Armenian Legends and Poems 1

Armenian Legends and Poems 1

Armenian Legends and Poems

Author: Various

PREFACE

In preparing this book of Armenian Legends and Poems my principal

object was to publish it as a Memorial to an unhappy nation.

 

The book does not claim to represent Armenian poetry adequately. Many

gifted and well-known authors have been omitted, partly from

considerations of space, and partly because of the scope of the work.

For instance, I should have liked to include some of the Sharakans

(rows of gems) of Nerses Shnorhali; but the impossibility of

reproducing their characteristic forms in another language, and doing

them any justice, made me decide not to translate any of them. I have

only given a few typical legends and poems, endeavouring, as far as

possible, to convey the local colouring by adhering closely to the

form, rhythm, and imagery of the originals in my translations. I have

also largely based the decorative scheme of the illustrations upon

Ancient Armenian Art as we see it in mediæval missals and

illuminations.

 

Should this anthology create an interest in Armenian literature the

Armenian Muses have still many treasures in their keeping which cannot

be destroyed; and another volume could be compiled.

 

In conclusion, I wish to express my sincerest gratitude to Miss Alice

Stone Blackwell, of Boston, U.S.A.—one of Armenia’s truest

friends—for allowing me to reprint several of her renderings of

Armenian poems; to G. C. Macaulay, M.A., and the Delegates of the

Oxford University Press, for permission to reprint the “Tale of

Rosiphelee” from their edition of Gower’s Confessio Amantis; to Mr.

William Watson and Mr. John Lane for permission to reprint the sonnet

on Armenia, “A Trial of Orthodoxy,” from The Purple East; and to

the heirs of Vittoria Aganoor Pompilj for permitting me to reprint two

of her poems, “Pasqua Armena” and “Io Vidi,” from the Nuova

Antologia. I wish also to thank Mr. M. E. Galoustiantz for designing

the cover of this book.

 

The proceeds of the present edition will be handed over to the Armenian

Fund.

 

 

ZABELLE C. BOYAJIAN.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

 

Severed for many centuries from Western Europe by the flood of Turkish

barbarism which descended upon their country in the Middle Ages, and

subjected for the last two generations to oppressions and cruelties

such as few civilised people have ever had to undergo, the Armenians

have been less known to Englishmen and Frenchmen than their remarkable

qualities and their romantic history deserve. Few among us have

acquired their language, one of the most ancient forms of human speech

that possess a literature. Still fewer have studied their art or read

their poetry even in translations. There is, therefore, an ample field

for a book which shall present to those Englishmen and Frenchmen, whose

interest in Armenia has been awakened by the sufferings to which its

love of freedom and its loyalty to its Christian faith have exposed it,

some account of Armenian art and Armenian poetical literature. Miss

Boyajian, the authoress of this book, is the daughter of an Armenian

clergyman, whom I knew and respected during the many years when he was

British Vice-Consul at Diarbekir on the Tigris. She is herself a

painter, a member of that group of Armenian artists some of whom have,

like Aïvazovsky and Edgar Chahine, won fame in the world at large, and

she is well qualified to describe with knowledge as well as with

sympathy the art of her own people.

 

That art has been, since the nation embraced Christianity in the fourth

century of our era, chiefly ecclesiastical. The finest examples of

ancient Armenian architecture are to be seen in the ruins of Ani, on

the border where Russian and Turkish territory meet, a city which was

once the seat of one of the native dynasties, while the famous church

of the monastery of Etchmiadzin, at Vagarshabad, near Erivan, is,

though more modern, a perfect and beautiful existing representative of

the old type. Etchmiadzin, standing at the north foot of Mount Ararat,

is the seat of the Katholikos, or ecclesiastical head of the whole

Armenian church. There was little or no ecclesiastical sculpture, for

the Armenian church discouraged the use of images, and fresco painting

was not much used for the decoration of churches; missals, however, and

other books of devotion and manuscripts of the Bible were illuminated

with hand paintings, and adorned with miniatures; and much skill and

taste were shown in embroideries. Metal work, especially in silver and

in copper, has always been a favourite vehicle for artistic design in

the Near East and is so still, though like everything else it has

suffered from the destruction, in repeated massacres, of many of the

most highly skilled artificers.

 

One of the most interesting features in the history of Armenian art is

that it displays in its successive stages the various influences to

which the country has been subject. Ever since it became Christian it

was a territory fought for by diverse empires of diverse creeds. As in

primitive times it lay between Assyria on the one side and the Hittite

power on the other, so after the appearance of Islam it became the

frontier on which the East Roman Christian Empire contended with the

Muslim Arab and Turkish monarchies. Persian influences on the East,

both before and after Persia had become Mohammedan, here met with the

Roman influences spreading out from Constantinople. The latter gave the

architectural style, as we see it in those ecclesiastical buildings to

which I have referred, a style developed here with admirable features

of its own and one which has held its ground to the present day. The

influence of Persia on the other hand was seen in the designs used in

embroidery, in carpets, and in metal work. The new school of painters

has struck out new lines for itself, but while profiting by whatever it

has learnt from Europe, it retains a measure of distinctive national

quality.

 

That quality is also visible in Armenian poetry of which this volume

gives some interesting specimens. The poetry of a people which has

struggled against so many terrible misfortunes has naturally a

melancholy strain. But it is also full of an unextinguishable

patriotism.

 

Those who have learnt from this book what the Armenian race has shown

itself capable of doing in the fields of art and literature, and who

have learnt from history how true it has been to its Christian faith,

and how tenacious of its national life, will hope that the time has now

at last come when it will be delivered from the load of brutal tyranny

that has so long cramped its energies, and allowed to take its place

among the free and progressive peoples of the world. It is the only one

of the native races of Western Asia that is capable of restoring

productive industry and assured prosperity to these now desolated

regions that were the earliest homes of civilisation.

 

 

BRYCE.

 

3, Buckingham Gate,

July 1916.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONTENTS

 

 

PAGE

 

Preface vii

Introduction ix

 

Reproaches xv

A Trial of Orthodoxy xvi

 

The Exile’s Song 1

The Apple Tree 3

My Heart is turned into a Wailing Child 4

O Night, be long 5

Black Eyes 6

Yesternight I walked Abroad 7

Vahagn, King of Armenia 10

Huntsman, that on the Hills above 11

Liberty 12

I beheld my Love this Morning 14

The Fox, the Wolf, and the Bear 15

Incense 17

The Little Lake 18

Spring 20

Cradle Song 21

Ara and Semiramis 23

Lament over the Heroes fallen in the

Battle of Avarair 25

The Song of the Stork 27

Ye Mountain Bluebells 29

The Sun went down 30

Birthday Song 31

Morning 32

The Founding of Van 33

I have a Word I fain would say 35

The Song of the Partridge 36

The Lily of Shavarshan 37

Cradle Song 41

The Wind is howling through the Winter Night 42

The Armenian Poet’s Prayer 43

The Chragan Palace 44

The Dream 46