The Mountain Wreath

Petar II Petrović Njegoš's 1847 verse drama, retold in its own dramatic form — 2 episodes.

A note before the play. The Mountain Wreath (1847) by Petar II Petrović Njegoš is a dramatic poem in 2,819 ten-syllable lines. It is set in Montenegro "at the end of the seventeenth century," in the time of Bishop Danilo, and its subject is the "extermination of the converts," the killing or expulsion of Montenegrins who had accepted Islam, which tradition places on a Christmas Eve. Historians doubt it happened as a single event. The poem has been loved as a national classic and condemned as a glorification of violence against neighbors; both readings belong to its history. What follows retells it in its own form, as a play, with its speakers, its chorus and its stage directions, condensed and in English.

DEDICATION: To the Ashes of the Father of Serbia

Let this century be proud above all others, the poet writes. In it, eight great warriors were rocked in the cradle of the goddess of war at the same time: Napoleon, Archduke Charles, Blücher, Wellington, Suvorov, Schwarzenberg, Kutuzov, and Karađorđe, the scourge of tyrants. For a lion it is not hard to come out of a great forest; among great nations, genius finds its nest and its material ready. But Karađorđe had every obstacle in his way, and still he raised his people, baptized the land again, broke the barbarian chains, and called the Serbs back from the dead. Stamboul trembled before him. His tragic end was the price of his crown. Malice may spit on his grave, but it cannot put out the light of his soul.

Vienna, New Year's Day, 1847. The Author.

CHARACTERS

Bishop Danilo, ruler of Montenegro. Abbot Stefan, an old blind monk. Montenegrin chieftains: Serdar Janko Đurašković, Serdar Radonja, Serdar Vukota, Serdar Ivan Petrović, Knez Rade (the bishop's brother), Knez Bajko, Knez Rogan, Knez Janko, Knez Nikola, Vojvoda Draško, Vojvoda Milija, Vojvoda Stanko, Vojvoda Batrić, Tomaš Martinović, Obrad, Bogdan Đurašković, and others. The warriors Vuk Mićunović, Vuk Mandušić, Vuk Tomanović, Vuk Raslapčević, Vuk Lješevostupac, Vukota Mrvaljević. Pop Mićo, a village priest. The sister of Batrić. The leaders of the converts: Hadži-Ali Medović the kadi, Skender-Aga, Mustaj the kadi, Arslan-Aga Muhadinović, Ferat Začir. A messenger of the vizier. An old woman. The Kolo, the dancing chorus of the people. Wedding guests, soldiers, pupils.

THE ASSEMBLY ON THE EVE OF TRINITY DAY, ON MOUNT LOVĆEN

Dead of night. Everyone is asleep.

BISHOP DANILO (to himself): Look at the devil, with his seven pashaliks, his two swords and two crowns, the great-grandson of a Turk with the Koran in his hand. Behind him come swarms of his cursed brood, to strip the whole earth bare like locusts. If France had not stopped them, the Arabian sea would have drowned everything. A hellish dream crowned Osman and gave him the moon for an apple. Byzantium fell. Murad took Serbia, Bayezid took Bosnia, Mehmed took Greece; each took something, and nothing was left. The world is too small for the jaws of hell.

And I? What can I do, and with whom? A handful of men, a little strength, a single straw in the whirlwind, a poor orphan with no one anywhere. My people sleep the sleep of the dead. My tears have no father; the heavens are closed above me and receive neither my weeping nor my prayer. The world has turned to hell for me, and all men to hellish spirits.

O black day, O black destiny! O wretched, extinguished Serbdom! I have outlived all your evils, and now I must fight the worst of them.

The sultan saw that he could not conquer this mountain by the sword, so he began to offer the sweets of a false faith. God curse you, renegade sons — what is the Turkish faith doing among us? How will you face Miloš and the other Serbian heroes, who live as long as the sun shines? When I think of today's council, I burn with horror. Brothers will slaughter one another, while the true butchers, strong and cruel, will root out our seed.

Vuk Mićunović, lying near the bishop, has been pretending to sleep and has heard everything.

VUK MIĆUNOVIĆ: No, bishop, for God's sake! What misfortune has seized you, that you wail like a cuckoo and melt away over Serbian disasters? Didn't you gather the Montenegrins here to clean the land of the unbaptized? And besides, this is our feast day, when the best young men gather to test their strength, to shoot, to race, to hear the liturgy and dance around the church. Leave these black thoughts. Men endure, and women lament. There is no place for a timid leader.

You are not alone. Look at these five hundred young men. Did you see how they shot today, how they raced? The wolf cub, barely walking behind its mother, is already sharpening its teeth at the throats of the others. The young falcon, as soon as its first feathers grow, tears its nest apart. Their strength is your strength. Our struggle will have no end until either the Turks or we are wiped out. We have no hope in anyone but God and our own hands; our hope was buried at Kosovo in a single grave.

It is easy to be good in good times; in hard times you know the heroes.

They have carried the crosses up from Lovćen to the summit, and sit there firing their guns and counting the echoes.

SERDAR JANKO: Strange guns — every one of ours echoes six times, but Vuk Tomanović's rifle echoes nine.

SERDAR RADONJA: Look at this wonder, Montenegrins! I'm nearly fifty, and I've spent every summer on Lovćen. A hundred times I've watched the clouds come in from the sea and cover the mountain, with lightning and thunder. But I have never seen this. Look how far it goes: the sea and the coast, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania to the sea, all of our Montenegro, all of it pressed down by cloud, thunder everywhere, lightning flashing beneath us — and only we, on this summit, are warmed by the sun.

OBRAD: Did you see the sign? Two lightnings crossed. One flashed from Kom to Lovćen, the other from Skadar to Ostrog, and they made a cross of living fire. Help the poor Serbs, God; this, too, is an omen.

VUK RASLAPČEVIĆ: What are you aiming at, Draško?

VOJVODA DRAŠKO: I wanted to shoot a cuckoo, but it's a pity to waste the cartridge.

VUK RASLAPČEVIĆ: Don't, Draško! It's bad luck to kill a cuckoo. Don't you know they are the daughters of Lazar?

A great shout on the north side of the summit. A flock of partridges has flown among the men, and they have caught every one alive.

ALL (shouting): Let them go, for God's sake! Necessity drove them here. They fled to you to escape, not to be slaughtered.

They release the partridges, and carry the crosses back down.

THE ASSEMBLY ON LITTLE LADY DAY, AT CETINJE

Ostensibly called to settle blood feuds. The chieftains stand apart; the people dance the kolo.

THE KOLO: God was angry with the Serbs for their mortal sins. Our emperors trampled the law, hunted one another, put out one another's living eyes. The nobles, curse their souls, broke the empire to pieces and sowed the bitter seed of discord; the nobles, vile cowards, became traitors to their people.

O cursed supper on the eve of Kosovo! If only fate had poisoned all those wicked lords, and left Miloš alone in the middle with his two blood brothers, the Serb would still be a Serb today! Branković, foul breed, is this how a man serves his fatherland? O Miloš, who does not envy you? Your arm, with a single blow, overthrew a throne and shook Tartarus.

Whatever fled from the Turkish sword, whatever did not blaspheme the true faith, whatever refused to be put in chains, fled into these mountains, to die and shed our blood, to guard the heroic legacy, the glorious name and holy freedom. But what is this, now, that our mountains have fallen silent? Rust has settled on our weapons. Sheep and wolves together; the Turk joined with the Montenegrin; the hodja howls on the plain of Cetinje!

VOJVODA MILIJA: Do you hear the kolo? That song comes from the head of the whole people. And they're right to curse us. We do nothing that would stir them to valor; we just hoot like geese.

VOJVODA STANKO: You're right, Milija. What is the devil doing in a Christian land? Why do we nurse a snake in our bosom? What kind of brothers are they, who spit openly on the holy cross?

The Ozrinić men arrive late. Serdar Vukota explains: on the way, some of their men ambushed a caravan from Nikšić, killed fourteen Turks and took seventy horses and a few captives, and then they had to meet the Nikšić Turks to ransom them. Knez Janko describes the meeting: it ended in a gun battle over a practical joke, after Vuk Mićunović and the Turkish captain Hamza quarreled about whose faith was better.

KNEZ JANKO: Hamza said to Mićunović: "I'm better than you, Vlach, and my faith is better than yours. I ride a horse, I carry a sword, I'm captain of the emperor's town; my grandfather won it by the sword when empires were divided." And Vuk flared up: "What Vlach, you pig of a turncoat? Since when is a traitor better than a knight? Weren't we both at Kosovo? I have fought ever since; you betrayed then and after, blackened your face before the world, blasphemed the faith of your forefathers. I am God's whip, plaited for you."

THE PEOPLE: Mićunović says it and does it!

The five Martinović brothers arrive late. Tomaš Martinović explains why: during their family feast, a shout went up that a woman was being carried off. A Turkish captain of the guard, Mujo Alić, had run away with Ruža, the wife of Kasan, with whom she had been secretly in love for over a year.

KNEZ ROGAN: A woman's heart is a funny thing. A woman doesn't care who belongs to what faith; she'll change a hundred faiths to do what her heart desires.

TOMAŠ MARTINOVIĆ: I haven't told you everything. Woe to the soul that gave Ruža to Kasan; he was worthless, and she was a fairy locked in a prison. If a Serb had carried her off, I'd have turned my head away. But when I heard she'd gone to the Turks, we went after them. We caught the wedding party and killed both Alić brothers, and, through the Turks, the unhappy bride. There we blackened our honor and lost our portion with God.

KNEZ JANKO: Dear God, what a council! Are children running this business? We dare not do what we are doing, we dare not say what everyone knows.

Bishop Danilo, seeing that everyone has gathered, comes out among them.

VUK MIĆUNOVIĆ: Don't keep us like this, bishop. Everyone is waiting to hear something from you, and you've wrapped yourself up in something. You don't speak, you don't send us home, you've gone as grey as earth; you walk alone, you don't eat or sleep.

BISHOP DANILO: Listen, Vuk, and all of you brothers. Don't wonder that black thoughts tear at me.

Whoever stands on a hill, even a small one,
sees farther than the one beneath it.

I see a little farther than you, by fortune or misfortune. I am not afraid of the devil's brood, though they were as many as the leaves on the trees. I am afraid of the evil at home. If we attack the Turks of our own land, no family will abandon its own kin; the land will split into clans, the clans will slaughter each other, the devil will dance at the wedding and put out the Serbian candle. A man endures an evil for fear of a worse one.

KNEZ RADE (the bishop's brother): Why blacken your face if you won't strike the iron? Why call an assembly if you don't dare speak? You make war on the Turks and call them kin. Don't fool yourself: if they could, they'd cut off your head this minute. A crow doesn't peck out a crow's eyes; a Turk is a brother to every Turk. Strike while your arm can swing.

VOJVODA BATRIĆ: You're right, but not that right. You could have said it more gently, without poisoning his wounds.

Silence. A moonlit night. They sit around the fires; the kolo sings on the great threshing floor of Cetinje.

THE KOLO: No one has yet drunk a cup of honey that a cup of gall did not make bitter. Ivan-beg Crnojević fought the Turks like a lion. They took half his land, and his brother Uroš fell on the field of Ćemovsko. Ivan mourned Uroš more than his two sons, more than the land, more than his own eyes. Then he took his vengeance at Karuče: of fifteen thousand Turks, not one was left alive.

VUK MIĆUNOVIĆ: Without pain no song was ever sung; without pain no sword was ever forged. Heroism is the emperor over every evil, and the sweetest drink of the soul, with which whole generations grow drunk. Blessed is he who lives forever: he had a reason to be born.

BISHOP DANILO (among them, but as if alone): Where the seed has put out its shoot, let it bear its fruit. Here human understanding stops.

The wolf has his right over the sheep,
as the tyrant over the weaker man;
but to set your foot on tyranny's neck,
and bring it to acknowledge what is right,
that is the holiest duty of man.

The crescent and the cross, two terrible symbols; their kingdom is over graves. But blasphemy against the holy relic that nursed him with its milk — that turns my breast into Tartarus. True faith, poor orphan! Terrible tribe, how long will you sleep? The young wheat must ripen its ears; the harvest has come before its time. I see glorious sacrifices heaped before the altar of church and clan; I hear the wailing that breaks the mountains. We must serve honor and name.

Let there be struggle without end,
let there be what cannot be!
Let hell devour, let Satan mow!
Flowers will grow upon the graveyard
for some distant generation.

SERDAR VUKOTA: God and his angels be with us! You've flown into some wild winds, bishop, like a witch in March.

The bishop starts, as if from sleep.

BISHOP DANILO: Strike for the cross and for heroic honor, whoever wears a shining weapon, whoever feels a heart in his breast! Those who blaspheme the name of Christ, let us baptize with water or with blood! Let us clear the leprosy from the fold!

All the chieftains leap to their feet with a great shout: "So it shall be, and no other way!"