A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections | Page 8

are hastening
hither; they seek to kill Christ the Lord with sharp spears." The Alleluia
Woman obeys, without an instant's hesitation. When the Jews arrive,
immediately afterwards, and inquire if Christ has passed that way, she
says she has thrown him into the oven. The Jews are convinced of the
truth of her statement, by the sight of a child's hand amid the flames;
whereupon they dance for joy, and depart, after fastening an iron plate
over the oven door. Christ vanishes from the arms of the merciful
woman; she remembers her own child and begins to weep. Then
Christ's voice assures her that he is well and happy. On opening the
oven door, she beholds her baby playing with the flowers in a rich
green meadow, reading the Gospels, or rolling an apple on a platter,
and comforted by angels.
"The Wanderings of the All-Holy Birth-giver of God," another very
ancient ballad, represents the Virgin Mother wandering among the
mountains in search of Christ. She encounters three Jews; and in
answer to her query, "Accursed Jews, what have ye done with Christ?"
they inform her that they have just crucified him on Mount Zion. She
hastens thither, and swoons on arriving. When she recovers, she makes
her lament, and her plakh, or wail, beginning: "O, my dear son, why
didst thou not obey thy mother?" Christ comforts her, telling her that he
shall rise again, and bidding her: "Do not weep and spoil thy beauty." A
form of the ballad which is common in Little Russia reverses the
situation. It is the Jews who inquire of Mary what she has done with
her son. "Into the river I flung him," she promptly replies. They drain
the river, and find him not. Again they ask, "Under the mountains I
buried him." They dig up the mountains, and find him not. At last they
discover a church, and in it three coffins. Over the Holy Virgin's, the
birds are warbling or flowers are blossoming; over John the Baptist's,
lights are burning; over Christ's, angels are singing.

As might be expected, the Holy Virgin is a very popular subject of song.
In numerous ballads she delivers a temperance lecture to St. Vasíly the
Great on his drunkenness, putting to him various questions, such as,
"Who sleeps through matins? Who walks and riots during the liturgy?"
[St. Vasíly being the author of a liturgy which is used on certain
important occasions during the church year.] "Who has unwashed
hands? Who is a murderer?" and so on, through a long list of
peccadilloes and crimes. The answer to each question is, "The
drunkard." Poor St. Vasíly dashes his head against a stone, and
threatens to put an end to himself on the spot, if his one lapse in five
and twenty years be not forgiven. Accordingly the Holy Virgin steps
down from her throne, gives him her hand, and informs him that the
Lord has three mansions: one is the House of David, where the Last
Judgment will take place; through the second flows a river of fire, the
destination of wizards, drunkards, and the like; and the third is Paradise,
the home of the elect. The imagery in the very numerous and ancient
poems on the Last Judgment, by the way, is purely heathen in character.
The ferryman over the river of fire sometimes acts as the judge, and the
punishments to which sinners are condemned by him recall those
mentioned in the Æneid, and in Dante's Divina Commedia, the frescoes
on the walls of churches bearing out the same idea.
Adam and Eve naturally receive a share of the minstrel's attention, and
"Adam's Wail" before the gates of Paradise is often very touching. In a
ballad from White Russia, Adam begs the Lord to permit him to revisit
Paradise. The Lord accordingly gives orders to "St. Peter-Paul" to
admit Adam to Paradise, to have the song of the Cherubim sung for
him, and so forth; but not to allow him to remain. In the midst of
Paradise Adam beholds his coffin and wails before it: "O, my coffin,
coffin, my true home! Take me, O my coffin, as a mother her own child,
to thy white arms, to thy ruddy face, to thy warm heart!" But "St.
Peter-Paul" soon catches sight of him, and tells him that he has no
business to be strolling about and spying out Paradise; his place is on
Zion's hill, where he will be shown books of magic, and of life, and
things in general.
There is a great mass of poetry devoted to Joseph; and a lament to

"Mother Desert," uttered as he is being led away into captivity by the
merchants to whom his brethren have sold him, soon becomes the
groundwork for variations in which the