Page:The Queens Court Manuscript with Other Ancient Bohemian Poems, 1852, Cambridge edition.djvu/80

And harp^[1] in hand before them all
In the lowest vale he stood.
“O men of brotherly heart and true!
“O men of fiery gaze!
“I sing to you from lowliest vale
“The lowliest of lays.
“That lay, it springeth from my heart,
“From my bosom’s deep recess,
“And sunk and drown’d in woe it tells
“My soul’s deep bitterness.
“A sire^[2] his wives and children left,
“And to his sires is gone;
“He left them in their village home,
“But ah! he said to none,
“‘O brother! speak a father’s words,
“‘To these thus left alone.’
“A stranger to the village came
“With violence and wrong,
“He came and told a foreign tale
“All in a foreign tongue.
“And as it is done in foreign lands
“From morn till eve arrives,

 

1. The Varito, the harp of the Slavonians, corresponds to the βάρβιτον of the Greeks.
2. Allusion to the recent death of a chief, followed ,by a period of anarchy and an invasion of the enemy.