Prologue.
On a Sunday, very early,
When fields were clad with mist
A woman’s form was bending
’Mid graves by cloud wreaths kissed.
Something to her heart she pressed,
In accents low the clouds addressed.
“Oh, you mist and raindrops fine,
Pity this ragged luck of mine.
Hide me here in grassy meadows,
Bury me beneath thy shadows.
Why must I ’mid sorrows stray?
Pray take them with my life away.
In gloomy death would be relief,
Where none might know or see my grief.
Yet not alone my life was spent,
A father and mother my sin lament.
Nor yet alone is my course to run
For in my arms is my little son.
Shall I, then, give to him christian name,
To poverty bind, with his mother’s shame? [[40]]
This, brother mist, I shall not do.
I alone my fault must rue.
Thee, sweet son, shall strangers christen,
Thy mother’s eyes with teardrops glisten.
Thy very name I may not know
As on through life I lonely go.
I, by my sin, rich fortune lost,
With thee, my son, to ill fate, was tossed.
Yet curse me not,
for evils past.
My prayers to heaven
shall reach at last.
The skies above
to my tears shall bend,
Another fortune to thee I’ll send.”
Through the fields she sobbing went.
The gentle mist
its shelter lent.
Her tears were falling
the path along,
As she softly sang
the widows song:
“Oh, in the field there is a grave
Where the shining grasses wave;
There the widow walked apart,
Bitter sorrow in her heart.
Poison herbs in vain she sought,
Whereby evil spells are wrought.
Two little sons
in arms she bore [[41]]
Wrapped around in
dress she wore;
Her children to the river carried,
In converse with the water tarried;
‘Oh, river Dunai, gentle river,
I my sons to thee deliver,
Thou’lt swaddle them
and wrap them,
Thy little waves
will lap them,
Thy yellow sands
will cherish them,
Thy flowing waters
nourish them.’
[[42]]