MARKO KRALJEVIĆ ABOLISHES THE
MARRIAGE-TAX
Kraljević Marko rode forth early,
Early he rode athwart the plain of Kossovo.
And when he was come to Servana river,
There met him a damsel of Kossovo.
And Marko gave her fair greeting:
"God aid thee, thou damsel of Kossovo!"
The damsel bowed her to the ground:
"Fair fall thee—stranger knight!"
Then Marko spake to her and said:
"Dear sister, damsel of Kossovo,10
Right fair thou art—mayst thou wax younger!
Full seemly thou art of body and stature,
Rosy thy countenance, and high thy bearing.
But thy hair, sister, beseemeth thee not.
Wherefore art thou grown so grey?
By whom hast thou lost thy gladness?
Or by thine own fault or by thy mother's,
Or by the mean of thine aged father?"
The damsel of Kossovo wept tears,
And to Kraljević Marko she said: 20
"Dear brother, thou stranger knight,
Not by mine own fault am I unhappy,
Not by mine own fault nor because of my mother,
Nor yet because of mine aged father.
Natheless, miserable that I am, I have lost all gladness.
Lo, nine years of days are passed,
Since there came a Moor from beyond the sea,
And leased Kossovo from the Sultan,
And he inflicteth outrage upon Kossovo
That the folk give him meat and drink out of measure. 30
In this too he doeth violence—
For every woman that would wed must pay him thirty ducats,
