Page:Kalevala (Kirby 1907) v2.djvu/125

Runo XXXV]

But by no means did I perish,

Nor could I, the wretched perish.

“Would that I, poor wretch, had perished,

Hapless one, had met destruction,

That the second year thereafter,

Or the third among the summers,

I had shone forth as a grass-blade,

As a lovely flower existed,

On the ground a beauteous berry,

Even as a scarlet cranberry,

Then I had not heard these horrors,

Would not now have known these terrors.”

Soon as she had finished speaking,

And her speech had scarce completed,

Quickly from the sledge she darted,

And she rushed into the river,

In the furious foaming cataract,

And amid the raging whirlpool,

There she found the death she sought for,

There at length did death o’ertake her,

Found in Tuonela a refuge,

In the waves she found compassion.

Kullervo, Kalervo’s offspring,

From his sledge at once descended,

And began to weep full loudly,

With a piteous lamentation.

“Woe my day, O me unhappy,

Woe to me, and all my household,

For indeed my very sister,

I my mother’s child have outraged!

Woe my father, woe my mother,

Woe to you, my aged parents,

To what purpose have you reared me,

Reared me up to be so wretched!

Far more happy were my fortune,

Had I ne’er been born or nurtured,

Never in the air been strengthened,

Never in this world had entered.

Wrongly I by death was treated,

Nor disease has acted wisely,

Rh