"Therefore weep I, hapless maiden,
Therefore do I weep for ever,
That yourself have pledged me, hapless.
And your daughter you have promised
Thus to be an old man's comfort,
As a solace to the old man,240
To support his feeble footsteps,
And to wait upon him always.
Better were it had you sent me
Deeply down beneath the billows,
There to be the powan's sister,
And companion of the fishes.
In the lake 'tis surely better
There beneath the waves to sojourn,
There to be the powan's sister.
And companion of the fishes,250
Than to be an old man's comfort.
To support his aged footsteps,
So that I can mend his stockings,
And may be a staff to prop him."
Then she sought the mountain storehouse,
And the inner room she entered;
And the finest chest she opened,
Raised the painted lid with clangour,
And she found six golden girdles,
Seven blue robes of finest textures,260
And she robed her in the finest,
And completed her adornment.
Set the gold upon her temples,
On her hair the shining silver,
On her brow the sky-blue ribands,
On her head the bands of scarlet.
Then she wandered from the storehouses,
And across the fields she wandered,
Past the marshes, and the heathlands,
Through the shady, gloomy forests.270
Thus she sang, as on she hastened,
Thus she spoke, as on she wandered:
"All my heart is filled with trouble;
On my head a stone is loaded.
But my trouble would not vex me,
And the weight would less oppress me,
If I perished, hapless maiden,
Ending thus my life of sorrow,
In the burden of my trouble,
In the sadness of my sorrow.280
"Now my time perchance approaches,
From this weary world to hasten,
Time to seek the world of Mana,
Time to Tuonela to hasten,
For my father will not mourn me,
Nor my mother will lament me,
Nor my sister's cheeks be moistened,
Nor my brother's eyes be tearful,
If I sank beneath the waters,
Sinking where the fish are sporting,290
To the depths beneath the billows,
Down amid the oozy blackness."
On she went, one day, a second,
And at length, upon the third day,
Came she to a lake's broad margin,
To the bank, o'ergrown with rushes.
And she reached it in the night-time,
And she halted in the darkness.
In the evening wept the maiden,
Through the darksome night lamented,300
On the rocks that fringed the margin,
Where a bay spread wide before her.
At the earliest dawn of morning,
As she gazed from off a headland,
Just beyond she saw three maidens,
Bathing there amid the waters,
Aino made the fourth among then,
And the fifth a slender sapling.
Then her shift she cast on willows,
And her dress upon the aspens,310
On the open ground her stockings,
Threw her shoes upon the boulders,
On the sand her beads she scattered,
And her rings upon the shingle.
In the waves a rock was standing,
Brightly hued and golden shining;
And she swam and sought to reach it,
As a refuge in her trouble.
When at length she stood upon it,
And would rest upon the summit,320
On the stone of many colours,
On the rock so smooth and shining,
In the waves it sank beneath her,
Sinking to the very bottom.
With the rock, the maiden Aino
Sank beneath the water's surface.
There the dove for ever vanished,
Thus the luckless maiden perished,
She herself exclaimed in dying,
When she felt that she was sinking:330
"To the lake I went to bathe me,
And to swim upon its surface,
But, like tender dove, I vanished,
Like a bird by death o'ertaken.
Never may my dearest father,
Never while his life endureth,
Cast his net amid the waters,
In these waves, so wide extending.