Mioriţa is an old Romanian

Romanians

The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....

 pastoral

Pastoral

The adjective pastoral refers to the lifestyle of pastoralists, such as shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It also refers to a genre in literature, art or music that depicts such shepherd life in an...

 ballad

Ballad

A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...

 and considered one of the most important pieces of Romanian folklore. It has several, quite different in content versions, one of which was selected by Vasile Alecsandri

Vasile Alecsandri

Vasile Alecsandri was a Romanian poet, playwright, politician, and diplomat. He collected Romanian folk songs and was one of the principal animators of the 19th century movement for Romanian cultural identity and union of Moldavia and Wallachia....

 to the form the textbook reference.

Content

The setting is a simple one: three shepherd

Shepherd

A shepherd is a person who tends, feeds or guards flocks of sheep.- Origins :Shepherding is one of the oldest occupations, beginning some 6,000 years ago in Asia Minor. Sheep were kept for their milk, meat and especially their wool...

s (a Moldavia

Moldavia

Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...

n, a Transylvania

Transylvania

Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...

n and a Vrâncean

Vrancea County

Vrancea is a county in Romania, with its seat at Focşani. It is mostly in the historical region of Moldavia but the southern part, below the Milcov River, is in Muntenia.-Demographics:...

) meet while attending to their flocks. An apparently enchanted ewe belonging to the Moldavian tells its master that the other two are plotting his murder and the plundering of his assets.

The shepherd replies that, were this to happen, the ewe is to ask his killers to bury his body by the sheep's pen. She is to then tell the rest of his sheep that he had in fact married a princess during a ceremony attended by the elements of nature themselves, and marked by the falling of a star. However, the rite of passage

Rite of passage

A rite of passage is a ritual event that marks a person's progress from one status to another. It is a universal phenomenon which can show anthropologists what social hierarchies, values and beliefs are important in specific cultures....

 metaphor discards all celestial reference in the version of the story the ewe is to depict to the shepherd's mother: she is to hear only of her son having married a princess.

English version

EWLINE Near a low foothill At Heaven’s doorsill, Where the trail’s descending To the plain and ending, Here three shepherds keep Their three flocks of sheep, One, Moldavian, One, Transylvanian And one, Vrancean. Now, the Vrancean And the Transylvanian In their thoughts, conniving, Have laid plans, contriving At the close of day To ambush and slay The Moldavian; He, the wealthier one, Had more flocks to keep, Handsome, long-horned sheep, Horses, trained and sound, And the fiercest hounds. One small ewe-lamb, though, Dappled gray as tow, While three full days passed Bleated loud and fast; Would not touch the grass. ”Ewe-lamb, dapple-gray, Muzzled black and gray, While three full days passed You bleat loud and fast; Don’t you like this grass?

EWLINE Are you too sick to eat, Little lamb so sweet?” ”Oh my master dear, Drive the flock out near That field, dark to view, Where the grass grows new, Where there’s shade for you. ”Master, master dear, Call a large hound near, A fierce one and fearless, Strong, loyal and peerless. The Transylvanian And the Vrancean When the daylight’s through Mean to murder you.” ”Lamb, my little ewe, If this omen’s true, If I’m doomed to death On this tract of heath, Tell the Vrancean And Transylvanian To let my bones lie Somewhere here close by, By the sheepfold here So my flocks are near, Back of my hut’s grounds So I’ll hear my hounds. Tell them what I say: There, beside me lay One small pipe of beech With its soft, sweet speech,

EWLINE One small pipe of bone With its loving tone, One of elderwood, Fiery-tongued and good. Then the winds that blow Would play on them so All my listening sheep Would draw near and weep Tears, no blood so deep. How I met my death, Tell them not a breath; Say I could not tarry, I have gone to marry A princess – my bride Is the whole world’s pride. At my wedding, tell How a bright star fell, Sun and moon came down To hold my bridal crown, Firs and maple trees Were my guests; my priests Were the mountains high; Fiddlers, birds that fly, All birds of the sky; Torchlights, stars on high. But if you see there, Should you meet somewhere, My old mother, little, With her white wool girdle, Eyes with their tears flowing, Over the plains going,

EWLINE Asking one and all, Saying to them all, ’Who has ever known, Who has seen my own Shepherd fine to see, Slim as a willow tree, With his dear face, bright As the milk-foam, white, His small moustache, right As the young wheat’s ear, With his hair so dear, Like plumes of the crow Little eyes that glow Like the ripe black sloe?’ Ewe-lamb, small and pretty, For her sake have pity, Let it just be said I have gone to wed A princess most noble There on Heaven’s doorsill. To that mother, old, Let it not be told That a star fell, bright, For my bridal night; Firs and maple trees Were my guests, priests Were the mountains high; Fiddlers, birds that fly, All birds of the sky; Torchlights, stars on high.”

Trivia

• Mioriţa was the name of the state-owned milk company during the Nicolae Ceauşescu
  Nicolae Ceausescu
  Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
  
   régime.
• The first two verses of Mioriţa are written on all the banknotes of Moldova
  Moldova
  Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
  
  .

External links

• Mioriţa - in English (translation by W. D. Snodgrass)