Epigram

For Polish

The texts in this blog were gathered, prepared and placed in the Internet by a group of journalists from Poznan, Poland. The journalists took part in a training session dedicated to the art of communication and presentation organized in Poznan, 24-25 March 2010 by School of Leaders. They prepared this site as the feedback of the excellent session conducted by real professionals.

God’s Plaything Man
by Jan Kochanowski (1530-1584)

No truer words were ever spoken than
A plaything of our Lord to call a man.
For is there anything a man has tried
That God's in no position to deride?
He's seen no God, but still he is so proud
That a god-like one he calls himself aloud.
His senses all with selfish love gone blind.
He thinks the world for him alone designed.
He'd been before he was; when he's not there.
He shall remain. Oh, fools are everywhere.

Jan Kochanowski (Polish pronunciation: [ˈjan kɔxaˈnɔfskʲi]; 1530 – August 22, 1584) was a Polish Renaissance poet who established poetic patterns that would become integral to Polish literary language. He is commonly regarded as the greatest Polish poet as well as the greatest Slavic poet prior to the 19th century.

Kochanowski was born at Sycyna, near Radom, Poland. Little is known of his early education. At fourteen, fluent in Latin, he was sent to the Kraków Academy. After graduation in 1547 at age seventeen, he attended the University of Königsberg (Królewiec), in Ducal Prussia, and Padua University in Italy. At Padua, Kochanowski came in contact with the great humanist scholar Francis Robortello. Kochanowski closed his fifteen-year period of studies and travels with a final visit to France, where he met the poet Pierre Ronsard.

Kochanowski never ceased to write in Latin; however, his main achievement was the creation of Polish-language verse forms that made him a classic for his contemporaries and posterity.

Kochanowski's first major masterpiece was Odprawa posłów greckich (The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys, 1578; recently translated into English by Indiana University's Bill Johnston). This was a blank-verse tragedy that recounted an incident leading up to the Trojan War. It was the first tragedy written in Polish, and its theme of the responsibilities of statesmanship continues to resonate to this day. The play was performed at the wedding of Jan Zamoyski and Krystyna Radziwiłł at Ujazdów Castle in Warsaw on January 12, 1578.

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