Adam Mickiewicz Collected Poetical Works
Page 3
TSCHATIR DAGH
(The Pilgrim)
Below me half a world I see outspread;
Above, blue heaven; around, peaks of snow;
And yet the happy pulse of life is slow,
I dream of distant places, pleasures dead.
The woods of Lithuania I would tread
Where happy-throated birds sing songs I know;
Above the trembling marshland I would go
Where chill-winged curlews dip and call o’er head.
A tragic, lonely terror grips my heart,
A longing for some peaceful, gentle place,
And memories of youthful love I trace.
Unto my childhood home I long to start,
And yet if all the leaves my name could cry
She would not pause nor heed as she passed by.
THE PASS ACROSS THE ABYSS IN THE TSCHUFUT-KALE
(Mirza)
Pray! Pray! Let loose the bridle. Look not down!
The humble horse alone has wisdom here.
He knows where blackest the abysses leer
And where the path in safety leads us down.
Pray, and look upward to the mountain’s crown!
The deep below is endless where you peer;
Stretch not the hand out as you pass, for fear
The added weight of that might plunge you down.
And check your thoughts’ free flight, too, while you go;
Let all of Fancy’s fluttering sails be furled
Here where Death watches o’er the riven world.
(Pilgrim)
I lived to cross the bridge of ancient snow!
But what I saw my tongue no more can tell,
The angels only could rehearse that well.
MIRZA
Behold blue Heaven in that deep abyss!
The sea is that! Behold the long waves shine!
Watch how they rock that giant bird divine,
Whose swinging white wings wide horizons kiss.
Is that an iceberg in the blue abyss?
No, no — a cloud! Watch how ’tis veiling fine
The sea, the land, out-blotting every line
To drown it all in darkness soon I wis.
The lightning comes now! Frightful is its sweep.
But softly — softly! Watch my spur — my whip!
I’ll leap across unto that chasm’s lip.
What still and chilling sternness great cliffs keep!
Down there light calls to me. Soon there I’ll be.
Uncanny is such loneliness to me.
THE RUINS OF BALACLAVA
Oh, thankless Crimean land! in ruin laid
Are now the castles that were once your pride!
Here serpents and the owls from daylight hide,
And robbers arm them for the nightly raid.
Upon the lettered marble boasts are made,
Brave words on battered arms in gold descried,
And broken splendor years have scattered wide,
Beside the dead who made them are arrayed.
The Greek set shining, columned marble here.
The Latin put the Mongol horde to flight,
And Mussulmans prayed eastward morn and night.
The owl and vulture of dark wing and drear
Are fluttering like black banners overhead
In cities where the pest piles high the dead.
ON JUDA’S CLIFF
On Juda’s Cliff I love to lean and look
On waves that battling beat and break with might,
While farther seaward in a bland delight,
I see them shining where a rainbow shook.
On Juda’s Cliff I love to lean and look
On waves that like sea-armies swing to sight,
To send upon the shore their billows white,
And, ebbing, to leave pearls in every nook.
Thus, Poet, in your youth when storms are wild
And passions break upon the heart and brain,
To leave their ruin there — shipwreck and waste —
Pick up your lute! Upon it undefiled
You’ll find song-pearls that your heart-deeps retain,
The crown the years have brought you, white and chaste.
Here, then, end the Crimean Sonnets of the immortal hero of Polish poetry, Adam Mickiezvicz as translated by Edna Worthley Underwood and published by Paul Elder and Company at their Tomoye Press, in the city of San Francisco, under the direction of Ricardo J. Orozco, their printer during the month of August, nineteen seventeen
THE RENEGADE
Translated by George Borrow
Now pay ye the heed that is fitting,
Whilst I sing ye the Iran adventure;
The Pasha on sofa was sitting
In his harem’s glorious centre.
Greek sang and Tcherkass for his pleasure,
And Kergeesian captive is dancing;
In the eyes of the first heaven’s azure,
And in those black of Eblis is glancing.
But the Pasha’s attention is failing,
O’er his visage his fair turban stealeth;
From tchebouk {13a} he sleep is inhaling
Whilst round him sweet vapours he dealeth.
What rumour without is there breeding?
Ye fair ranks asunder why wend ye?
Kyslar Aga {13b}, a strange captive leading,
Cometh forward and crieth. “Efendy!
Whose face has the power when present
Midst the stars in divan which do muster,
Which amidst the gems of night’s crescent
Has the blaze of Aldeboran’s lustre.
Glance nearer, bright star! I have tiding,
Glad tiding, behold how in duty
From far Lehistan the wind, gliding.
Has brought this fresh tribute of beauty.
In the Padishaw’s garden there bloometh,
In proud Istambul, no such blossom;
From the wintry regions she cometh
Whose memory so lives in thy bosom.”
Then the gauzes removes he which shade her,
At her beauty all wonder intensely;
One moment the Pasha survey’d her,
And, dropping his tchebouk, without sense lay.
His turban has fallen from his forehead,
To assist him the bystanders started —
His mouth foams, his face blackens horrid —
See the Renegade’s soul has departed.
KONRAD WALLENROD
Translated by M. A. Biggs
During his journey to the Crimea, Mickiewicz was welcomed into the leading literary circles of Saint Petersburg and Moscow, where he became a great favourite for his agreeable manners and extraordinary talent for poetic improvisation. In 1828 he published his narrative poem Konrad Wallenrod, once again notable for its patriotic and subversive message, which was missed by the Moscow censors, who later unsuccessfully attempted to sabotage its publication and to damage Mickiewicz’ reputation. The poem is composed in protest against the late-eighteenth-century partitioning of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and Austria. The poem even helped inspire the Polish November 1830 Uprising against Russian rule. Though Mickiewicz later disparaged the work, its cultural influence in Poland persists today.
Set in the fourteenth-century Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Konrad Wallenrod opens with a preface, which briefly outlines the history of the region, describing the interactions among the Lithuanians, Prussians, Poles and Russians. Six cantos then tell the story of Wallenrod, a fictional Lithuanian pagan captured and reared as a Christian by his people’s long-standing enemies, the Order of Teutonic Knights. Wallenrod rises to the position of Grand Master, but is awakened to his heritage by a mysterious minstrel singing at an entertainment. He then seeks vengeance by deliberately leading the Knights into a major military defeat.
The concept of “Wallenrodism” — the striking of a treacherous, pos
sibly suicidal, blow against an enemy — and certain powerful fragments of the poem have become an enduring part of the Polish psyche and have found resonance in the Polish uprisings of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Its encouragement of what would later be called “patriotic treason” created controversy, since its elements of deception and conspiracy were thought incompatible with Christian and chivalric values. Mickiewicz was surprised by the passion of the public response to his poem and regretted its publication; before his death, he expressed frustration at his financial inability to buy back and burn every copy of what he described as a mere “political pamphlet.”
Interestingly, the Polish-born author Joseph Conrad, who had been christened Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, may have selected the second part of his pen name in homage to the poem’s protagonist. Mickiewicz’ poem also influenced Conrad’s frequent explorations of the conflict between publicly attested loyalty and a hidden affiliation with a national cause.
Konrad Wallenrod, a painting by Władysław Majeranowski (1844), National Museum in Warsaw
CONTENTS
Author’s Preface
Translator’s Preface
Introduction.
The Election.
The Festival.
Ballad.
War.
The Parting.
Author’s Preface
The Lithuanian nation, formed out of the tribes of the Litwini, Prussians and Leti, not very numerous, settled in an inextensive country, not very fertile, long unknown to Europe, was called, about the thirteenth century, by the incursions of its neighbours, to a more active part. When the Prussians submitted to the swords of the Teutonic knights, the Lithuanians, issuing from their forests and marshes, annihilated with sword and fire the neighbouring empires, and soon became terrible in the north. History has not as yet satisfactorily explained by what means a nation so weak, and so long tributary to foreigners, was able all at once to oppose and threaten all its enemies — on one side, carrying on a constant and murderous war with the Teutonic Order; on the other, plundering Poland, exacting tribute from Great Novgorod, and pushing itself as far as the borders of the Wolga and the Crimean peninsula. The brightest period of Lithuanian history occurs in the time of Olgierd and Witold, whose rule extended from the Baltic to the Black Sea. But this monstrous empire, having sprung up too quickly, could not create in itself internal strength, to unite and invigorate its differing portions. The Lithuanian nationality, spread over too large a surface of territory, lost its proper character. The Litwini subjugated many Russian tribes, and entered into political relations with Poland. The Slavs, long since Christians, stood in a higher degree of civilisation, and although conquered, or threatened by Lithuania, gained by gradual influence a moral preponderance over their strong, but barbarous tyrants, and absorbed them, as the Chinese their Tartar invaders. The Jagellons, and their more powerful vassals, became Poles; many Lithuanian princes adopted the Russian religion, language, and nationality. By these means the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ceased to be Lithuanian; the nation proper found itself within its former boundaries, its speech ceased to be the language of the court and nobility, and was only preserved among the common people. Litwa presents the singular spectacle of a people which disappeared in the immensity of its conquests, as a brook sinks after an excessive overflow, and flows in a narrower bed than before.
The circumstances here mentioned are covered by some centuries. Both Lithuania, and her cruellest enemy, the Teutonic Order, have disappeared from the scene of political life; the relations between neighbouring nations are entirely changed; the interests and passions which kindled the wars of that time are now expired; even popular song has not preserved their memory. Litwa is now entirely in the past: her history presents from this circumstance a happy theme for poetry; so that a poet, in singing of the events of that time, objects only of historic interest, must occupy himself with searching into, and with artfully rendering the subject, without summoning to his aid the interests, passions, or fashions of his readers. For such subjects Schiller recommended poets to seek.
“Was unsterblich im Gesang will leben,
Muss im Leben untergehen.”
Translator’s Preface
The Teutonic Order, originally, like the Knights Hospitallers, established in the Holy Land about 1199, settled, after the cessation of the Crusades, in the country bordering upon the Baltic Sea, at the mouth of the Vistula, in the year 1225. The possession of the Baltic shores, and of such lands as the Order should conquer from the pagan Prussians and Litwini, was assured to them by Konrad, Duke of Masowsze, brother to Leszek the White of Poland. The fatal error thus committed, in abandoning a hold on the sea-coast, had afterwards a disastrous effect on the history of Poland. The Order speedily made themselves masters of the whole country of Prussia, and were engaged in ceaseless war with the pagans of Lithuania, under pretext of their conversion; more frequently, it is however to be feared, for purposes of raid and plunder. It is, in fact, upon record that a certain Lithuanian prince, who had offered to embrace Christianity for the purpose of recovering part of his territory conquered by the Order, upon finding that his conversion would produce no better disposition in them towards himself, declared his intention of abiding in paganism, with the remark that he saw it was no question of his faith, but of his possessions. The plundering expeditions of the Teutonic knights up country, in which many of the chivalry of all Europe frequently bore a part, were termed reyses. The English reader will remember how Chaucer’s knight had fought “aboven alle nations in Pruce.”
“In Lettow had he reysed and in Ruce.”
Henry IV. also, during his banishment, fought in the ranks of the Order.
After the conversion of Lithuania, and the union of that country with Poland, the Teutonic knights were frequently engaged in hostilities with both powers combined, sustaining in the year 1410 a terrible defeat at Tannenberg in E. Prussia, from the forces of Jagellon. In this battle it is worthy of note that the famous John Ziska was engaged. In 1466 Casimir Jagellon inflicted heavy losses on the Order. After its secularisation in 1521, when the Grand-Master Albert embraced the reformed faith, the domains of E. Prussia were held as a fief from Poland. In 1657 Prussia became an independent state under Frederick William, the great Elector. It is curious to observe how the name of Prussia, originally that of a conquered, non-Germanic people, has become in our time that of the first German power in the world.
The historical circumstances on which the poem of “Konrad Wallenrod” is founded are thus detailed at length by the author himself, in the following postscript to the work: —
“We have called our story historical, for the characters of the actors, and all the more important circumstances mentioned therein, are sketched according to history. The contemporary chronicles, in fragmentary and broken portions, must be filled out sometimes only by guesses and conjectures, in order to create some historic entirety from them. Although I have permitted myself conjectures in the history of Wallenrod, I hope to justify them by their likeness to truth. According to the chronicle, Konrad Wallenrod was not descended from the family of Wallenrod renowned in Germany, though he gave himself out as a member of it. He was said to have been born of some illicit connection. The royal chronicle says, ‘Er war ein Pfaffenkind.’ Concerning the character of this singular man, we read many and contradictory traditions. The greater number of the chroniclers reproach him with pride, cruelty, drunkenness, severity towards his subordinates, little zeal for religion, and even with hatred for ecclesiastics. ‘Er war ein rechter Leuteschinder (library of Wallenrod). Nach Krieg, Zank, und Hader hat sein Herz immer gestanden; und ob er gleich ein Gott ergebener Mensch von wegen seines Ordens sein wollte, doch ist er allen frommen geistlichen Menschen Graüel gewesen. (David Lucas). Er regierte nicht lange, denn Gott plagte ihn inwendig mit dem laufenden Feuer.’ On the other hand, contemporary writers ascribe to him greatness of intellect, courage, nobility, and force of character; since without rare qualitie
s he could not have maintained his empire amid universal hatred and the disasters which he brought upon the Order. Let us now consider the proceedings of Wallenrod. When he assumed the rule of the Order, the season appeared favourable for war with Lithuania, for Witold had promised himself to lead the Germans to Wilna, and liberally repay them for their assistance. Wallenrod, however, delayed to go to war; and, what was worse, offended Witold, and reposed such careless confidence in him, that this prince, having secretly become reconciled to Jagellon, not only departed from Prussia, but on the road, entering the German castles, burnt them as an enemy, and slaughtered the garrisons. In such an unimagined change of circumstances, it was needful to neglect the war, or undertake it with great prudence. The Grand-Master proclaimed a crusade, wasted the treasures of the Order in preparation — 5,000,000 marks — a sum at that time immeasurable, and marched towards Lithuania. He could have captured Wilna, if he had not wasted time in banquets and waiting for auxiliaries. Autumn came; Wallenrod, leaving the camp without provisions, retired in the greatest disorder to Prussia. The chroniclers and later historians were not able to imagine the cause of this sudden departure, not finding in contemporary circumstances any cause therefor. Some have assigned the flight of Wallenrod to derangement of intellect. All the contradictions mentioned in the character and conduct of our hero may be reconciled with each other, if we suppose that he was a Lithuanian, and that he had entered the Order to take vengeance on it; especially since his rule gave the severest shock to the power of the Order. We suppose that Wallenrod was Walter Stadion (see note), shortening only by some years the time which passed between the departure of Walter from Lithuania, and the appearance of Konrad in Marienbourg. Wallenrod died suddenly in the year 1394; strange events were said to have accompanied his death. ‘Er starb,’ says the chronicle; ‘in Raserei ohne letzte Oehlung, ohne Priestersegen, kurz vor seinem Tode wütheten Stürme, Regensgüsse, Wasserfluthen; die Weichsel und die Nogat durchwühlten ihre Dämme; hingegen wühlten die gewässer sich eine neue Tiefe da, wo jetzt Pilau steht!’ Halban, or, as the chroniclers call him, Doctor Leander von Albanus, a monk, the solitary and inseparable companion of Wallenrod, though he assumed the appearance of piety, was according to the chroniclers a heretic, a pagan, and perhaps a wizard. Concerning Halban’s death, there are no certain accounts. Some write that he was drowned, others that he disappeared secretly, or was carried away by demons. I have drawn the chronicles chiefly from the works of Kotzebue, ‘Preussens Geschichte, Belege und Erläuterungen.’ Hartknoch, in calling Wallenrod ‘unsinnig,’ gives a very short account of him.”