As soon as he heard the chanter's words,Leka quickly rose to his feet,The pine torch shone on him from afar,He opened the Kanun at his feet.
“Where has this man come from,Five hundred years after our law,To tear down this bridgeWhere history walks across?
“They say his name is Pilo,And he is not tall in stature.He is leaving no room for us,With that pen like a sword.
“The words the wind brings us,Speak of marvels, my lord,He gives worth to our women,Weaves them songs and poetry.
“He weaves them verses of amber,For their bodies and painted eyes,He says gold is not needed,Their lips are of priceless worth.
“They say he has toiled for years,With a pen and with ink,He seeks to raise their value,He wants to build a castle.
“A castle that has no stones,But the souls of girls and women,This had never been heard of,When I heard it, I lost my mind.”
Dugagjini closes the Kanun,Takes a pencil and a paper:“I want you to bring him here,May God strike you all down!”
The pen was a dove’s feather,Seeking space and peace,But Leka lost his mind,And signed his name for blood.
He signed it himself, sealed it himself,And did not speak for long,He set the soldiers on their way,Left the letter in their hands, a sword!
“This is the judgment of the Kanun,Take, then, the long road,All of you with the force of the stake,May the waves engulf the enemy.
“That Pilo, along with his pen,And his bitter word,Find his scheme very quickly,And bring him to me bound.
“The Kanun of Leka cannot bearSongs being sung to women,Girls being called Goddesses,Being spoken to like pashas!
“Songs are only for the brave,Verses are only for men,Who says women are meadowsWith a gilded glow?”
***
The caravan and the decree go forth,Taking the road from the Middle Ages,The trunk of a mulberry tree trembles,The leaf itself grows dizzy.
The night begins to lose the light,The night falls silent across the meadow,The breeze rocks it sweetly,The Kanun demands justice...
Hair tosses in the wind,The town crier beats the drum,The trees blossom, spring emerges,The battalion marches through the mountain.
A ray of light over the valley,Leaps and dissolves over the waterfall,The maidens sit gathered together,Taking off their clothes to bathe...
As soon as it sees them, the caravan halts,The partridges bathed in light,Everyone's soul trembles,They stay rooted in ambush.
Some want to take the roadThat the decree has set for them,But no one goes first,They all stand bewildered.
On one side spoke feeling,The Kanun on the other,Man is a drama with two scenes,What does the soul want, what does a letter say?
The law has the sword with it,Feeling has neither spear nor knife,So the caravan left the wild ash,The law at war with love.
They walk to catch Pilo,Who weaves songs for girls,Though in their souls they have a moonThat no decree or stone can kill.
Above the water of the waterfall,The birds sing with violins,Like in the bosom of Niagara,The whole valley sways.
Buds open on a leaf,A girl's body grows,The brave men fall as if in a fever,When she passes by with grace.
They covet the girl's body,Her chest as it grows,Though they do not want to, they trumpet:“The poet must be killed...”
Leka's law pushes them forward,Desire turns into a scoundrel,The field is difficult today,It neither sows nor reaps.
But the caravan sets out on the road,Tramples feeling, carries out duties,Though April unfurls the leaf,And man has two faces.
A wind blows and it is cold,So many days and moonlit nights,They knock lightly on a door,They ask for something to eat.
The double doors open like wings,The whole monastery is light,The sister gave them all she had,And the love her bosom held.
Though the night rocked them,Through dreams through the night,The sister washed away as best she couldTheir exhaustion from the long road...
In the morning when the day dawned,The caravan set off again,The decree demanded a sacrifice,The poet who embroiders songs.
Horseshoes clatter,Sparks of stone and gravel,The articles of the law flash like lightning,Sometimes from the river, sometimes from the mountain.
At last a castle before them,They halt, they take a deep breath,A maiden has come out to the gate,She invites them to come inside.
They go inside, only women,Only girls of star and light,One of the “brave men” stood up and said:“Bring the barrels full of wine!”
The Vjosa poured through the gorge,Into valleys and throats,Someone's eyes grew dark,Breathing turned into a melody...
At the break of the new day,They sought the girls like fairies,Without putting a bridle on their mouths,The Decrees leapt to their feet.
The first among the first said,Like a storm with a deep voice:“Today we have come to youTo tell you, maiden.
“A poet with a small body,But with great stones,Here among you on a hill,Seeks to build a castle.
“A castle for women, only,A thing that has never been heard of,Therefore we want the truth,The Kanun has condemned him.”
The women led them down the stairs,Deep into another life:“This castle is rare,Not made of stones, but of pages.”
The captain left the decree,And took the written page,He cast his eyes and saw the candlestick:“What kind of castle has he built?”
“A castle,” the maidens chimed in,“A castle that has never been heard of,It has no foundations on ancient ruins,But is built in verse...
“A castle that cannot be conquered,Neither by law nor by decree,But which grows and multiplies,And keeps the world alive.”
“But the poet, where is the poet?The Kanun and Leka want him!”The girl let her gaze drift:“Can't you see, he is in the page!”
The brave men snatched the papersAnd fled through the night,“Are these,” they said, “the worksWith which he builds his castles?”
***
Leka sat by the hearth,Holding the Kanun in his hands,His mind on the door, on the threshold,To hear some news.
The messenger brought the books,Loaded upon horses,The nightingales left off their song,Leka began to write...
He read the songs, the poems,That the poet spoke in stanzas,He cursed the gods deeply,For he felt ashamed before the world.
He tore up the book of the Kanun,And threw it into the hearth,The final page caught fire,The blood feud burned in the flames.
He chewed the edge of his mustache,Took a pen, wrote on a paper:“The skin of our faces has blackened,Another time has come!”
The poet busied himself with verses,Sometimes with stanzas and sentences,The girls and the neighborhoods laughed,Kingdoms tumbled upside down.
The day the poet himselfWrote of Leka's kingdom,The nation found its blossoming,The kingdom of the truth.
The kingdom that conquers the world,That flows with light like a spring,It has the worth of the aorta itself,And its name is, WOMAN!
