Jane’s 

Letter No. 3 
Mihai Eminescu 
 

Full text 

A sultan of those who rule over any language, 

What with the flocks of the pasture, her homeland changes, 

He slept on the ground, holding his right hand to his head; 

But with his eyes closed, he wakes up inside. 

 
 
 

He sees the moon slipping from the heavens and descending 

And she approaches him, transformed into a virgin. 

The path blossomed like the step of a gentle spring; 

Her eyes are full of the shadow of hidden pains; 

The woods are terrified of so much beauty, 

The waters tremble at the sight of their faces, 

Diamond powder falls fine as a bore, 

Sparkling it floated through the air and all of nature 

And by the proud charm I sound a whispering music, 

And the rainbows rise in the sky… 

She sat down beside him, her fine hand outstretched, 

Her black hair in silk waves comes off: 

- Let me bind my life to yours vino Come in my arm, 

And my sweet pain with your pain soothe her… 

Written in the book of life is both centuries and stars 

Let me be your mistress, you master of my life. 

And as the sultan looked at her, she darkened… disappears; 

And from his heart he feels a tree rising, 

Which grows in an instant as in ages, always grows, 

With its branches over the world, it widens over the sea; 

His huge shadow covers the horizon 

 
2 
 
 

And beneath him the universe stretches in a shadow; 

And in four parts of the world he sees rows of great mountains, 

The Atlas, the Caucasus, Taurus and the Secular Balkans; 

See Euphrates and Tigris, Nile, Old Danube - 

The shadow of the towering tree dominates everything. 

Thus, Asia, Europe, Africa with its deserts 

And the black ships swaying in the rivers, 

Green waves of lattice swaying in the fields 

Seaside seas and fortresses near estuaries, 

They all stretch out before him… like a huge carpet, 

See country by country and people by people - 

As if through whitish mists, they shudder and pretend 

In the vast kingdom under a shade of a tree. 

Eagles from the sky to the branches do not reach; 

But a wind of victory starts long 

And it strikes rows, rows in the ringing foliage. 

Shout of Allah! Allahu! can be heard above through the clouds, 

The noise grew louder and louder, 

Battle cries followed one after another, 

But the sharp leaves bend after the wind 

And above Rome nine bowed to the ground. 

 
3 
 
 

The sultan shuddered and woke up in the sky 

He sees the moon floating over the Eschișer plain. 

And he looks sadly at the house of Sheikh Edebali; 

Behind the bars of the window he saw a child 

What smiles at her, tender as a hazelnut branch; 

She's a child sheikh, she's beautiful Malcatun. 

Then he understands the dream that he sent them from the prophet, 

That for a moment he had ascended to heaven at Muhammad, 

That out of his worldly love an empire will be born, 

Whose years and edges only the sky knows. 

His dream grows and spreads like a vulture, 

Year by year the growing kingdom grows, 

And the green flag rises year after year, 

Nation after generation following his flight and sultan after sultan. 

Thus country after country I open the way to glory… 

The stormy Baiazid reaches the Danube… 

At one sign, one shore to another, tying vessel to vessel, connects 

And in the sound of the marching band his whole army passes by; 

 
4 
 
 

Janissaries, soul children of Allah and spahii 

They come to darken the earth at Rovine in the plains; 

Spreading in swarms, they pitched their big tents… 

Only in the distant horizon does the oak forest sound. 

Here comes a messenger of peace with a slap in the face. 

Baiazid, looking at him, asks him contemptuously: 

- What do you want? 

- We? Good peace! And if you don't have money, 

Our lord would like to see the great emperor. 

At a sign he opened the way and approached the tent 

An old man so simple, by the way, by the port. 

- Are you Mircea? 

"Yes, Emperor!" 

- I came to worship you, 

If not, I'll change your crown into a branch of thorns. 

"Whatever you think, Emperor, and whatever you get, 

While we are still at peace, I say to you: Welcome! 

But on the part of worship, Lord, forgive us; 

But now you will with armies and war to quarrel with us, 

Or you will want to turn your way from now on, 

 
5 
 
 

Give us a sign of the mercy of your greatness… 

If it's one, if it's another… What's written for us too, 

They are happy to take them all, whether it's peace or war. 

- How? When the world is open to me, you think I can look 

For the whole Aliotman to stumble over a stump? 

Oh, you don't even dream, old woman, how many got in my way! 

All the famous flower of the whole West, 

Everything that stands in the shadow of the cross, kings and kings gather 

To deal with the crescent-shaped hurricane. 

The knights of Malta dressed in shining links, 

The Pope with his three crowns, laid one on top of the other, 

The lightning gathered against the lightning that 

In its stormy rage it engulfed the earth and the sea. 

All they had to do was wink or wink, 

And the West pushed all its nations here and there; 

In order to cross the victory, rivers flowed, 

Either out of the wilderness, or out of the wilderness; 

Shaking from the deep peace of the world beginnings, 

Blackening the whole horizon with their tens of thousands of shields, 

They moved terribly like forests of spears and swords, 

The great sea of ​their ships trembled in terror! 

 
6 
 
 

At Nicopolis you saw how much 

 
7