THE CAUCASUS (03/05/00)

THE CAUCASUS

by Taras Shevchenko

To Yakiv de Balman

Oh that my head were waters.
and mine eyes a fountain of tears,
that I might weep day and night
for those who were slain.

Jeremiah ix. 1

Mountains on endless mountains rise, clouds veil their peaks,
A mighty highland cloaked in woe, with blood it reeks;
And there Prometheus, for no human crime,
An eagle tortures since the dawn of time;
Day after day, its black beak tears his breast;
Day after day, his torn heart knows no rest.
Torn it may be, but never shall its blood
Be wholly drained away in fatal flood.
For e'er, and anon, it steers again
And feels new gladness in its mortal pain.
So likewise shall our spirit never die
Nor our freedom wholly vanquished lie.
Sooner may foemen hope to plow with glee
A meadow at the bottom of the sea
As chain the living soul with force uncouth
Or choke to death the vital word of Truth.
The glory of our God may not be rent,
The glory of the Lord Omnipotent.

'Tis not for us to rise and strive with Thee,
Nor judge Thy doings through eternity:
It is our lot to weep, and weep, and weep;
To knead our daily bread; our vigil keep
With agonizing tears and bloody sweat.
Our torturers abuse us harshly yet
While justice slumbers in a drunken trance!

When will it rise, perchance?
When wilt Thou, weary God,
Rest and lay down Thy rod
And grant our spirits peace?
Our faith can never cease
In thy strong, living Word:
Justice and Liberty
Will rise, and unto Thee
All tribes on earth shall bend
For ages without end.
But in the meantime rivers flow,
Rivers of blood no ceasing know!

Mountains on endless mountains rise, clouds veil their peaks,
A mighty highland cloaked in woe, with blood it reeks;
And we, Our gracious Highness, there have found
This wretched thing called freedom running 'round,
And in its nakedness and famished state
Have set our dogs upon it...
Many a fate
Has left a soldier's bones upon those hills.
And what of tears and blood? Their brimming rills
Would drown all emperors and all their sons
And all grandchildren, such a torrent runs
From eyes of widows, and of maidens bright
Shed silently across the dead of night.
And what of burning tears by mothers shed,
And streams by aged fathers fed?
Not rivers but a sea of them would flow
To form a fiery deep!...
Let glory go
To hounds and harriers and those who train them,
And our beloved tsars, may glory stain them!

Glory likewise to you, ye mountains blue,
Couched in your snow and ice beyond our view;
And you, ye mighty warriors of the sword,
Still unforgotten by the eternal Lord!
Struggle, and ye shall overcome the foe:
For God shall succor you in battle's throe;
His strength is on your side, and freedom stands
With justice on the threshold of your lands!

A hovel and oatmeal - all this is yours -
Not asked for and not given, this endures -
No one will seek to take away this lot
Or fetter you for owning such a cot.
Then have no fear amid your bitter pain...
We have not read the word of God in vain;
From the deep dungeon to the lofty throne,
All of shine with gold and have not known
That we are naked in our slavery.
Turn to us then for guidance. Such as we,
Who have the banners of the earth unfurled,
Can teach the ways and manners of the world...
We are not heathens (comes that Russian voice) -
We are the genuine Christians: we rejoice
In temples and icons without number -
Yes, God Himself among us loves to slumber!
Only your highland sheiling plagues our view:
Why does it stand, not doled by us to you?
And all your oatmeal we would wish to own
And cast it to you, as to dogs a bone.
And why, we wonder, are you not compelled
To pay us for all sunshine you've beheld!
And that's all! So little would we ask!
And in return we'd crave the holy task
Of granting you the joy our friendship brings,
And we would teach you much, of many things:
Thus we have endless space! As you might guess,
Siberia itself is limitless!
We teem with tribes and prisons, past all counting,
Moldavia and Finnish lakes surmounting -
And each, in his own language, holds his tongue,
Since our benevolence his speech has wrung.
With us some holy monk his Bible reads
And teaches how some tsar, of evil deeds,
A former swineherd, fond of ways inhuman,
Took for his own foul use a married woman,
And killed his friend, her husband - for that sin,
He dwells in heaven! Now you can begin
To see what sort of folk by us are sent
To live aloft! This you perhaps resent,
No fine, enlightened point of dogma clasping!
Come, learn from us; for we believe in grasping, -
Extorting is our sport beneath all skies
And it is thus we gain our paradise,
Even if all your kin should have to go!
Here, among us, there's nothing we don't know:
We'll count the stars, sow buckwheat in a trench,
Play greasy politics with the French,
Sell human souls or stake them to our euchre -
Not negroes, but true men, we treat as lucre,
The Christian souls that common serfdom gave us.
We are not Spaniards, no! And may God save us
From buying men from some grim pirate's paw,
Like infidels: we live within the law. ...

Do you, by the Apostles' law,
Love your neighbour, in God's awe?
Hypocrites, imposters vile,
Curs'd by God for all your guile!
'Tis your neighbour's hide you love,
Not his soul, which soars above;
Hence, you may flay this human goat
To give your daughter a fur coat,
A wedding present for your bastard,
And shoes your wife may wear beplastered,
While you yourself may by some vice
Too foul to tell in words precise!
For whom hast Thou been crucified,
Christ, Son of God, who long since died?
For all bad Christians, or perchance
To make the word of Truth advance?
Or that we might make mock of Thee
As we have done, men must agree?
We offer, in a holy joke,
Our candles and our incense-smoke
And to Thy icons make oblations
With lots of tireless prostrations,
Praying for help in theft and war
And shedding brothers' blood, yea more,
We bring Thee from some foray's smothers
An altar-cloth we stole from others...

Thus do the years our spirits brighten
And we would other men enlighten
And show the sun of Truth most pure
To lesser peoples, to be sure.
All this to you we shall reveal
If you to us as slaves will kneel:
We'll teach you how to fashion gaols,
To forge your fetters and your flails,
How to wear chains your limbs about
And how to twist the knotted knout -
We'll teach you everything, I say,
But let us take your hills away -
Your last domain. Already we
Have stolen all your plains and sea!

You also have been driven there, my dearest friend,
Beloved Yakiv! For Ukraine was not your end
But for her executioner your fortunes shed
Your sound, unsullied blood; it was your fate most dread
To taste the Russian poison from the Russian cup.
Your memory, my true friend, shall ne'er be given up!
Still let your soul stay hovering above Ukraine
With Cossacks' souls that soar above its shore and plain;
Watch over, weep above each excavated mound -
When I at last soar free, you'll meet me, I'll be bound!

And in the meantime, I shall sow
The verses of my burning woe:
Here let them spring up, unchagrined,
And hold their converse with the wind...
And gentle breezes from Ukraine,
Dewy, will cover the refrain
To you, my friend of other years;
You'll welcome them with friendly tears,
Mounds, steppe and mountains then you'll see,
And then you will remember me.

Written in 1845.

1. Translation from the Ukrainian by C.H. Andrusyshen and Watson Kirkconnell, in "The Poetical Works of Taras Shevchenko: The Kobzar" (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964), pp. 243-48.

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