Jan Kochanowski

Laments

tłum. Dorothea Prall

Ta lektura, podobnie jak tysiące innych, jest dostępna on-line na stronie wolnelektury.pl.

Utwór opracowany został w ramach projektu Wolne Lektury przez fundację Wolne Lektury.

ISBN-978-83-288-3354-8

Laments

Książka, którą czytasz, pochodzi z biblioteki fundacji Wolne Lektury. Naszą misją jest wspieranie dzieciaków w dostępie do lektur szkolnych oraz zachęcanie ich do czytania. Miło Cię poznać!

Introductory note

Jan Kochanowski (1530–84) was the greatest poet of Poland during its existence as an independent kingdom. His Laments are his masterpiece, the choicest work of Polish lyric poetry before the time of Mickiewicz.

Kochanowski was a learned poet of the Renaissance, drawing his inspiration from the literatures of Greece and Rome. He was also a man of sincere piety, famous for his translation of the Psalms into his native language. In his Laments, written in memory of his little daughter Ursula, who died in 1579 at the age of thirty months, he expresses the deepest personal emotion through the medium of a literary style that had been developed by long years of study. The Laments, to be sure, are not based on any classic model and they contain few direct imitations of the classical poets, though it may be noted that the concluding couplet of Lament XV is translated from the Greek Anthology. On the other hand they are interspersed with continual references to classic story; and, more important, are filled with the atmosphere of the Stoic philosophy, derived from Cicero and Seneca. And along with this austere teaching there runs through them a warmer tone of Christian hope and trust; Lament XVIII is in spirit a psalm. To us of today, however, these poems appeal less by their formal perfection, by their learning, or by their religions tone, than by their exquisite humanity. Kochanowski’s sincerity of grief, his fatherly love for his baby girl, after more than three centuries have not lost their power to touch our hearts. In the Laments Kochanowski embodied a wholesome ideal of life such as animated the finest spirits of Poland in the years of its greatest glory, a spirit both humanistic and universally human.

G. R. Noyes

[Motto and dedication]

Tales sunt hominum mentes, quali pater ipse 

Juppiter auctiferas lustravit lumine terras¹.  

To Ursula Kochanowski

A charming, merry, gifted child, who, after showing great promise of all maidenly virtues and talents, suddenly, prematurely, in her unripe years, to the great and unbearable grief of her parents, departed hence.

Written with tears for his beloved little girl by Jan Kochanowski, her hapless father.

Thou art no more, my Ursula.

Przyjaciele Wolnych Lektur otrzymują dostęp do prapremier wcześniej niż inni. Zadeklaruj stałą wpłatę i dołącz do Towarzystwa Przyjaciół Wolnych Lektur: wolnelektury.pl/pomagam/

Lament I

Come, Heraclitus² and Simonides³, 

Come with your weeping and sad elegies: 

Ye griefs and sorrows, come from all the lands 

Wherein ye sigh and wail and wring your hands: 

Gather ye here within my house today 

And help me mourn my sweet, whom in her May 

Ungodly Death hath ta’en to his estate, 

Leaving me on a sudden desolate. 

’Tis so a serpent glides on some shy nest 

And, of the tiny nightingales possessed, 

Doth glut its throat, though, frenzied with her fear, 

The mother bird doth beat and twitter near 

And strike the monster, till it turns and gapes 

To swallow her, and she but just escapes. 

«’Tis vain to weep,» my friends perchance will say. 

Dear God, is aught in life not vain, then? Nay, 

Seek to lie soft, yet thorns will prickly be: 

The life of man is naught but vanity. 

Ah, which were better, then — to seek relief 

In tears, or sternly strive to conquer grief? 

Lament II

If I had ever thought to write in praise 

Of little children and their simple ways, 

Far rather had I fashioned cradle verse 

To rock to slumber, or the songs a nurse 

Might croon above the baby on her breast, 

Setting her charge’s short-lived woes at rest. 

For much more useful are such trifling tasks 

Than that which sad misfortune this day asks: 

To weep o’er thy deaf grave, dear maiden mine, 

And wail the harshness of grim Proserpine⁴. 

But now I have no choice of subject: then 

I shunned a theme scarce fitting riper men, 

And now disaster drives me on by force 

To songs unheeded by the great concourse 

Of mortals. Verses that I would not sing 

The living, to the dead I needs must bring. 

Yet though I dry the marrow from my bones, 

Weeping another’s death, my grief atones 

No whit. All forms of human doom 

Arouse but transient thoughts of joy or gloom. 

O law unjust, O grimmest of all maids, 

Inexorable princess of the shades! 

For, Ursula, thou hadst but tasted time 

And art departed long before thy prime. 

Thou hardly knewest that the sun was bright 

Ere thou didst vanish to the halls of night. 

I would thou hadst not lived that little breath — 

What didst thou know, but only birth, then death? 

And all the joy a loving child should bring 

Her parents, is become their bitterest sting. 

Podoba Ci się to, co robimy? Wesprzyj Wolne Lektury drobną wpłatą:wolnelektury.pl/pomagam/

Lament III

So, thou hast scorned me, my delight and heir; 

Thy father’s halls, then, were not broad and fair 

Enough for thee to dwell here longer, sweet. 

True, there was nothing, nothing in them meet 

For thy swift-budding reason, that foretold 

Virtues the future years would yet unfold. 

Thy words, thy archness, every turn and bow — 

How sick at heart without them am I now! 

Nay, little comfort, never more shall I 

Behold thee and thy darling drollery. 

What may I do but only follow on 

Along the path where earlier thou hast gone. 

And at its end do thou, with all thy charms, 

Cast round thy father’s neck thy tender arms. 

Lament IV

Thou hast constrained mine eyes, unholy Death, 

To watch my dear child breathe her dying breath: 

To watch thee shake the fruit unripe and clinging 

While fear and grief her parents’ hearts were wringing. 

Ah, never, never could my well-loved child 

Have died and left her father reconciled: 

Never but with a heart like heavy lead 

Could I have watched her go, abandonèd. 

And yet at no time could her death have brought 

More cruel ache than now, nor bitterer thought; 

For had God granted to her ample days 

I might have walked with her down flowered ways 

And left this life at last, content, descending 

To realms of dark Persephone⁵, the all-ending, 

Without such grievous sorrow in my heart, 

Of which earth holdeth not the counterpart. 

I marvel not that Niobe⁶, alone 

Amid her dear, dead children, turned to stone. 

Informacje o nowościach w naszej bibliotece w Twojej skrzynce mailowej? Nic prostszego, zapisz się do newslettera. Kliknij, by pozostawić swój adres e-mail: wolnelektury.pl/newsletter/zapisz-sie/

Lament V

Just as a little olive offshoot grows 

Beneath its orchard elders’ shady rows, 

No budding leaf as yet, no branching limb, 

Only a rod uprising, virgin-slim — 

Then if the busy gardener, weeding out 

Sharp thorns and nettles, cuts the little sprout, 

It fades and, losing all its living hue, 

Drops by the mother from whose roots it grew: 

So was it with my Ursula, my dear; 

A little space she grew beside us here, 

Then Death came, breathing pestilence, and she 

Fell, stricken lifeless, by her parent tree. 

Persephone⁷, Persephone, this flow 

Of barren tears! How couldst thou will it so? 

Lament VI

Dear little Slavic Sappho⁸, we had thought, 

Hearing thy songs so sweetly, deftly wrought, 

That thou shouldst have an heritage one day 

Beyond thy father’s lands: his lute to play. 

For not an hour of daylight’s joyous round 

But thou didst fill it full of lovely sound, 

Just as the nightingale doth scatter pleasure 

Upon the dark, in glad unstinted measure. 

Then Death came stalking near thee, timid thing, 

And thou in sudden terror tookest wing. 

Ah, that delight, it was not overlong 

And I pay dear with sorrow for brief song. 

Thou still wert singing when thou cam’st to die; 

Kissing thy mother, thus thou saidst good-bye: 

«My mother, I shall serve thee now no more 

Nor sit about thy table’s charming store; 

I must lay down my keys to go from here, 

To leave the mansion of my parents dear.» 

This and what sorrow now will let me tell 

No longer, were my darling’s last farewell. 

Ah, strong her mother’s heart, to feel the pain 

Of those last words and not to burst in twain. 

Przekaż 1,5% podatku na Wolne Lektury.
KRS: 0000070056
Nazwa organizacji: Fundacja Wolne Lektury
Każda wpłacona kwota zostanie przeznaczona na rozwój Wolnych Lektur.

Lament VII

Sad trinkets of my little daughter, dresses 

That touched her like caresses, 

Why do you draw my mournful eyes? To borrow 

A newer weight of sorrow? 

No longer will you clothe her form, to fold her 

Around, and wrap her, hold her. 

A hard, unwaking sleep has overpowered 

Her limbs, and now the flowered 

Cool muslin and the ribbon snoods are bootless, 

The gilded girdles fruitless. 

My little girl, ’twas to a bed far other 

That one day thy poor mother 

Had thought to lead thee, and this simple dower 

Suits not the bridal hour; 

A tiny shroud and gown of her own sewing 

She gives thee at thy going. 

Thy father brings a clod of earth, a somber 

Pillow for thy last slumber. 

And so a single casket, scant of measure, 

Locks thee and all thy treasure. 

Lament VIII

Thou hast made all the house an empty thing, 

Dear Ursula, by this thy vanishing. 

Though we are here, ’tis yet a vacant place, 

One little soul had filled so great a space. 

For thou didst sing thy joyousness to all, 

Running through every nook of house and hall. 

Thou wouldst not have thy mother grieve, nor let 

Thy father with too solemn thinking fret 

His head, but thou must kiss them, daughter mine, 

And all with that entrancing laugh of thine! 

Now on the house has fallen a dumb blight: 

Thou wilt not come with archness and delight, 

But every corner lodges lurking grief 

And all in vain the heart would seek relief. 

Lament IX

Thou shouldst be purchased, Wisdom, for much gold 

If all they say of thee is truly told: 

That thou canst root out from the mind the host 

Of longings and canst change a man almost 

Into an angel whom no grief can sap, 

Who is not prone to fear nor evil hap. 

Thou seest all things human as they are — 

Trifles. Thou bearest in thy breast a star 

Fixèd and tranquil, and dost contemplate 

Death unafraid, still calm, inviolate. 

Of riches, one thing thou dost hold the measure: 

Proportion to man’s needs — not gold nor treasure; 

Thy searching eyes have power to behold 

The beggar housed beneath the roof of gold, 

Nor dost thou grudge the poor man fame as blest 

If he but hearken him to thy behest. 

Oh, hapless, hapless man am I, who sought 

If I might gain thy thresholds by much thought, 

Cast down from thy last steps after so long, 

But one amid the countless, hopeless throng! 

Książka, którą czytasz, pochodzi z biblioteki fundacji Wolne Lektury. Naszą misją jest wspieranie dzieciaków w dostępie do lektur szkolnych oraz zachęcanie ich do czytania. Miło Cię poznać!

Lament X

My dear delight, my Ursula, and where 

Art thou departed, to what land, what sphere? 

High o’er the heavens wert thou borne, to stand 

One little cherub midst the cherub band? 

Or dost thou laugh in Paradise, or now 

Upon the Islands of the Blest art thou? 

Or in his ferry o’er the gloomy water 

Does Charon⁹ bear thee onward, little daughter? 

And having drunken of forgetfulness 

Art thou unwitting of my sore distress? 

Or, casting off thy human, maiden veil, 

Art thou enfeathered in some nightingale? 

Or in grim Purgatory must thou stay 

Until some tiniest stain be washed away? 

Or hast returned again to where thou wert 

Ere thou wast born to bring me heavy hurt? 

Where’er thou art, ah! pity, comfort me; 

And if not in thine own entirety, 

Yet come before mine eyes a moment’s space 

In some sweet dream that shadoweth thy grace. 

Lament XI

«Virtue is but a trifle!» Brutus¹⁰ said 

In his defeat; nor was he cozenèd. 

What man did his own goodness e’er advance 

Or piety preserve from evil chance? 

Some unknown foe confuses men’s affairs; 

For good and bad alike it nothing cares. 

Where blows its breath, no man can flee away; 

Both false and righteous it hath power to stay. 

Yet still we vaunt us of our mighty mind 

In idle arrogance among our kind; 

And still we gaze on heaven and think we see 

The Lord and his all-holy mystery. 

Nay, human eyes are all too dull; light dreams 

Amuse and cheat us with what only seems. 

Ah, dost thou rob me, Grief, my safeguards spurning, 

Of both my darling and my trust in learning? 

Przyjaciele Wolnych Lektur otrzymują dostęp do prapremier wcześniej niż inni. Zadeklaruj stałą wpłatę i dołącz do Towarzystwa Przyjaciół Wolnych Lektur: wolnelektury.pl/pomagam/

Lament XII

I think no father under any sky 

More fondly loved a daughter than did I, 

And scarcely ever has a child been born 

Whose loss her parents could more justly mourn. 

Unspoiled and neat, obedient at all times, 

She seemed already versed in songs and rhymes, 

And with a highborn courtesy and art, 

Though but a babe, she played a maiden’s part. 

Discreet and modest, sociable and free 

From jealous habits, docile, mannerly, 

She never thought to taste her morning fare 

Until she should have said her morning prayer; 

She never went to sleep at night until 

She had prayed God to save us all from ill. 

She used to run to meet her father when 

He came from any journey home again; 

She loved to work and to anticipate 

The servants of the house ere they could wait 

Upon her parents. This she had begun 

When thirty months their little course had run. 

So many virtues and such active zeal 

Her youth could not sustain; she fell from weal 

Ere harvest. Little ear of wheat, thy prime 

Was distant; ’tis before thy proper time 

I sow thee once again in the sad earth, 

Knowing I bury with thee hope and mirth. 

For thou wilt not spring up when blossoms quicken 

But leave mine eyes forever sorrow-stricken. 

Lament XIII

Ursula, winsome child, I would that I 

Had never had thee if thou wert to die 

So early. For with lasting grief I pay, 

Now thou hast left me, for thy sweet, brief stay. 

Thou didst delude me like a dream by night 

That shines in golden fullness on the sight, 

Then vanishes, and to the man awake 

Leaves only of its treasures much heartbreak. 

So hast thou done to me, belovèd cheat: 

Thou madest with high hope my heart to beat 

And then didst hurry off and bear with thee 

All of the gladness thou once gavest me. 

’Tis half my heart I lack through this thy taking 

And what is left is good for naught but aching. 

Stonecutters, set me up a carven stone 

And let this sad inscription run thereon: 

Ursula Kochanowski lieth here, 

Her father’s sorrow and her father’s dear; 

For heedless Death hath acted here crisscross: 

She should have mourned my death, not I her loss. 

Podoba Ci się to, co robimy? Wesprzyj Wolne Lektury drobną wpłatą:wolnelektury.pl/pomagam/

Lament XIV

Where are those gates through which so long ago 

Orpheus¹¹ descended to the realms below 

To seek his lost one? Little daughter, I 

Would find that path and pass that ford whereby 

The grim-faced boatman ferries pallid shades 

And drives them forth to joyless cypress glades. 

But do thou not desert me, lovely lute! 

Be thou the furtherance of my mournful suit 

Before dread Pluto¹², till he shall give ear 

To our complaints and render up my dear. 

To his dim dwelling all men must repair, 

And so must she, her father’s joy and heir; 

But let him grant the fruit now scarce in flower 

To fill and ripen till the harvest hour! 

Yet if that god doth bear a heart within 

So hard that one in grief can nothing win, 

What can I but renounce this upper air 

And lose my soul, but also lose my care. 

Lament XV

Golden-locked Erato¹³, and thou, sweet lute, 

The comfort of the sad and destitute, 

Calm thou my sorrow, lest I too become 

A marble pillar shedding through the dumb 

But living stone my almost bloody tears, 

A monument of grief for coming years. 

For when we think of mankind’s evil chance 

Does not our private grief gain temperance? 

Unhappy mother¹⁴ (if ’tis evil hap 

We blame when caught in our own folly’s trap) 

Where are thy sons and daughters, seven each, 

The joyful cause of thy too boastful speech? 

I see their fourteen stones, and thou, alas, 

Who from thy misery wouldst gladly pass 

To death, dost kiss the tombs, O wretched one, 

Where lies thy fruit so cruelly undone. 

Thus blossoms fall where some keen sickle passes 

And so, when rain doth level them, green grasses. 

What hope canst thou yet harbor in thee? Why 

Dost thou not drive thy sorrow hence and die? 

And thy swift arrows, Phoebus¹⁵, what do they? 

And thine unerring bow, Diana¹⁶? Slay 

Her, ye avenging gods, if not in rage, 

Then out of pity for her desolate age. 

A punishment for pride before unknown 

Hath fallen: Niobe is turned to stone, 

And borne in whirlwind arms o’er seas and lands, 

On Sipylus¹⁷ in deathless marble stands. 

Yet from her living wounds a crystal fountain 

Of tears flows through the rock and down the mountain, 

Whence beast and bird may drink; but she, in chains, 

Fixed in the path of all the winds remains. 

This tomb holds naught, this woman hath no tomb: 

To be both grave and body is her doom. 

Informacje o nowościach w naszej bibliotece w Twojej skrzynce mailowej? Nic prostszego, zapisz się do newslettera. Kliknij, by pozostawić swój adres e-mail: wolnelektury.pl/newsletter/zapisz-sie/

Lament XVI

Misfortune hath constrainèd me 

To leave the lute and poetry, 

Nor can I from their easing borrow 

Sleep for my sorrow. 

Do I see true, or hath a dream 

Flown forth from ivory gates to gleam 

In phantom gold, before forsaking 

Its poor cheat, waking? 

Oh, mad, mistaken humankind, 

’Tis easy triumph for the mind 

While yet no ill adventure strikes us 

And naught mislikes us. 

In plenty we praise poverty, 

’Mid pleasures we hold grief to be 

(And even death, ere it shall stifle 

Our breath) a trifle. 

But when the grudging spinner scants 

Her thread and fate no surcease grants 

From grief most deep and need most wearing, 

Less calm our bearing. 

Ah, Tully¹⁸, thou didst flee from Rome 

With weeping, who didst say his home 

The wise man found in any station, 

In any nation. 

And why dost mourn thy daughter so 

When thou hast said the only woe 

That man need dread is base dishonor ? — 

Why sorrow on her? 

Death, thou hast said, can terrify 

The godless man alone. Then why 

So loth, the pay for boldness giving, 

To leave off living? 

Thy words, that have persuaded men, 

Persuade not thee, angelic pen; 

Disaster findeth thy defenses, 

Like mine, pretenses. 

Soft stone is man: he takes the lines 

That Fortune’s cutting tool designs. 

To press the wounds wherewith she graves us, 

Racks us or saves us? 

Time, father of forgetfulness 

So longed for now in my distress, 

Since wisdom nor the saints can steel me, 

Oh, do thou heal me! 

Lament XVII

God hath laid his hand on me: 

He hath taken all my glee, 

And my spirit’s emptied cup 

Soon must give its life-blood up. 

If the sun doth wake and rise, 

If it sink in gilded skies, 

All alike my heart doth ache, 

Comfort it can never take. 

From my eyelids there do flow 

Tears, and I must weep e’en so 

Ever, ever. Lord of Light, 

Who can hide him from thy sight! 

Though we shun the stormy sea, 

Though from war’s affray we flee, 

Yet misfortune shows her face 

Howsoe’er concealed our place. 

Mine a life so far from fame 

Few there were could know my name; 

Evil hap and jealousy 

Had no way of harming me. 

But the Lord, who doth disdain 

Flimsy safeguards raised by man, 

Struck a blow more swift and sure 

In that I was more secure. 

Poor philosophy, so late 

Of its power wont to prate, 

Showeth its incompetence 

Now that joy proceedeth hence. 

Sometimes still it strives to prove 

Heavy care it can remove; 

But its little weight doth fail 

To raise sorrow in the scale. 

Idle is the foolish claim 

Harm can have another name: 

He who laughs when he is sad, 

I should say was only mad. 

Him who tries to prove our tears 

Trifles, I will lend mine ears; 

But my sorrow he thereby 

Doth not check, but magnify.  

Choice I have none, I must needs 

Weep if all my spirit bleeds. 

Calling it a graceless part 

Only stabs anew my heart. 

All such medicine, dear Lord, 

Is another, sharper sword. 

Who my healing would insure 

Will seek out a gentler cure. 

Let my tears prolong their flow. 

Wisdom, I most truly know, 

Hath no power to console: 

Only God can make me whole. 

Przekaż 1,5% podatku na Wolne Lektury.
KRS: 0000070056
Nazwa organizacji: Fundacja Wolne Lektury
Każda wpłacona kwota zostanie przeznaczona na rozwój Wolnych Lektur.

Lament XVIII

We are thy thankless children, gracious Lord. 

The good thou dost afford 

Lightly do we employ, 

All careless of the one who giveth joy. 

We heed not him from whom delights do flow. 

Until they fade and go 

We take no thought to render 

That gratitude we owe the bounteous sender. 

Yet keep us in thy care. Let not our pride 

Cause thee, dear God, to hide 

The glory of thy beauty: 

Chasten us till we shall recall our duty. 

Yet punish us as with a father’s hand. 

We mites, cannot withstand 

Thine anger; we are snow, 

Thy wrath, the sun that melts us in its glow. 

Make us not perish thus, eternal God, 

From thy too heavy rod. 

Recall that thy disdain 

Alone doth give thy children bitter pain. 

Yet I do know thy mercy doth abound 

While yet the spheres turn round, 

And thou wilt never cast 

Without the man who humbles him at last. 

Though great and many my transgressions are, 

Thy goodness greater far 

Than mine iniquity: 

Lord, manifest thy mercy unto me! 

Lament XIX

The Dream

Long through the night hours sorrow was my guest 

And would not let my fainting body rest, 

Till just ere dawn from out its slow dominions 

Flew sleep to wrap me in its dear dusk pinions. 

And then it was my mother did appear 

Before mine eyes in vision doubly dear; 

For in her arms she held my darling one, 

My Ursula, just as she used to run 

To me at dawn to say her morning prayer, 

In her white nightgown, with her curling hair 

Framing her rosy face, her eyes about 

To laugh, like flowers only halfway out. 

«Art thou still sorrowing, my son?» Thus spoke 

My mother. Sighing bitterly, I woke, 

Or seemed to wake, and heard her say once more: 

«It is thy weeping brings me to this shore: 

Thy lamentations, long uncomforted, 

Have reached the hidden chambers of the dead, 

Till I have come to grant thee some small grace 

And let thee gaze upon thy daughter’s face, 

That it may calm thy heart in some degree 

And check the grief that imperceptibly 

Doth gnaw away thy health and leave thee sick, 

Like fire that turns to ashes a dry wick. 

Dost thou believe the dead have perished quite, 

Their sun gone down in an eternal night? 

Ah no, we have a being far more splendid 

Now that our bodies’ coarser claims are ended. 

Though dust returns to dust, the spirit, given 

A life eternal, must go back to heaven, 

And little Ursula hath not gone out 

Forever like a torch. Nay, cease thy doubt, 

For I have brought her hither in the guise 

She used to wear before thy mortal eyes, 

Though mid the deathless angels, brighter far 

She shineth as the lovely morning star; 

And still she offers up her prayers for you 

As here on earth, when yet no words she knew. 

If herefrom Springs thy sorrow, that her years 

Were broken off before all that endears 

A life on earth to mortals she might prove — 

Yet think how empty the delights that move 

The minds of men, delights that must give place 

At last to sorrow, as in thine own case. 

Did then thy little girl such joy confer 

That all the comfort thou didst find in her 

Could parallel thine anguish of today? 

Thou canst not answer otherwise than nay. 

Then fret not that so early death has come 

To what was dearest thee in Christendom. 

She did not leave a land of much delight, 

But one of toil and grief and evil blight 

So plenteous, that all which men can hold 

Of their so transitory blessings, gold, 

Must lose its value through this base alloy, 

This knowledge of the grief that follows joy. 

«Why do we weep, great God? That with her dower 

She bought herself no lord, that she might cower 

Before upbraidings from her husband’s kin? 

That she knew not the pangs that usher in 

The newborn child? And that she could not know, 

Like her poor mother, if more racking woe 

It were to bear or bury them? Ah, meet 

Are such delights to make the world more sweet! 

But heaven hath purer, surer happiness, 

Free from all intermingling of distress. 

Care rules not here and here we know not toil, 

Misfortune and disaster do not spoil. 

Here sickness can not enter nor old age, 

And death, tear-nourished, hath no pasturage. 

We live a life of endless joy that brings 

Good thoughts; we know the causes of all things. 

The sun shines on forever here, its light 

Unconquered by impenetrable night; 

And the Creator in his majesty 

Invisible to mortals, we may see. 

Then turn thy meditations hither, towards 

This changeless gladness and these rich rewards. 

Thou know’st the world, what love of it can do: 

Found thou thine efforts on a base more true. 

Thy little girl hath chosen well her part, 

Thou may’st believe, as one about to start 

For the first time upon the stormy sea, 

Beholding there great flux and jeopardy, 

Returneth to the shore; while those that raise 

Their sails, the wind or some blind crag betrays, 

And this one dies from hunger, that from cold: 

Scarce one escapes the perils manifold. 

So she, who, though her years should have surpassed 

That ancient Sybil, must have died at last, 

Preferred that ending to anticipate 

Before she knew the ills of man’s estate. 

For some are left without their parents’ care, 

To know how sore an orphan’s lot to bear; 

One girl must marry headlong, and then rue 

Her dower given up to God knows who; 

Some maids are seized by their own countrymen, 

Others, made captive by the Tatar clan 

And held thus in a pagan, shameful thrall, 

Must drink their tears till death comes ending all. 

«But this thy little child need fear no more, 

Who, taken early up to heaven’s door, 

Could walk all glad and shining-pure within, 

Her soul still innocent of earthly sin. 

Doubt not, my son, that all is well with her, 

And let not sorrow be thy conqueror. 

Reason and self-command are precious still 

And yielding all to blighted hope is ill. 

Be in this matter thine own lord, although 

Thy longed-for happiness thou must forego. 

For man is born exposed to circumstance, 

To be the target of all evil chance, 

And if we like it or we like it not 

We still can not escape our destined lot. 

Nor hath misfortune singled thee, my son; 

It lays its burdens upon every one. 

Thy little child was mortal as thou art, 

She ran her given course and did depart; 

And if that course was brief, yet who can say 

That she would have been happier to stay? 

The ways of God are past our finding out, 

Yet what He holds as good shall we misdoubt? 

And when the spirit leaves us, it is vain 

To weep so long; it will not come again. 

And herein man is hardly just to fate, 

To bear in mind what is unfortunate 

In life and to forget all that transpires 

In full accordance with his own desires. 

And such is Fortune’s power, dearest son, 

That we should not lament when she hath done 

A bitter turn, but thank her in that she 

Hath held her hand from greater injury. 

So, yielding to the common order, bar 

Thy heart to more disasters than now are; 

Gaze at the happiness thou dost retain: 

What is not loss, that must be rated gain. 

«And finally, what profits the expense 

Of thy long labor and the years gone hence, 

While thou didst spend thyself upon thy books 

And knewest scarce how lightsome pleasure looks? 

Now from thy grafting pluck the fruit and save 

Something of value from frail nature’s grave. 

To other men in sorrow thou hast shown 

The comfort left them: hast none for thine own? 

Now, master, heal thyself: time is the cure 

For all; but he whose wisdom doth abjure 

The common ways, he should anticipate 

The healing for which other men must wait. 

What is time’s cunning? That it drives away 

Our former haps with newer ones, more gay, 

Or like the old. So man by taking thought 

Perceives them ere their accidents are wrought, 

And by such thinking banishes the past 

And views the future, quiet and steadfast. 

Then bear man’s portion like a man, my son, 

The Lord of grief and comfort is but one.» 

Then I awoke, and know not if to deem 

This truth itself, or but a passing dream. 

Przypisy:

1. Tales sunt... terras (Latin) — human minds are the reflections of light casted on fertile earth by father Jupiter (fragment of Homer’s Odyssey translated by Cicero and passed on by St. Augustine in De civitate Dei). [przypis edytorski]

2. Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 535–475 BC) — pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, often called „weeping Heraclitus”. [przypis edytorski]

3. Simonides of Ceos (c. 556–468 BC) — a Greek lyric poet, renowned for his epitaphs. [przypis edytorski]

4. Proserpine — Roman goddess of spring, spending winter in the underworld as a wife of Pluto; equivalent of Greek Persephone. [przypis edytorski]

5. Persephone — Greek goddes of vegetation, daughter of Demeter and Zeus, abducted by Hades, god of underworld; her Roman counterpart is Proserpine. [przypis edytorski]

6. Niobe — a figure from Greek mythology, daughter of Tantalus, turned into stone by grief after death of her 14 children, inflicted by Olympic gods. [przypis edytorski]

7. Persephone — Greek goddes of vegetation, daughter of Demeter and Zeus, abducted by Hades, god of underworld; her Roman counterpart is Proserpine. [przypis edytorski]

8. Sappho (c. 612 BC–c. 570 BC) — a female Greek lyric poet. [przypis edytorski]

9. Charon — a figure from Greek mythology who ferried the souls of the dead to the underworld. [przypis edytorski]

10. Marcus Junius Brutus (85 BC–42 BC) — Roman polititian, one of the assassinators of Julius Caesar, committed suicide after losing battle of Philippi. [przypis edytorski]

11. Orpheus — legendary Greek singer and poet; in the mythic tale he went to the underworld, trying to charm Hades with his music in order to retrieve his dead wife, Euridice. [przypis edytorski]

12. Pluto — Roman god of the underworld, equivalent of Greek god Hades. [przypis edytorski]

13. Erato — the Muse of lyric poetry. [przypis edytorski]

14. Unhappy mother — Niobe, cf. Lament IV. [przypis edytorski]

15. Phoebus — Apollo, Greek god of sun. [przypis edytorski]

16. Diana — Roman goddess of the moon, the hunt, and chastity; her Greek counterpart is Artemis. [przypis edytorski]

17. Sipylus — a mountain often mentioned in Greek mythology, presently Mount Spil in Turkey. [przypis edytorski]

18. Tully — Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC–43 BC), Roman politician, philosopher, renowned orator and writer. [przypis edytorski]

Wesprzyj Wolne Lektury!

Wolne Lektury to projekt fundacji Wolne Lektury – organizacji pożytku publicznego działającej na rzecz wolności korzystania z dóbr kultury.

Co roku do domeny publicznej przechodzi twórczość kolejnych autorów. Dzięki Twojemu wsparciu będziemy je mogli udostępnić wszystkim bezpłatnie.

Jak możesz pomóc?

Logo 1%
Przekaż 1% podatku na rozwój Wolnych Lektur:
Fundacja Wolne Lektury
KRS 0000070056

Wspieraj Wolne Lektury i pomóż nam rozwijać bibliotekę.

Przekaż darowiznę na konto: szczegóły na stronie Fundacji.

Wszystkie zasoby Wolnych Lektur możesz swobodnie wykorzystywać, publikować i rozpowszechniać pod warunkiem zachowania warunków licencji i zgodnie z Zasadami wykorzystania Wolnych Lektur.
Ten utwór jest w domenie publicznej.
Wszystkie materiały dodatkowe (przypisy, motywy literackie) są udostępnione na Licencji Wolnej Sztuki 1.3.
Fundacja Wolne Lektury zastrzega sobie prawa do wydania krytycznego zgodnie z art. Art.99(2) Ustawy o prawach autorskich i prawach pokrewnych. Wykorzystując zasoby z Wolnych Lektur, należy pamiętać o zapisach licencji oraz zasadach, które spisaliśmy w Zasadach wykorzystania Wolnych Lektur. Zapoznaj się z nimi, zanim udostępnisz dalej nasze książki.

E-book można pobrać ze strony: http://wolnelektury.pl/katalog/lektura/laments

Tekst opracowany na podstawie: Jan Kochanowski, Laments, University of California Press, Berkeley 1920.

Wydawca: Fundacja Nowoczesna Polska

Publikacja zrealizowana w ramach projektu Wolne Lektury (http://wolnelektury.pl). Reprodukcja cyfrowa wykonana przez Bibliotekę Narodową z egzemplarza pochodzącego ze zbiorów BN. Dofinansowano ze środków Ministra Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego.

Opracowanie redakcyjne i przypisy: Wojciech Kotwica, Paweł Kozioł, Justyna Lech, Marta Niedziałkowska.

Okładka na podstawie: Chris Parker, CC BY 2.0

ISBN-978-83-288-3354-8

Plik wygenerowany dnia 2024-05-22.