ded by Goethe as the personification of
_absolute_ heroism; but even Marko does not think it beneath him to
flee, when he meets one stronger than himself. These are the dictates
of nature, which only an artificial point of honour can overcome.

But, for the full enjoyment of Slavic popular poetry, we must exact
still more from the reader. He must not only divest himself of his
habitual ideas and views, but he must adopt foreign views and
prejudices, in order to understand motives and actions; for the
Oriental races are far from being more in a state of pure nature than
ourselves. He will have to transport himself into a foreign clime,
where the East and the West, the North and the South, blend in
wonderful amalgamation. The suppleness of Asia and the energy of
Europe, the passive fatalism of the Turk and the active religion of
the Christian, the revengeful spirit of the oppressed, and the
child-like resignation of him who cheerfully submits,--all these
seeming contradictions find an expressive organ in Slavic popular
poetry. Even in respect to his moral feelings, the reader will
frequently have to adopt a different standard of right and wrong.
Actions, which a Scotch ballad sometimes shields by a seductive
excuse,--as for instance in the case of "Lady Barnard and Little
Musgrave," where we become half reconciled to the violation of
congujal faith by the tragic end of the transgressors,--are detestable
crimes in the eyes of the Servian poet. On the other hand, he
relates with applause deeds of vengeance and violence, which all
feelings of Christianity teach us to condemn; and even atrocious
barbarities, which chill our blood, he narrates with perfect
composure. This latter remark refers, in fact, chiefly to the ancient
epics of the Servians. Much less of barbarism and wild revenge meets
us in their modern productions, namely, the epic poems relating to the
war of deliverance in the beginning of the present century; although
their oppressors had given them ample cause for a merciless
retaliation. In the shorter and more lyric songs, of which a rich
treasure is the property of most Slavic nations, and in which their
common descent is most strikingly manifested, there prevails a still
purer morality, and the most tender feelings of the human breast are
displayed.

It was on account of this decidedly exotic character of Slavic popular
poetry, that, when the author of the present work first published a
German version of th