Laments - Jan Kochanowski (biblioteka internetowa .txt) 📖

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Autor: Jan Kochanowski
Epoka: Renesans
Rodzaj: Liryka

Czytasz książkę online - «Laments - Jan Kochanowski (biblioteka internetowa .txt) 📖». Wszystkie książki tego autora 👉 Jan Kochanowski

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class="verse">For when we think of mankind’s evil chance

Does not our private grief gain temperance?

Unhappy mother14 (if ’tis evil hap

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

Where are thy sons and daughters, seven each,

The joyful cause of thy too boastful speech?

I see their fourteen stones, and thou, alas,

Who from thy misery wouldst gladly pass

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

Where lies thy fruit so cruelly undone.

Thus blossoms fall where some keen sickle passes

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

What hope canst thou yet harbor in thee? Why

Dost thou not drive thy sorrow hence and die?

And thy swift arrows, Phoebus15, what do they?

And thine unerring bow, Diana16? Slay

Her, ye avenging gods, if not in rage,

Then out of pity for her desolate age.

A punishment for pride before unknown

Hath fallen: Niobe is turned to stone,

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

On Sipylus17 in deathless marble stands.

Yet from her living wounds a crystal fountain

Of tears flows through the rock and down the mountain,

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

Fixed in the path of all the winds remains.

This tomb holds naught, this woman hath no tomb:

To be both grave and body is her doom.

Lament XVI

Misfortune hath constrainèd me

To leave the lute and poetry,

Nor can I from their easing borrow

Sleep for my sorrow.

Do I see true, or hath a dream

Flown forth from ivory gates to gleam

In phantom gold, before forsaking

Its poor cheat, waking?

Oh, mad, mistaken humankind,

’Tis easy triumph for the mind

While yet no ill adventure strikes us

And naught mislikes us.

In plenty we praise poverty,

’Mid pleasures we hold grief to be

(And even death, ere it shall stifle

Our breath) a trifle.

But when the grudging spinner scants

Her thread and fate no surcease grants

From grief most deep and need most wearing,

Less calm our bearing.

Ah, Tully18, thou didst flee from Rome

With weeping, who didst say his home

The wise man found in any station,

In any nation.

And why dost mourn thy daughter so

When thou hast said the only woe

That man need dread is base dishonor ? —

Why sorrow on her?

Death, thou hast said, can terrify

The godless man alone. Then why

So loth, the pay for boldness giving,

To leave off living?

Thy words, that have persuaded men,

Persuade not thee, angelic pen;

Disaster findeth thy defenses,

Like mine, pretenses.

Soft stone is man: he takes the lines

That Fortune’s cutting tool designs.

To press the wounds wherewith she graves us,

Racks us or saves us?

Time, father of forgetfulness

So longed for now in my distress,

Since wisdom nor the saints can steel me,

Oh, do thou heal me!

Lament XVII

God hath laid his hand on me:

He hath taken all my glee,

And my spirit’s emptied cup

Soon must give its life-blood up.

If the sun doth wake and rise,

If it sink in gilded skies,

All alike my heart doth ache,

Comfort it can never take.

From my eyelids there do flow

Tears, and I must weep e’en so

Ever, ever. Lord of Light,

Who can hide him from thy sight!

Though we shun the stormy sea,

Though from war’s affray we flee,

Yet misfortune shows her face

Howsoe’er concealed our place.

Mine a life so far from fame

Few there were could know my name;

Evil hap and jealousy

Had no way of harming me.

But the Lord, who doth disdain

Flimsy safeguards raised by man,

Struck a blow more swift and sure

In that I was more secure.

Poor philosophy, so late

Of its power wont to prate,

Showeth its incompetence

Now that joy proceedeth hence.

Sometimes still it strives to prove

Heavy care it can remove;

But its little weight doth fail

To raise sorrow in the scale.

Idle is the foolish claim

Harm can have another name:

He who laughs when he is sad,

I should say was only mad.

Him who tries to prove our tears

Trifles, I will lend mine ears;

But my sorrow he thereby

Doth not check, but magnify.

Choice I have none, I must needs

Weep if all my spirit bleeds.

Calling it a graceless part

Only stabs anew my heart.

All such medicine, dear Lord,

Is another, sharper sword.

Who my healing would insure

Will seek out a gentler cure.

Let my tears prolong their flow.

Wisdom, I most truly know,

Hath no power to console:

Only God can make me whole.

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Lament XVIII

We are thy thankless children, gracious Lord.

The good thou dost afford

Lightly do we employ,

All careless of the one who giveth joy.

We heed not him from whom delights do flow.

Until they fade and go

We take no thought to render

That gratitude we owe the bounteous sender.

Yet keep us in thy care. Let not our pride

Cause thee, dear God, to hide

The glory of thy beauty:

Chasten us till we shall recall our duty.

Yet punish us as with a father’s hand.

We mites, cannot withstand

Thine anger; we are snow,

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

Make us not perish thus, eternal God,

From thy too heavy rod.

Recall that thy disdain

Alone doth give thy children bitter pain.

Yet I do know thy mercy doth abound

While yet the spheres turn round,

And thou wilt never cast

Without the man who humbles him at last.

Though great and many my transgressions are,

Thy goodness greater far

Than mine iniquity:

Lord, manifest thy mercy unto me!

Lament XIX The Dream

Long through the night hours sorrow was my guest

And would not let my fainting body rest,

Till just ere dawn from out its slow dominions

Flew sleep to wrap me in its dear dusk pinions.

And then it was my mother did appear

Before mine eyes in vision doubly dear;

For in her arms she held my darling one,

My Ursula, just as she used to run

To me at dawn to say her morning prayer,

In her white nightgown, with her curling hair

Framing her rosy face, her eyes about

To laugh, like flowers only halfway out.

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

My mother. Sighing bitterly, I woke,

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

«It is thy weeping brings me to this shore:

Thy lamentations, long uncomforted,

Have reached the hidden chambers of the dead,

Till I have come to grant thee some small grace

And let thee gaze upon thy daughter’s face,

That it may calm thy heart in some degree

And check the grief that imperceptibly

Doth gnaw away thy health and leave thee sick,

Like fire that turns to ashes a dry wick.

Dost thou believe the dead have perished quite,

Their sun gone down in an eternal night?

Ah no, we have a being far more splendid

Now that our bodies’ coarser claims are ended.

Though dust returns to dust, the spirit, given

A life eternal, must go back to heaven,

And little Ursula hath not gone out

Forever like a torch. Nay, cease thy doubt,

For I have brought her hither in the guise

She used to wear before thy mortal eyes,

Though mid the deathless angels, brighter far

She shineth as the lovely morning star;

And still she offers up her prayers for you

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

If herefrom Springs thy sorrow, that her years

Were broken off before all that endears

A life on earth to mortals she might prove —

Yet think how empty the delights that move

The minds of men, delights that must give place

At last to sorrow, as in thine own case.

Did then thy little girl such joy confer

That all the comfort thou didst find in her

Could parallel thine anguish of today?

Thou canst not answer otherwise than nay.

Then fret not that so early death has come

To what was dearest thee in Christendom.

She did not leave a land of much delight,

But one of toil and grief and evil blight

So plenteous, that all which men can hold

Of their so transitory blessings, gold,

Must lose its value through this base alloy,

This knowledge of the grief that follows joy.

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

She bought herself no lord, that she might cower

Before upbraidings from her husband’s kin?

That she knew not the pangs that usher in

The newborn child? And that she could not know,

Like her poor mother, if more racking woe

It were to bear or bury them? Ah, meet

Are such delights to make the world more sweet!

But heaven hath purer, surer happiness,

Free from all intermingling of distress.

Care rules not here and here we know not toil,

Misfortune and disaster do not spoil.

Here sickness can not enter nor old age,

And death, tear-nourished, hath no pasturage.

We live a life of endless joy that brings

Good thoughts; we know the causes of all things.

The sun shines on forever here, its light

Unconquered by impenetrable night;

And the Creator in his majesty

Invisible to mortals, we may see.

Then turn thy meditations hither, towards

This changeless gladness and these rich rewards.

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

Found thou thine efforts on a base more true.

Thy little girl hath chosen well her part,

Thou may’st believe, as one about to start

For the first time upon the stormy sea,

Beholding there great flux and jeopardy,

Returneth to the shore; while those that raise

Their sails, the wind or some blind crag betrays,

And this one dies from hunger, that from cold:

Scarce one escapes the perils manifold.

So she, who, though her years should have surpassed

That ancient Sybil, must have died at last,

Preferred that ending to anticipate

Before she knew the ills of man’s estate.

For some are left without their parents’ care,

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

One girl must marry headlong, and then rue

Her dower given up to God knows who;

Some maids are seized by their own countrymen,

Others, made captive by the Tatar clan

And held thus in a pagan, shameful thrall,

Must drink their tears till death comes ending all.

«But this thy little child need fear no more,

Who, taken early up to heaven’s door,

Could walk all glad and shining-pure within,

Her soul still innocent of earthly sin.

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

And let not sorrow be thy conqueror.

Reason and self-command are precious still

And yielding all to blighted hope is ill.

Be in this matter thine own lord, although

Thy longed-for happiness thou must forego.

For man is born exposed to circumstance,

To be the target of all evil chance,

And if we like it or we

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