it; and when that was done, she ordered the
funeral feast to be celebrated on its summit. Then the Drevlyans sat
down to drink, and Olga ordered her serving-boys to wait on them. And
the Drevlyans asked Olga where was the guard of honor which they had
sent for her? And she told them that it was following with her husband's
body-guard. But when the Drevlyans were completely intoxicated, she
ordered her serving-lads to drink in their honor, went aside, and
commanded her men to slay the Drevlyans, which was done, five hundred
dying thus. Then Olga returned to Kieff, and made ready an army against
the remaining Drevlyans. Such is one of the vivid pictures of ancient
manners and customs which the chronicle of Nestor furnishes.

The descendants of Prince-Saint Vladimir were not only patrons of
education, but collectors of books. One of them, in particular, Vladimir
Monomachus, is also noted as the author of the "Exhortation of Vladimir
Monomachus" (end of the eleventh century), which he wrote for his
children, in the style of a pastoral address from an ecclesiastic to
his flock--a style which, in Russia, as elsewhere, was the inevitable
result of the first efforts at non-religious literature, in the eleventh
and twelfth centuries. "Chiefest of all," he writes, among other things,
"forget not the poor, and feed them according to your powers; give most
of all to the orphans, and be ye yourselves the defenders of the widows,
permitting not the mighty to destroy a human being. Slay ye not either
the righteous or the guilty yourselves, neither command others to slay
them. In discourse, whatsoever ye shall say, whether good or evil, swear
ye not by God, neither cross ye yourselves; there is no need of it....
Reverence the aged as your father, the young as brethren. In thy house
be not slothful, but see to all thyself; put not thy trust in a steward,
neither in a servant, that thy guests jeer not at thy house, nor at thy
dinner.... Love your wives, but give them no power over you. Forget not
the good ye know, and what ye know not, as yet, that learn ye," and so
forth.

The beginning of the twelfth century witnessed other notable attempts at
secular literature. To the twelfth century, also, belongs Russia's
single written epic song, "The Word (or lay) Concerning Igor's Raid,"
which contains an extremely curious mixture of Christianity and heathen
views. By a fortunate chance, this epic was preserved and was
discovered, in 1795, by C