Part II · VII. The Appeal to the Princes

(1) To Vsevolod Yurevic of Suzdal.

Great Prince Vsevolod! Is it not thine to fly from afar with thy thought to guard thy fathers' golden throne? For thou canst splash the Volga with thy oars, and bale out the Don with thy helmets! If thou hadst been [there], then a potentate would be priced at twelve pence and a workman at five pence!

For, on dry land, thou canst, with the men of Serysor shoot my valorous sons of Gleb.

(2) To Rurik and David Rostislavic.

Thou brave Rurik and David, did they not swim in blood with your golden helms? Do not your brave Druzina gallop like bulls wounded by tempered sabres in the unexplored land?

Step, my lords, into your golden stirrups, for the insult to our time, for the Russian land, the wounds of Igor, the brave son of Svyatoslav.

(3) To Yaroslav Vladimirkovic of Galicia.

Thou didst shatter the Galicians on the Vistula, Yaroslav; thou sittest high on thy gold-forged throne, supporting the Hungarian mountains with thy iron-clad regiments, barring the road against the [Magyar] King, closing the gates of the Danube, hurling thongs amid the Vlakhs, judging and ordaining as far as the Danube! Thy threats have sway over the lands. Thou openest the gates of Kiev, shootest from thy ancestral golden throne the men of Salatyn [who are] beyond thy lands.

Shoot, my liege, the heathen Koncak the slave, for the sake of the Russian land, for the sake of the wounds of Igor, the brave son of Svyatoslav.

(4) To Roman and Mstislav Rostislavic.

Thou, valiant Roman and Mstislav, your brave thought carries you with your uncle to the work. Thou floatest in thy courage to thy toil like a hawk stretching himself in the winds, wishing in his strength to slay a bird!

For ye have iron cuirasses beneath your Latin helmets. Through them the earth trembled and many countries, Hinowice, Lithuania, the Yatvyagi, the men of Dremble; and the Polovtsy threw down their maces and bowed their heads beneath those steel swords.

But now, my prince, the light of Igor's sun has dimmed; the tree through misfortune has let fall its leaves, they [the enemy] have shared out the cities on the Ros and the Sula. And Igor's brave regiment can no more rise. The Don summons thee, Prince, and calls the princes to victory.

(5) To Ingvar and Vsevolod Yaroslavic.

The Olgovici, those brave princes [i.e. Igor and Vsevolod] have hastened to the combat. Ingvar and Vsevolod [Yaroslavic] and ye three Mstislavici, ye heavy-winged ones of a noble nest, by inglorious lots have ye gotten yourselves power!

Wherefor [have ye] your golden helms and Polish maces and your shields? Guard the gates of the [frontier] land with your sharp arrows for the land of Russia, the wounds of Igor, the brave Svyatoslavic!

(6) Reminiscence of Izyaslav Vasil'kovic.

No longer does the Sula flow with silvery stream to the city of Pereyaslavl', and the Dvina flows thither in a morass to the grim hunters of Polotsk, amid the shouts of the heathen.

Izyaslav, alone, the son of Vasil'ko, rang with his sharp swords on the helmets of the Lithuanians, grasped the fame of his grandfather Vseslav; and himself beneath the crimsoned shields was laid low on the blood-stained ground by the Lithuanian swords: and with grieving spake on his bed: "The birds, oh Prince, have been covering thy druzina with their wings, and the wild beasts have been licking at their blood,"

On that field there was neither his brother Bryacislav, nor his next [brother] Vsevolod: alone he let fall his pearl-white soul from his brave body out through his armour at his throat. Voices were hushed; merriment was subdued. The trumpets of Gorodno blare.