Page:The Ballads of Marko Kraljević.djvu/43

 place when Marko kills the Turk whom he finds in possession of his father's sword. On being made aware of the deed the Sultan sends for his contumacious vassal. Marko stalks fiercely into the presence and speaks the bold words: "If God himself had bestowed the sword on the Sultan, I had slain the Sultan's self ."

The problem really amounts to this—What were the special qualities which gave Marko such a powerful hold on the imagination of his fellows? It must almost certainly have been his possession of unusual physical strength and prowess, for it is never claimed that he had intellectual gifts or that he was even intelligent; he is described indeed as a "dunderhead ." Be that as it may, the significant thing is that somehow or other he made the necessary imaginative appeal, and his exploits as a Serb and as a Christian became the theme of ballad minstrelsy. That the guslari should extol their hero at the expense of the Turk was only natural, they thus turned the tables, as it were, on their conquerors.

Marko's fealty to the Sultan when thus manipulated and adroitly combined with the suggestion that the nominal servant was in reality greater than his lord, could prove no bar to his popular acceptability. On the contrary, it was in this dual aspect that he became the national hero, the ideal exemplar, the proud symbol expressive of the unbroken spirit that lived on in spite of disaster and defeat, and kept alive the confident hope that however long the night, darkness must ultimately give place to the dawn of another day.

There is nothing complex about Marko's character, his is essentially a simple soul. There are no fine shades or subtle distinctions. The contrasts are hard and violent, like the lights and shadows of his native land. But he championed the oppressed