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The subject of the paper is a detailed interpretation of the first part of Jan Kochanowski's Tren V (Lament V) in the context of Psalm 128 ("Beati omnes, qui timent Domimmf). As we know, the main source of the opening part of this poem is an epic simile from Iliad (XVII, 53-58), where a young warrior Euphorbos is compared to a "slip of an olive tree" as "it blossoms into beauty." Similarly, Psalm 128 proposes the picture of sons growing up like "the olive plants around the table" of a pious man. In Kochanowski's rewriting of the Homeric simile the emphasis is always put on negation of the meanings attributed to the symbol of olive tree, such as peace, wisdom, justice, fertility, abundance, youth. The poet explores the significant absence of the promised blessing for a God-fearing man. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses two poetic pieces closely connected to the Battle of Ula, a significant episode of the war with Moscow for Livonia. Capturing Polock by the troops of Ivan the Terrible (February 15th, 1563) and starting the war campaign by the Tsar in January 1564 moved the conflict into the interior of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Two great Muscovite armies were to meet near the city of Orsha to move towards Vilnius that was placed 26 miles away from the war theatre. The victory of the Lithuanian troops in the Battle of Ula (January 26th, 1564) and almost complete defeat of one army of Ivan the Terrible moved the immediate threat away and made way for a series of successes of the Polish-Lithuanian armed forces. The above-sketched events make up a background of Jan Kochanowski's trifle III 51 and Maciej Stryjkowski's handwritten poem. Remarks on the epigram Do Lubimira (To Lubimir) lead to explication of the relation between the poem and the Greek basis of the trifle, and disambiguate its dating. While as far as recently rendered available fragments of Stryjkowski's work are concerned, they focus on the piece's description and the shape of the poem about the Battle of Ula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses a recently completed critical edition of Jan Kochanowski's Fraszki (Trifles), which will before long be issued as a subsequent volume of his Dzieła wszystkie (Collected Works). Different aspects of the publication are presented, including facsimile, transcription, and commentary. As a representative sample, a few actual passages from particular trifles are discussed in length. These include the following poems: I 48, I 55, I 78, II 55, III 1, III 39, III 46, III 53, III 63, and III 69. The most remarkable added value of the edition is that it contains countless minute discoveries--individually marginal-- creating much broader, much richer, and much deeper picture of Trifles than the previous editions might suggest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]