George Cosbuc

George Cosbuc Poems

George Cosbuc Biography

George Coşbuc (September 20, 1866, Hordou, nowadays Coşbuc in Bistriţa-Năsăud County—May 9, 1918, Bucharest) was a Romanian poet, translator, teacher, and journalist, best remembered for his verses describing, praising and eulogizing rural life, its many travails but also its occasions for joy. Although his work was later coopted by Communist propagandists to embellish Marxist-Leninist rhetoric marginalizing intellectuals while emphasizing "the alliance between peasants and the laboring class", he is still widely regarded as a master of verse, accomplished translator and loving chronicler of the Romanian human and geographical topography. Coşbuc began attending courses at the University of Cluj in 1884, while collecting fairy tales and popular stories, which he rewrote and published to local success. He became so popular that three years later, he was asked to become editor in chief of the main Cluj newspaper, Tribuna. He soon published what widely became known as his foremost masterpiece, Nunta Zamfirei ("Zamfira's Wedding") to enthusiastic praise in Romanian literary circles. He moved to Bucharest, capital of Romania and the center of cultural discourse. His contributes to the periodical Convorbiri Literare to consistent acclaim. In collaboration with other former educators, he pieced together a praised Romanian language textbook: Carte românească de citire (the "Romanian Book of Reading").)

The Best Poem Of George Cosbuc

Decebal To His People

This life is a lost boon if you
Don't live it as you wanted to!
Much would a warlike, ruthless foe
Enslave us all! Our birth, we know,
Was woe enough; would you get through
Another dreadful woe?

Death, even for a godlike scion,
Is a hard law, as hard as iron!
It is all one to breathe one's last
A lad or an old man bypast,
But not the same to die a lion
Or a poor dog chained fast.

What if you fight in the first line,
What if by great exploits you shine?
A grumbler cannot better be
Than those who fear to fight and flee!
To murmur is to have no spine
And make a bootless plea!

Like dead men, cowards will keep still!
The living - let them laugh at will!
The really good ones laugh and die.
Hold, therefore, heroes, your brows high
And let your lusty cheering fill
Both hell and earth and sky!

Blood may in floods and torrents flow,
The arm assail with spear and blow,
When the fierce enemies are dead!
Well, you may think yourself Godhead,
When you but laugh at what the foe
Does more than all else dread.

They're Romans, we know that. So what?
Where they not Romans but our god,
Zamolxes, with his creatures, still
We would, sure, ask them what they will -
They won't get of our land a jot:
They have their skies to fill!

Now, men, to sword and shield and horn!
'Twas bad enough that we were born;
But he is free to go whose fright
Makes him too dastardly to fight,
And if there is someone foresworn,
Let him avoid our sight!

What I have told you is enow!
You swore on shields your oath of love
For Dacia! Might resides in you
And in the gods! But, heroes, know
That they, the gods, are far above,
Our foes - at a stone's throw!

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