Rediscovering Ukrainian poetry: Lesya Ukrainka

The Neophyte Slave

And how many slaves like me have perished,

as bloody victims to unrighteous deities,

and how many are still dying for that king,

who, as you say, has sentenced us to slavery?

Who’s measured the long way, all lined with crosses,

That we, we slaves, for centuries have walked?

Who has appraised the blood that’s yet to fall

upon the heads of torturers, still weighing

upon the kids of executed heroes?

A phalanx of innumerable deities

has walked over that blood—a crimson carpet

rolled out for the triumph of a caesar--

from heaven here. How long will they,

incorporeal tyrants, bloodless ghosts,

these lifeless apparitions, keep on treading

this priceless scarlet way of living blood?

As for my blood—I’ll never give a drop

for blood of Christ. If it indeed is true

that he is God, then, for a change, let God

spill blood for us—that would be quite a first.

I don’t care if there is but one God,

or three, three hundred, or a whole horde.

Not for a single one I want to die:

not for a king who rules somewhere in Eden,

not for the tyrants ruling from Olympus,--

I won’t be a slave to either one,

I’ve had enough of slavery right here!

I will extoll Prometheus the titan,

who did not make his humans to be slaves,

who spread enlightenment with fire, not with word,

who struggled violently and did not surrender,

and suffered for an aeon, not three days,

yet did not call his torturer his father,

but an ignoble tyrant, whom he cursed,

while prophesying death to all the gods.

That’s whom I’ll follow. And if I should die,

it won’t be for him—he doesn’t want it,—

but for the same things that he suffered for.

Let no one be scared of my cross,

for if I feel a holy fire in my heart,

and for an hour, or even for a moment

will live not as a miserable slave,

but as a soverign, unfettered demigod,

then happily shall I face my demise,

and calmly meet my end upon a cross.

Lesya Ukrainka