And yet Russia has not her Iliad. There has been no poet to inspire himself with the exploits of Iliyá, Dobrýnia, Sádko, Tchurílo, and the others, and to make out of them a poem similar to the epics of Homer, or the “Kalevála” of the Finns. This has been done with only one cycle of traditions: in the poem, The Lay of Igor’s Raid (Slóvo o Polkú Igoreve).
This poem was composed at the end of the twelfth century, or early in the thirteenth (its full manuscript, destroyed during the conflagration of Moscow in 1812, dated from the fourteenth or the fifteenth century). It was undoubtedly the work of one author, and for its beauty and poetical form it stands by the side of the Song of the Nibelungs, or the Song of Roland. It relates a real fact that did happen in 1185. Igor, a prince of Kíeff, starts with his drúzhina (schola) of warriors to make a raid on the Pólovtsi, who occupied the prairies of South-eastern Russia, and continually raided the Russian villages. All sorts of bad omens are seen on the march through the prairies—the sun is darkened and casts its shadow on the band of Russian warriors; the animals give different warnings; but Igor exclaims: “Brothers and friends: Better to fall dead than be prisoners of the Pólovtsi! Let us march to the blue waters of the Don. Let us break our lances against those of the Pólovtsi. And either I leave there my head, or I will drink the water of the Don from my golden helmet.” The march is resumed, the Pólovtsi are met with, and a great battle is fought.
The description of the battle, in which all Nature takes part—the eagles and the wolves, and the foxes who bark after the red shields of the Russians—is admirable. Igor’s band is defeated. “From sunrise to sunset, and from sunset to sunrise, the steel arrows flew, the swords clashed on the helmets, the lances were broken in a far-away land—the land of the Pólovtsi.” “The black earth under the hoofs of the horses was strewn with bones, and out of this sowing affliction will rise in the land of the Russians.”
Then comes one of the best bits of early Russian poetry—the lamentations of Yaroslávna, Igor’s wife, who waits for his return in the town of Putívl:
“The voice of Yaroslávna resounds as the complaint of a cuckoo; it resounds at the rise of the sunlight.
“I will fly as a cuckoo down the river. I will wet my beaver sleeves in the Káyala; I will wash with them the wounds of my prince—the deep wounds of my hero.
“Yaroslávna laments on the walls of Putívl.
“Oh, Wind, terrible Wind! Why dost thou, my master, blow so strong? Why didst thou carry on thy light wings the arrows of the Khan against the warriors of my hero? Is it not enough for thee to blow there, high up in the clouds? Not enough to rock the ships on the blue sea? Why didst thou lay down my beloved upon the grass of the Steppes?
“Yaroslávna laments upon the walls of Putívl.
“Oh, glorious Dniéper, thou hast pierced thy way through the rocky hills to the land of Pólovtsi. Thou hast carried the boats of Svyatosláv as they went to fight the Khan Kobyák. Bring, oh, my master, my husband back to me, and I will send no more tears through thy tide towards the sea.