So she staid at home, the aged mother,
And she rock’d the nursling in the cradle.
Then arose the youthful wife of Goiko;
Gave them the repast, and bade them forward.
Call’d around her all the serving maidens;
When they reach’d Bojana’s flowing river,
They were seen by Mrljavchevich Goiko,
On his youthful wife, heart-rent, he threw him;
Flung his strong right arm around her body;
Kiss’d a thousand times her snowy forehead:
Burning tears stream’d swiftly from his eyelids,
As he spoke, in melancholy language:
“O my wife, my own! my full heart’s-sorrow!
Didst thou never dream that thou must perish?
Why hast thou our little one abandoned?
Who will bathe our little one, thou absent?
Who will bare the breast to feed the nursling?”
More, and more, and more, he fain would utter;
But the king allow’d it not. Vukashin,
By her white hand seizes her, and summons,
Master Rado,—he the master-builder;
And he summons his three hundred workmen.
But the young-espoused one smiles, and deems it
All a laughing jest,—no fear o’ercame her.
Gathering round her, the three hundred workmen
Pile the stones and pile the beams about her.
They have now immured her to the girdle.
Higher rose the walls and beams, and higher;
Then the wretch first saw the fate prepared her,
And she shriek’d aloud in her despairing;
In her woe implored her husband’s brothers:
“Can ye think of God?—have ye no pity?
Can ye thus immure me, young and healthful?”
But in vain, in vain were her entreaties;
And her brothers left her thus imploring.
Shame and fear succeeded then to censure,
And she piteously invoked her husband:
“Can it, can it be, my lord and husband,
That so young, thou, reckless, would’st immure me?
Let us go and seek my aged mother:
Let us go—my mother she is wealthy:
She will buy a slave,—a man or woman,
To be buried in the walls’ foundations.”
When the mother-wife—the wife and mother,
Found her earnest plaints and prayers neglected,
She address’d herself to Neimar [74] Rado:
“In God’s name, my brother, Neimar Rado,
Leave a window for this snowy bosom,
Let this snowy bosom heave it freely;
When my voiceless Jovo shall come near me,
When he comes, O let him drain my bosom!”
Rado bade the workmen all obey her,
Leave a window for that snowy bosom,
Let that snowy bosom heave it freely
When her voiceless Jovo shall come near her,
When he comes, he’ll drink from out her bosom.
Once again she cried to Neimar Rado,
“Neimar Rado! in God’s name, my brother!
Leave for these mine eyes a little window,
That these eyes may see our own white dwelling,
When my Jovo shall be brought towards me,
When my Jovo shall be carried homeward.”
Rado bade the workmen all obey her,
Leave for those bright eyes a little window,
That her eyes may see her own white dwelling,
When they bring her infant Jovo to her,
When they take the infant Jovo homeward.
So they built the heavy wall about her,
And then brought the infant in his cradle,
Which a long, long while his mother suckled.
Then her voice grew feeble—then was silent:
Still the stream flow’d forth and nursed the infant:
Full a year he hung upon her bosom;
Still the stream flow’d forth—and still it floweth. [75a]
Women, when the life-stream dries within them,
Thither come—the place retains its virtue—
Thither come, to still their crying infants. [75b]