Ένα Βυζαντινό ποίημα για τον Ταμερλάνο

The «Θρήνος περί Ταμυρλάγγου» is a Byzantine poem of 1403 that recounts the atrocities caused by the literally unstoppable war machine of Tamerlane in Asia Minor, and the fact that because of this invasion the siege of Constantinople by the Ottomans was broken off.

Here's a translation of it:

How shall I tell the beginning, what shall I call it—that unjust calamity of the East?

And how shall I recount it, I say through my writing,

what my eyes beheld and what my body sufferedat the hands of the savage Scythians!

They carried away my father.

My reasoning falters, my mind is confused,whenever I recall that day in my thoughts.

Yet through the divine miracle—yes, I speak of the Virgin—I am moved to recount the grace of the All-Pure:how through her we were delivered from that affliction.

When Manuel, Lord Palaiologos, heldthe scepters of the Romans—that is, the imperial power—then rose up against him a descendant of Hagar,

named Bayezid, boastful in speech,

who hemmed him in within New Rome itself.

For the surrounding lands, the regions of the Romans,

he tore up by the roots and removed,uttering arrogant threats, he used great curses

:“Once I have taken this city for myself,

I shall first destroy the walls of stone,I shall tear down the temple to its very foundation,

and I shall make Sophia once again into a mosque. As for the youth, all under thirty years old, I will sacrifice them anew to Mohammed the prophet;not only of the West but also of the East.

Those above thirty I shall slay with the sword,for they say they have God or the Messiah,

on whom they rest their hope, confessing Christ; and I will wipe from the earth the very name of the Romans.”

After the passing of three years and more,

the emperor set sail, departing from that place,to consider for himself what and how he ought to act.

He once again secured the Queen of Cities by faith—and by faith indeed, as Abraham himself had done.Within, however, he left as ruler his nephew.

Meanwhile in the streets lay corpses, cast aside by famine.

For in them there were houses and tombs alike.

The all-merciful God, seeing all these things,

looked down from heaven; when He beheld the vineyard,He sent forth a giant commander, named Temür,

a Persian by origin, mighty in war.And so he engaged in battle with Bayezid.

Straightway the hero Tamerlane seized him,dragging him by the beard to his grandfather’s presence.He scattered his army; his five sons fled.

Tamerlane spread over all his land,and henceforth he pillaged, slaughtered, and killed.

Especially the monks and hieromonks:some he impaled upon spits and burned,

the heads of the aged fell to the ground.Others were condemned to swallow burning coals;

others, in a copper cauldron with boiling oil,were bound hand and foot, head downward,and forced at once to drink from a vessel,while seething ashes were poured upon their faces.

The convents he especially defiled,and the virgins he polluted, shaking them violently,

and used them in abominable ways from both sides as though androgynous.

Men of sixty years and more,and children of two or three months,they brought out, separated, hurled to the ground.

Pregnant women they squeezed with their own hands,

killed the unborn and forced them to deliver untimely

,and struck the mothers to run swiftly.

The husbands who sought to follow their wives—for by God’s word they were one flesh—the barbarians mercilessly struck down with the sword.

Another shameful and polluted deed they devised:they defiled the wives of men before their eyes,

not only of the layfolk, but even of priests;

their children too they defiled, both male and female,while the parents lay bound hand and foot,

watching before their eyes such a calamity;from the frequent outrage they at once gave up the ghost.

One after another they came and went,until more than thirty were filled.

The rulers they forced to drink gall and dung,they hung them upside down by the feet,smoked them with chaff.

And what more shall I say, why lengthenthe body and course of my writing?

Tears from calamity flowed like rivers,streams poured from the eyes of men.

The young poured to the earth their streams, alas,gutted and mutilated, hands cut off.

And many other things besides did the godless commit.