Libuše Prophesies the City

JAN 01 1119 · 12:00

Josef Mathauser, Libuše Prophesies the Glory of Prague; the canonical 19th c. image of the city's founding myth. Place: The rock of Vyšehrad, above the Vltava Figures: Libuše, daughter of Krok, judge and seeress · Přemysl the Ploughman, her chosen husband · Cosmas of Prague, the chronicler who writes it down two centuries later The story belongs to Cosmas of Prague, dean of the cathedral chapter, who writes it down around 1119 in the first book of his Chronica Boemorum. By his own admission he is committing peasant memory to Latin. Libuše is the youngest of three daughters of the judge Krok. She judges in his place. The men of the tribe come to resent a woman's verdicts and demand a duke. She climbs the rock of Vyšehrad on the right bank of the Vltava and falls into prophecy. She sees a fortress whose glory will touch the stars. She instructs her envoys to follow her horse, which will lead them to a ploughman at his furrow. They find Přemysl in the fields at Stadice. He unyokes his oxen, eats bread from his ploughshare, and rides back with them to be made duke.