“The earliest poetry of the Servians has a heathenish character; that
which follows is leagued with Christian legends. But holy deeds are
always made the condition of salvation. The whole nation, to use the
idea of Göthe, is imaged in poetical superstition. Events are brought
about by the agency of angels, but the footsteps of Satan can be nowhere
traced; the dead are often summoned from their tombs; awful warnings,
prophecies, and birds of evil omen, bear terror to the minds of the most
courageous.
“Over all is spread the influence of a remarkable, and, no doubt,
antique mythology. An omnipresent spirit--airy and fanciful--making its
dwelling in solitudes--and ruling over mountains and forests--a being
called the _Vila_, is heard to issue its irresistible mandates, and pour
forth its prophetic inspiration: sometimes in a form of female
beauty--sometimes a wilder Diana--now a goddess, gathering or dispersing
the clouds--and now an owl, among ruins and ivy. The Vila, always
capricious, and frequently malevolent, is a most important actor in all
the popular poetry of Servia. The _Trica Polonica_ is sacred to her. She
is equally renowned for the beauty of her person and the swiftness of
her step:--‘Fair as the mountain Vila,’ is the highest compliment to a
Servian lady--‘Swift as the Vila,’ is the most eloquent eulogium on a
Servian steed.
“Of the amatory poems of the Servians, Göthe justly remarks, that, when
viewed all together, they cannot but be deemed of singular beauty; they
exhibit the expressions of passionate, overflowing, and contented
affection; they are full of shrewdness and spirit; delight and surprise
are admirably portrayed; and there is, in all, a marvellous sagacity in
subduing difficulties, and in obtaining an end; a natural, but at the
same time vigorous and energetic tone; sympathies and sensibilities,
without wordy exaggeration, but which, notwithstanding, are decorated
with poetical imagery and imaginative beauty; a correct picture of
Servian life and manners--every thing, in short, which gives to passion
the force of truth, and to external scenery the character of reality.
“The poetry of Servia was wholly traditional, until within a very few
years. It had never found a pen to record it, but has been preserved by
the people, and principally by those of the lower classes, who had been
accustomed to listen and to sing these interesting compositions to the
sound of a simple three-stringed instrument, called a _Gusle_; and it is
mentioned by Göthe, that when some Servians who had visited Vienna were
requested to write down the songs they had sung, they expressed the
greatest surprise that such simple poetry and music as theirs should
possess any interest for intelligent and cultivated minds. They
apprehended, they said, that the artless compositions of their country
would be the subject of scorn or ridicule to those whose poetry was so
polished and so sublime. And this feeling must have been ministered to
by the employment, even in Servia, of a language no longer spoken; for
the productions of literature, though it is certain the natural
affections, the every-day thoughts and associations could not find fit
expression in the old church dialect:--
“The talk
Man holds with week-day man in the hourly walk
Of the mind’s business, is the undoubted stalk
‘_True song_’ doth grow on.”
“The collection of popular songs, _Narodne srpske pjesme_, from which
most of those which occupy this volume are taken, was made by Vuk, and
committed to paper either from early recollections, or from the
repetition of Servian minstrels. These, he informs us, and his statement
is corroborated by every intelligent traveller, form a very small
portion of the treasure of song which exists unrecorded among the
peasantry. How so much of beautiful anonymous poetry should have been
created in so perfect a form, is a subject well worthy of inquiry. Among
a people who look to music and song as a source of enjoyment, the habit
of improvisation grows up imperceptibly, and engages all the fertilities
of imagination in its exercise. The thought which first finds vent in a
poetical form, if worth preservation, is polished and perfected as it
passes from lip to lip, till it receives the stamp of popular approval,
and becomes as it were a national possession. There is no text-book, no
authentic record, to which it can be referred, whose authority should
interfere with its improvement. The poetry of a people is a common
inheritance, which one generation transfers sanctioned and amended to
another. Political adversity, too, strengthens the attachment of a
nation to the records of its ancient prosperous days. The harps may be
hung on the willows for a while, during the storm and the struggle, but
when the tumult is over, they will be strung again to repeat the old
songs, and recall the time gone by.
“The historical ballads, which are in lines composed of five trochaics,
are always sung with the accompaniment of the _Gusle_. At the end of
every verse, the singer drops his voice, and mutters a short cadence.
The emphatic passages are chanted in a louder tone. ‘I cannot describe,’
says Wessely, ‘the pathos with which these songs are sometimes sung. I
have witnessed crowds surrounding a blind old singer, and every cheek
was wet with tears--it was not the music, it was the words which
affected them.’ As this simple instrument, the Gusle, is never used but
to accompany the poetry of the Servians, and as it is difficult to find
a Servian who does not play upon it, the universality of their popular
ballads may be well imagined.”
While Mr. Bowring pays cheerful homage to a rhyme translation of a
Servian ballad, in the Quarterly Review, No. LXIX. p. 71, he adds, that
it is greatly embellished, and offers a version, in blank verse, more
faithful to the original, and therefore more interesting to the critical
inquirer. The following specimen of Mr. Bowring’s translation may be
compared with the corresponding passage in the Review.
She was lovely--nothing e’er was lovelier;
She was tall and slender as the pine tree;
White her cheeks, but tinged with rosy blushes,
As if morning’s beam had shone
Till that beam had reach’d its high meridian;
And her eyes, they were two precious jewels;
And her eyebrows, leeches from the ocean;
And her eyelids, they were wings of swallows;
Silken tufts the maiden’s flaxen ringlets;
And her sweet mouth was a sugar casket;
And her teeth were pearls array’d in order;
White her bosom, like two snowy dovelets;
And her voice was like the dovelet’s cooing;
And her smiles were like the glowing sunshine.
On the eyebrows of the bride, described as “_leeches_ from the ocean,”
it is observable that, with the word leech in Servian poetry, there is
no disagreeable association. “It is the name usually employed to
describe the beauty of the eyebrows, as swallows’ wings are the simile
used for eyelashes.” A lover inquires
“Hast thou wandered near the ocean?
Has thou seen the _pijavitza_?[139]
Like it are the maiden’s eyebrows.”