Poems
Translated by Marija Gražina Slavėnas
THE BARBORA RADVILAITĖ CANONS
In 1572 the dynasty which had ruled Lithuania for several centuries expired with the death of Sigismund Augustus. His marriages to Elizabeth of Habsburg and then later to her sister Catherine had not produced an heir. Between these two, he had taken the controversial step of marrying secretly Barbora Radvila (or Radvilaitė), who was from a Lithuanian noble family. The marriage was highly disapproved of by his parents and by many of his subjects, and Barbora died soon afterwards in mysterious circumstances.
1. Elizabeth of Habsburg
Where shall I start? I was still a child. 1 was white like
marble, immaculate. My beauty they say was of the rarest kind.
I was a stranger to this dreary land into which they married me,
which was ravaged by plagues, where I had no loyal page,
where a disease was shaking my freezing frame. Like a handful
of snow, I melted in Sigismund’s hands. I was homesick.
I cried for my nursemaid, my sisters, my women friends…
And in the end I was meant to succumb to the fog
forever covering this cold and foreign place.
Let me rest in peace. Barbora, I was not in your way,
I died like a nun as the trees went into bloom.
I used to watch your blissful meetings with Sigismund.
Now let another child carry the shadow of my veil.
2. Queen Bona Sforza
Both daughters-in-law have died. And who shall ever know
If I did or did not pour the poison into their Venetian glass.
I was poisoned myself. Death is a mockery. I’m bored.
Hand me my lute. I’ll play.
I became their fate almost against my will. This old theater mask.
The Sforza fate is having blood cling to their name.
My fate was achingly, obsessively to cling to my son.
In the mirrored walls of these halls is the same lonely face I saw when
I first arrived.
Perhaps the daughters in-law have died a natural death.
Perhaps it is wrong to blame a woman who was spared the curse of
passionate love.
Therefore, Barbora, savage stranger, take care. I hate
You even in your illness and begrudge your happiness. And I want
You dead.
3. Duke Nicholas Radvila the Black
Duke Nicholas Radvila the Red
We used you like a queen in chess or a queen in cards.
On a velvet pillow we presented you with the royal crown.
Through you it finally touched the proud brow of a Radvila.
But, for you Barbora, it turned into a crown of thorns.
We moved you around like a pawn to suit our schemes.
We married you to old Goštautas, a heap of ash.
Then we encrusted your love in a sceptre and in a grave.
Your beauty we wanted to triumph over death.
And on those who had slandered us our revenge.
We crossed our swords to bar the entrance to your door.
Sigismund’s lust we used to bestow the highest reward on our house.
Royal mistresses die unknown. But to you we gave lasting fame.
As you were pining away, we immortalized you in a royal crest.
4. The Unknown Painter
For Queen Barbora
Our Lady of Aušros Vartai
For beauty of those eyes, their sadness, has come alive
in my portrait. I painted you as a northern Madonna.
I watched you cry for your stillborn child. I remember your
sudden smiles.
I watched your endless waiting for messages from the King.
This endless waiting became your fate. It marked your features
with grief. And so I removed you from the palace and took you
into the public square. I gave you the headdress
of an ordinary low-born woman. I painted you without your crown
or your princely gowns. But some centuries later
the jewelers of Vilnius enshrined you in splendid robes,
adorned you with gold tulips and silver leaves
and lifted you into the chapel above the city gate.
And in the end your strange belated fate was to be the sky with its
blinding dawns.
5. Catherine of Habsburg
Because of you I am faceless, my features dissolved in fog.
Relegated to history’s farthest corner I turned to mould.
It was you whom Sigismund mourned, rejecting me in aching disgust.
Let me not dwell on the hurt.
When he married my sister, I was still a child.
At their wedding I bit into an apple and laughed.
Day after day I watched my demented grandmother
mark her ladies-in-waiting with the sign of the cross.
All I wanted was to get away.
No, between us stood not my sister’s ghost, it was you.
Barbora’s name divided us like a sword in bed.
I returned to my homeland. I was questioned and scorned.
I am mute like a rusted bell.
6. Sigismund Augustus
As you lay dying, I kept watch like a loyal dog.
All those months, when your charm and your beauty
faded away – just your soul remained, and my grief.
Others left in disgust and prayed in the chapel while you were still alive.
To me you are the same as you were in the palace
where we first met: a glowing, scorching, generous flame.
Even now I can hardly bear to be near you. But now you burn
me with the salt of your tears and the coolness of your hair which no
portrait can convey.
Am I really losing you? Are you leaving me?
What use are my royal realms if we are left
in this wasteland all alone? Nothing else seems real
except the sound of another sacred hour, and
your fragile fingers in my palm before turning cold.
7. Barbora
I shall never turn into yellow parchment. I shall not grow old.
My love, like a poet’s verse, gives me strength to prevail.
Here I was born. Now I am known as the Vilnius Renaissance.
Here my beauty resides forever, defying time.
They returned me after my death. My casket was narrow and dark.
Behind it the steady rhythm of hoofs like a ticking clock.
Behind it Sigismund’s rasping, scorching breath.
Even in death I was true to these skies.
I returned to this city in fog. I returned to the damp
muted gleam of its spires. To its warm, redeeming rains.
They took me not to a coronation but to exile. Then they brought
me back.
And I, having touched this ground, prevailed.
From The Vilnius Review, 2002, Autumn.
