“Who, the noble knight or an ordinary trooper
Will jump from top to that abyss?
I’m throwing my goblet of gold there for you:
Who finds it in the darkness deep
Who brings me back goblet of mine without damage,
That man will then have it as his prize in challenge”.
Those words were said by king and from the high mountain,
That was hanging above sea abyss,
Into bottomless trench of the glittering dark
He threw big golden goblet his.
“Who has courage to challenge yourself for such deed?
Who will find my goblet and come back with it?”
But the knight and trooper stood without moving;
The silence was answer to king;
They silently looked at the ferocious sea;
There was no volunteer to leap.
And third time the king said with volumed up voice:
“Will there be brave one for dangerous falling?”
And each one was silent… But the young footboy
Came ahead with audacity;
He put off epancha and his belt in order;
And placed them to the ground here…
And knights and ladies were thinking without sound:
“Who are you, the boy? Where’re you going, you, wonderful?”
And then he approached to the mountain’s edge
And set his glance into the deep…
The tides there were running from the abyss’s womb,
With noise and rattling in height.
And the waves converged and the foam was boiling:
Like the thunderstorm that with roar is coming.
And it’s howling, squealing and hitting and hissing,
As the liquid mixed up with flame,
One wave after other; and the foam flies
Direct to sky by smoking stake;
The abyss rebels here, the abyss here bubbles…
Looks like the sea wants to come out of sea now.
And suddenly the waving calmed down there;
And from the gray foam revealed
The black narrow slit of the muzzle of sea;
And water flow went back as crowd
To the depth of the drown out womb of storm;
And abyss began to moan of roaring and noise.
And boy waited before ruthless tide comes
Said prayer to God he believed,
And observers flinched with screaming as he
Had already gone in the deep.
And abyss mysteriously shut up its mouth:
The boy cannot be saved by any strength now.
The silence has become… The dumb noise is heard from abyss…
And everyone can’t look away
From the depth and say with the sadness right here:
“Or, hero, excuses we say!”
The noise from the bottom becomes more quiet…
And everyone’s hearts weep in waiting the boy’s coming.
You may throw your crown right there in deep
And say: who returns it to me,
That man then will share my throne aside me! -
But I’m not buying that promise.
The secrets that this voiceless abyss conceals
Can nobody living to us here reveal.
Not a small amount of ships turned by wave
Were swallowed by this sea abyss:
Back then returned only the small wooden shards
From its unimaginable deep.
But some noise is listened in the deep trench beneath
It’s similar to the prose book that’s just written.
And it’s howling, squealing and hitting and hissing,
As the liquid mixed up with flame,
One wave after other; and the foam flies
Direct to sky by smoking stake…
And the flow splashed with making ears deaf roaring,
Came out from abyss’s glittering mouth.
And suddenly something through foam of deep
Blinked by the living whiteness…
The arm and the shoulder came out from sea…
And they fight, they argue with wave…
And entire shore begin cry out with joy then –
Boy swims by the left hand and the right is the catch holding.
And he breathed hard and needed time to feel well,
And smiled to the God given light…
And everyone with joy repeated: “He is back!
There is no deed better than that!
Right from the dark coffin, from wet silent abyss
The beautiful brave man saved the living soul here.”
He came out to shore and was met by the crowd;
He fell right to the king’s feet down;
And placed golden goblet next to him on ground;
Then king ordered to daughter beloved:
To give the boy goblet with juice of the fresh grapes;
And the sweet taste of it was the prize for him there.
“All hail the king! Who is living on Earth
That man take your pleasure from life!
But there was too scary in underground dark…
And mortal be calm beneath God:
And don’t you desire to know all the secrets
He wisely had hidden from us for a reason.
Like arrow I flew there with passion and rush…
And I faced the flow opposite;
From the stone’s crack there was water poured;
And the awful whirl took me
Right into the deep with the strength I did not know…
And I was there circling and being beating rough.
But I said the prayer to the God that time,
And he was the savior of me:
I saw the sticking from the depth piece of mount
And grabbed it very tightly;
There was goblet there on the branch of coral:
To bottom the water did not took it over.
And beneath me everything was in the blur
In the purple darkness down there;
There was nothing to hear in that deep abyss;
But for eyes there exists fear,
How the ugly masses were moving right there,
Ridiculous things of the bottoms of sea.
I saw how in the black abyss beasts were boiled
Curling all together in cube,
The devils of sea and the ugly stingrays
And horror of seas one-toed fish;
And I was there threatened to death by sharp teeth,
Of hungry big creature, hyena of sea.
There I was along against the defined doom
Away from the eyes of the men;
Alone between creatures with loving spirit,
In the womb of Earth, very deep
Under living sound of the human word,
Among scary beasts of the dark silent dungeon.
And I was there shivered and heard how it crawled
The hundred legged beast from the dark,
It wanted to grab me and it opened mouth…
I swam away from the rock fast!..
That was a salvation: I was taken by tide
And then thrown by the water stream high.”
The king loved the story and after he said:
“Take with you my golden goblet;
But finger ring will go along right with it,
Where expensive diamond set,
And when you’ll have courage to jump again down
And will tell me all secrets of sea bottom found,”
Hearing this, the princess with blush and worrying
In her young chest said to the king:
“Enough, my dear parent, be mercy to him!
Who will be able to do this?
And if you need such an experience really
Send knight, not the footboy to face all this fear.”
But king did not listen, he threw goblet his
Into abyss again from height:
“And you will be my beloved knight beside me
When you came back with it tonight;
And my daughter who is now your own defender
Will become your faithful wife till end of days then.”
By the life of heavens his soul was ignited;
The courage blinked in the young eyes;
He saw that she blushed and then grew pale of him;
He saw her looked pity and frightened…
Then he full of joy that can’t be expressed by words
Jumped into his death into waves of the storm there…
The abyss had silenced… And again it roars…
Again it is full of the foam…
And princess with trembling looks down into depth…
And wave beats one after other…
The wave comes and leaves in short time periods
But the boy’s not here, he never returns.
29.10.17
http://ilibrary.ru/text/1500/p.1/index.html
