while the croaking of the daws resounds, but the Russians have bedecked the stretching plain with their purple shields, and strive after honour and the glory of princes.
On Friday early have our warriors defeated the war-hordes of the Polovtzi, and they thenafter scattered with arrow-swiftness in the plain, bearing away the lovely Polovtzi maidens, and with them also gold and precious silken stuffs; with costly rugs, with cloaks and vestments the Polovtzi strewed the streams, marshes, and swamps. The golden standards with the white pennons, the purple horse-housings and the silver staff fell to the brave Sviatoslavitch. Oleg’s brave nest-brood slept on the field, thenafter they are flown afar; they were not born to suffer ill, neither from falcon, nor sparhawk, nor from these, heathen Polovtzi, the black ravens. Gsak sped like a gray wolf, and Kontchak followed him on the road to the glorious Don.
Right early the other morning rose a blood-red promise of the sun, black clouds drew in from the sea, that would have darkened four suns, and torn were they by blue flashes; there was brewing a mighty storm of thunder, and bolts rained over the majestic Don; then at the stream Kayala, by the mighty Don, lances were broken and sabres blunted on Polovtzi helmets.
O Russian band, still art thou this side the hill!
There blew the Wind (Stribog’s grandchild)30 bolts from the sea against Igor’s brave fighters; the Earth shuddered, mournfully flowed the rivers, dew-drops spangled the fields, the banners rustled.
Forth from the Don, from the sea, and from all sides around came the Polovtzi; they surrounded the Russian troop, with yells the children of the devils filled the plain, but the brave Russians guarded themselves behind the purple shields. Thou Wild-Bull Vsevolod, thou art in the rank that is foremost, slinging thy arrows at the fighters, and with thy sword of steel batterest the helmets, and where thou chargest, there where thy golden helmet glitters, there lie the heads of the Heathen and the Avaric helmets, smashed by thy hardened sabre, thou Wild-Bull Vsevolod, and there was thy grief so great at the wound of thy brother, thou hadst both honour and life forgotten, and the town of Tchernigov, and the throne of thy fathers, even as the caresses of thy sweet and beauteous wife Glebovna.... So is it ever in the time of fighting and war, but never yet has been heard of such a battle as this; from early morn till the even, from eve to red dawn, nought but flying arrows, and the clashing of sabres on helmets, and steel lances splintering in the far plain of the Polovtzi-land. The black earth under the hoofs of the horses is with bones emplanted, which spring up from the Russian soil watered with blood amid stress of grievous sorrow. What is the stamping I hear? What is it I hear ringing in the morning
