Page:Bohemian poems, ancient and modern (Lyra czecho-slovanska).djvu/11



N the present Volume I lay before the English public a selection from an almost entirely unknown literature, a literature of the existence of which it was scarcely aware. Connected with the Bohemian Slavonians in no distant degree by blood and name, and a member of their oldest, once their royal family, though myself a native of England, I have thought it a sacred duty to make myself personally acquainted with their language, their feelings and their strivings, and as far as my isolated efforts can avail, to make them known in the country of my birth and education.

All the translations, except one, have been faithfully and carefully made from the Slavonic, and on some occasions even correctness of rhyme has been sacrificed, in order more faithfully to represent both the letter and spirit of the original poems. The poem ‘Wratislaw’ is