"Seat thyself underneath my leaves, O guest,And rest.I promise thee that the sharp-beaming sunHere shall not run,But 'neath the trees spread out a heavy shade:[pg 342]Here always from the fields cool winds have played;Here sparrows and the nightingales have madeCharming lament.And all my fragrant flowers their sweets have spentUpon the bees; my master's board is lentThat honey's gold.And I with gentle whisperings can foldSweet sleep upon thee. Yea, 'tis true I bearNo apples; yet my Lord speaks me as fairAs the most fruitful treesThat graced the Gardens of Hesperides."Translated by Miss H. H. Havermate and G. R. Noyes.]68See Goszczynski's poem,The Castle of Kaniow. [This poem, by Seweryn Goszczynski (1803-76) was published in 1828. The reference is probably to the following passage:“Does that prattling oak whisper in his ear sad tales of the disasters of this land, when beneath its sky the gloomy vulture of slaughter extended a dread shadow with bloody wings, and after it streamed clouds of Tatars?”]69[“Those used for the candles regularly lit by the Jews on Friday at sunset, to avoid the‘work’of kindling light or fire on the Sabbath.”—M. A. Biggs.]70Kolomyjkasare Ruthenian songs resembling the Polishmazurkas. [Ostrowski states that these are popular airs that are sung and danced at the same time. Naganowski adds that the first word is derived from the town of Kolomyja in Galicia.Mazurkais“merely the feminine form of Mazur,”a Masovian.]71[Dombrowski's march,“Poland has not yet perished.”Compare pp.325,326,334.]72[See note42.]73[The Jews in Poland, though not persecuted, formed a separate class, without share in the government of the country. They were separated from the Poles by religion, customs, and language. Yet instances of intermarriage and assimilation were not uncommon. Compare p.100.]74Thepokucieis the place of honour, where formerly the household gods were set, and where still the Russians hang their sacred pictures (ikons). Here a Lithuanian peasant seats any guest whom he desires to honour.75[July mead (lipcowy miod) perhaps might better be calledlinden-flower mead. The Polish name of July,lipiec, is derived fromlipa, a linden tree. See the epigram quoted in note67.]76[See note2. Since Czenstochowa was in the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, Robak finds occasion to hint at the reunion of Lithuania and the Kingdom.]77[The reference is to the Eastern (Orthodox) Church, the state church of Russia.]78[Compare p.319.][pg 343]79[An old jingle expressing the equality before the law of all members of the Polish gentry.]80[Maciej Stryjkowski (1547-83) wrote a famous chronicle that is one of the sources for the early history of Lithuania.“Polish heraldry is comparatively simple beside that of other countries. The use of family names was unknown till the fifteenth century; before that the different branches of one stock were only recognised by one common escutcheon. One might belong to the stock of the arrow, the two daggers, the horseshoe, the double or triple cross, etc. There were only 540 of these escutcheons for the whole of Poland. A great number of families were grouped together under each one of these signs; we shall often find a man described as being of such and such a crest.”—M. A. Biggs.“It may be added that a wealthy and powerful nobleman often rewarded his retainers andfamuliby‘admitting them to his escutcheon,’i.e.obtaining for them a diploma of honour from the King, ratifying the knightly adoption. Hence it is common to hear of the greatest and most ancient Polish families having the same armorial bearings with some very obscure ones.”—Naganowski. Compare p.319.]81[See p.334.]82[“Thetarataikais species of capote; theczamaraa long frock-coat, braided on the back and chest like a huzzar's uniform, and with tight sleeves. Thesukmanais a sort of peasant's coat made of cloth, the wearing of which by Kosciuszko indicated his strong democratic tendencies, and sympathy with the lower classes.”—M. A. Biggs.]83The beaks of large birds of prey become more and more curved with advancing age, and finally the upper part grows so crooked that it closes the bill, and the bird must die of hunger. This popular belief has been accepted by some ornithologists.84It is a fact that there is no instance of the skeleton of a dead animal having been found.85Birdies(ptaszynki)are guns of small calibre, used with a small bullet. A good marksman with such a fowling-piece can hit a bird on the wing.86[“It may be interesting to know that one of the yet surviving friends and schoolfellows of Mickiewicz, Ignatius Domejko, the present Rector of the University of Santiago (Chili), related during his stay in Warsaw last year (1884) that he challenged the young poet, then at Wilno, to find a proper name riming with Domejko. Mickiewicz improvised a verse riming Domejko with Dowejko. It is not, however, quite certain whether there was actually a family of that name.”—Naganowski.]87Little leaves of gold lie at the bottom of bottles of Dantzic brandy. [The city, formerly under Polish rule, was annexed to Prussia at the time of the Second Partition, 1793.][pg 344]88[“The bigos was not of course prepared then and there on the spot. It is usually made in large quantities, put into barrels, and stored in cellars. The oftener it is heated the more savoury it is.”—M. A. Biggs.]89[See p.333.]90Queen Dido had a bull's hide cut into strips, and thus enclosed within the circuit of the hide a considerable territory, where she afterwards built Carthage. The Seneschal did not read the description of this event in theAeneid, but in all probability in the scholiasts' commentaries.N.B.—Some places in the fourth book are by the hand of Stefan Witwicki.]91Once in the Diet the deputy Philip, from the village of Konopie (hemp), obtaining the floor, wandered so far from the subject that he raised a general laugh in the chamber. Hence arose the proverb:“He has bobbed up like Philip from the hemp.”92[There is here an untranslatable pun in the original;niemiec,the Polish word forGerman, is derived fromniemy,dumb.]93[In the original:“And the Word became——”“These words of the Gospel of St. John are often used as an exclamation of astonishment.”—M. A. Biggs.]94[“Of all spoils the most important were thespolia opima, a term applied to those only which the commander-in-chief of a Roman army stripped in a field of battle from the leader of the foe.”—Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities. They were awarded but three or four times in the course of Roman history.]95[In the original there is here an internal jingle betweenklucznik(warden) andpuszczyk(screech owl).]96[This festival furnished the subject and the title for Mickiewicz's greatest poem, next toPan Tadeusz. The poet's own explanation of it is in part as follows:“This is the name of a festival still celebrated among the common folk in many districts of Lithuania, Prussia, and Courland. The festival goes back to pagan times, and was formerly called the feast of the goat (koziel), the director of which was thekozlarz, at once priest and poet. At the present time, since the enlightened clergy and landowners have been making efforts to root out a custom accompanied by superstitious practices and often by culpable excesses, the folk celebrate theforefatherssecretly in chapels or in empty houses not far from the graveyard. There they ordinarily spread a feast of food, drink, and fruits of various sorts and invoke the spirits of the dead. The folk hold the opinion that by this food and drink and by their songs they bring relief to souls in Purgatory.”]97[See note1]98[The original here has a delightful pun. Gerwazy misunderstands his lord's high-flown wordwassalow(vassals) aswonsalow(mustachioed champions). A long mustache was the dearest[pg 345]adornment of a Polish gentleman; compare Gerwazy's description of Jacek on pages43and115, wherewonsalis the title given him in the original.]99[The last three names might be translated,Cuttem, Slashem, Whackem.]100[Thebuzdyganor mace was the staff of office of certain subordinate officers in the Polish army, as thebulawawas that of thehetmansor generals. Each was a short rod with a knob at the end, but the knob on thebulawawas round, that on thebuzdyganwas pear-shaped, with longitudinal notches.]101[See note82.]102In Lithuania the nameokolicaorzascianekis given to a settlement of gentry, to distinguish them from true villages, which are settlements of peasants. [“Thesezasciankiwere inhabited by the poorest of the lesser nobility, who were in fact peasants, but possessed of truly Castilian pride. The wearing of a sword being restricted to nobles, it was not unusual to see suchzasciankowicze, or peasant nobles, following the plough bare-footed, wearing an old rusty sword hanging at their side by hempen cords.”—Naganowski. In this volumehamlethas been arbitrarily chosen as a translation for the name of these villages of gentry.]103[Seepage 334.]104Kisielis a Lithuanian dish, a sort of jelly made of oaten yeast, which is washed with water until all the mealy parts are separated from it: hence the proverb. [The literal translation of the Polish line is simply:“To the Horeszkos he is merely the tenth water on the kisiel.”]105[See pp.334,335.]106[See p.332.]107[See p.335.]108[The arms of Lithuania (called the“Pursuit”) are a horse-man in full career, with sword uplifted to strike. The Bear is the coat-of-arms of Zmudz, a portion of Lithuania, on the Baltic]109[Wilno (Vilna).]110[A French statesman and historian, in the years 1810-12 Napoleon's representative at Warsaw.]111[“A convicted slanderer was compelled to crawl under the table or bench, and in that position to bark three times like a dog, and pronounce his recantation. Hence the Polish wordodszczekac, to bark back, generally used to express recanting.”—M. A. Biggs.]112After various brawls this man was seized at Minsk, and shot, in accordance with a court decree.113When the King was to assemble the general militia, he had a pole set up in each parish with a broom or bundle of twigs tied to the top. This was calledsending out the twigs. Every grown man of the knightly order was obliged, under pain of loss of the privileges of gentle birth, to rally at once to the Wojewoda's[pg 346]standard. [The twigs symbolised the King's authority to inflict punishment. The reign of Jan III. Sobieski was 1674-96.]114[“The district of Dobrzyn in Masovia, that exclusively Polish region the central point of which is Warsaw. The inhabitants of it are called Masovians; hence this name is also applied to the men of Dobrzyn who emigrated from Masovia to Lithuania.”—Lipiner.]115[Bartlomiej is the Polish form of Bartholomew; Maciej and Maciek (a diminutive) are variant forms of Matyasz (Matthias).]116By-names are really sobriquets.117[Krolik, Maciej's nickname, means bothrabbitandlittle kingorkinglet.]118[See p.333.]119[See note29.]120[Maciej had naturally joined the Confederates of Bar, who opposed the King because of his subserviency to the Russians.“But when the King later declared himself for the patriotic party… it is no wonder that our Maciek took sides with the crown, the power of which then needed strengthening. He supported Tyzenhaus, because of the latter's beneficial activity in the most important direction, that of the economic welfare of the country. After the King's contemptible desertion to the camp of the Confederates of Targowica, all noble and patriotic men in Poland had of course to oppose him. Thus the King, and not Maciek, was the real Cock-on-the-Steeple, and our man of Dobrzyn was really always on the side of those who fought for‘the good of the country.’”—Lipiner.]121[The last Under-Treasurer of Lithuania. He took part in Jasinski's insurrection: compare p. 3 and note7.]122Alexander Count Pociej, on his return to Lithuania after the war, assisted those of his fellow-countrymen who were emigrating abroad, and sent considerable sums to the treasury of the Legions.123[The opening line of a popular hymn by Franciszek Karpinski (1741-1825).]124[This form of greeting is still used by the common people in Poland.]125[Joseph Grabowski, a landed proprietor of the Grand Duchy of Posen, was a colonel of the General Staff during the Napoleonic wars, and later played an important part in the public life of the Grand Duchy. At Lukow, near Obiezierz, in 1831, he entertained Mickiewicz and his brother Franciszek.]126[See note46.]127[See p.334.]128[A proverbial phrase; compare p.283.]129[Also often called Baptist.]130[See note20.][pg 347]131[See p.333.]132[“The‘contracts’of Kiev and Minsk were famous fairs, held in those cities at stated times, for the conclusion of agreements of all sorts.”—Jaroszynski. As these are the only contracts of which Maciej has heard, the word, as used by the eloquent student of Rousseau, naturally puzzles him. (Adapted from Naganowski.)]133[“In 1568 a Polish gentleman named Pszonka founded on his estate, Babin, near Lublin, a satiric society, called the Babin Republic. It scourged contemporary manners in a peculiar fashion, sending to every man who became noted for some crime or folly a diploma by virtue of which he was admitted to the‘Republic’and had an office conferred on him. Thus, for example, a quack was appointed physician, a coward general, and a spendthrift steward.”—Lipiner.]134[See p.333.]135[“Klejnot, here translatedjewel, also meansescutcheon.]136[“The order of the Piarists attained, after the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1773, great influence over the education of youth, and initiated, mainly by the efforts of Konarski, an improved system of education. While the Jesuits had laid the main stress upon Latin, the Piarists substituted French as the groundwork of education. This was an improvement upon the previous system, but it had the effect of inducing an aping of French manners and customs in literature and social life, till the reaction in favour of Polish nationality.”—M. A. Biggs (slightly altered).]137[Literally,“of Marymont flour.”Marymont is a village near Warsaw, which is (or was) famous for its flour.]138[The epithet in the original isSak, a sack;glupi jak sak,“stupid as a sack,”is a Polish proverb. As an equivalent, the archaicBuzzardseemed preferable to the grotesque modernDonkey.]139[Lele and Polele, or Lelum and Polelum, were reputed to be twin brothers in the Polish pagan mythology. Slowacki introduces them into his dramaLilla Weneda.]140[See p.332.]141[Berenice's hair. (Jaroszynski.)]142The constellation known among astronomers asUrsa Major.]143It was the custom to hang up in churches any fossil bones that might be discovered; the people regard them as the bones of giants.144The memorable comet of the year 1811.145[“When the plague is about to strike upon Lithuania, the eye of the seer divines its coming; for, if one may believe the bards, often in the desolate graveyards and meadows the Maid of Pestilence rises to sight, in a white garment, with a fiery crown on her temples; her brow towers over the trees of Bialowieza,[pg 348]and in her hand she waves a bloody kerchief.”—Mickiewicz,Konrad Wallenrod.]146Father Poczobut, an ex-Jesuit, and a famous astronomer, published a work on the Zodiac of Denderah, and by his observations aided Lalande in calculating the motions of the moon. See the biography of him by Jan Sniadecki.147[Jan Sniadecki (1756-1830) was a man of real distinction both as an astronomer and as one of the intellectual leaders of Poland. During Mickiewicz's student days he was professor at the University of Wilno. The young poet disliked him, as a representative of the cold, rationalistic tradition of the eighteenth century.]148[At Jassy, in Roumania, peace was concluded in 1792 between Russia and Turkey. The poet represents Branicki and his comrades as rushing to the protection of the Russian armies: compare p.334.]149[Fvlmen Orientis Joannes III. rex Poloniarvm ter maximus. Calissii typis Collegij Societatis Jesv. 1684.]150[Rubinkowski, Jan Kaz. Janina zwycieskich tryumfow Jana III. Poznan, S. J. 1739.]151[Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski (1734-1823), a cousin of Stanislaw Poniatowski, and one of the leading men of his time in Poland.]152[See p.3and note6.]153[See note29.]154[See p.171and note121.]155Properly Prince de Nassau-Siegen [1745-1808], a famous warrior and adventurer of those times. He was a Muscovite admiral and defeated the Turks in the bay [of the Dnieper, near Ochakov]; later he was himself utterly defeated by the Swedes. He spent some time in Poland, where he was granted the rights of a citizen. The combat of the Prince de Nassau with the tiger [in Africa!] was noised abroad at the time through all the newspapers of Europe.156[Thaddeus, though he may catch a glimpse of this scene through the keyhole, apparently does not hear the conversation, if one may judge by his later ignorance: compare p. 261.]157[In the originalSwitezianka, a nymph that apparently Mickiewicz himself invented as an inhabitant of the Switez, a small lake near his home. One of his ballads is entitledSwitezianka, anotherSwitez.]158[The Polish“short mile”was of 15,000 feet, or somewhat less than three English miles; the“long mile”was of 22,500 feet.]159[A sort of Polish Puck. He figures prominently in Slowacki's tragedyBalladyna.]160[See note21. The name of Plut's birthplace might be translatedSkinnem.][pg 349]161TheYellow Book, so called from its binding, is the barbarous book of Russian martial law. Frequently in time of peace the government proclaims whole provinces as being in a state of war, and on the authority of theYellow Bookconfers on the military commander complete power over the estates and lives of the citizens. It is a well-known fact that from the year 1812 to the revolution [of 1831] all Lithuania was subject to theYellow Book, of which the executor was the Grand Duke the Tsarevich [Constantine].]162[Joseph Baka (1707-80), a Jesuit, wroteReflections on Inevitable Death, Common to All. His short doggerel rimes, which breathe a jovial gaiety, were long extremely popular. In recent times suspicion has been cast on Baka's authorship of the work. (Adapted from Jaroszynski.)]163A Lithuanian club is made in the following way. A young oak is selected and is slashed from the bottom upwards with an axe, so that bark and bast are cut through and the wood slightly wounded. Into these notches are thrust sharp flints, which in time grow into the tree and form hard knobs. Clubs in pagan times formed the chief weapon of the Lithuanian infantry; they are still occasionally used, and are callednasieki, gnarled clubs.164After Jasinski's insurrection [compare p. 3 and note7], when the Lithuanian armies were retiring towards Warsaw, the Muscovites had come up to the deserted city of Wilno. General Deyov at the head of his staff was entering through the Ostra Gate. The streets were empty; the townsfolk had shut themselves in their houses. One townsman, seeing a cannon loaded with grapeshot, abandoned in an alley, aimed it at the gate and fired. This one shot saved Wilno for the time being; General Deyov and several officers perished; the rest, fearing an ambuscade, retired from the city. I do not know with certainty the name of that townsman.165Even later still forays (zajazdy) occurred, which, though not so famous, were still bloody and much talked of. About the year 1817 a man named U[zlowski] in the wojewodeship of Nowogrodek defeated in a foray the whole garrison of Nowogrodek and took its leaders captive.166[A town not far from Odessa, captured from the Turks in 1788 by Potemkin.]167[Izmail was a fortress in Bessarabia, captured from the Turks by Suvorov in 1790, after a peculiarly bloody siege. (Byron chose this episode for treatment inDon Juan, cantos vii and viii.) Mickiewicz makes Rykov give the name as Izmailov; Rykov is a bluff soldier, not a stickler for geographical nomenclature.]168[In Italy, near Modena, memorable for the victory of the Russians and Austrians over the French in 1799.]169Evidently Preussisch-Eylau. [In East Prussia: see p.334.]170[Alexander Rimski-Korsakov (1753-1840), a Russian[pg 350]general sent in 1799 to Switzerland in aid of Suvorov; he was beaten on September 25, before uniting with Suvorov, and was in consequence for a time dismissed from the service.]171[A village not far from Cracow, where on April 4, 1794, Kosciuszko with an army of 6000, among them 2000 peasants, armed with scythes, defeated a body of 7000 Russians.]172[See p.334.]173[Jan Tenczynski, an ambassador from Poland to Sweden, gained the love of a Swedish princess. On his journey to espouse her he was captured by the Danes, in 1562, and he died in confinement in Copenhagen in the next year. His memory has been honoured in verse by Kochanowski and in prose by Niemcewicz.]174[Compare p.305.]175[See note38.]176Apparently the Pantler was slain about the year 1791, at the time of the first war. [In the chronology of this poem there is serious confusion. From Jacek's narrative (pp.269-272) it is plain that Thaddeus was born shortly before the death of the Pantler. At the time of the action of the poem he is about twenty years old (p.21), and he was born at the time of Kosciuszko's war against the Russians (p.6), which would be naturally interpreted as 1794, the date of the war in which Kosciuszko was the dictator. All this would be consistent with the original plan of Mickiewicz, to have the action take place in 1814 (see Introduction, p. xiv); it conflicts with the chronology of the completed poem, the action of which is placed in the years 1811-12. Apparently Mickiewicz inserted the note above in a vain attempt to restore consistency. The“first war”could be none other than that following the Constitution of May 3, 1791, in which Prince Joseph Poniatowski and Kosciuszko were leaders. But this war did not begin until after the proclamation of the Confederacy of Targowica, which was on May 14,1792.]177[A former adjutant of Kosciuszko; he perished in the war of 1812.]178A certain Russian historian describes in similar fashion the omens and the premonitions of the Muscovite people before the war of 1812.179Run[the Polish word here used] is the winter corn when it comes up green.180Wyraj[the Polish word here used] in the popular dialect means properly the autumn season, when the migratory birds fly away; to fly towyrajmeans to fly to warm countries. Hence figuratively the folk applies the wordwyrajto warm countries and especially to some fabulous, happy countries, lying beyond the seas.181[Prince Joseph Poniatowski (compare pp.334-335) and Jerome Bonaparte (1784-1860),the youngest brother of Napoleon.]182[See pp.31and334, and note33.][pg 351]183[See pp.31and334, and note34.]184[Kazimierz Malachowski (1765-1845); he lived to share in the insurrection of 1831. Compare note35.]185[Romuald Giedrojc (1750-1824); in 1812 he organised the army in Lithuania.]186[Michal Grabowski (1773-1812), killed at the siege of Smolensk.]187A book now very rare, published more than a hundred years ago by Stanislaw Czerniecki.188That embassy to Rome has been often described and painted. See the preface toThe Perfect Cook:“This embassy, being a great source of amazement to every western state, redounded to the wisdom of the incomparable gentleman [Ossolinski] as well as to the splendour of his house and the magnificence of his table—so that one of the Roman princes said:‘To-day Rome is happy in having such an ambassador.’”N.B.—Czerniecki himself was Ossolinski's head cook. [The information given by Mickiewicz does not quite agree with that furnished by Estreicher,Bibliografia Polska(Cracow, 1896), xiv. 566, 567. Czerniecki was apparently the head cook of Lubomirski, Wojewoda of Cracow, etc., not of Ossolinski.]189[Karol Radziwill (1734-90), called My-dear-friend from a phrase that he constantly repeated, the richest magnate of his time in Poland and one immensely popular among the gentry, led a gay and adventurous life. In 1785 he entertained King Stanislaw at Nieswiez; this reception cost him millions.]190[Compare p.177and note128.]191[The festival of the Annunciation, March 25.]192In Lithuania, on the entrance of the French and Polish armies, confederacies were formed in each wojewodeship and deputies to the Diet were elected.193It is a well-known fact that at Hohenlinden the Polish corps led by General Kniaziewicz decided the victory. [At Hohenlinden in Bavaria the French under Moreau defeated the Austrians, December 3, 1800; compare p. 334.]194[See p.335.]195[A brand of deep disgrace. The Chamberlain is of course quoting from the Latin text of the law.]196[Militem(soldier) here signifies a full-fledged gentleman, of ancient lineage.Skartabell(a word of uncertain etymology) was a term applied to a newly created noble, who was not yet entitled to all the privileges of his order.]197[The Constitution of May 3, 1791 (see p.333), conferred many political rights on the inhabitants of the Polish cities and took the peasants“under the protection of the law,”though it did not set them free.]198[See p.332.]199[See note28.][pg 352]200[“The finest palace in Warsaw was beyond dispute that of General Pac, who died in exile at Smyrna.”—Ostrowski. The proprietor of the palace seems to have been present at Soplicowo at this very time: see p.301.]201[This was a Polish escutcheon characterised by a golden crescent and a six-pointed golden star. It was borne by the Soplicas: see p.319.]202[A village in eastern Galicia, the scene of a battle in 1667 between the Turks and the Poles under Sobieski.]203[See p.295and note200.]204Radziwill the Orphan travelled very widely, and published an account of his journey to the Holy Land. [Mikolaj Krzysztof Radziwill was converted from Calvinism to Catholicism. In 1582-84 he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and Egypt, on which he wrote a book.]205[See p.333.]206[Jaroszynski explainskontazas a sort of sausage,arkasas a cold dish of milk, cream, and yolks of eggs, andblemas(the same word asblancmange) as almond jelly.]207In the sixteenth, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century, at the time when the arts flourished, even banquets were directed by artists, and were full of symbols and of theatrical scenes. At a famous banquet given in Rome for Leo X. there was a centrepiece that represented the four seasons of the year in turn, and that evidently served as a model for Radziwill's. Table customs altered in Europe about the middle of the eighteenth century, but remained unchanged longest in Poland.208Pinety [Pinetti?] was a conjurer famous throughout Poland, but when he visited the country I do not know.209[Henryk Dembinski (1791-1864) took part in the Napoleonic wars, the insurrection of 1831, and the Hungarian insurrection of 1849.]210[Joseph Dwernicki (1778-1857), a member of the Legions, who in 1804 fitted out a squadron at his own cost. In 1826 he was made a general, and distinguished himself in the insurrection of 1831.]211[Samuel Rozycki entered the army in 1806; he took part in the insurrection of 1831.]212[The translator cannot find thatcounterpointis a term of fencing, but does not know how else to renderkontrpunkt.]213[The Pulawski family were among the organisers and most prominent leaders of the Confederacy of Bar. Joseph Pulawski was the first commander-in-chief of its armed forces. His son Kazimierz won fame as a leader after his father's death. Later, in 1777, he came to America, and distinguished himself by his services to the cause of the revolutionists. He was killed in 1779 at the attack on Savannah.]214[Michal Dzierzanowski, a Confederate of Bar and an adventurer[pg 353]famous in the eighteenth century; he took part in almost all the wars of his time. He died in 1808. The Cossack Sawa was one of the most active leaders in the Confederacy of Bar.]215The mournful song of Pani Cybulski, whom her husband gambled away at cards to the Muscovites, is well known in Lithuania.216[That is, is fickle. The translator is here indebted to Miss Biggs's version.]217[Charles Francois Dumouriez (1739-1823) was an agent of the French government sent to support the Confederacy of Bar. He later became prominent in the affairs of his own country.]218[The Piasts were the first royal dynasty of Poland. In later times the name was used to denote any candidate for the Polish throne who was of native birth.]219[The italicised words are of foreign origin in the original text. For old Maciek everything not Polish is Muscovite or German. Gerwazy has the same way of thinking: compare p.318.]220[Doubtless Maciek had heard of the excommunication of Napoleon by Pius VII. in 1809.]221The fashion of adopting the French garb raged in the provinces from 1800 to 1812. The majority of the young men changed their style of dress before marriage at the desire of their future wives. [On thekontuszsee note13.]222The story of the quarrel of Rejtan with the Prince de Nassau, which the Seneschal never concluded, is well known in popular tradition. We add here its conclusion, in order to gratify the curious reader.—Rejtan, angered by the boasting of the Prince de Nassau, took his stand beside him at the narrow passage that the beast must take; just at that moment a huge boar, infuriated by the shots and the baiting, rushed to the passage. Rejtan snatched the gun from the Prince's hands, cast his own on the ground, and, taking a pike and offering another to the German, said:“Now we will see who will do the better work with the spear.”The boar was just about to attack them, when the Seneschal Hreczecha, who was standing at some distance away, brought down the beast by an excellent shot. The gentlemen were at first angry, but later were reconciled and generously rewarded Hreczecha.
"Seat thyself underneath my leaves, O guest,And rest.I promise thee that the sharp-beaming sunHere shall not run,But 'neath the trees spread out a heavy shade:[pg 342]Here always from the fields cool winds have played;Here sparrows and the nightingales have madeCharming lament.And all my fragrant flowers their sweets have spentUpon the bees; my master's board is lentThat honey's gold.And I with gentle whisperings can foldSweet sleep upon thee. Yea, 'tis true I bearNo apples; yet my Lord speaks me as fairAs the most fruitful treesThat graced the Gardens of Hesperides."Translated by Miss H. H. Havermate and G. R. Noyes.]68See Goszczynski's poem,The Castle of Kaniow. [This poem, by Seweryn Goszczynski (1803-76) was published in 1828. The reference is probably to the following passage:“Does that prattling oak whisper in his ear sad tales of the disasters of this land, when beneath its sky the gloomy vulture of slaughter extended a dread shadow with bloody wings, and after it streamed clouds of Tatars?”]69[“Those used for the candles regularly lit by the Jews on Friday at sunset, to avoid the‘work’of kindling light or fire on the Sabbath.”—M. A. Biggs.]70Kolomyjkasare Ruthenian songs resembling the Polishmazurkas. [Ostrowski states that these are popular airs that are sung and danced at the same time. Naganowski adds that the first word is derived from the town of Kolomyja in Galicia.Mazurkais“merely the feminine form of Mazur,”a Masovian.]71[Dombrowski's march,“Poland has not yet perished.”Compare pp.325,326,334.]72[See note42.]73[The Jews in Poland, though not persecuted, formed a separate class, without share in the government of the country. They were separated from the Poles by religion, customs, and language. Yet instances of intermarriage and assimilation were not uncommon. Compare p.100.]74Thepokucieis the place of honour, where formerly the household gods were set, and where still the Russians hang their sacred pictures (ikons). Here a Lithuanian peasant seats any guest whom he desires to honour.75[July mead (lipcowy miod) perhaps might better be calledlinden-flower mead. The Polish name of July,lipiec, is derived fromlipa, a linden tree. See the epigram quoted in note67.]76[See note2. Since Czenstochowa was in the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, Robak finds occasion to hint at the reunion of Lithuania and the Kingdom.]77[The reference is to the Eastern (Orthodox) Church, the state church of Russia.]78[Compare p.319.][pg 343]79[An old jingle expressing the equality before the law of all members of the Polish gentry.]80[Maciej Stryjkowski (1547-83) wrote a famous chronicle that is one of the sources for the early history of Lithuania.“Polish heraldry is comparatively simple beside that of other countries. The use of family names was unknown till the fifteenth century; before that the different branches of one stock were only recognised by one common escutcheon. One might belong to the stock of the arrow, the two daggers, the horseshoe, the double or triple cross, etc. There were only 540 of these escutcheons for the whole of Poland. A great number of families were grouped together under each one of these signs; we shall often find a man described as being of such and such a crest.”—M. A. Biggs.“It may be added that a wealthy and powerful nobleman often rewarded his retainers andfamuliby‘admitting them to his escutcheon,’i.e.obtaining for them a diploma of honour from the King, ratifying the knightly adoption. Hence it is common to hear of the greatest and most ancient Polish families having the same armorial bearings with some very obscure ones.”—Naganowski. Compare p.319.]81[See p.334.]82[“Thetarataikais species of capote; theczamaraa long frock-coat, braided on the back and chest like a huzzar's uniform, and with tight sleeves. Thesukmanais a sort of peasant's coat made of cloth, the wearing of which by Kosciuszko indicated his strong democratic tendencies, and sympathy with the lower classes.”—M. A. Biggs.]83The beaks of large birds of prey become more and more curved with advancing age, and finally the upper part grows so crooked that it closes the bill, and the bird must die of hunger. This popular belief has been accepted by some ornithologists.84It is a fact that there is no instance of the skeleton of a dead animal having been found.85Birdies(ptaszynki)are guns of small calibre, used with a small bullet. A good marksman with such a fowling-piece can hit a bird on the wing.86[“It may be interesting to know that one of the yet surviving friends and schoolfellows of Mickiewicz, Ignatius Domejko, the present Rector of the University of Santiago (Chili), related during his stay in Warsaw last year (1884) that he challenged the young poet, then at Wilno, to find a proper name riming with Domejko. Mickiewicz improvised a verse riming Domejko with Dowejko. It is not, however, quite certain whether there was actually a family of that name.”—Naganowski.]87Little leaves of gold lie at the bottom of bottles of Dantzic brandy. [The city, formerly under Polish rule, was annexed to Prussia at the time of the Second Partition, 1793.][pg 344]88[“The bigos was not of course prepared then and there on the spot. It is usually made in large quantities, put into barrels, and stored in cellars. The oftener it is heated the more savoury it is.”—M. A. Biggs.]89[See p.333.]90Queen Dido had a bull's hide cut into strips, and thus enclosed within the circuit of the hide a considerable territory, where she afterwards built Carthage. The Seneschal did not read the description of this event in theAeneid, but in all probability in the scholiasts' commentaries.N.B.—Some places in the fourth book are by the hand of Stefan Witwicki.]91Once in the Diet the deputy Philip, from the village of Konopie (hemp), obtaining the floor, wandered so far from the subject that he raised a general laugh in the chamber. Hence arose the proverb:“He has bobbed up like Philip from the hemp.”92[There is here an untranslatable pun in the original;niemiec,the Polish word forGerman, is derived fromniemy,dumb.]93[In the original:“And the Word became——”“These words of the Gospel of St. John are often used as an exclamation of astonishment.”—M. A. Biggs.]94[“Of all spoils the most important were thespolia opima, a term applied to those only which the commander-in-chief of a Roman army stripped in a field of battle from the leader of the foe.”—Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities. They were awarded but three or four times in the course of Roman history.]95[In the original there is here an internal jingle betweenklucznik(warden) andpuszczyk(screech owl).]96[This festival furnished the subject and the title for Mickiewicz's greatest poem, next toPan Tadeusz. The poet's own explanation of it is in part as follows:“This is the name of a festival still celebrated among the common folk in many districts of Lithuania, Prussia, and Courland. The festival goes back to pagan times, and was formerly called the feast of the goat (koziel), the director of which was thekozlarz, at once priest and poet. At the present time, since the enlightened clergy and landowners have been making efforts to root out a custom accompanied by superstitious practices and often by culpable excesses, the folk celebrate theforefatherssecretly in chapels or in empty houses not far from the graveyard. There they ordinarily spread a feast of food, drink, and fruits of various sorts and invoke the spirits of the dead. The folk hold the opinion that by this food and drink and by their songs they bring relief to souls in Purgatory.”]97[See note1]98[The original here has a delightful pun. Gerwazy misunderstands his lord's high-flown wordwassalow(vassals) aswonsalow(mustachioed champions). A long mustache was the dearest[pg 345]adornment of a Polish gentleman; compare Gerwazy's description of Jacek on pages43and115, wherewonsalis the title given him in the original.]99[The last three names might be translated,Cuttem, Slashem, Whackem.]100[Thebuzdyganor mace was the staff of office of certain subordinate officers in the Polish army, as thebulawawas that of thehetmansor generals. Each was a short rod with a knob at the end, but the knob on thebulawawas round, that on thebuzdyganwas pear-shaped, with longitudinal notches.]101[See note82.]102In Lithuania the nameokolicaorzascianekis given to a settlement of gentry, to distinguish them from true villages, which are settlements of peasants. [“Thesezasciankiwere inhabited by the poorest of the lesser nobility, who were in fact peasants, but possessed of truly Castilian pride. The wearing of a sword being restricted to nobles, it was not unusual to see suchzasciankowicze, or peasant nobles, following the plough bare-footed, wearing an old rusty sword hanging at their side by hempen cords.”—Naganowski. In this volumehamlethas been arbitrarily chosen as a translation for the name of these villages of gentry.]103[Seepage 334.]104Kisielis a Lithuanian dish, a sort of jelly made of oaten yeast, which is washed with water until all the mealy parts are separated from it: hence the proverb. [The literal translation of the Polish line is simply:“To the Horeszkos he is merely the tenth water on the kisiel.”]105[See pp.334,335.]106[See p.332.]107[See p.335.]108[The arms of Lithuania (called the“Pursuit”) are a horse-man in full career, with sword uplifted to strike. The Bear is the coat-of-arms of Zmudz, a portion of Lithuania, on the Baltic]109[Wilno (Vilna).]110[A French statesman and historian, in the years 1810-12 Napoleon's representative at Warsaw.]111[“A convicted slanderer was compelled to crawl under the table or bench, and in that position to bark three times like a dog, and pronounce his recantation. Hence the Polish wordodszczekac, to bark back, generally used to express recanting.”—M. A. Biggs.]112After various brawls this man was seized at Minsk, and shot, in accordance with a court decree.113When the King was to assemble the general militia, he had a pole set up in each parish with a broom or bundle of twigs tied to the top. This was calledsending out the twigs. Every grown man of the knightly order was obliged, under pain of loss of the privileges of gentle birth, to rally at once to the Wojewoda's[pg 346]standard. [The twigs symbolised the King's authority to inflict punishment. The reign of Jan III. Sobieski was 1674-96.]114[“The district of Dobrzyn in Masovia, that exclusively Polish region the central point of which is Warsaw. The inhabitants of it are called Masovians; hence this name is also applied to the men of Dobrzyn who emigrated from Masovia to Lithuania.”—Lipiner.]115[Bartlomiej is the Polish form of Bartholomew; Maciej and Maciek (a diminutive) are variant forms of Matyasz (Matthias).]116By-names are really sobriquets.117[Krolik, Maciej's nickname, means bothrabbitandlittle kingorkinglet.]118[See p.333.]119[See note29.]120[Maciej had naturally joined the Confederates of Bar, who opposed the King because of his subserviency to the Russians.“But when the King later declared himself for the patriotic party… it is no wonder that our Maciek took sides with the crown, the power of which then needed strengthening. He supported Tyzenhaus, because of the latter's beneficial activity in the most important direction, that of the economic welfare of the country. After the King's contemptible desertion to the camp of the Confederates of Targowica, all noble and patriotic men in Poland had of course to oppose him. Thus the King, and not Maciek, was the real Cock-on-the-Steeple, and our man of Dobrzyn was really always on the side of those who fought for‘the good of the country.’”—Lipiner.]121[The last Under-Treasurer of Lithuania. He took part in Jasinski's insurrection: compare p. 3 and note7.]122Alexander Count Pociej, on his return to Lithuania after the war, assisted those of his fellow-countrymen who were emigrating abroad, and sent considerable sums to the treasury of the Legions.123[The opening line of a popular hymn by Franciszek Karpinski (1741-1825).]124[This form of greeting is still used by the common people in Poland.]125[Joseph Grabowski, a landed proprietor of the Grand Duchy of Posen, was a colonel of the General Staff during the Napoleonic wars, and later played an important part in the public life of the Grand Duchy. At Lukow, near Obiezierz, in 1831, he entertained Mickiewicz and his brother Franciszek.]126[See note46.]127[See p.334.]128[A proverbial phrase; compare p.283.]129[Also often called Baptist.]130[See note20.][pg 347]131[See p.333.]132[“The‘contracts’of Kiev and Minsk were famous fairs, held in those cities at stated times, for the conclusion of agreements of all sorts.”—Jaroszynski. As these are the only contracts of which Maciej has heard, the word, as used by the eloquent student of Rousseau, naturally puzzles him. (Adapted from Naganowski.)]133[“In 1568 a Polish gentleman named Pszonka founded on his estate, Babin, near Lublin, a satiric society, called the Babin Republic. It scourged contemporary manners in a peculiar fashion, sending to every man who became noted for some crime or folly a diploma by virtue of which he was admitted to the‘Republic’and had an office conferred on him. Thus, for example, a quack was appointed physician, a coward general, and a spendthrift steward.”—Lipiner.]134[See p.333.]135[“Klejnot, here translatedjewel, also meansescutcheon.]136[“The order of the Piarists attained, after the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1773, great influence over the education of youth, and initiated, mainly by the efforts of Konarski, an improved system of education. While the Jesuits had laid the main stress upon Latin, the Piarists substituted French as the groundwork of education. This was an improvement upon the previous system, but it had the effect of inducing an aping of French manners and customs in literature and social life, till the reaction in favour of Polish nationality.”—M. A. Biggs (slightly altered).]137[Literally,“of Marymont flour.”Marymont is a village near Warsaw, which is (or was) famous for its flour.]138[The epithet in the original isSak, a sack;glupi jak sak,“stupid as a sack,”is a Polish proverb. As an equivalent, the archaicBuzzardseemed preferable to the grotesque modernDonkey.]139[Lele and Polele, or Lelum and Polelum, were reputed to be twin brothers in the Polish pagan mythology. Slowacki introduces them into his dramaLilla Weneda.]140[See p.332.]141[Berenice's hair. (Jaroszynski.)]142The constellation known among astronomers asUrsa Major.]143It was the custom to hang up in churches any fossil bones that might be discovered; the people regard them as the bones of giants.144The memorable comet of the year 1811.145[“When the plague is about to strike upon Lithuania, the eye of the seer divines its coming; for, if one may believe the bards, often in the desolate graveyards and meadows the Maid of Pestilence rises to sight, in a white garment, with a fiery crown on her temples; her brow towers over the trees of Bialowieza,[pg 348]and in her hand she waves a bloody kerchief.”—Mickiewicz,Konrad Wallenrod.]146Father Poczobut, an ex-Jesuit, and a famous astronomer, published a work on the Zodiac of Denderah, and by his observations aided Lalande in calculating the motions of the moon. See the biography of him by Jan Sniadecki.147[Jan Sniadecki (1756-1830) was a man of real distinction both as an astronomer and as one of the intellectual leaders of Poland. During Mickiewicz's student days he was professor at the University of Wilno. The young poet disliked him, as a representative of the cold, rationalistic tradition of the eighteenth century.]148[At Jassy, in Roumania, peace was concluded in 1792 between Russia and Turkey. The poet represents Branicki and his comrades as rushing to the protection of the Russian armies: compare p.334.]149[Fvlmen Orientis Joannes III. rex Poloniarvm ter maximus. Calissii typis Collegij Societatis Jesv. 1684.]150[Rubinkowski, Jan Kaz. Janina zwycieskich tryumfow Jana III. Poznan, S. J. 1739.]151[Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski (1734-1823), a cousin of Stanislaw Poniatowski, and one of the leading men of his time in Poland.]152[See p.3and note6.]153[See note29.]154[See p.171and note121.]155Properly Prince de Nassau-Siegen [1745-1808], a famous warrior and adventurer of those times. He was a Muscovite admiral and defeated the Turks in the bay [of the Dnieper, near Ochakov]; later he was himself utterly defeated by the Swedes. He spent some time in Poland, where he was granted the rights of a citizen. The combat of the Prince de Nassau with the tiger [in Africa!] was noised abroad at the time through all the newspapers of Europe.156[Thaddeus, though he may catch a glimpse of this scene through the keyhole, apparently does not hear the conversation, if one may judge by his later ignorance: compare p. 261.]157[In the originalSwitezianka, a nymph that apparently Mickiewicz himself invented as an inhabitant of the Switez, a small lake near his home. One of his ballads is entitledSwitezianka, anotherSwitez.]158[The Polish“short mile”was of 15,000 feet, or somewhat less than three English miles; the“long mile”was of 22,500 feet.]159[A sort of Polish Puck. He figures prominently in Slowacki's tragedyBalladyna.]160[See note21. The name of Plut's birthplace might be translatedSkinnem.][pg 349]161TheYellow Book, so called from its binding, is the barbarous book of Russian martial law. Frequently in time of peace the government proclaims whole provinces as being in a state of war, and on the authority of theYellow Bookconfers on the military commander complete power over the estates and lives of the citizens. It is a well-known fact that from the year 1812 to the revolution [of 1831] all Lithuania was subject to theYellow Book, of which the executor was the Grand Duke the Tsarevich [Constantine].]162[Joseph Baka (1707-80), a Jesuit, wroteReflections on Inevitable Death, Common to All. His short doggerel rimes, which breathe a jovial gaiety, were long extremely popular. In recent times suspicion has been cast on Baka's authorship of the work. (Adapted from Jaroszynski.)]163A Lithuanian club is made in the following way. A young oak is selected and is slashed from the bottom upwards with an axe, so that bark and bast are cut through and the wood slightly wounded. Into these notches are thrust sharp flints, which in time grow into the tree and form hard knobs. Clubs in pagan times formed the chief weapon of the Lithuanian infantry; they are still occasionally used, and are callednasieki, gnarled clubs.164After Jasinski's insurrection [compare p. 3 and note7], when the Lithuanian armies were retiring towards Warsaw, the Muscovites had come up to the deserted city of Wilno. General Deyov at the head of his staff was entering through the Ostra Gate. The streets were empty; the townsfolk had shut themselves in their houses. One townsman, seeing a cannon loaded with grapeshot, abandoned in an alley, aimed it at the gate and fired. This one shot saved Wilno for the time being; General Deyov and several officers perished; the rest, fearing an ambuscade, retired from the city. I do not know with certainty the name of that townsman.165Even later still forays (zajazdy) occurred, which, though not so famous, were still bloody and much talked of. About the year 1817 a man named U[zlowski] in the wojewodeship of Nowogrodek defeated in a foray the whole garrison of Nowogrodek and took its leaders captive.166[A town not far from Odessa, captured from the Turks in 1788 by Potemkin.]167[Izmail was a fortress in Bessarabia, captured from the Turks by Suvorov in 1790, after a peculiarly bloody siege. (Byron chose this episode for treatment inDon Juan, cantos vii and viii.) Mickiewicz makes Rykov give the name as Izmailov; Rykov is a bluff soldier, not a stickler for geographical nomenclature.]168[In Italy, near Modena, memorable for the victory of the Russians and Austrians over the French in 1799.]169Evidently Preussisch-Eylau. [In East Prussia: see p.334.]170[Alexander Rimski-Korsakov (1753-1840), a Russian[pg 350]general sent in 1799 to Switzerland in aid of Suvorov; he was beaten on September 25, before uniting with Suvorov, and was in consequence for a time dismissed from the service.]171[A village not far from Cracow, where on April 4, 1794, Kosciuszko with an army of 6000, among them 2000 peasants, armed with scythes, defeated a body of 7000 Russians.]172[See p.334.]173[Jan Tenczynski, an ambassador from Poland to Sweden, gained the love of a Swedish princess. On his journey to espouse her he was captured by the Danes, in 1562, and he died in confinement in Copenhagen in the next year. His memory has been honoured in verse by Kochanowski and in prose by Niemcewicz.]174[Compare p.305.]175[See note38.]176Apparently the Pantler was slain about the year 1791, at the time of the first war. [In the chronology of this poem there is serious confusion. From Jacek's narrative (pp.269-272) it is plain that Thaddeus was born shortly before the death of the Pantler. At the time of the action of the poem he is about twenty years old (p.21), and he was born at the time of Kosciuszko's war against the Russians (p.6), which would be naturally interpreted as 1794, the date of the war in which Kosciuszko was the dictator. All this would be consistent with the original plan of Mickiewicz, to have the action take place in 1814 (see Introduction, p. xiv); it conflicts with the chronology of the completed poem, the action of which is placed in the years 1811-12. Apparently Mickiewicz inserted the note above in a vain attempt to restore consistency. The“first war”could be none other than that following the Constitution of May 3, 1791, in which Prince Joseph Poniatowski and Kosciuszko were leaders. But this war did not begin until after the proclamation of the Confederacy of Targowica, which was on May 14,1792.]177[A former adjutant of Kosciuszko; he perished in the war of 1812.]178A certain Russian historian describes in similar fashion the omens and the premonitions of the Muscovite people before the war of 1812.179Run[the Polish word here used] is the winter corn when it comes up green.180Wyraj[the Polish word here used] in the popular dialect means properly the autumn season, when the migratory birds fly away; to fly towyrajmeans to fly to warm countries. Hence figuratively the folk applies the wordwyrajto warm countries and especially to some fabulous, happy countries, lying beyond the seas.181[Prince Joseph Poniatowski (compare pp.334-335) and Jerome Bonaparte (1784-1860),the youngest brother of Napoleon.]182[See pp.31and334, and note33.][pg 351]183[See pp.31and334, and note34.]184[Kazimierz Malachowski (1765-1845); he lived to share in the insurrection of 1831. Compare note35.]185[Romuald Giedrojc (1750-1824); in 1812 he organised the army in Lithuania.]186[Michal Grabowski (1773-1812), killed at the siege of Smolensk.]187A book now very rare, published more than a hundred years ago by Stanislaw Czerniecki.188That embassy to Rome has been often described and painted. See the preface toThe Perfect Cook:“This embassy, being a great source of amazement to every western state, redounded to the wisdom of the incomparable gentleman [Ossolinski] as well as to the splendour of his house and the magnificence of his table—so that one of the Roman princes said:‘To-day Rome is happy in having such an ambassador.’”N.B.—Czerniecki himself was Ossolinski's head cook. [The information given by Mickiewicz does not quite agree with that furnished by Estreicher,Bibliografia Polska(Cracow, 1896), xiv. 566, 567. Czerniecki was apparently the head cook of Lubomirski, Wojewoda of Cracow, etc., not of Ossolinski.]189[Karol Radziwill (1734-90), called My-dear-friend from a phrase that he constantly repeated, the richest magnate of his time in Poland and one immensely popular among the gentry, led a gay and adventurous life. In 1785 he entertained King Stanislaw at Nieswiez; this reception cost him millions.]190[Compare p.177and note128.]191[The festival of the Annunciation, March 25.]192In Lithuania, on the entrance of the French and Polish armies, confederacies were formed in each wojewodeship and deputies to the Diet were elected.193It is a well-known fact that at Hohenlinden the Polish corps led by General Kniaziewicz decided the victory. [At Hohenlinden in Bavaria the French under Moreau defeated the Austrians, December 3, 1800; compare p. 334.]194[See p.335.]195[A brand of deep disgrace. The Chamberlain is of course quoting from the Latin text of the law.]196[Militem(soldier) here signifies a full-fledged gentleman, of ancient lineage.Skartabell(a word of uncertain etymology) was a term applied to a newly created noble, who was not yet entitled to all the privileges of his order.]197[The Constitution of May 3, 1791 (see p.333), conferred many political rights on the inhabitants of the Polish cities and took the peasants“under the protection of the law,”though it did not set them free.]198[See p.332.]199[See note28.][pg 352]200[“The finest palace in Warsaw was beyond dispute that of General Pac, who died in exile at Smyrna.”—Ostrowski. The proprietor of the palace seems to have been present at Soplicowo at this very time: see p.301.]201[This was a Polish escutcheon characterised by a golden crescent and a six-pointed golden star. It was borne by the Soplicas: see p.319.]202[A village in eastern Galicia, the scene of a battle in 1667 between the Turks and the Poles under Sobieski.]203[See p.295and note200.]204Radziwill the Orphan travelled very widely, and published an account of his journey to the Holy Land. [Mikolaj Krzysztof Radziwill was converted from Calvinism to Catholicism. In 1582-84 he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and Egypt, on which he wrote a book.]205[See p.333.]206[Jaroszynski explainskontazas a sort of sausage,arkasas a cold dish of milk, cream, and yolks of eggs, andblemas(the same word asblancmange) as almond jelly.]207In the sixteenth, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century, at the time when the arts flourished, even banquets were directed by artists, and were full of symbols and of theatrical scenes. At a famous banquet given in Rome for Leo X. there was a centrepiece that represented the four seasons of the year in turn, and that evidently served as a model for Radziwill's. Table customs altered in Europe about the middle of the eighteenth century, but remained unchanged longest in Poland.208Pinety [Pinetti?] was a conjurer famous throughout Poland, but when he visited the country I do not know.209[Henryk Dembinski (1791-1864) took part in the Napoleonic wars, the insurrection of 1831, and the Hungarian insurrection of 1849.]210[Joseph Dwernicki (1778-1857), a member of the Legions, who in 1804 fitted out a squadron at his own cost. In 1826 he was made a general, and distinguished himself in the insurrection of 1831.]211[Samuel Rozycki entered the army in 1806; he took part in the insurrection of 1831.]212[The translator cannot find thatcounterpointis a term of fencing, but does not know how else to renderkontrpunkt.]213[The Pulawski family were among the organisers and most prominent leaders of the Confederacy of Bar. Joseph Pulawski was the first commander-in-chief of its armed forces. His son Kazimierz won fame as a leader after his father's death. Later, in 1777, he came to America, and distinguished himself by his services to the cause of the revolutionists. He was killed in 1779 at the attack on Savannah.]214[Michal Dzierzanowski, a Confederate of Bar and an adventurer[pg 353]famous in the eighteenth century; he took part in almost all the wars of his time. He died in 1808. The Cossack Sawa was one of the most active leaders in the Confederacy of Bar.]215The mournful song of Pani Cybulski, whom her husband gambled away at cards to the Muscovites, is well known in Lithuania.216[That is, is fickle. The translator is here indebted to Miss Biggs's version.]217[Charles Francois Dumouriez (1739-1823) was an agent of the French government sent to support the Confederacy of Bar. He later became prominent in the affairs of his own country.]218[The Piasts were the first royal dynasty of Poland. In later times the name was used to denote any candidate for the Polish throne who was of native birth.]219[The italicised words are of foreign origin in the original text. For old Maciek everything not Polish is Muscovite or German. Gerwazy has the same way of thinking: compare p.318.]220[Doubtless Maciek had heard of the excommunication of Napoleon by Pius VII. in 1809.]221The fashion of adopting the French garb raged in the provinces from 1800 to 1812. The majority of the young men changed their style of dress before marriage at the desire of their future wives. [On thekontuszsee note13.]222The story of the quarrel of Rejtan with the Prince de Nassau, which the Seneschal never concluded, is well known in popular tradition. We add here its conclusion, in order to gratify the curious reader.—Rejtan, angered by the boasting of the Prince de Nassau, took his stand beside him at the narrow passage that the beast must take; just at that moment a huge boar, infuriated by the shots and the baiting, rushed to the passage. Rejtan snatched the gun from the Prince's hands, cast his own on the ground, and, taking a pike and offering another to the German, said:“Now we will see who will do the better work with the spear.”The boar was just about to attack them, when the Seneschal Hreczecha, who was standing at some distance away, brought down the beast by an excellent shot. The gentlemen were at first angry, but later were reconciled and generously rewarded Hreczecha.
"Seat thyself underneath my leaves, O guest,And rest.I promise thee that the sharp-beaming sunHere shall not run,But 'neath the trees spread out a heavy shade:[pg 342]Here always from the fields cool winds have played;Here sparrows and the nightingales have madeCharming lament.And all my fragrant flowers their sweets have spentUpon the bees; my master's board is lentThat honey's gold.And I with gentle whisperings can foldSweet sleep upon thee. Yea, 'tis true I bearNo apples; yet my Lord speaks me as fairAs the most fruitful treesThat graced the Gardens of Hesperides."Translated by Miss H. H. Havermate and G. R. Noyes.]68See Goszczynski's poem,The Castle of Kaniow. [This poem, by Seweryn Goszczynski (1803-76) was published in 1828. The reference is probably to the following passage:“Does that prattling oak whisper in his ear sad tales of the disasters of this land, when beneath its sky the gloomy vulture of slaughter extended a dread shadow with bloody wings, and after it streamed clouds of Tatars?”]69[“Those used for the candles regularly lit by the Jews on Friday at sunset, to avoid the‘work’of kindling light or fire on the Sabbath.”—M. A. Biggs.]70Kolomyjkasare Ruthenian songs resembling the Polishmazurkas. [Ostrowski states that these are popular airs that are sung and danced at the same time. Naganowski adds that the first word is derived from the town of Kolomyja in Galicia.Mazurkais“merely the feminine form of Mazur,”a Masovian.]71[Dombrowski's march,“Poland has not yet perished.”Compare pp.325,326,334.]72[See note42.]73[The Jews in Poland, though not persecuted, formed a separate class, without share in the government of the country. They were separated from the Poles by religion, customs, and language. Yet instances of intermarriage and assimilation were not uncommon. Compare p.100.]74Thepokucieis the place of honour, where formerly the household gods were set, and where still the Russians hang their sacred pictures (ikons). Here a Lithuanian peasant seats any guest whom he desires to honour.75[July mead (lipcowy miod) perhaps might better be calledlinden-flower mead. The Polish name of July,lipiec, is derived fromlipa, a linden tree. See the epigram quoted in note67.]76[See note2. Since Czenstochowa was in the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, Robak finds occasion to hint at the reunion of Lithuania and the Kingdom.]77[The reference is to the Eastern (Orthodox) Church, the state church of Russia.]78[Compare p.319.][pg 343]79[An old jingle expressing the equality before the law of all members of the Polish gentry.]80[Maciej Stryjkowski (1547-83) wrote a famous chronicle that is one of the sources for the early history of Lithuania.“Polish heraldry is comparatively simple beside that of other countries. The use of family names was unknown till the fifteenth century; before that the different branches of one stock were only recognised by one common escutcheon. One might belong to the stock of the arrow, the two daggers, the horseshoe, the double or triple cross, etc. There were only 540 of these escutcheons for the whole of Poland. A great number of families were grouped together under each one of these signs; we shall often find a man described as being of such and such a crest.”—M. A. Biggs.“It may be added that a wealthy and powerful nobleman often rewarded his retainers andfamuliby‘admitting them to his escutcheon,’i.e.obtaining for them a diploma of honour from the King, ratifying the knightly adoption. Hence it is common to hear of the greatest and most ancient Polish families having the same armorial bearings with some very obscure ones.”—Naganowski. Compare p.319.]81[See p.334.]82[“Thetarataikais species of capote; theczamaraa long frock-coat, braided on the back and chest like a huzzar's uniform, and with tight sleeves. Thesukmanais a sort of peasant's coat made of cloth, the wearing of which by Kosciuszko indicated his strong democratic tendencies, and sympathy with the lower classes.”—M. A. Biggs.]83The beaks of large birds of prey become more and more curved with advancing age, and finally the upper part grows so crooked that it closes the bill, and the bird must die of hunger. This popular belief has been accepted by some ornithologists.84It is a fact that there is no instance of the skeleton of a dead animal having been found.85Birdies(ptaszynki)are guns of small calibre, used with a small bullet. A good marksman with such a fowling-piece can hit a bird on the wing.86[“It may be interesting to know that one of the yet surviving friends and schoolfellows of Mickiewicz, Ignatius Domejko, the present Rector of the University of Santiago (Chili), related during his stay in Warsaw last year (1884) that he challenged the young poet, then at Wilno, to find a proper name riming with Domejko. Mickiewicz improvised a verse riming Domejko with Dowejko. It is not, however, quite certain whether there was actually a family of that name.”—Naganowski.]87Little leaves of gold lie at the bottom of bottles of Dantzic brandy. [The city, formerly under Polish rule, was annexed to Prussia at the time of the Second Partition, 1793.][pg 344]88[“The bigos was not of course prepared then and there on the spot. It is usually made in large quantities, put into barrels, and stored in cellars. The oftener it is heated the more savoury it is.”—M. A. Biggs.]89[See p.333.]90Queen Dido had a bull's hide cut into strips, and thus enclosed within the circuit of the hide a considerable territory, where she afterwards built Carthage. The Seneschal did not read the description of this event in theAeneid, but in all probability in the scholiasts' commentaries.N.B.—Some places in the fourth book are by the hand of Stefan Witwicki.]91Once in the Diet the deputy Philip, from the village of Konopie (hemp), obtaining the floor, wandered so far from the subject that he raised a general laugh in the chamber. Hence arose the proverb:“He has bobbed up like Philip from the hemp.”92[There is here an untranslatable pun in the original;niemiec,the Polish word forGerman, is derived fromniemy,dumb.]93[In the original:“And the Word became——”“These words of the Gospel of St. John are often used as an exclamation of astonishment.”—M. A. Biggs.]94[“Of all spoils the most important were thespolia opima, a term applied to those only which the commander-in-chief of a Roman army stripped in a field of battle from the leader of the foe.”—Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities. They were awarded but three or four times in the course of Roman history.]95[In the original there is here an internal jingle betweenklucznik(warden) andpuszczyk(screech owl).]96[This festival furnished the subject and the title for Mickiewicz's greatest poem, next toPan Tadeusz. The poet's own explanation of it is in part as follows:“This is the name of a festival still celebrated among the common folk in many districts of Lithuania, Prussia, and Courland. The festival goes back to pagan times, and was formerly called the feast of the goat (koziel), the director of which was thekozlarz, at once priest and poet. At the present time, since the enlightened clergy and landowners have been making efforts to root out a custom accompanied by superstitious practices and often by culpable excesses, the folk celebrate theforefatherssecretly in chapels or in empty houses not far from the graveyard. There they ordinarily spread a feast of food, drink, and fruits of various sorts and invoke the spirits of the dead. The folk hold the opinion that by this food and drink and by their songs they bring relief to souls in Purgatory.”]97[See note1]98[The original here has a delightful pun. Gerwazy misunderstands his lord's high-flown wordwassalow(vassals) aswonsalow(mustachioed champions). A long mustache was the dearest[pg 345]adornment of a Polish gentleman; compare Gerwazy's description of Jacek on pages43and115, wherewonsalis the title given him in the original.]99[The last three names might be translated,Cuttem, Slashem, Whackem.]100[Thebuzdyganor mace was the staff of office of certain subordinate officers in the Polish army, as thebulawawas that of thehetmansor generals. Each was a short rod with a knob at the end, but the knob on thebulawawas round, that on thebuzdyganwas pear-shaped, with longitudinal notches.]101[See note82.]102In Lithuania the nameokolicaorzascianekis given to a settlement of gentry, to distinguish them from true villages, which are settlements of peasants. [“Thesezasciankiwere inhabited by the poorest of the lesser nobility, who were in fact peasants, but possessed of truly Castilian pride. The wearing of a sword being restricted to nobles, it was not unusual to see suchzasciankowicze, or peasant nobles, following the plough bare-footed, wearing an old rusty sword hanging at their side by hempen cords.”—Naganowski. In this volumehamlethas been arbitrarily chosen as a translation for the name of these villages of gentry.]103[Seepage 334.]104Kisielis a Lithuanian dish, a sort of jelly made of oaten yeast, which is washed with water until all the mealy parts are separated from it: hence the proverb. [The literal translation of the Polish line is simply:“To the Horeszkos he is merely the tenth water on the kisiel.”]105[See pp.334,335.]106[See p.332.]107[See p.335.]108[The arms of Lithuania (called the“Pursuit”) are a horse-man in full career, with sword uplifted to strike. The Bear is the coat-of-arms of Zmudz, a portion of Lithuania, on the Baltic]109[Wilno (Vilna).]110[A French statesman and historian, in the years 1810-12 Napoleon's representative at Warsaw.]111[“A convicted slanderer was compelled to crawl under the table or bench, and in that position to bark three times like a dog, and pronounce his recantation. Hence the Polish wordodszczekac, to bark back, generally used to express recanting.”—M. A. Biggs.]112After various brawls this man was seized at Minsk, and shot, in accordance with a court decree.113When the King was to assemble the general militia, he had a pole set up in each parish with a broom or bundle of twigs tied to the top. This was calledsending out the twigs. Every grown man of the knightly order was obliged, under pain of loss of the privileges of gentle birth, to rally at once to the Wojewoda's[pg 346]standard. [The twigs symbolised the King's authority to inflict punishment. The reign of Jan III. Sobieski was 1674-96.]114[“The district of Dobrzyn in Masovia, that exclusively Polish region the central point of which is Warsaw. The inhabitants of it are called Masovians; hence this name is also applied to the men of Dobrzyn who emigrated from Masovia to Lithuania.”—Lipiner.]115[Bartlomiej is the Polish form of Bartholomew; Maciej and Maciek (a diminutive) are variant forms of Matyasz (Matthias).]116By-names are really sobriquets.117[Krolik, Maciej's nickname, means bothrabbitandlittle kingorkinglet.]118[See p.333.]119[See note29.]120[Maciej had naturally joined the Confederates of Bar, who opposed the King because of his subserviency to the Russians.“But when the King later declared himself for the patriotic party… it is no wonder that our Maciek took sides with the crown, the power of which then needed strengthening. He supported Tyzenhaus, because of the latter's beneficial activity in the most important direction, that of the economic welfare of the country. After the King's contemptible desertion to the camp of the Confederates of Targowica, all noble and patriotic men in Poland had of course to oppose him. Thus the King, and not Maciek, was the real Cock-on-the-Steeple, and our man of Dobrzyn was really always on the side of those who fought for‘the good of the country.’”—Lipiner.]121[The last Under-Treasurer of Lithuania. He took part in Jasinski's insurrection: compare p. 3 and note7.]122Alexander Count Pociej, on his return to Lithuania after the war, assisted those of his fellow-countrymen who were emigrating abroad, and sent considerable sums to the treasury of the Legions.123[The opening line of a popular hymn by Franciszek Karpinski (1741-1825).]124[This form of greeting is still used by the common people in Poland.]125[Joseph Grabowski, a landed proprietor of the Grand Duchy of Posen, was a colonel of the General Staff during the Napoleonic wars, and later played an important part in the public life of the Grand Duchy. At Lukow, near Obiezierz, in 1831, he entertained Mickiewicz and his brother Franciszek.]126[See note46.]127[See p.334.]128[A proverbial phrase; compare p.283.]129[Also often called Baptist.]130[See note20.][pg 347]131[See p.333.]132[“The‘contracts’of Kiev and Minsk were famous fairs, held in those cities at stated times, for the conclusion of agreements of all sorts.”—Jaroszynski. As these are the only contracts of which Maciej has heard, the word, as used by the eloquent student of Rousseau, naturally puzzles him. (Adapted from Naganowski.)]133[“In 1568 a Polish gentleman named Pszonka founded on his estate, Babin, near Lublin, a satiric society, called the Babin Republic. It scourged contemporary manners in a peculiar fashion, sending to every man who became noted for some crime or folly a diploma by virtue of which he was admitted to the‘Republic’and had an office conferred on him. Thus, for example, a quack was appointed physician, a coward general, and a spendthrift steward.”—Lipiner.]134[See p.333.]135[“Klejnot, here translatedjewel, also meansescutcheon.]136[“The order of the Piarists attained, after the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1773, great influence over the education of youth, and initiated, mainly by the efforts of Konarski, an improved system of education. While the Jesuits had laid the main stress upon Latin, the Piarists substituted French as the groundwork of education. This was an improvement upon the previous system, but it had the effect of inducing an aping of French manners and customs in literature and social life, till the reaction in favour of Polish nationality.”—M. A. Biggs (slightly altered).]137[Literally,“of Marymont flour.”Marymont is a village near Warsaw, which is (or was) famous for its flour.]138[The epithet in the original isSak, a sack;glupi jak sak,“stupid as a sack,”is a Polish proverb. As an equivalent, the archaicBuzzardseemed preferable to the grotesque modernDonkey.]139[Lele and Polele, or Lelum and Polelum, were reputed to be twin brothers in the Polish pagan mythology. Slowacki introduces them into his dramaLilla Weneda.]140[See p.332.]141[Berenice's hair. (Jaroszynski.)]142The constellation known among astronomers asUrsa Major.]143It was the custom to hang up in churches any fossil bones that might be discovered; the people regard them as the bones of giants.144The memorable comet of the year 1811.145[“When the plague is about to strike upon Lithuania, the eye of the seer divines its coming; for, if one may believe the bards, often in the desolate graveyards and meadows the Maid of Pestilence rises to sight, in a white garment, with a fiery crown on her temples; her brow towers over the trees of Bialowieza,[pg 348]and in her hand she waves a bloody kerchief.”—Mickiewicz,Konrad Wallenrod.]146Father Poczobut, an ex-Jesuit, and a famous astronomer, published a work on the Zodiac of Denderah, and by his observations aided Lalande in calculating the motions of the moon. See the biography of him by Jan Sniadecki.147[Jan Sniadecki (1756-1830) was a man of real distinction both as an astronomer and as one of the intellectual leaders of Poland. During Mickiewicz's student days he was professor at the University of Wilno. The young poet disliked him, as a representative of the cold, rationalistic tradition of the eighteenth century.]148[At Jassy, in Roumania, peace was concluded in 1792 between Russia and Turkey. The poet represents Branicki and his comrades as rushing to the protection of the Russian armies: compare p.334.]149[Fvlmen Orientis Joannes III. rex Poloniarvm ter maximus. Calissii typis Collegij Societatis Jesv. 1684.]150[Rubinkowski, Jan Kaz. Janina zwycieskich tryumfow Jana III. Poznan, S. J. 1739.]151[Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski (1734-1823), a cousin of Stanislaw Poniatowski, and one of the leading men of his time in Poland.]152[See p.3and note6.]153[See note29.]154[See p.171and note121.]155Properly Prince de Nassau-Siegen [1745-1808], a famous warrior and adventurer of those times. He was a Muscovite admiral and defeated the Turks in the bay [of the Dnieper, near Ochakov]; later he was himself utterly defeated by the Swedes. He spent some time in Poland, where he was granted the rights of a citizen. The combat of the Prince de Nassau with the tiger [in Africa!] was noised abroad at the time through all the newspapers of Europe.156[Thaddeus, though he may catch a glimpse of this scene through the keyhole, apparently does not hear the conversation, if one may judge by his later ignorance: compare p. 261.]157[In the originalSwitezianka, a nymph that apparently Mickiewicz himself invented as an inhabitant of the Switez, a small lake near his home. One of his ballads is entitledSwitezianka, anotherSwitez.]158[The Polish“short mile”was of 15,000 feet, or somewhat less than three English miles; the“long mile”was of 22,500 feet.]159[A sort of Polish Puck. He figures prominently in Slowacki's tragedyBalladyna.]160[See note21. The name of Plut's birthplace might be translatedSkinnem.][pg 349]161TheYellow Book, so called from its binding, is the barbarous book of Russian martial law. Frequently in time of peace the government proclaims whole provinces as being in a state of war, and on the authority of theYellow Bookconfers on the military commander complete power over the estates and lives of the citizens. It is a well-known fact that from the year 1812 to the revolution [of 1831] all Lithuania was subject to theYellow Book, of which the executor was the Grand Duke the Tsarevich [Constantine].]162[Joseph Baka (1707-80), a Jesuit, wroteReflections on Inevitable Death, Common to All. His short doggerel rimes, which breathe a jovial gaiety, were long extremely popular. In recent times suspicion has been cast on Baka's authorship of the work. (Adapted from Jaroszynski.)]163A Lithuanian club is made in the following way. A young oak is selected and is slashed from the bottom upwards with an axe, so that bark and bast are cut through and the wood slightly wounded. Into these notches are thrust sharp flints, which in time grow into the tree and form hard knobs. Clubs in pagan times formed the chief weapon of the Lithuanian infantry; they are still occasionally used, and are callednasieki, gnarled clubs.164After Jasinski's insurrection [compare p. 3 and note7], when the Lithuanian armies were retiring towards Warsaw, the Muscovites had come up to the deserted city of Wilno. General Deyov at the head of his staff was entering through the Ostra Gate. The streets were empty; the townsfolk had shut themselves in their houses. One townsman, seeing a cannon loaded with grapeshot, abandoned in an alley, aimed it at the gate and fired. This one shot saved Wilno for the time being; General Deyov and several officers perished; the rest, fearing an ambuscade, retired from the city. I do not know with certainty the name of that townsman.165Even later still forays (zajazdy) occurred, which, though not so famous, were still bloody and much talked of. About the year 1817 a man named U[zlowski] in the wojewodeship of Nowogrodek defeated in a foray the whole garrison of Nowogrodek and took its leaders captive.166[A town not far from Odessa, captured from the Turks in 1788 by Potemkin.]167[Izmail was a fortress in Bessarabia, captured from the Turks by Suvorov in 1790, after a peculiarly bloody siege. (Byron chose this episode for treatment inDon Juan, cantos vii and viii.) Mickiewicz makes Rykov give the name as Izmailov; Rykov is a bluff soldier, not a stickler for geographical nomenclature.]168[In Italy, near Modena, memorable for the victory of the Russians and Austrians over the French in 1799.]169Evidently Preussisch-Eylau. [In East Prussia: see p.334.]170[Alexander Rimski-Korsakov (1753-1840), a Russian[pg 350]general sent in 1799 to Switzerland in aid of Suvorov; he was beaten on September 25, before uniting with Suvorov, and was in consequence for a time dismissed from the service.]171[A village not far from Cracow, where on April 4, 1794, Kosciuszko with an army of 6000, among them 2000 peasants, armed with scythes, defeated a body of 7000 Russians.]172[See p.334.]173[Jan Tenczynski, an ambassador from Poland to Sweden, gained the love of a Swedish princess. On his journey to espouse her he was captured by the Danes, in 1562, and he died in confinement in Copenhagen in the next year. His memory has been honoured in verse by Kochanowski and in prose by Niemcewicz.]174[Compare p.305.]175[See note38.]176Apparently the Pantler was slain about the year 1791, at the time of the first war. [In the chronology of this poem there is serious confusion. From Jacek's narrative (pp.269-272) it is plain that Thaddeus was born shortly before the death of the Pantler. At the time of the action of the poem he is about twenty years old (p.21), and he was born at the time of Kosciuszko's war against the Russians (p.6), which would be naturally interpreted as 1794, the date of the war in which Kosciuszko was the dictator. All this would be consistent with the original plan of Mickiewicz, to have the action take place in 1814 (see Introduction, p. xiv); it conflicts with the chronology of the completed poem, the action of which is placed in the years 1811-12. Apparently Mickiewicz inserted the note above in a vain attempt to restore consistency. The“first war”could be none other than that following the Constitution of May 3, 1791, in which Prince Joseph Poniatowski and Kosciuszko were leaders. But this war did not begin until after the proclamation of the Confederacy of Targowica, which was on May 14,1792.]177[A former adjutant of Kosciuszko; he perished in the war of 1812.]178A certain Russian historian describes in similar fashion the omens and the premonitions of the Muscovite people before the war of 1812.179Run[the Polish word here used] is the winter corn when it comes up green.180Wyraj[the Polish word here used] in the popular dialect means properly the autumn season, when the migratory birds fly away; to fly towyrajmeans to fly to warm countries. Hence figuratively the folk applies the wordwyrajto warm countries and especially to some fabulous, happy countries, lying beyond the seas.181[Prince Joseph Poniatowski (compare pp.334-335) and Jerome Bonaparte (1784-1860),the youngest brother of Napoleon.]182[See pp.31and334, and note33.][pg 351]183[See pp.31and334, and note34.]184[Kazimierz Malachowski (1765-1845); he lived to share in the insurrection of 1831. Compare note35.]185[Romuald Giedrojc (1750-1824); in 1812 he organised the army in Lithuania.]186[Michal Grabowski (1773-1812), killed at the siege of Smolensk.]187A book now very rare, published more than a hundred years ago by Stanislaw Czerniecki.188That embassy to Rome has been often described and painted. See the preface toThe Perfect Cook:“This embassy, being a great source of amazement to every western state, redounded to the wisdom of the incomparable gentleman [Ossolinski] as well as to the splendour of his house and the magnificence of his table—so that one of the Roman princes said:‘To-day Rome is happy in having such an ambassador.’”N.B.—Czerniecki himself was Ossolinski's head cook. [The information given by Mickiewicz does not quite agree with that furnished by Estreicher,Bibliografia Polska(Cracow, 1896), xiv. 566, 567. Czerniecki was apparently the head cook of Lubomirski, Wojewoda of Cracow, etc., not of Ossolinski.]189[Karol Radziwill (1734-90), called My-dear-friend from a phrase that he constantly repeated, the richest magnate of his time in Poland and one immensely popular among the gentry, led a gay and adventurous life. In 1785 he entertained King Stanislaw at Nieswiez; this reception cost him millions.]190[Compare p.177and note128.]191[The festival of the Annunciation, March 25.]192In Lithuania, on the entrance of the French and Polish armies, confederacies were formed in each wojewodeship and deputies to the Diet were elected.193It is a well-known fact that at Hohenlinden the Polish corps led by General Kniaziewicz decided the victory. [At Hohenlinden in Bavaria the French under Moreau defeated the Austrians, December 3, 1800; compare p. 334.]194[See p.335.]195[A brand of deep disgrace. The Chamberlain is of course quoting from the Latin text of the law.]196[Militem(soldier) here signifies a full-fledged gentleman, of ancient lineage.Skartabell(a word of uncertain etymology) was a term applied to a newly created noble, who was not yet entitled to all the privileges of his order.]197[The Constitution of May 3, 1791 (see p.333), conferred many political rights on the inhabitants of the Polish cities and took the peasants“under the protection of the law,”though it did not set them free.]198[See p.332.]199[See note28.][pg 352]200[“The finest palace in Warsaw was beyond dispute that of General Pac, who died in exile at Smyrna.”—Ostrowski. The proprietor of the palace seems to have been present at Soplicowo at this very time: see p.301.]201[This was a Polish escutcheon characterised by a golden crescent and a six-pointed golden star. It was borne by the Soplicas: see p.319.]202[A village in eastern Galicia, the scene of a battle in 1667 between the Turks and the Poles under Sobieski.]203[See p.295and note200.]204Radziwill the Orphan travelled very widely, and published an account of his journey to the Holy Land. [Mikolaj Krzysztof Radziwill was converted from Calvinism to Catholicism. In 1582-84 he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and Egypt, on which he wrote a book.]205[See p.333.]206[Jaroszynski explainskontazas a sort of sausage,arkasas a cold dish of milk, cream, and yolks of eggs, andblemas(the same word asblancmange) as almond jelly.]207In the sixteenth, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century, at the time when the arts flourished, even banquets were directed by artists, and were full of symbols and of theatrical scenes. At a famous banquet given in Rome for Leo X. there was a centrepiece that represented the four seasons of the year in turn, and that evidently served as a model for Radziwill's. Table customs altered in Europe about the middle of the eighteenth century, but remained unchanged longest in Poland.208Pinety [Pinetti?] was a conjurer famous throughout Poland, but when he visited the country I do not know.209[Henryk Dembinski (1791-1864) took part in the Napoleonic wars, the insurrection of 1831, and the Hungarian insurrection of 1849.]210[Joseph Dwernicki (1778-1857), a member of the Legions, who in 1804 fitted out a squadron at his own cost. In 1826 he was made a general, and distinguished himself in the insurrection of 1831.]211[Samuel Rozycki entered the army in 1806; he took part in the insurrection of 1831.]212[The translator cannot find thatcounterpointis a term of fencing, but does not know how else to renderkontrpunkt.]213[The Pulawski family were among the organisers and most prominent leaders of the Confederacy of Bar. Joseph Pulawski was the first commander-in-chief of its armed forces. His son Kazimierz won fame as a leader after his father's death. Later, in 1777, he came to America, and distinguished himself by his services to the cause of the revolutionists. He was killed in 1779 at the attack on Savannah.]214[Michal Dzierzanowski, a Confederate of Bar and an adventurer[pg 353]famous in the eighteenth century; he took part in almost all the wars of his time. He died in 1808. The Cossack Sawa was one of the most active leaders in the Confederacy of Bar.]215The mournful song of Pani Cybulski, whom her husband gambled away at cards to the Muscovites, is well known in Lithuania.216[That is, is fickle. The translator is here indebted to Miss Biggs's version.]217[Charles Francois Dumouriez (1739-1823) was an agent of the French government sent to support the Confederacy of Bar. He later became prominent in the affairs of his own country.]218[The Piasts were the first royal dynasty of Poland. In later times the name was used to denote any candidate for the Polish throne who was of native birth.]219[The italicised words are of foreign origin in the original text. For old Maciek everything not Polish is Muscovite or German. Gerwazy has the same way of thinking: compare p.318.]220[Doubtless Maciek had heard of the excommunication of Napoleon by Pius VII. in 1809.]221The fashion of adopting the French garb raged in the provinces from 1800 to 1812. The majority of the young men changed their style of dress before marriage at the desire of their future wives. [On thekontuszsee note13.]222The story of the quarrel of Rejtan with the Prince de Nassau, which the Seneschal never concluded, is well known in popular tradition. We add here its conclusion, in order to gratify the curious reader.—Rejtan, angered by the boasting of the Prince de Nassau, took his stand beside him at the narrow passage that the beast must take; just at that moment a huge boar, infuriated by the shots and the baiting, rushed to the passage. Rejtan snatched the gun from the Prince's hands, cast his own on the ground, and, taking a pike and offering another to the German, said:“Now we will see who will do the better work with the spear.”The boar was just about to attack them, when the Seneschal Hreczecha, who was standing at some distance away, brought down the beast by an excellent shot. The gentlemen were at first angry, but later were reconciled and generously rewarded Hreczecha.
"Seat thyself underneath my leaves, O guest,And rest.I promise thee that the sharp-beaming sunHere shall not run,But 'neath the trees spread out a heavy shade:[pg 342]Here always from the fields cool winds have played;Here sparrows and the nightingales have madeCharming lament.And all my fragrant flowers their sweets have spentUpon the bees; my master's board is lentThat honey's gold.And I with gentle whisperings can foldSweet sleep upon thee. Yea, 'tis true I bearNo apples; yet my Lord speaks me as fairAs the most fruitful treesThat graced the Gardens of Hesperides."
"Seat thyself underneath my leaves, O guest,
And rest.
I promise thee that the sharp-beaming sun
Here shall not run,
But 'neath the trees spread out a heavy shade:
Here always from the fields cool winds have played;
Here sparrows and the nightingales have made
Charming lament.
And all my fragrant flowers their sweets have spent
Upon the bees; my master's board is lent
That honey's gold.
And I with gentle whisperings can fold
Sweet sleep upon thee. Yea, 'tis true I bear
No apples; yet my Lord speaks me as fair
As the most fruitful trees
That graced the Gardens of Hesperides."
Translated by Miss H. H. Havermate and G. R. Noyes.]
68See Goszczynski's poem,The Castle of Kaniow. [This poem, by Seweryn Goszczynski (1803-76) was published in 1828. The reference is probably to the following passage:“Does that prattling oak whisper in his ear sad tales of the disasters of this land, when beneath its sky the gloomy vulture of slaughter extended a dread shadow with bloody wings, and after it streamed clouds of Tatars?”]
69[“Those used for the candles regularly lit by the Jews on Friday at sunset, to avoid the‘work’of kindling light or fire on the Sabbath.”—M. A. Biggs.]
70Kolomyjkasare Ruthenian songs resembling the Polishmazurkas. [Ostrowski states that these are popular airs that are sung and danced at the same time. Naganowski adds that the first word is derived from the town of Kolomyja in Galicia.Mazurkais“merely the feminine form of Mazur,”a Masovian.]
71[Dombrowski's march,“Poland has not yet perished.”Compare pp.325,326,334.]
72[See note42.]
73[The Jews in Poland, though not persecuted, formed a separate class, without share in the government of the country. They were separated from the Poles by religion, customs, and language. Yet instances of intermarriage and assimilation were not uncommon. Compare p.100.]
74Thepokucieis the place of honour, where formerly the household gods were set, and where still the Russians hang their sacred pictures (ikons). Here a Lithuanian peasant seats any guest whom he desires to honour.
75[July mead (lipcowy miod) perhaps might better be calledlinden-flower mead. The Polish name of July,lipiec, is derived fromlipa, a linden tree. See the epigram quoted in note67.]
76[See note2. Since Czenstochowa was in the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, Robak finds occasion to hint at the reunion of Lithuania and the Kingdom.]
77[The reference is to the Eastern (Orthodox) Church, the state church of Russia.]
78[Compare p.319.]
79[An old jingle expressing the equality before the law of all members of the Polish gentry.]
80[Maciej Stryjkowski (1547-83) wrote a famous chronicle that is one of the sources for the early history of Lithuania.
“Polish heraldry is comparatively simple beside that of other countries. The use of family names was unknown till the fifteenth century; before that the different branches of one stock were only recognised by one common escutcheon. One might belong to the stock of the arrow, the two daggers, the horseshoe, the double or triple cross, etc. There were only 540 of these escutcheons for the whole of Poland. A great number of families were grouped together under each one of these signs; we shall often find a man described as being of such and such a crest.”—M. A. Biggs.
“It may be added that a wealthy and powerful nobleman often rewarded his retainers andfamuliby‘admitting them to his escutcheon,’i.e.obtaining for them a diploma of honour from the King, ratifying the knightly adoption. Hence it is common to hear of the greatest and most ancient Polish families having the same armorial bearings with some very obscure ones.”—Naganowski. Compare p.319.]
81[See p.334.]
82[“Thetarataikais species of capote; theczamaraa long frock-coat, braided on the back and chest like a huzzar's uniform, and with tight sleeves. Thesukmanais a sort of peasant's coat made of cloth, the wearing of which by Kosciuszko indicated his strong democratic tendencies, and sympathy with the lower classes.”—M. A. Biggs.]
83The beaks of large birds of prey become more and more curved with advancing age, and finally the upper part grows so crooked that it closes the bill, and the bird must die of hunger. This popular belief has been accepted by some ornithologists.
84It is a fact that there is no instance of the skeleton of a dead animal having been found.
85Birdies(ptaszynki)are guns of small calibre, used with a small bullet. A good marksman with such a fowling-piece can hit a bird on the wing.
86[“It may be interesting to know that one of the yet surviving friends and schoolfellows of Mickiewicz, Ignatius Domejko, the present Rector of the University of Santiago (Chili), related during his stay in Warsaw last year (1884) that he challenged the young poet, then at Wilno, to find a proper name riming with Domejko. Mickiewicz improvised a verse riming Domejko with Dowejko. It is not, however, quite certain whether there was actually a family of that name.”—Naganowski.]
87Little leaves of gold lie at the bottom of bottles of Dantzic brandy. [The city, formerly under Polish rule, was annexed to Prussia at the time of the Second Partition, 1793.]
88[“The bigos was not of course prepared then and there on the spot. It is usually made in large quantities, put into barrels, and stored in cellars. The oftener it is heated the more savoury it is.”—M. A. Biggs.]
89[See p.333.]
90Queen Dido had a bull's hide cut into strips, and thus enclosed within the circuit of the hide a considerable territory, where she afterwards built Carthage. The Seneschal did not read the description of this event in theAeneid, but in all probability in the scholiasts' commentaries.
N.B.—Some places in the fourth book are by the hand of Stefan Witwicki.]
91Once in the Diet the deputy Philip, from the village of Konopie (hemp), obtaining the floor, wandered so far from the subject that he raised a general laugh in the chamber. Hence arose the proverb:“He has bobbed up like Philip from the hemp.”
92[There is here an untranslatable pun in the original;niemiec,the Polish word forGerman, is derived fromniemy,dumb.]
93[In the original:“And the Word became——”“These words of the Gospel of St. John are often used as an exclamation of astonishment.”—M. A. Biggs.]
94[“Of all spoils the most important were thespolia opima, a term applied to those only which the commander-in-chief of a Roman army stripped in a field of battle from the leader of the foe.”—Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities. They were awarded but three or four times in the course of Roman history.]
95[In the original there is here an internal jingle betweenklucznik(warden) andpuszczyk(screech owl).]
96[This festival furnished the subject and the title for Mickiewicz's greatest poem, next toPan Tadeusz. The poet's own explanation of it is in part as follows:“This is the name of a festival still celebrated among the common folk in many districts of Lithuania, Prussia, and Courland. The festival goes back to pagan times, and was formerly called the feast of the goat (koziel), the director of which was thekozlarz, at once priest and poet. At the present time, since the enlightened clergy and landowners have been making efforts to root out a custom accompanied by superstitious practices and often by culpable excesses, the folk celebrate theforefatherssecretly in chapels or in empty houses not far from the graveyard. There they ordinarily spread a feast of food, drink, and fruits of various sorts and invoke the spirits of the dead. The folk hold the opinion that by this food and drink and by their songs they bring relief to souls in Purgatory.”]
97[See note1]
98[The original here has a delightful pun. Gerwazy misunderstands his lord's high-flown wordwassalow(vassals) aswonsalow(mustachioed champions). A long mustache was the dearest[pg 345]adornment of a Polish gentleman; compare Gerwazy's description of Jacek on pages43and115, wherewonsalis the title given him in the original.]
99[The last three names might be translated,Cuttem, Slashem, Whackem.]
100[Thebuzdyganor mace was the staff of office of certain subordinate officers in the Polish army, as thebulawawas that of thehetmansor generals. Each was a short rod with a knob at the end, but the knob on thebulawawas round, that on thebuzdyganwas pear-shaped, with longitudinal notches.]
101[See note82.]
102In Lithuania the nameokolicaorzascianekis given to a settlement of gentry, to distinguish them from true villages, which are settlements of peasants. [“Thesezasciankiwere inhabited by the poorest of the lesser nobility, who were in fact peasants, but possessed of truly Castilian pride. The wearing of a sword being restricted to nobles, it was not unusual to see suchzasciankowicze, or peasant nobles, following the plough bare-footed, wearing an old rusty sword hanging at their side by hempen cords.”—Naganowski. In this volumehamlethas been arbitrarily chosen as a translation for the name of these villages of gentry.]
103[Seepage 334.]
104Kisielis a Lithuanian dish, a sort of jelly made of oaten yeast, which is washed with water until all the mealy parts are separated from it: hence the proverb. [The literal translation of the Polish line is simply:“To the Horeszkos he is merely the tenth water on the kisiel.”]
105[See pp.334,335.]
106[See p.332.]
107[See p.335.]
108[The arms of Lithuania (called the“Pursuit”) are a horse-man in full career, with sword uplifted to strike. The Bear is the coat-of-arms of Zmudz, a portion of Lithuania, on the Baltic]
109[Wilno (Vilna).]
110[A French statesman and historian, in the years 1810-12 Napoleon's representative at Warsaw.]
111[“A convicted slanderer was compelled to crawl under the table or bench, and in that position to bark three times like a dog, and pronounce his recantation. Hence the Polish wordodszczekac, to bark back, generally used to express recanting.”—M. A. Biggs.]
112After various brawls this man was seized at Minsk, and shot, in accordance with a court decree.
113When the King was to assemble the general militia, he had a pole set up in each parish with a broom or bundle of twigs tied to the top. This was calledsending out the twigs. Every grown man of the knightly order was obliged, under pain of loss of the privileges of gentle birth, to rally at once to the Wojewoda's[pg 346]standard. [The twigs symbolised the King's authority to inflict punishment. The reign of Jan III. Sobieski was 1674-96.]
114[“The district of Dobrzyn in Masovia, that exclusively Polish region the central point of which is Warsaw. The inhabitants of it are called Masovians; hence this name is also applied to the men of Dobrzyn who emigrated from Masovia to Lithuania.”—Lipiner.]
115[Bartlomiej is the Polish form of Bartholomew; Maciej and Maciek (a diminutive) are variant forms of Matyasz (Matthias).]
116By-names are really sobriquets.
117[Krolik, Maciej's nickname, means bothrabbitandlittle kingorkinglet.]
118[See p.333.]
119[See note29.]
120[Maciej had naturally joined the Confederates of Bar, who opposed the King because of his subserviency to the Russians.“But when the King later declared himself for the patriotic party… it is no wonder that our Maciek took sides with the crown, the power of which then needed strengthening. He supported Tyzenhaus, because of the latter's beneficial activity in the most important direction, that of the economic welfare of the country. After the King's contemptible desertion to the camp of the Confederates of Targowica, all noble and patriotic men in Poland had of course to oppose him. Thus the King, and not Maciek, was the real Cock-on-the-Steeple, and our man of Dobrzyn was really always on the side of those who fought for‘the good of the country.’”—Lipiner.]
121[The last Under-Treasurer of Lithuania. He took part in Jasinski's insurrection: compare p. 3 and note7.]
122Alexander Count Pociej, on his return to Lithuania after the war, assisted those of his fellow-countrymen who were emigrating abroad, and sent considerable sums to the treasury of the Legions.
123[The opening line of a popular hymn by Franciszek Karpinski (1741-1825).]
124[This form of greeting is still used by the common people in Poland.]
125[Joseph Grabowski, a landed proprietor of the Grand Duchy of Posen, was a colonel of the General Staff during the Napoleonic wars, and later played an important part in the public life of the Grand Duchy. At Lukow, near Obiezierz, in 1831, he entertained Mickiewicz and his brother Franciszek.]
126[See note46.]
127[See p.334.]
128[A proverbial phrase; compare p.283.]
129[Also often called Baptist.]
130[See note20.]
131[See p.333.]
132[“The‘contracts’of Kiev and Minsk were famous fairs, held in those cities at stated times, for the conclusion of agreements of all sorts.”—Jaroszynski. As these are the only contracts of which Maciej has heard, the word, as used by the eloquent student of Rousseau, naturally puzzles him. (Adapted from Naganowski.)]
133[“In 1568 a Polish gentleman named Pszonka founded on his estate, Babin, near Lublin, a satiric society, called the Babin Republic. It scourged contemporary manners in a peculiar fashion, sending to every man who became noted for some crime or folly a diploma by virtue of which he was admitted to the‘Republic’and had an office conferred on him. Thus, for example, a quack was appointed physician, a coward general, and a spendthrift steward.”—Lipiner.]
134[See p.333.]
135[“Klejnot, here translatedjewel, also meansescutcheon.]
136[“The order of the Piarists attained, after the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1773, great influence over the education of youth, and initiated, mainly by the efforts of Konarski, an improved system of education. While the Jesuits had laid the main stress upon Latin, the Piarists substituted French as the groundwork of education. This was an improvement upon the previous system, but it had the effect of inducing an aping of French manners and customs in literature and social life, till the reaction in favour of Polish nationality.”—M. A. Biggs (slightly altered).]
137[Literally,“of Marymont flour.”Marymont is a village near Warsaw, which is (or was) famous for its flour.]
138[The epithet in the original isSak, a sack;glupi jak sak,“stupid as a sack,”is a Polish proverb. As an equivalent, the archaicBuzzardseemed preferable to the grotesque modernDonkey.]
139[Lele and Polele, or Lelum and Polelum, were reputed to be twin brothers in the Polish pagan mythology. Slowacki introduces them into his dramaLilla Weneda.]
140[See p.332.]
141[Berenice's hair. (Jaroszynski.)]
142The constellation known among astronomers asUrsa Major.]
143It was the custom to hang up in churches any fossil bones that might be discovered; the people regard them as the bones of giants.
144The memorable comet of the year 1811.
145[“When the plague is about to strike upon Lithuania, the eye of the seer divines its coming; for, if one may believe the bards, often in the desolate graveyards and meadows the Maid of Pestilence rises to sight, in a white garment, with a fiery crown on her temples; her brow towers over the trees of Bialowieza,[pg 348]and in her hand she waves a bloody kerchief.”—Mickiewicz,Konrad Wallenrod.]
146Father Poczobut, an ex-Jesuit, and a famous astronomer, published a work on the Zodiac of Denderah, and by his observations aided Lalande in calculating the motions of the moon. See the biography of him by Jan Sniadecki.
147[Jan Sniadecki (1756-1830) was a man of real distinction both as an astronomer and as one of the intellectual leaders of Poland. During Mickiewicz's student days he was professor at the University of Wilno. The young poet disliked him, as a representative of the cold, rationalistic tradition of the eighteenth century.]
148[At Jassy, in Roumania, peace was concluded in 1792 between Russia and Turkey. The poet represents Branicki and his comrades as rushing to the protection of the Russian armies: compare p.334.]
149[Fvlmen Orientis Joannes III. rex Poloniarvm ter maximus. Calissii typis Collegij Societatis Jesv. 1684.]
150[Rubinkowski, Jan Kaz. Janina zwycieskich tryumfow Jana III. Poznan, S. J. 1739.]
151[Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski (1734-1823), a cousin of Stanislaw Poniatowski, and one of the leading men of his time in Poland.]
152[See p.3and note6.]
153[See note29.]
154[See p.171and note121.]
155Properly Prince de Nassau-Siegen [1745-1808], a famous warrior and adventurer of those times. He was a Muscovite admiral and defeated the Turks in the bay [of the Dnieper, near Ochakov]; later he was himself utterly defeated by the Swedes. He spent some time in Poland, where he was granted the rights of a citizen. The combat of the Prince de Nassau with the tiger [in Africa!] was noised abroad at the time through all the newspapers of Europe.
156[Thaddeus, though he may catch a glimpse of this scene through the keyhole, apparently does not hear the conversation, if one may judge by his later ignorance: compare p. 261.]
157[In the originalSwitezianka, a nymph that apparently Mickiewicz himself invented as an inhabitant of the Switez, a small lake near his home. One of his ballads is entitledSwitezianka, anotherSwitez.]
158[The Polish“short mile”was of 15,000 feet, or somewhat less than three English miles; the“long mile”was of 22,500 feet.]
159[A sort of Polish Puck. He figures prominently in Slowacki's tragedyBalladyna.]
160[See note21. The name of Plut's birthplace might be translatedSkinnem.]
161TheYellow Book, so called from its binding, is the barbarous book of Russian martial law. Frequently in time of peace the government proclaims whole provinces as being in a state of war, and on the authority of theYellow Bookconfers on the military commander complete power over the estates and lives of the citizens. It is a well-known fact that from the year 1812 to the revolution [of 1831] all Lithuania was subject to theYellow Book, of which the executor was the Grand Duke the Tsarevich [Constantine].]
162[Joseph Baka (1707-80), a Jesuit, wroteReflections on Inevitable Death, Common to All. His short doggerel rimes, which breathe a jovial gaiety, were long extremely popular. In recent times suspicion has been cast on Baka's authorship of the work. (Adapted from Jaroszynski.)]
163A Lithuanian club is made in the following way. A young oak is selected and is slashed from the bottom upwards with an axe, so that bark and bast are cut through and the wood slightly wounded. Into these notches are thrust sharp flints, which in time grow into the tree and form hard knobs. Clubs in pagan times formed the chief weapon of the Lithuanian infantry; they are still occasionally used, and are callednasieki, gnarled clubs.
164After Jasinski's insurrection [compare p. 3 and note7], when the Lithuanian armies were retiring towards Warsaw, the Muscovites had come up to the deserted city of Wilno. General Deyov at the head of his staff was entering through the Ostra Gate. The streets were empty; the townsfolk had shut themselves in their houses. One townsman, seeing a cannon loaded with grapeshot, abandoned in an alley, aimed it at the gate and fired. This one shot saved Wilno for the time being; General Deyov and several officers perished; the rest, fearing an ambuscade, retired from the city. I do not know with certainty the name of that townsman.
165Even later still forays (zajazdy) occurred, which, though not so famous, were still bloody and much talked of. About the year 1817 a man named U[zlowski] in the wojewodeship of Nowogrodek defeated in a foray the whole garrison of Nowogrodek and took its leaders captive.
166[A town not far from Odessa, captured from the Turks in 1788 by Potemkin.]
167[Izmail was a fortress in Bessarabia, captured from the Turks by Suvorov in 1790, after a peculiarly bloody siege. (Byron chose this episode for treatment inDon Juan, cantos vii and viii.) Mickiewicz makes Rykov give the name as Izmailov; Rykov is a bluff soldier, not a stickler for geographical nomenclature.]
168[In Italy, near Modena, memorable for the victory of the Russians and Austrians over the French in 1799.]
169Evidently Preussisch-Eylau. [In East Prussia: see p.334.]
170[Alexander Rimski-Korsakov (1753-1840), a Russian[pg 350]general sent in 1799 to Switzerland in aid of Suvorov; he was beaten on September 25, before uniting with Suvorov, and was in consequence for a time dismissed from the service.]
171[A village not far from Cracow, where on April 4, 1794, Kosciuszko with an army of 6000, among them 2000 peasants, armed with scythes, defeated a body of 7000 Russians.]
172[See p.334.]
173[Jan Tenczynski, an ambassador from Poland to Sweden, gained the love of a Swedish princess. On his journey to espouse her he was captured by the Danes, in 1562, and he died in confinement in Copenhagen in the next year. His memory has been honoured in verse by Kochanowski and in prose by Niemcewicz.]
174[Compare p.305.]
175[See note38.]
176Apparently the Pantler was slain about the year 1791, at the time of the first war. [In the chronology of this poem there is serious confusion. From Jacek's narrative (pp.269-272) it is plain that Thaddeus was born shortly before the death of the Pantler. At the time of the action of the poem he is about twenty years old (p.21), and he was born at the time of Kosciuszko's war against the Russians (p.6), which would be naturally interpreted as 1794, the date of the war in which Kosciuszko was the dictator. All this would be consistent with the original plan of Mickiewicz, to have the action take place in 1814 (see Introduction, p. xiv); it conflicts with the chronology of the completed poem, the action of which is placed in the years 1811-12. Apparently Mickiewicz inserted the note above in a vain attempt to restore consistency. The“first war”could be none other than that following the Constitution of May 3, 1791, in which Prince Joseph Poniatowski and Kosciuszko were leaders. But this war did not begin until after the proclamation of the Confederacy of Targowica, which was on May 14,1792.]
177[A former adjutant of Kosciuszko; he perished in the war of 1812.]
178A certain Russian historian describes in similar fashion the omens and the premonitions of the Muscovite people before the war of 1812.
179Run[the Polish word here used] is the winter corn when it comes up green.
180Wyraj[the Polish word here used] in the popular dialect means properly the autumn season, when the migratory birds fly away; to fly towyrajmeans to fly to warm countries. Hence figuratively the folk applies the wordwyrajto warm countries and especially to some fabulous, happy countries, lying beyond the seas.
181[Prince Joseph Poniatowski (compare pp.334-335) and Jerome Bonaparte (1784-1860),the youngest brother of Napoleon.]
182[See pp.31and334, and note33.]
183[See pp.31and334, and note34.]
184[Kazimierz Malachowski (1765-1845); he lived to share in the insurrection of 1831. Compare note35.]
185[Romuald Giedrojc (1750-1824); in 1812 he organised the army in Lithuania.]
186[Michal Grabowski (1773-1812), killed at the siege of Smolensk.]
187A book now very rare, published more than a hundred years ago by Stanislaw Czerniecki.
188That embassy to Rome has been often described and painted. See the preface toThe Perfect Cook:“This embassy, being a great source of amazement to every western state, redounded to the wisdom of the incomparable gentleman [Ossolinski] as well as to the splendour of his house and the magnificence of his table—so that one of the Roman princes said:‘To-day Rome is happy in having such an ambassador.’”N.B.—Czerniecki himself was Ossolinski's head cook. [The information given by Mickiewicz does not quite agree with that furnished by Estreicher,Bibliografia Polska(Cracow, 1896), xiv. 566, 567. Czerniecki was apparently the head cook of Lubomirski, Wojewoda of Cracow, etc., not of Ossolinski.]
189[Karol Radziwill (1734-90), called My-dear-friend from a phrase that he constantly repeated, the richest magnate of his time in Poland and one immensely popular among the gentry, led a gay and adventurous life. In 1785 he entertained King Stanislaw at Nieswiez; this reception cost him millions.]
190[Compare p.177and note128.]
191[The festival of the Annunciation, March 25.]
192In Lithuania, on the entrance of the French and Polish armies, confederacies were formed in each wojewodeship and deputies to the Diet were elected.
193It is a well-known fact that at Hohenlinden the Polish corps led by General Kniaziewicz decided the victory. [At Hohenlinden in Bavaria the French under Moreau defeated the Austrians, December 3, 1800; compare p. 334.]
194[See p.335.]
195[A brand of deep disgrace. The Chamberlain is of course quoting from the Latin text of the law.]196[Militem(soldier) here signifies a full-fledged gentleman, of ancient lineage.Skartabell(a word of uncertain etymology) was a term applied to a newly created noble, who was not yet entitled to all the privileges of his order.]
197[The Constitution of May 3, 1791 (see p.333), conferred many political rights on the inhabitants of the Polish cities and took the peasants“under the protection of the law,”though it did not set them free.]
198[See p.332.]
199[See note28.]
200[“The finest palace in Warsaw was beyond dispute that of General Pac, who died in exile at Smyrna.”—Ostrowski. The proprietor of the palace seems to have been present at Soplicowo at this very time: see p.301.]
201[This was a Polish escutcheon characterised by a golden crescent and a six-pointed golden star. It was borne by the Soplicas: see p.319.]
202[A village in eastern Galicia, the scene of a battle in 1667 between the Turks and the Poles under Sobieski.]
203[See p.295and note200.]
204Radziwill the Orphan travelled very widely, and published an account of his journey to the Holy Land. [Mikolaj Krzysztof Radziwill was converted from Calvinism to Catholicism. In 1582-84 he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and Egypt, on which he wrote a book.]
205[See p.333.]
206[Jaroszynski explainskontazas a sort of sausage,arkasas a cold dish of milk, cream, and yolks of eggs, andblemas(the same word asblancmange) as almond jelly.]
207In the sixteenth, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century, at the time when the arts flourished, even banquets were directed by artists, and were full of symbols and of theatrical scenes. At a famous banquet given in Rome for Leo X. there was a centrepiece that represented the four seasons of the year in turn, and that evidently served as a model for Radziwill's. Table customs altered in Europe about the middle of the eighteenth century, but remained unchanged longest in Poland.
208Pinety [Pinetti?] was a conjurer famous throughout Poland, but when he visited the country I do not know.
209[Henryk Dembinski (1791-1864) took part in the Napoleonic wars, the insurrection of 1831, and the Hungarian insurrection of 1849.]
210[Joseph Dwernicki (1778-1857), a member of the Legions, who in 1804 fitted out a squadron at his own cost. In 1826 he was made a general, and distinguished himself in the insurrection of 1831.]
211[Samuel Rozycki entered the army in 1806; he took part in the insurrection of 1831.]
212[The translator cannot find thatcounterpointis a term of fencing, but does not know how else to renderkontrpunkt.]
213[The Pulawski family were among the organisers and most prominent leaders of the Confederacy of Bar. Joseph Pulawski was the first commander-in-chief of its armed forces. His son Kazimierz won fame as a leader after his father's death. Later, in 1777, he came to America, and distinguished himself by his services to the cause of the revolutionists. He was killed in 1779 at the attack on Savannah.]
214[Michal Dzierzanowski, a Confederate of Bar and an adventurer[pg 353]famous in the eighteenth century; he took part in almost all the wars of his time. He died in 1808. The Cossack Sawa was one of the most active leaders in the Confederacy of Bar.]
215The mournful song of Pani Cybulski, whom her husband gambled away at cards to the Muscovites, is well known in Lithuania.
216[That is, is fickle. The translator is here indebted to Miss Biggs's version.]
217[Charles Francois Dumouriez (1739-1823) was an agent of the French government sent to support the Confederacy of Bar. He later became prominent in the affairs of his own country.]
218[The Piasts were the first royal dynasty of Poland. In later times the name was used to denote any candidate for the Polish throne who was of native birth.]
219[The italicised words are of foreign origin in the original text. For old Maciek everything not Polish is Muscovite or German. Gerwazy has the same way of thinking: compare p.318.]
220[Doubtless Maciek had heard of the excommunication of Napoleon by Pius VII. in 1809.]
221The fashion of adopting the French garb raged in the provinces from 1800 to 1812. The majority of the young men changed their style of dress before marriage at the desire of their future wives. [On thekontuszsee note13.]
222The story of the quarrel of Rejtan with the Prince de Nassau, which the Seneschal never concluded, is well known in popular tradition. We add here its conclusion, in order to gratify the curious reader.—Rejtan, angered by the boasting of the Prince de Nassau, took his stand beside him at the narrow passage that the beast must take; just at that moment a huge boar, infuriated by the shots and the baiting, rushed to the passage. Rejtan snatched the gun from the Prince's hands, cast his own on the ground, and, taking a pike and offering another to the German, said:“Now we will see who will do the better work with the spear.”The boar was just about to attack them, when the Seneschal Hreczecha, who was standing at some distance away, brought down the beast by an excellent shot. The gentlemen were at first angry, but later were reconciled and generously rewarded Hreczecha.