Poems and Songs of Vladimir Vysotsky. A Ballad of Fighting.

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Commentary to “A Ballad of the Free Archers”.

There is a good old saying: “Potior visa est periculosa libertas quieto servitio.” (“A dan­ger­ous liberty is preferable to a quiet servitude.”)

And it is pertinent to quote here a clause of the Roman civil law: “Vim vi repellere licet.” (“It is lawful to repel force with force.”)

The ballad was written for the film “The Arrows of Robin Hood”, see commentary to “A Bal­lad of Time”.

Another noble robber, Alim, lived in Crimea, the homeland of the author of this publication (the presented collected stories are in Russian).

The translation was adapted from George Tokarev and Eugenia Weinstein’s ones.

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