Lumen ex plumbo 2

Lumen ex plumbo
Francysk Skaryna in Four Poetic Traditions of Europe — Second Quartet
Daniil Lazko
Tuapse
9 July 2026
 
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V
Слово над Двіною
у дусі Тараса Шевченка
Над Двіною сонце сходить,
Туман розганяє,
Старий Полоцьк на світанні
Дзвонами вітає.

Іде шляхом подорожній
Із чужого краю,
Ні срібла нема, ні зброї —
Тільки книгу має.

Був він, кажуть, в тій Падуї,
Де вчені та шати,
Та приснилась серед ночі
Стара рідна хата.

Приснилась вранішня Двіна
І верби над нею,
І як мати вишиває
Тихо над свічею.

І сказав він: «Боже Слово
По-чужому лине, —
А чи вчує його мати
У бідній хатині?

Хай же власною мовою
Заговорить Книга,
Щоб зайшла у кожну хату,
Розтопила кригу».

І схилився він над столом
У далекім місті,
Із свинцевих літер сіяв
Слово те огнисте.

А вночі журба питає:
«Нащо праця тая?
Царства падають у порох,
Слава відлітає...»

Він торкнув старезну вежу —
Камінь осипався,
І піском поплив до Двіни,
Тільки пил зостався.

Де князі тепер вельможні,
Де пишні палати?
Занесло піском наддвінським —
Ні сліду не знати.

А в хатині над рікою
Свічечка палає,
Мати дітям вечорами
Книгу ту читає.

Сходить сонце над Двіною,
Дзвони знову грають,
А стару, батьківську книгу
Вже нові читають.
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 VI (Deutsch ohne Diakritik)

Der Heimkehrer an der Duna 
im Geiste Joseph von Eichendorffs 

Der Abend geht durch Wald und Feld, 
Die Glocken klingen fern, 
Ein Wandrer kehrt aus weiter Welt 
Heim unter'm Abendstern. 

Er war in Welschland, weit und breit, 
Wo Ruhm und Marmor stehn, 
Doch durch die stolze Herrlichkeit 
Hoert' er die Waelder wehn. 

Ihm traeumte nachts von einem Strom, 
Der still durch Birken zieht, 
Von seiner Stadt, vom alten Dom, 
Von seiner Mutter Lied. 

Nun steht er wieder auf dem Wall, 
Im Abendrot die Stadt, 
Es gruesst der Glocken Widerhall 
Den, der gewandert hat. 

Er sinnt: das stille Gotteswort, 
Verschlossen, fremd und weit — 
Er traegt es wie ein Licht hinfort 
In Huett' und Einsamkeit. 

Und naechtens bei der Kerze Licht 
Setzt er die Lettern klein, 
Bis durch das dunkle Blei sich bricht 
Ein erster Morgenschein. 

Der Zweifel kommt in stiller Nacht: 
«Was soll dein schwaches Blatt? 
Es sinkt der Tuerme alte Pracht, 
Es stirbt die stolze Stadt.» 

Da ruehrt er an den grauen Stein 
Der Mauer hoch und alt: 
Der rieselt sacht als Sand hinein 
Ins Wasser, das dort wallt. 

Doch unterm Eise, winterlang, 
Zieht still der Strom dahin, 
Und durch die Wipfel geht ein Sang, 
Als waer' ein Traum darin. 

Ein Buch faehrt wie ein schmaler Kahn 
Hin durch die dunkle Zeit, 
Es zieht die alte Wasserbahn 
Ins Land der Ewigkeit. 

Wo sind die Fuersten, stolz und alt, 
Mit Krone, Schwert und Schild? 
Der Strom rauscht kuehl durch Nacht und Wald 
Und traegt kein einzig Bild. 

Nur wo am Strom ein Huettlein liegt, 
Glimmt noch ein kleiner Schein: 
Ein Kind liest, an das Buch geschmiegt, 
Und Gott kehrt bei ihm ein. 


---

 VII (Francais sans diacritiques)

Le Fleuve et le Livre 
meditation dans l'esprit d'Alphonse de Lamartine 

Le soir tombe ; et le fleuve, en sa lente harmonie, 
Berce l'ombre des tours qui tremblent dans ses eaux ; 
La cloche au loin s'eteint, lentement affaiblie, 
Et la brume s'endort sur la paix des roseaux. 

Un homme est la, revant sur la rive muette ; 
Il revient de ces bords ou fleurit le laurier ; 
Mais qu'importe au passant la gloire qu'on lui jette, 
Si son ame est restee au seuil du vieux foyer ? 

Il a vu, dans Padoue aux coupoles de pierre, 
Les sages couronner son front pale et pensif ; 
Mais son ame ecoutait, par-dela la lumiere, 
Le grand fleuve natal rouler son flot plaintif. 

« Pourquoi, murmurait-il, la Parole eternelle 
Dort-elle, o mon pays, en des mots etrangers ? 
Que le pauvre, a genoux dans sa maison fidele, 
Entende Dieu parler la langue des bergers ! » 

Et dans l'ombre, penche sur la flamme qui veille, 
Il assemble sans bruit le plomb mysterieux ; 
Chaque lettre qui nait est un grain qui sommeille, 
Et la page en s'ouvrant blanchit comme les cieux. 

Parfois le doute vient, comme un vent sur la cendre : 
« Qu'esperes-tu, mortel, de fragiles feuillets ? 
Les trones des grands rois finiront par descendre 
Au sable ou dort deja le marbre des palais. » 

Il vint, un soir, poser sa main sur la muraille : 
Le granit s'effritait sous ses doigts, grain a grain, 
Et coulait vers le fleuve, ainsi qu'une semaille 
Que le temps, moissonneur, repand sur son chemin. 

L'hiver viendra ; la glace, immobile et pesante, 
Fermera sur les flots son couvercle argente ; 
Mais l'onde, sous le poids de la mort apparente, 
Poursuit vers l'ocean son cours jamais lasse. 

Ainsi le Livre va, comme une barque sombre, 
Portant le feu sacre sur les siecles noyes ; 
Les naufrages du temps l'epargnent dans leur ombre, 
Et des peuples entiers renaissent a ses pieds. 

Ou sont-ils, ces puissants dont la pourpre insolente 
Faisait courber le front des peuples a genoux ? 
Le fleuve a recouvert leur gloire chancelante, 
Et l'oubli, flot sur flot, s'est referme sur tous. 

Mais dans l'humble maison ou la veuve s'incline, 
Le psaume du vieux Livre, a mi-voix murmure, 
Monte, et va reveiller l'echo de la colline, 
Comme un chant que la mort n'a jamais altere. 

Le soir tombe ; et je songe au bord des eaux tranquilles 
A cet homme penche sur son humble labeur : 
Les royaumes ne sont que poussieres fragiles, 
Un seul mot peut survivre et consoler un c;ur. 

Une lampe, ce soir, brille encor sur la rive ; 
Un enfant lit tout bas dans le Livre eternel ; 
Et l'ombre peut grandir sur l'onde fugitive — 
Cette flamme suffit pour rejoindre le ciel. 


---

 VIII (Lietuviskai be diakritiku, lotyniskai)

Knygos sviesa 
Maironio dvasia 

Virs Dauguvos ausra jau kyla, 
Ir skamba varpas nuo kalvos; 
Nakties seseliai tyliai dyla, 
Ir laukia miestas tos sviesos. 

Pareina vyras is keliones, 
Nuvarges, dulketais keliais; 
Nepra;o aukso nei malones — 
Tik knyga nesa po skvernais. 

Jis buvo ten, kur mokslo rumai, 
Kur laurais puosiamas zmogus, 
Bet vis sapnuos gimtieji dumai 
Ir teviskes aukstas dangus. 

Lig siol jis girdi ta dainele, 
Prie balto lino, vakarais, 
Ir miela gimtaja kalbele 
Issinese visais keliais. 

„Teskamba, — tare jis, — sventasis 
Mums Rastas gimtaja kalba, 
Kad ji suprastu paprastasis, 
Kiekviena kaimiska troba.“ 

Ir naktimis prie zvakes liejas 
Is svino raides pamazu; 
Uz lango uzia saltas vejas, 
O raides juodos — ir sviesu. 

Bet kartais sirdi spaudzia baime: 
„Kam tai, silpnasis tu zmogau? 
Sugrius pilis, isnyks ir laime — 
Nejaugi liks viena raide?“ 

Jis paliete senoves mura — 
Akmuo subiro po ranka, 
Ir plaukia smiltys lyg i jura 
Zemyn, kur supasi banga. 

Kur tie valdovai isdidieji, 
Kur ju karunos ir kardai? 
Nutilo jie, kadais garsieji, 
Ju neprikels jau ne varpai. 

Bet stai maza ugnele dega 
Zvejo pirkelej, prie vandens; 
Vaikutis pirstu raides seka — 
Kol skaito jis, tauta gyvens. 

Knyga per amzius plauks kaip valtis 
Per ugni, tamsa ir ledus; 
Su ja tauta gales vel keltis, 
Kai gris pavasaris pas mus. 

Ausra nauja virs miesto teka, 
Ir varpas gaudzia vel placiai; 
Dauguva pasaka vis seka, 
Kaip sviecia knygos spinduliai. 


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 VIII (Lietuviskai kirillica)

Кныгос свиеса 
Маиронио двасия 

Вирс Даугувос аусра яу кыла, 
Ир скамба варпас нуо калвос; 
Нактиес сеселиай тылиай дыла, 
Ир лаукиа миестас тос свиесос. 

Пареина вирас ис келионес, 
Нуваргес, дулкетаис келяис; 
Непрасо ауксо неи малонес — 
Тик кныга неса по сквернаис. 

Йис бувo тен, кур моксле румаи, 
Кур лаураис пуосиамас змогус, 
Бет вис сапнуос гимтиейи думаи 
Ир тевискес аукстас дангус. 

Лиг сиол йис гирди та даинеле, 
Прие балто лино, вакараис, 
Ир миела гимтайа калбеле 
Иссинесе висаис келяис. 

„Тескамба, — таре йис, — свентасис 
Мумс Растас гимтайа калба, 
Кад йи супрасту папрастасис, 
Киеквиена каимиска троба.“ 

Ир нактымис прие звакес лиеяс 
Ис свино раидес памазу; 
Уз ланго узиа салтас вейас, 
О раидес йуодос — ир свиесу. 

Бет картаис сирди спаудзиа баиме: 
„Кам таи, силпнасис ту змогау? 
Сугриус пилис, исныкс ир лаиме — 
Нейауги ликс виена раиде?“ 

Йис палиете сеновес мура — 
Акмуо субиро по ранка, 
Ир плаукиа смилтыс лиг и юра 
Земын, кур супаси банга. 

Кур тие валдовай исдидиейи, 
Кур йу карунос ир кардаи? 
Нутило йие, кадаис гарсиейи, 
Йу неприкелс яу не варпай. 

Бет стаи маза угнеле дега 
Звейо пиркелей, прие ванденс; 
Ваикутйс пиршту раидес сека — 
Кол скаито йис, таута гивенс. 

Кныга пер амзиус плаукис кайп валтис 
Пер угни, тамса ир ледус; 
Су йа таута галес вел келтис, 
Кай грис павасарис пас мус. 

Аусра науя вирс миесто тека, 
Ир варпас гаудзиа вел плачяй; 
Даугува пасака вис сека, 
Кайп свиеча кныгос спиндуляй.
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VIII
Knygos ;viesa
Maironio dvasia
Vir; Dauguvos au;ra jau kyla,
Ir skamba varpas nuo kalvos;
Nakties ;e;;liai tyliai dyla,
Ir laukia miestas tos ;viesos.

Pareina vyras i; kelion;s,
Nuvarg;s, dulk;tais keliais;
Nepra;o aukso nei malon;s —
Tik knyg; ne;a po skvernais.

Jis buvo ten, kur mokslo r;mai,
Kur laurais puo;iamas ;mogus,
Bet vis sapnuos gimtieji d;mai
Ir t;vi;k;s auk;tas dangus.

Lig ;iol jis girdi t; dainel;,
Prie balto lino, vakarais,
Ir miel; gimt;j; kalbel;
I;sine;; visais keliais.

„Teskamba, — tar; jis, — ;ventasis
Mums Ra;tas gimt;ja kalba,
Kad j; suprast; paprastasis,
Kiekviena kaimi;ka troba.“

Ir naktimis prie ;vak;s liejas
I; ;vino raid;s pama;u;
U; lango ;;ia ;altas v;jas,
O raid;s juodos — ir ;viesu.

Bet kartais ;ird; spaud;ia baim;:
„Kam tai, silpnasis tu ;mogau?
Sugrius pilis, i;nyks ir laim; —
Nejaugi liks viena raid;?“

Jis paliet; senov;s m;r; —
Akmuo subiro po ranka,
Ir plaukia smiltys lyg ; j;r;
;emyn, kur supasi banga.

Kur tie valdovai i;didieji,
Kur j; kar;nos ir kardai?
Nutilo jie, kadais garsieji,
J; neprikels jau n; varpai.

Bet ;tai ma;a ugnel; dega
;vejo pirkel;j, prie vandens;
Vaikutis pir;tu raides seka —
Kol skaito jis, tauta gyvens.

Knyga per am;ius plauks kaip valtis
Per ugn;, tams; ir ledus;
Su ja tauta gal;s v;l keltis,
Kai gr;; pavasaris pas mus.

Au;ra nauja vir; miesto teka,
Ir varpas gaud;ia v;l pla;iai;
Dauguva pasak; vis seka,
Kaip ;vie;ia knygos spinduliai.

 The Light from Lead
Coda: in the spirit of William Wordsworth
Beside the Dvina's ice-bound, whispering flow,
Where floes like scattered pages gleam and rest,
A wanderer home from Padua's southern glow
Sits at a rough-hewn table, candle-blest.
No sword, no silver from the foreign sun —
Only the leaden types his fingers know;
He left the laurelled halls of marble stone
To hear his mother-tongue through drifting snow.

He dreamed her at the spinning-wheel by night,
The river murmuring beneath the sill,
A child's small voice that tried the holy light
In words a childhood's ear could hold and fill.
“Why should the Eternal Word remain estranged
In Latin's pomp or Polish courtly dress?
Let it come down, as sunlight through the grange,
Into the humble hut, the heart's own nest.”

So through the winter dark he labours on,
Each letter born of dull and heavy ore,
Till from the cold alloy a radiance shone —
Lumen ex plumbo — light for evermore.
Yet midnight doubt, that ancient serpent, came:
“What shall these fragile leaves avail the years?
See how the tower of pride dissolves to sand,
How kingdoms sink, how glory disappears.”

He touched the hoary rampart with his hand;
The stone, once haughty, crumbled grain by grain
And slid into the river's patient sand,
As though old Time had sown it on the main.
Castles and crowns, cathedrals raised on high,
All ride the current like forgotten foam;
The proudest cities vanish from the eye —
But still the hidden waters sing toward home.

Beneath the ice the Dvina never sleeps.
A single book drifts like a narrow boat,
Its pages open to the night's cold deeps,
A second candle on the floe afloat.
Within the snow-roofed hut a boy bends near,
His young face lit by yet another flame;
He reads the ancient words his father set,
And in that reading lives the nation's name.

O small, enduring light, O patient art,
What empires boast, the river bears away;
Yet what is wrought in love and native speech
Outlives the pride of marble and of clay.
The bells of Polotsk ring across the years,
The dawn returns, the mother's song is heard;
From leaden characters a fire appears
That neither ice nor centuries have stirred.

Thus does the quiet miracle endure:
One candle in a window, one child's eyes,
One book that floats where thrones cannot survive —
And God Himself comes in where knowledge lies.
Lumen ex plumbo — from the mean and base
A radiance breaks that time cannot consume.
The river flows. The child turns the page.
The Word is home. The darkness learns its doom.
 
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An Essay on the Second Quartet
The first quartet gave Skaryna four voices near his own soil — Polish Romanticism, the borderland idyll, the Belarusian classical lyric, and Renaissance Latin. The second quartet widens the circle outward across Europe: a Ukrainian prophecy after Shevchenko, a German meditation after Eichendorff, a French elegy after Lamartine, and a Lithuanian hymn after Maironis. The same man is now seen from four further windows, and the same hidden system of images — water, river, ice, boat, book, fire, light, road — passes once more from language to language, reborn each time.
What binds these four is not the theme of Skaryna but a single conviction that each tradition dresses in its own idiom: the small, patient thing — a letter of lead, a candle, a page — outlasts stone and crown.
Four Further Windows
The Ukrainian poem, in the kolomyika measure of Shevchenko, is folk prophecy. Dawn breaks over Polotsk to the sound of bells; a wanderer comes from a foreign land carrying not silver or a sword but a book. He sows the word from leaden letters as a peasant sows grain, and by the poem's close it is the children — «нові» — who open their father's book. The nation continues not through monuments but through a page read aloud at evening.
The German poem, in Eichendorff's folk-song stanza, is the song of a homecoming. A wanderer returns from Welschland — from marble and fame — to the sound of the forests; beneath the winter ice the river runs on «as if a dream were in it», and in the final stanza God himself enters the fisherman's hut where a child reads. Here alone in the whole cycle the divine is an active guest.
The French poem, in Lamartine's alexandrines, is contemplative elegy. Its long harmonious periods carry the same landscape — the evening river, the crumbling wall, the ice, the boat — but end, as Lamartine's meditations always do, by turning back upon the watching poet: «I too dream, at the edge of the tranquil waters.» A single word, it concludes, can outlive kingdoms and console a heart.
The Lithuanian poem, in the spirit of Maironis, is a hymn of national awakening. It is the most openly declarative of the eight — and rightly so, for Maironis, the singer of the Lithuanian rebirth, was declarative by nature. «As long as the child reads, the nation will live»: a sentence that in another voice would be a slogan, here belongs to the tradition itself.
The River Renamed
Across the two quartets the river carries every name its lands have given it. It is the D;wina of the Polish poems, the Dvina and Двіна of the Belarusian and Ukrainian, the Latin Duna of the humanist elegy, the German Strom, the French fleuve, the Lithuanian Dauguva. One water, many tongues — precisely the image of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania itself, a single memory spoken in a dozen languages. That the same river answers to Duna in the Latin poem and to Dauguva in the Lithuanian is not inconsistency but the cycle's deepest theme made audible.
Four Musics
Each poem keeps its own prosody. The Ukrainian kolomyika breathes with folk lightness, its even lines chiming in Shevchenko's assonant rhymes; Eichendorff's short iambic quatrains have the transparency of song; Lamartine's alexandrines observe the classical caesura and the strict alternation of masculine and feminine rhyme; the Lithuanian nine-and-eight iambics carry the elevated, patriotic cadence of the awakening. Four musics that do not quarrel: read together with the first quartet, they sound like eight instruments of one suite, one man seen through eight poetics of Europe.
In Place of a Conclusion
Taken as a whole, the eight poems form a single portrait rather than an anthology of exercises. A humanist, a printer, a translator of Scripture and a man of faith is carried through eight national traditions, and in each he makes the same choice: the speech of home over the glory of learned Latin, the small flame over the great one, the word set down in love over the stone that crumbles into the river. Lumen ex plumbo — light out of lead — names the paradox at the centre of them all.
 
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Francysk Skaryna: A Historical Note
Francysk Skaryna (in Latin documents Franciscus Scorina de Poloczko; born in Polotsk about 1470, died in Prague about 1551) was the first person to print a book in the Ruthenian language of his homeland — the ancestor of modern Belarusian — and one of the most striking figures of the East European Renaissance: physician, botanist, translator, engraver, and printer at once.
From Polotsk to Padua
He was born into a merchant family in Polotsk, a river city on the Dvina that had once been a proud principality. He studied first in Krak;w, where in 1506 the records call him simply «Franciscus de Poloczko», and then travelled south to Italy. On the fifth of November 1512, in the church of St Urban in Padua, a young «Franciscus, son of the late Luke, Ruthenian» sat before the college of physicians; a few days later, after the customary examinations, the acts of the university record that he was made a doctor of medicine. A Ruthenian burgher's son, from a town most of Padua's professors had never heard of, walked out of that examination with one of Europe's most coveted degrees.
A copyist's slip in a later document turned his name into «Georgius Franciscus», and for centuries some called him George; but the Paduan acts and the royal privilege know only Franciscus.
The Book of Lead
His real work began in Prague. There, in 1517, he issued a printed Psalter, and over the next two years some two dozen books of the Bible, under the title «Bivlija Ruska». He did not merely translate: he prefaced each book with warm, plain-spoken introductions meant for ordinary readers, added woodcuts, and — famously — placed his own portrait inside a scholarly book of Scripture, a thing almost unheard of for a printer of his day. He wanted the Word to speak, as one of his prefaces puts it, to «every simple and common person», in a tongue they could understand.
Around 1520 he moved to Vilnius, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and set up the first printing house on the territory of the entire Grand Duchy, issuing a «Little Travel Book» and an «Apostol». With him, printing came home to the lands of the Dvina and the Nioman.
The Later Years
His life was not without loss: a fire, lawsuits over his late brother's debts, and the ordinary griefs of an age of plague. In his last years he served, it is thought, as a physician and botanist — some accounts place him in the royal garden of Ferdinand I in Prague. He died about 1551. No monument of his survives from his own hand except the thing he cared for most: the book.
It is this that the cycle takes as its centre. Skaryna chose to make Scripture speak the language a mother hums at her spinning — and it is that choice, more than any title or journey, that eight European traditions here gather to honour.