A survey of Russian literature, with selections

Front matter

CHAUTAUQUA TERARY and SCIENTIFIC CIRCLE

A SURVEY OF RUSSIAN" LITERATURE

ISABEL F. HAPGOOD

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Ancient Period, from the Earliest Times to the Introduction of Christianity in 988 1 II. The Ancient Period, from the Introduction of Christianity to the Tatar Dominion, 988-1224 - - - 39

III. Second Period, from the Tatar Dominion

Preface

In this volume I have given exclusively the views of Russian critics upon their literature, and hereby acknowledge my entire indebtedness to them.

The limits of the work, and the lack of general knowledge on the subject, rendered it impossible for me to attempt any comparisons with foreign literatures.

Isabel F. Hapgood.

New York, June 6, 1902.

Chapter I

THE ANCIENT PERIOD, FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE INTRODUCTION OF CHRIS- TIANITY IN 988.

Whether Russia had any literature, or even a distinctive alphabet, previous to the end of the tenth century, is not known.

In the year 988, Vladimir, Grand Prince of Kieff, accepted Christianity for himself and his nation, from Byzantium, and baptized Russia wholesale. Hence his characteristic title in history, "Prince-Saint-equal-to-the- Apostles." His grandmother, Olga, had already been converted to the Greek Church late in life, and had established churches and priests in Kieff, it is said. Prince Vladimir could have been baptized at home, but he preferred to make the Greek form of Christianity his state religion in a more decided manner; to adopt the gospel of peace to an accompaniment of martial deeds. Accordingly he compelled the Emperors of Byzantium, by force, to send the Patriarch of Constantinople to baptize him, and their sister to become his wife. He then ordered his subjects to present themselves forthwith for baptism. Finding that their idols did not punish Vladimir for destroying them, and that even great Perun the Thunderer did not resent being flung into the Dniepr, the people quietly and promptly obeyed. As their old religion had no temples for them to cling to, and nothing approaching a priestly class (except the volkhvye, or wizards) to encourage them in opposition, the nation became Christian in a day, to all appearances. We shall see, however, that in many cases, as in other lands converted from heathendom, the old gods were merely baptized with new names, in company with their worshipers.

Together with the religion which he imported from Byzantium, "Prince-Saint" Vladimir naturally imported, also, priests, architects, artists for the holy pictures {iko'ni), as well as the traditional style of painting them, ecclesiastical vestments and vessels, and — most precious of all — the Slavonic translation of the holy Scriptures and of the Church Service books. These books, however, were not written in Greek, but in the tongue of a cognate Slavonic race, which was comprehensible to the Russians. Thus were the first firm foundations of Christianity, education, and literature simultaneously laid in the cradle of the present vast Russian empire, appropriately called "Little Russia," of which Kieff was the capital; although even then they were not confined to that section of the country, but were promptly extended, by identical methods, to old Novgorod — "Lord Novgorod the Great," the cradle of the dynasty of Rurik, founder of the line of sovereign Russian princes

Whence came these Slavonic translations of the Scriptures, the Church Services, and other books, and the preachers in the vernacular for the infant Russian nation? The books had been translated about one hundred and twenty-five years previously, for the benefit of a small Slavonic tribe, the Moravians. This tribe had been baptized by German ecclesiastics, whose books and speech, in the Latin tongue, were wholly incomprehensible to their converts. For fifty years Latin had been used, and naturally Christianity had made but little progress. Then the Moravian Prince Rostislaff appealed to Michael, emperor of Byzantium, to send him preachers capable of making themselves understood. The emperor had in his dominions many Slavonians; hence the application, on the assumption that there must be, among the Greek priests, many who were acquainted with the languages of the Slavonic tribes. In answer to this appeal, the Emperor Michael dispatched to Moravia two learned monks, Kyrill and Methody, together with several other ecclesiastics, in the year 863.

Kyrill and Methody were the sons of a grandee, who resided in the chief town of Macedonia, which was surrounded by Slavonic colonies. The elder brother, Methody, had been a military man, and the governor of a province containing Slavonians. The younger, Kyrill, had received a brilliant education at the imperial court, in company with the Emperor Michael, and had been a pupil of the celebrated Photius (afterwards Patriarch), and librarian of St. Sophia, after becoming a monk. Later on, the brothers had led the life of itinerant missionaries, and had devoted themselves to preaching the Gospel to Jews and Mohammedans. Thus they were in every way eminently qualified for their new task.

The Slavonians in the Byzantine empire, and the cognate tribes who dwelt nearer the Danube, like the Moravians, had long been in sore need of a Slavonic translation of the Scriptures and the Church books, since they understood neither Greek nor Latin; and for the lack of such a translation many relapsed into heathendom. Kyrill first busied himself with inventing an alphabet which should accurately reproduce all the varied sounds of the Slavonic tongues. Tradition asserts that he accomplished this task in the year 855, founding it upon the Greek alphabet, appropriating from the Hebrew, Armenian, and Coptic characters for the sounds which the Greek characters did not represent, and devising new ones for the nasal sounds. The characters in this alphabet were thirty-eight in number. Kyrill, with the aid of his brother Methody, then proceeded to make his translations of the Church Service books. The Bulgarians became Christians in the year 861, and these books were adopted by them. But the greatest activity of the brothers was during the four and a half years beginning with the year 862, when they translated the holy Scriptures, taught the Slavonians their new system of reading and writing, and struggled with heathendom and with the German priests of the Roman Church, These German ecclesiastics are said to have sent petition after petition to Rome, to Pope Nicholas I., demonstrating that the Word of God ought to be preached in three tongues only — Hebrew, Greek, and Latin — "because the inscription on the Cross had been written by Pilate in those tongues only." Pope Nicholas summoned the brothers to Rome; but Pope Adrian II., who was reigning in his stead when they arrived there, received them cordially, granted them permission to continue their preaching and divine services in the Slavonic language, and even consecrated Methody bishop of Pannonia; after which Methody returned to Moravia, but Kyrill, exhausted by his labors, withdrew to a monastery near Rome, and died there in 869.

The language into which Kyrill and Methody translated was probably the vernacular of the Slavonian tribes dwelling between the Balkans and the Danube. But as the system invented by Kyrill took deepest root in Bulgaria (whither, in 886, a year after Methody's death, his disciples were banished from Moravia), the language preserved in the ancient transcripts of the holy Scriptures came in time to be called " Ancient Bulgarian." In this connection, it must be noted that this does not indicate the language of the Bulgarians, but merely the language of the Slavonians who lived in Bulgaria. The Bulgarians themselves did not belong to the Slavonic, nor even to the Indo-European race, but were of Ural- Altaic extraction; that is to say, they belonged to the family now represented in Europe by the Finns, Turks, Hungarians, Tatars, and Samoyeds. In the seventh century, this people, which had inhabited the country lying between the Volga and the Don, in southeastern Russia, became divided: one section moved northward, and settled on the Kama River, a tributary of the Volga; the other section moved westward, and made their appearance on the Danube, at the close of the seventh century. There they subdued a considerable portion of the Slavonic inhabitants, being a warlike race; but the Slavonians, who were more advanced in agriculture and more industrious than the Bulgarians, effected a peaceful conquest over the latter in the course of the two succeeding centuries, so that the Bulgarians abandoned their own language and customs, and became completely merged with the Slavonians, to whom they had given their name.

When the Slavonic translations of the Scriptures and the Church Service books were brought to Russia from

Bulgaria and Byzantium, the language in which they were written received the name of "Church Slavonic/ ' because it differed materially from the Russian vernacular, and was used exclusively for the church services. Moreover, as in the early days of Russian literature the majority of writers belonged to the ecclesiastical class, the literary or book language was gradually evolved from a mixture of Church Slavonic and ancient Russian; and in this language all literature was written until the "civil," or secular, alphabet and language were introduced by Peter the Great, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Books were written in "Kyrillian" characters until the sixteenth century, and the first printed books (which date from that century) were in the same characters. The most ancient manuscripts, written previous to the fourteenth century, are very beautiful, each letter being set separately, and the capital letters often assuming the form of fantastic beasts and birds, or of flowers, or gilded. The oldest manuscript of Russian work preserved dates from the middle of the eleventh century — a magnificent parchment copy of the Gospels, made by Deacon Grigory for Ostromir, the burgomaster of Novgorod (105 6- 1 05 7), and hence known as "the Ostromir Gospels."

But before we deal with the written and strictly speaking literary works of Russia, we must make acquaintance with the oral products of the people's genius, which antedate it, or at all events, contain traces of such hoary antiquity that history knows nothing definite concerning them, although they deserve precedence for their originality. Such are the skdzki, or tales, the poetical folk-lore, the epic songs, the religious ballads. The fairy tales, while possessing analogies with those of other lands, have their characteristic national features. While less striking and original than, for example, the exquisite Esthonian legends, they are of great interest in the study of comparative folk-lore. More important is the poetical folk-lore of Russia, concerning which neither tradition nor history can give us any clue in the matter of derivation or date. One thing seems reasonably certain: it largely consists of the relics of an extensive system of sorcery, in the form of fragmentary spells, exorcisms, incantations, and epic lays, or by liny.

Song accompanies every action of the Russian peasant, from the cradle to the grave: the choral dances of spring, summer, and autumn, the games of the young people in their winter assemblies, marriages, funerals, and every phase of life, the sowing and the harvest, and so forth. The kazak songs, robber songs, soldiers' songs, and historical songs are all descendants or imitators of the ancient poetry of Russia. They are the remains of the third — the Moscow or imperial — cycle of the epic songs, which deals with really historical characters and events. The Moscow cycle is preceded by the cycles of Vladimir, or Kieff, and of Novgorod. Still more ancient must be the foundations of the marriage songs, rooted in the customs of the ancient Slavonians.

The Slavonians do not remember the date of their arrival in Europe. Tradition says that they first dwelt, after this arrival, along the Danube, whence a hostile force compelled them to emigrate to the northeast. At last Novgorod and Kieff were built; and the Russians, the descendants of these eastern Slavonians, naturally inherited the religion which must at one time, like the language, have been common to all the Slavonic races. This religion, like that of all Aryan races, was founded on reverence paid to the forces of nature and to the spirits of the dead. Their gods and goddesses represented the forces of nature. Thus Lado and Lada, who are frequently mentioned in these ancient songs, are probably the sun-god, and the goddess of spring and of love, respectively. Lado, also, is mentioned as the god of marriage, mirth, pleasure, and general happiness, to whom those about to marry offered sacrifices; and much the same is said of the goddess Lada. Moreover, in the Russian folk-songs, lado and lada are used, respectively, for lover, bridegroom, husband, and for mistress, bride, wife; and lad, in Russian, signifies peace, union, harmony. Nestor, the famous old Russian chronicler (he died in 1 1 14), states that in ancient heathen times, marriage customs varied somewhat among the various Slavonian tribes in the vicinity of the Dniester; but brides were always seized or purchased. This purchase of the bride is supposed to be represented in the game and choral song (k/wrovdd), called "The Sowing of the Millet." The singers form two choirs, which face each other and exchange remarks. The song belongs to the vernal rites, hence the reference to Lado, which is repeated after every line — Did- Lado, meaning (in Lithuanian) Great Lado:

First Chorus: We have sown, we have sown millet, Oi, Did- Lddo, we have sown!

Second Chorus: But we will trample it, Oi, Did-Lddo, we will trample it.

First Chorus: But wherewith will ye trample it?

Second Chorus: Horses will we turn into it.

First Chorus: But we will catch the horses.

Second Chorus: Wherewith will ye catch them?

First Chorus: With a silken rein.

Second Chorus: But we will ransom the horses. First Chorus: Wherewith will ye ransom them? Second Chorus: We will give a hundred rubles. First Chorus: A thousand is not what we want. Second Chorus: What is it then, that ye want? First Chorus: What we want is a maiden.

Thereupon, one of the girls of the second choir goes over to the first, both sides singing together: "Our band has lost, ,, and "Our band has gained." The game ends when all the girls have gone over to one side.

The funeral wails are also very ancient. While at the present day a very talented wailer improvises a new plaint, which her associates take up and perpetuate, the ancient forms are generally used.

From the side of the East,

The wild winds have arisen,

With the roaring thunders

And the lightnings fiery.

On my father's grave

A star hath fallen,

Hath fallen from heaven.

Split open, O dart of the thunder!

Damp Mother Earth,

Fall thou apart, O Mother Earth!

On all four sides,

Split open, O coffin planks,

Unfold, O white shroud,

Fall away, O white hands

From over the bold heart,

And become parted, O ye sweet lips.

Turn thyself, O mine own father

Into a bright, swift-winged falcon;

Fly away to the blue sea, to the Caspian Sea,

Wash off, O mine own father,

From thy white face the mold.

io Russian Literature

Come flying, O my father

To thine own home, to the lofty terem *

Listen, O my father,

To our songs of sadness!

The Christmas and New- Year carols offer additional illustrations of the ancient heathen customs, and mythic or ritual poetry. The festival which was almost universally celebrated at Christmas-tide, in ancient heathen times, seems to have referred to the renewed life attributed to the sun after the winter solstice. The Christian church turned this festival, so far as possible, into a celebration of the birth of Christ. Among the Slavonians this festival was called Kolyada; and the sun — a female deity — was supposed to array herself in holiday robes and head-dress, when the gloom of the long nights began to yield to the cheerful lights of the lengthening days, to seat herself in her chariot, and drive her steeds briskly towards summer. She, like the festival, was called Kolyada; and in some places the people used to dress up a maiden in white and carry her about in a sledge from house to house, while the kolyddki, or carols, were sung by the train of young people who attended her, and received presents in return. One of the kolyddki runs as follows:

Kolyada! Kolyada!

Kolyada has arrived!

On the Eve of the Nativity,

We went about, we sought Holy Kolydda;

Through all the courts, in all the alleys.

We found Kolyada in Peter's Court.

Round Peter's Court there is an iron fence,

In the midst of the Court there are three rooms;

In the first room is the bright Moon;

*A Tatar word, signifying "tower" ; used to mean the part of the house where the women were secluded, in Oriental fashion.

In the second room is the red Sun;

And in the third room are the many Stars.

A Christian turn is given to many of them, just as the Mermen bear a special Biblical name in some places, and are called "Pharaohs"; for like the seals on the coast of Iceland, they are supposed to be the remnants of Pharaoh's host, which was drowned in the Red Sea. One of the most prominent and interesting of these Christianized carols is the Sldva, or Glory Song. Extracts from it have been decoratively and most appropriately used on the artistic programmes connected with the coronation of the Emperor Nicholas II. This Glory Song is used in the following manner: The young people assemble together to deduce omens from the words that are sung, while trinkets belonging to each person present are drawn at random from a cloth-covered bowl, in which they have been deposited. This is the first song of the series:

Glory to God in Heaven, Glory!

To our Lord* on this earth, Glory!

May our Lord never grow old, Glory!

May his bright robes never be spoiled, Glory!

May his good steeds never be worn out, Glory!

May his trusty servants never falter, Glory!

May the right throughout Russia, Glory!

Be fairer than the bright sun, Glory!

May the Tzar's golden treasury, Glory!

Be forever full to the brim, Glory!

May the great rivers, Glory!

Bear their renown to the sea, Glory!

The little streams to the mill, Glory!

But this song we sing to the Grain, Glory!

To the Grain we sing, the Grain we honor, Glory!

* Lord, in the original, is Gosudar, the word which, with a capital, is applied especially to the emperor.

For the old folks to enjoy, Glory!

For the young folks to hear, Glory! *

Another curious old song, connected with the grain, is sung at the New- Year. Boys go about from house to house, scattering grain of different sorts, chiefly oats, and singing:

In the forest, in the pine forest,

There stood a pine-tree,

Green and shaggy.

O, Ovsen! O, Ovsen!

The Boyars came,

Cut down the pine,

Sawed it into planks,

Built a bridge,

Covered it with cloth,

Fastened it with nails,

O, Ovsen! O, Ovsen!

Who, who will go

Along that bridge?

Ovsen will go there,

And the New-Year,

O, Ovsen! O, Ovsen!

Ovsen, whose name is derived from Oves (oats, pronounced avyds), like the Teutonic Sun-god, is supposed to ride a pig or a boar. Hence sacrifices of pigs' trotters, and other pork products, were offered to the gods at the New- Year, and such dishes are still preferred in Russia at that season. It must be remembered that the New- Year fell on March 1st in Russia until 1348; then the civil New- Year was transferred to September 1st, and January 1st was instituted as the New- Year by Peter the Great only in the year 1700.

* The dramatist Ostrovsky has made effective use of this game, and the more prophetic couplets of the song, in his famous play: " Poverty is not a Vice." Other national customs and songs are used in his play.

The highest stage of development reached by popular song is the heroic epos — the rhythmic story of the deeds of national heroes, either historical or mythical. In many countries these epics were committed to writing at a very early date. In western Europe this took place in the Middle Ages, and they are known to the modern world in that form only, their memory having completely died out among the people. But Russia presents the striking phenomenon of a country where epic song, handed down wholly by oral tradition for nearly a thousand years, is not only flourishing at the present day in certain districts, but even extending into fresh fields.

It is only within the last sixty years that the Russians have become generally aware that their country possesses this wonderfully rich treasure of epic, religious, and ceremonial songs. In some cases, the epic lay and the religious ballad are curiously combined, as in "The One and Forty Pilgrims," which is generally classed with the epic songs, however. But while the singing of the epic songs is not a profession, the singing of the religious ballads is of a professional character, and is used as a means of livelihood by the kalyeki perekhozhie, literally, wandering cripples, otherwise known as wandering psalm-singers. These stikhi, or religious ballads, are even more remarkable than the epic songs in some respects, and practically nothing concerning them is accessible in English.

In all countries where the Roman Church reigned supreme in early times, it did its best to consign all popular religious poetry to oblivion. But about the seventeenth century it determined to turn such fragments as had survived this procedure to its own profit. Accordingly they were written over in conformity with its particular tenets, for the purpose of inculcating its doctrines. Both courses were equally fatal to the preservation of anything truly national. Incongruousness was the inevitable result.

The Greek, or rather the Russo-Greek, Church adopted precisely the opposite course: it never interfered, in the slightest degree, with popular poetry, either secular or religious. Christianity, therefore, merely enlarged the field of subjects. The result is, that the Slavonic peoples (including even, to some extent, the Roman Catholic Poles) possess a mass of religious poetry, the like of which, either in kind or in quantity, is not to be found in all western Europe.

It is well to note, at this point, that the word stikh (derived from an ancient Greek word) is incorporated into the modern Russian word for poetry, stikhotvorinie — verse-making, literally rendered — and it has now become plain that Lomonosoff, the father of Russian Literature, who was the first secular Russian poet, and polished the ancient tongue into the beginning of the modern literary language, about the middle of the eighteenth century, did not originate his verse-measures, but derived them from the common people, the peasants, whence he himself sprang. Modern Russian verse, therefore, is thus traced back directly, in its most national traits, to these religious ballads. It is impossible to give any adequate account of them here, and it is especially difficult to convey an adequate idea of the genuine poetry and happy phrasing which are often interwoven with absurdities approaching the grotesque.

The ballads to which we shall briefly refer are full of illustrations of the manner in which old pagan gods became Christian deities, so to speak, of the newly baptized nation.

For example: Perun the Thunder-god became, in popular superstition, "St. Ilya" (or Elijah), and the day dedicated to him, July 20th (old style), is called "Ilya the Thunder-bringer." Elijah's fiery chariot, the lightning, rumbling across the sky, brings a thunder-storm on or very near that date; and although Perun's name is forgotten in Russia proper, he still remains, under his new title, the patron of the husbandman, as he was in heathen times. In the epic songs of the Vladimir cycle, as well as in the semi-religious and religious ballads, he figures as the strongest and most popular hero, under the name of "Ilya Murometz (Ilya of Murom), the Old Kazak," and his characteristic feats, as well as those attributed to his "heroic steed, Cloud-fall," are supposed, by the school of Russian writers who regard all these poems as cosmic myths, rather than as historical poems, to preserve the hero's mythological significance as the Thunder-god Perun.

He plays a similar part in the very numerous religious ballads on the Last Judgment. St. Michael acts as the judge. Some "sinful souls" commit the gross error of attempting to bribe him: whereupon, Michael shouts, "Ilya the Prophet! Anakh! Take ye guns with great thunder! Move ye the Pharaoh mountains of stone! Let me not hear from these sinners, neither a whine nor a whimper!"

In Lithuania the Thunder-god's ancient name is still extant in its original form of Perkun; the Virgin Mary is called, "Lady Mary Perkunatele" (or "The Mother of Thunder"), according to a Polish tradition; and in the Russian government of Vilna, the 2d of February is dedicated to "All-Holy Mary the Thunderer." It is evidently in this character that she plays a part similar to that of St. Michael and Ilya the Prophet combined, as above mentioned, in another ballad of the Last Judgment. She appears in this ballad to be the sole inhabitant of heaven, judge and executioner. With her "thundering voice" she condemns to outer darkness all who have not paid Jier proper respect, promising to bury them under "damp mother earth and burning stones." To the just, that is, to those who have paid her due homage, she says: "Come, take the thrones, the golden crowns, the imperishable robes which I have prepared for you ; and if this seem little to you, ye shall work your will in heaven."

St. Yegory the Brave — our St. George — possesses many of the attributes of Perun. He is, however, a purely mythical character, and the extremely ancient religious poems relating to him present the most amusing mixture of Christianity and Greek mythology, as in the following example:

In the year 8008 (the old Russian reckoning, like the Jewish, began with the creation of the world), the kingdoms of Sodom, Komor (Gomorrah), and Arabia met their doom. Sodom dropped through the earth, Komor was destroyed by fire, and Arabia was afflicted by a sea-monster which demanded a human victim every day. This victim was selected by lot; and one day the lot fell upon the king; but at the suggestion of the queen, who hated her daughter, Elizabeth the Fair, the girl was sent in his place, under the pretext that she was going to meet her bridegroom. Yegory the Brave comes to her assistance, as Perseus did to the assistance of Andromeda, but lies down for a nap while awaiting the arrival of the dragon. The beast approaches; Elizabeth dares not awaken Yegory, but a "burning tear" from her right eye arouses him. He attacks the dragon with his spear, and his "heroic steed" (which is sometimes a white mule) tramples on it, after the fashion with which we are familiar in art. Then he binds Elizabeth's sash, which is "five and forty ells in length," about the dragon's jaws, and bids the maiden have three churches built in honor of her deliverance : one to St. Nicholas and the Holy Trinity, one to the All-Holy Birth-giver of God, and one to Yegory the Brave. Elizabeth the Fair then returns to town, leading the tamed dragon by her sash, to the terror of the inhabitants and to the disgust of her mother. The three churches are duly built, and Christianity is promptly adopted as the state religion of Arabia. In another ballad, Yegory is imprisoned for thirty years in a pit under the ground, because he will not accept the "Latin-Mussulman faith."

Among the most ancient religious ballads, properly speaking, are: "The Dove Book," "The Merciful Woman of Compassion" (or "The Alleluia Woman"), "The Wanderings of the All-Holy Birth-giver of God," in addition to the songs about Yegory the Brave, already mentioned. The groundwork of "The Dove Book" is of very ancient heathen origin, and almost identical with the oldest religious songs of the Greeks. The book itself is somewhat suggestive of the "little book" in Revelation. "The Dove Book" falls from Alatyr, the "burning white stone on the Island of Buyan," the heathen Paradise, which corresponds to our Fortunate Isles of the Blest, in the Western Sea, but lies far towards sunrise, in the "Ocean Sea." The heathen significance of this stone is not known, but it is cleverly explained in "The Dove Book" as the stone whereon Christ stood when he preached to his disciples. This "little book," "forty fathoms long and twenty wide," was written by St. John the Evangelist, and no man can read it. The prophet Isaiah deciphered only three pages of it in as many years. But the "Most Wise Tzar David" undertakes to give, from memory, the book's answers to various questions put to him by Tzar Vladimir, as spokesman of a throng of emperors and princes. A great deal of curious information is conveyed — all very poetically expressed — including some odd facts in natural history, such as: that the ostrich is the mother of birds, and that she lives, feeds, and rears her young on the blue sea, drowning mariners and sinking ships. Whenever she (or the whale on which the earth rests) moves, an earthquake ensues. There are several versions of this ballad. The following abridged extracts, from one version, will show its style.' Among the questions put to "the Most Wise Tzar David" by Prince Vladimir are some touching "the works of God, and our life; our life of holy Russia, our life in the free world; how the free light came to us; why our sun is red; why our stars are thickly sown; why our nights are dark; what causes our red dawns; why we have fine, drizzling rains; whence cometh our intellect; why our bones are strong"; and so forth.

Tzar David replies: "Our free white light began at God's decree; the sun is red from the reflection of God's face, of the face of Christ, the King of Heaven; the younger light, the moon, from his bosom cometh; the myriad stars are from his vesture; the dark nights are the Lord's thoughts; the red dawns come from the Lord's eyes; the stormy winds from the Holy Spirit; our intellects from Christ himself, the King of Heaven; our thoughts from the clouds of heaven; our world of people from Adam; our strong bones from the stones; our bodies from the damp earth; our blood from the Black Sea." In answer to other questions, Tzar David explains that "the Jordan is the mother of all rivers, because Jesus Christ was baptized in it; the cypress is the mother of all trees, because Christ was crucified on it; the ocean is the mother of all seas, because in the middle of the ocean-sea rose up a cathedral church, the goal of all pilgrimages, the cathedral of St. Clement, the pope of Rome; from this cathedral the Queen of Heaven came forth, bathed herself in the ocean-sea, prayed to God in the cathedral," which is a very unusual touch of Romanism.