PART IV.
SKETCH OF THE POPULAR POETRY OF THE SLAVIC NATIONS.
In the preceding view of the literature of the Slavic nations, we have abstained from giving any specimens of their poetry. A few would not have satisfied the reader, and could not have done justice to poets, who each for himself has a literary character of his own; and many would have at least doubled the size of this volume. Shukovsky, Pushkin, Mickewicz, Brodzinski, Krasinski, Kollar—each, as we said, has an individual poetical character of his own, of which the reader could have gathered no just idea without a whole series of their productions; and these even then would have lost half their value in a translation. Yet they all have little of that peculiar Slavic character, which belongs still in some degree to all Slavic nations; and which is so strikingly expressed in their POPULAR POETRY.
Our remark respecting the loss of the principal charms which all poetical productions have to undergo, when clothed in a foreign dress, applies as well to popular poetry as to the works of literature, and even more. Indeed, if any kind of poetry must needs lose half its beauties in a translation, the truth of the Latin saying, Dulcius ex ipsa fonte bibuntur aguæ, will never be more readily acknowledged, than in respect to the idiomatic[pg.316] peculiarities of popular ballads. This holds good principally of merely lyric productions, the only kind of songs which are left to some of the Slavic tribes. They are grown into the very bone and marrow of the language itself; and a congenial spirit can at the utmost imitate, but never satisfactorily translate them. And yet they are the most essential features in the physiognomy of a people; or, as Görres expresses it, they are like pulse and breath, the signs and the measure of the internal life. "While the great epic streams," as this ingenious writer justly says, "reflect the character of a whole wide-spread river-district, in time and history, these lyric effusions are the sources and fountains, which, with their net-work of rills, water and drain the whole country; and, bringing to light the secrets of its inmost bowels, pour out into lays its warmest heart's blood." [[325]] We therefore give the specimens of Slavic popular poetry, which we here present to the reader, not merely as poems to be admired, but rather as characteristic features of the mental condition of the respective nations, and of their manner of thinking and feeling.
This is the age of utilitarianism. The Genius of poetry still lives indeed, for he is immortal; but the period of his living power is gone. His present dwelling is the study; the sphere of his operations the parlour; the scene, where his exhibitions are displayed in a dress of morocco and gold, is the centre table of the rich and the genteel. Popular poetry,—we do not mean that divine gift, the dowry of a few blessed individuals; we mean that general productiveness, which pervades the mass of men as it pervades Nature,—popular poetry, among all the nations of Europe, is only a dying plant. Here and there a lonely relic is discovered among the rocks, preserved by the invigorating powers of the mountain air; or a few sickly plants, half withered in their birth, grow up in some solitary valley,[pg.317] hidden from the intrusive genius of modern improvement and civilization, who makes his appearance with a brush in his hand, sweeping mercilessly away even the loveliest flowers which may be considered as impediments in his path. Twenty years hence, and a trace will not be left, except the dried specimens which the amateur lays between two sheets of paper, and the copies preserved in cabinets.
Among the nations of the Slavic race alone is the living flower still to be found, growing in its native luxuriance; but even here, only among the Servians and Dalmatians in its full blossom and beauty. For centuries these treasures have been buried from the literary world. Addison, when he endeavored to vindicate his admiration of the ballad of "Chevy-Chace," by the similarity of some of its passages with the epics of Virgil and Homer, had not the remotest idea, that the immortal blind bard had found his true and most worthy successors among the likewise blind poets of his next Hyperborean neighbours. The merit of having lifted at last the curtain from these scenes, belongs to Germany, chiefly to Herder. But only the few last years have allowed a more full and satisfactory view of them.
In laying before our readers a sketch of Slavic popular poetry, we must renounce at once any attempt at chronological order. Slavic popular poetry has yet no history. Not that a considerable portion of it is not very ancient. Many mysterious sounds, even from the gray ages of paganism, reach us, like the chimes of distant bells, unconnected and half lost in the air; while, of many other songs and legends, the colouring reminds us strongly of their Asiatic home. But the wonderful tales they convey, have mostly been only confined to tradition; especially there, where the fountain of poetry streamed; and streams still, in the richest profusion, namely, in Servia. Handed down from generation to generation, each[pg.318] has impressed its mark upon them. Tradition, that wonderful offspring of reality and imagination, affords no safer basis to the history of poetry, than to the history of nations themselves. To dig out of dust and rubbish a few fragments of manuscripts, which enable us to cast one glance into the night of the past, has been reserved only for recent times. Future years will furnish richer materials; and to the inquirer, who shall resume this subject fifty years after us, it may be permitted to reduce them to historical order; while we must be contented to appreciate those, which are before our eyes, in a moral and poetical respect.
The Slavi, even when first mentioned in history, appear as a singing race. Procopius, relating the surprise of a Slavic camp by the Greeks, states that the former were not aware of the danger, having lulled themselves to sleep by singing.[[326]] Karamzin, in his history of the Russian empire, narrates, on the authority of Byzantine writers, that the Greeks being at war with the Avars, about A.D. 590, took prisoners three Slavi, who were sent from the Baltic as ambassadors to the Khan of the Avars. These envoys carried, instead of weapons, a kind of guitar. They stated, that, having no iron in their country, they did not know how to manage swords and spears; and described singing and playing on the guitar as one of the principal occupations of their peaceful life.[[327]] The general prevalence of a musical ear and taste among all Slavic nations is indeed striking. "Where a Slavic woman is," says Schaffarik, "there is also song. House and yard, mountain and valley, meadow and forest, garden and vineyard, she fills them all with the sounds of her voice. Often, after a wearisome day spent in heat and sweat, hunger and thirst, she animates, on her way home, the silence of the[pg.319] evening twilight with her melodious songs. What spirit these popular songs breathe, the reader may learn from the collections already published. Without encountering contradiction, we may say, that among no other nation of Europe does natural poetry exist to such an extent, and in such purity, heartiness, and warmth of feeling, as among the Slavi." [[328]]