Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński - Niobe versuri traducere în engleză

English
Translation

Niobe

DEDICATION
In the noon of the 20th century1
This concert, dark as the wind amidst boulders,
[Me,] an apprentice of Kochanowski,2
I laid it in the forests of Olsztyn.3
 

It’s for you that I carry these sounds as an offering,
May them surround your name.
You are for me the water in the scorch of the Summer
And you’re the glove in the Winter.
 

Take, oh Seven-string [guitar], this poor rhyme,
May it weave into your dark hair.
You – the wedding song of my road,
You – the shine and flash higher than the light of the world.
 

THE MESSAGE
My dear, when these pages will grow yellow,4
When the wind amidst boulders will calm down,
The grandson will see a small edge of the cloud in the Sun,
That will be the light of your eyes.
 

I
EUTHYPHRO5
THE OVERTURE6
 

1
Shapeless, unhappy,
Day and night at the seashore
Stands, turned into a rock –
 

2
The poor daughter of Tantalus7 daughter,
The poor Amphion’s wife,
Niobe, the unfortunate mother8
 

3
Seven sons, seven daughters,
Diana9 with Apollo executed
With their bows at dawn.
 

4
Around, there’s plantless void,
No electrical lights,
A stone stands on a stone.10
 

5
The sky looks coldly into Niobe,11
The dark cloud flashes with its bottom
The water splashes on the stone.
 

6
A [ship’s] sail goes on the horizon,
But it goes another way,
The night comes, and here [there’s] cold,
 

7
Unhappy, shapeless [Niobe].12
There, far away, the storm drums,
And here, in the front, the wind sings.
 

8
Niobe stands with [its] giant head,
The snow circled over the head,
The head of the wife of a musician
 

9
The head of Amphion’s wife,
The head of the daughter of Tantalus,
So much snow on the eyelids.
 

10
The stone tears do not fall,
The morning doesn’t start shining,
Only the seagulls scream.
 

BYZANTIUM13
Alme
Caesar
Vatis
Tui
Miserere
Domine14
 

Such an antiphon15 was written by Taliarch16 the poet, son of barrel maker, when he was plunged into sorrow, and composed the music for five most famous bells of the city of Byzantium.
 

And the name of the first bell: Euthyphro
Of the second – Archangelus17
Of the third – Nicholas18
Of the fourth – Gerion19
Of the fifth – Acroceraunia.20
Such are the names of the bells.
 

And when the bells were ringing out the antiphon of Taliarch, they say that, from their music, a golden shadow used to fall on the one thousand two hundred domes, the crows used to grow golden wings, the clouds were going green, and the figure of Niobe, standing on the small square of Michael the Archistrategos21 used to be become visibly happier.
First Euthyphro used to speak, and he used to call ALME, ALME, after him Archangelus with his CAESAR. Nicholas used to say VATIS, Gerion TUI, and Acroceraunia the bell, the one which later escaped to Rome,22 used to bleat MISERERE, blending all these singings, and drowning the sounds of his brothers, but in such a cunning way, that in his ringing you could hear the individual ringings: of Euthyphro, of Archangelus, of Nicholas and of Gerion.
Gerion the bell used to be the most cheerful of all the bell brothers: the statue of Niobe the Sorrowful was almost stretching out its hand, as if asking for a comb, when it listened to it.
And when the days were fulfilled and Muhammad II23 entered the city with his army, the figure of Niobe collapsed, and its head broke off. Then Taliarch the poet, son of barrel maker, jumped out from the dungeons, kidnapped the head and escaped with it to Florence.24
Dante25 had been dead for a century and a half by then.
Such is the introductory history of the marble head of Niobe, known as Nieborowian.26
 

THE SMALL FUGUE27
 

1
What wind, what fate used to kidnap you
By the roads of Europe, from one side to another?
Who had you in his hands, who admired you,
Oh the most beautiful of heads, Slavic-Greek?28
 

2
Who used to carry you in his carriage through the snowdrifts?
Who used to drag you through the seas on the bottom of his coffer?
Which bishop stopped “Pater noster,”29
To gaze into you as if into a painting?
 

3
You were, oh head, the witness to what crimes?
In which lands, states, in which regions?
Which scoundrel used to flash his torch before your nose,
Before your nose, as beautiful as a Sun ray?
 

4
Where have you been? Where? Down what street…
Did the thief carry you… and almost broke you?
Oh white head, the black mystery
Of the antique dealers of Rotterdam30
 

5
Perhaps Don Juan31 held you in his hand,
Dürer32, Holbein,33 Titian,34 Lucas Cranach,35
Perhaps the violin player Philipp Emanuel,36
The sone of great Johann Sebastian?37
 

6
Perhaps it was Titian who, during a Venetian night,
Lost his mind out of awe, while looking at you
And got up from his table, and, as a mockery,
Placed a myrtle wreath38 on your hair?
 

7
Oh great head of a great statue,
What was your spring? What was your winter?
In what circles did you have to wander
In Europe, as if in a Dantean forest?
 

8
What dust used to fall on you? What winds?
What storm? May storm? Snowstorm?
Until, after having sailed through the emeralds of the Black Sea,39
You fell as if a star on the shores of Azov?40
 

9
It’s there that you rested. And it’s there that you were found,
Under the reeds, deep, next to the Don41
But tell me everything. I’m like a husband
Who wants to know everything about [his] wife –
 

10
In the year 1950,
Gazing [into you], I’m asking you:
— Whose eyes was next to your eye,
Perhaps in Avignon?42 Perhaps in Bremen?43
 

II
CHACONNE44
THE CUSTODIAN45
 

The custodian of the museum in Nieborów says:
Found on the shores of the Sea of Azov46
By an expedition of scientists [sent] by Catherine II,47
Through exchange with the tsaritsa, if got in the hands of the magnate48 Radziwiłł family.49 Today it serves work with its beauty –
 

OSTINATO50
 

Niobe,
Marble with myrrh!51
Oh Niobe, Niobe,
About whom Aeschylus52 used to sing about already –
A dancing poem
Or a threnody53 for your glory,
A trochee54 or a iamb,55
Tell me, Niobe, what is appropriate for you?
How will I tilt [my] pen over the sheet of paper?
In Sapphic stanza?56 In Alcaic stanza?57
Niobe,
There are as many types of a song,
As the islands in the Aegean Sea.58
Niobe, if I were your child,
I wouldn’t search for strings:
Two words [coming] with spring, and what a hymn they are:
— Niobe! A swallow!
And that’s all: A swallow! Niobe!
And a flower under [your] foot.
Kochanowski would do it better, Prokofiev would,59
Chopin60 would.
It doesn’t matter, Niobe. Your voice chases me
And orders me.
It doesn’t matter it [places] a difficult music in my hand.
I’ll try anyway
I will add clouds, so that the rhyme would get darker,
So that it would glitter like gold more darkly,
And with the heart – splash!
Into Acheron61 –
Lower and lower,
Deeper and deeper,
Here?
No?
Niobe!
 

The wind squeals in the bulrush.62
The hands get cold.
Is that the one, is that your face?
Tell me quicker!
Niobe!
Do you perhaps have so many sisters,
And each of them has your head?
Oh, what a wind,
Oh, what a chill,
Niobe!
Niobe!
Through sand, through moss, through darkness, through peat,
Under a sky distorted like a weirdo –
And again through night, through the cawing of the crows,
Niobe,
My legs hurt!
They will not walk anymore,
They will rest a little.
Heinrich,63 a fib
“Lyrisches Intermezzo”:64
A tear in violin,
Cheap spleen.65
Acheron, are you flowing?
So flow.
 

THE SMALL VIOLIN CONCERT
 

1
These lit windows… Who lives there now?
These windows, pelargonias,66 small bridge, small stream,
The old well with Neptune,67 an apple tree, greenness, a path –
And where is that?
 

2
The wind used to sway the net curtains, smelling of lily of the valley.68
A candle stood in the candlestick. The nightingale played the violin.
The silver of the stars was ringing heaving in the plaits of the night –
And where is that?
 

3
The clock used to shine from the tower with its blue dial,
And through the sky, a late cloudlet sailed –
And later, the Moon rose and used to open the windows –
And where is that?
 

4
The Southern Wind blew into the barber surgen’s69 plates,
A dog was going through the small street, holding a lantern in its teeth,
Bouquets, sparkles, whispers, were falling into water –
And where is that?
 

5
An engagement in gazebo.70 A pearl. An emerald. A ruby.
“Ballads and Romances”.71 Names. Wind in the field[s].
And the Moon, he used to whisper, and whisper, and whisper72 in [my] ear –
And where is that?
 

THE NAENIA OF NIOBE73
 

What a ni-i-ght,
I mistake in my way,
What a ni-i-ght,
The highway is so bright amidst the darkness
Where are you-u, children,
Where are you?
From which stream do you drink
Bland water?
I’ve been looking for you in Paris –
I haven’t found [you].
And with a lamp in the sewers.
The lamp went off.
What a da-a-rkness!
What a sno-o-w!
It hurts! O-oh!
Oh, Melpomene!74
Where are you-u, children,
Where are you?
Mi bright little heads,
Who has taken you?
Perhaps you’re here,
Here, where I walked,
Perhaps here, in this small crevice,
Perhaps there?
Where should I go-o-e?
Whom should I complain to?
Night, night,
Turn me into a rock,
But a bald
And sluggish one,
So that no flower
Nor grass [would cover it],
Only wi-i-nd, glooms,
Murders of crows,
And drop me into the river of painful sorrow,
Into Acheron.
 

III
NIEBORÓW
THE GRAND VIOLIN CONCERT
 

1
There is a lamp [hanged] on chains, which screaks, if you touch it:
A woman with a pair of horns and a tail of a fish,
 

2
They call her Melusine,75 sometimes Bergamasca,76
Under the ceiling and over the shadows, she seems to be swimming flatly
 

3
And she speaks with lights, like human speaks with words.
Under such a lamp exactly I used to sit in Nieborów,
 

4
Gazing into the face of Niobe, the Niobe from Nieborów.
The sparks from Melusine were running between the entablature
 

5
And November was coming in mud-covered shoes
With a maple leave in its hair,
With the remains of Sun in its heart.
 

6
The two lanterns have already flashed over the entrance gate.
The hornbeams77 creaked in the darkness. The wind, singing out of tune in a choir,
 

7
Blew off the last seven leaves and made them go round,
Nudged the pediment78 of the palace and rushed further away,
 

8
Having broken the relief of a drum in the tympanum,79
To the extent that a moan went into the tympanum, into the coats of arms80 and the banners.
 

9
And the autumn of that year flowed like the Mediterranean Sea.
The Sun played on the lines of the reliefs,
 

10
It was kindling sparklets in the muskets,81 in the arquebuses,82
And in the leaves, which the wind was driving hastily as if fireworks
 

11
Further and further, the wind as if a chronic pain.
And the nights were cold. And the birds escaped.
 

12
Only there, where there are so many owl eyes now,
And where in June the nightingale used to play amidst jasmine,
 

13
A glow remained, even at night, as if covered with a golden dust,
A poem written in gold: “I, the nightingale, have been here.”
 

14
And in the bedroom, which is hard to open with a key,
Above the place where a glass harmonica83 used to stand,
 

15
There used to be an Arras84 tapestry, and in it an island in the colour of a wet mint,
And a wind on the island, which was visible from the bent trees,
 

16
And if a candle got closer to the tapestry,
You could see in the dark depth, as a wild boar is chasing an archer,
 

17
As if in an illustration to the yellowed pages
Of the song of mister Shakespeare85 “Venus86 and Adonis.”87
 

18
I started wading in the rooms in Nieborów
And going away from Niobe, and coming down to her again,
 

19
Returning and running away through the unpleasant corridor.
Melusine was throwing sparks down on the face of Niobe,
 

20
 

Small pieces of art falling from the Christmas tree of Beethoven,88
Which Chopin gathered and turned into a sun.
 

21
The wind was continuously blowing in the Arras tapestry. It was calming down, then getting closer again,
Then it was running through the entire musical register, getting lower into bass,
 

22
Moving the forests further away, and going in the front, in soprano
(The Arras tapestry seemed to dance as a clown89 on the wall),
 

23
And the wind was tangling into the trill90 of the archer, and playing into the nostrils of the wild boar,
Leading the rust-coloured autumn like Bacchus91 leads his procession:
 

24
The Satyrs92 and Chopins for his Indian93 triumph –
As in the “Roman Elegies” by minister Goethe,94
 

25
Where there is a description of the Greek vases, as if bowed string instruments played
Lower, and higher Acheron, [cemetery] candles and the souls [of the dead].
 

A MEETING WITH CHOPIN
 

Good evening, monsieur95 Chopin.
How did you get here?
I’m here in passing, flying from this starlet.
It’s easier for me to be on Earth.
 

The old spinet,96 the old manor house,
I have something here in C major
(Such a small thing, Sir),
In old notes the old singing,
Autumn, the leaves fall from the trees.
 

You’re going away? Erm. What a shame.
Holy Mother of God, into such a distant place!
[Your] gloves. Merci bien.97
Bon soir, monsieur Chopin.98
 

THE CONTINUATION OF THE VIOLIN CONCERT
 

26
The Moon was looking into the globes in the small library hall
And running its silver finger over the Mediterranean Sea,
 

27
It was gazing into Sicily,99 travelling over France,
And later, with a grand arch, was running to Byzantium again
 

28
And was drawing its monograms100 on the bells,
In the hearts of Archangelus and Euthyphro,
 

29
Whom the muse of Taliarch ordered to sing.
Next [it moved] on the clocks, the mirrors, the nooks and crannies,
 

30
Having shaken off the cloud from itself with the help of the wind,
Encircling the grand piano and the bronze of the candelabra,
 

31
It was flowing down with a crooked stream, to a red hall,
Where on another cloth, there was the wedding of Poseidon101
 

32
Woven with gold, as if a rhyme to a rhyme,
And Mercury102 was bringing gifts from Olympos.103
 

33
Suddenly the stars approached and clinked, [hitting] the windowpanes:
Virgo, Aquarius, Leo, Saggitarius, Gemini and Pisces,
 

34
The stars, the dearest stars, the diverse stars,
Those not discovered yet and those discovered a long time ago:
 

35
Ursa Major104 and Lyra, Canis [Major], Venus and Libra.
And [then] suddenly they all went out. And the Moon faded away as well.
 

36
And Melusine went out [as well]. The darkness budged vaguely.
And then the face of Niobe started getting brighter,
 

37
Whitely at first, then silverly and bluely.
And then I recognised her face. And I screamed as a child,
 

38
When it sees [its] mother or water through the maples…
As if the Vistulan105 sand and the longed-for shore:
 

39
Niobe! Niobe! The flashlight through the dark hills!
Niobe! The Don! Vistula! And the Mediterranean Sea!
 

40
As if a sailor, when he sails into an intricate archipelago106
And the wind extinguishes his light, and he doesn’t have any strength anymore,
 

41
While the storm intensifies and there are so many rocks,
From one side Sirens,107 Scyllas,108
 

42
And the last shine will die out on the archipelago,
And the last song [left] after the last bird,
 

43
The dark embarkments [of the waves] don’t cease to hit the side of the ship
And one cannot ignite the light even by one’s heart
 

44
The night feels so long, the fear grows and the goal disappears from the sight,
The winding glooms are [all] around and no [hope for] rescue [coming] from anywhere,
 

45
And [then], suddely, a star will rise in the plain of the skies
And the sailor will shout: “Star!,” and will sail into the star
 

46
Cheerful again and full of merry courage,
Because the star guides the boat through the archipelagos –
 

47
The face of Niobe used to shine that way. As if a giant Earth.
The dawn was breaking already. It was humming. The [Sun] ray was shooting into the windows.
 

48
The custodian found me as if over the grave of [my] mother
With [my] face hidden in [my] hands, over this marble of Niobe. Niobe!
 

***
 

What enlightened itself by a tear,
Rises with the Sun.
What threw itself into the ground,
Will be born
 

What unreeled itself into the wind,
Will reel itself [again].
Behind a hell
Quiet water.
 

IV
OH, JOY, THE SPARK OF THE GODS!109
 

With [music] pipes, incense, myrtle and rosemary110
Fearful Horatius111 was adorning the passing hour,
 

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus,
Niobe, Amphion's wife —
 

We do something different for you: for you, Niobe, in the evening,
Flagman112 lights the lamps on the railway tracks,
 

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus,
Niobe, Amphion's wife —
 

It’s for you that the children sing. It’s for you that the engine [of an airplane works] amidst a cloud.
For you, Niobe, because you’re the peace paid with blood,
 

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus,
Niobe, Amphion's wife —
 

It’s for you that I forge113 a dithyramb,114 a goldsmith bent down under the ceiling,
Weaving machine, banner, chorale115 of the seaports and the airports.
 

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus,
Niobe, Amphion's wife —
 

If I were Taliarch, the master of the five bells,
I would ring for you day and night
In:
Euthyphro,
Archangelus,
Nicholas,
Gerion,
Acroceraunia,
 

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus,
Niobe, Amphion's wife —
 

Oh, there’s still too few sounds, we need many sounds,
We’ll yet discover the speech of stones and wooden beams,
 

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus,
Niobe, Amphion's wife —
 

We’ll find new animals in the interplanetary hunts
We’ll split the atom of the time and the word into light,116
 

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus,
Niobe, Amphion's wife —
 

[Being] wise with the suffering open from all sides, give wisdom to those who shout:
“Mother, why haven’t you, mother, give birth to us on the Moon?”
 

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus,
Niobe, Amphion's wife —
 

Let the stone speak, and the wood, the sheet metal and the cow,
The nails, the wooden planks and the concrete, the wastelands and the bulrush,
 

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus,
Niobe, Amphion's wife —
 

Let the bottom of the river speak, let the barrel speak with its shape, the wind with its rustle,
Let the hammer turn into a clarinet,117 from one instrument into another,
 

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus,
Niobe, Amphion's wife —
 

It’s us, the masonry trowels and hammers, we care for this world,
It’s our sun that shines on the western sea cemeteries,118
 

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus,
Niobe, Amphion's wife —
 

There, where the lights get lost, amidst the highest domes,
Your finger, a great ray, writes a ray with a ray,
 

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus,
Niobe, Amphion's wife —
 

Here, the shapes die down. The echo of the numbers is barely heard.
The dream of Scipio119 sails through a freed counterpoint,120
 

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus,
Niobe, Amphion's wife —
 

A syllable Niobe, a syllable, no, Niobe, two syllables,
Two syllables, four syllables, oh syllables, syllables, syllables
 

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus,
Niobe, Amphion's wife —
 

There’s no snow, bah, snow, snow, the syllable will cover with snow
Mama, snow, woman, snow, syllable bah,
 

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus,
Niobe, Amphion's wife —
 

Who’s talking? The syllable mama’s talking, the syllable will express in words
The Sun, mama, the Sun, woman, the nightingale in the alphabet,
 

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus,
Niobe, Amphion's wife —
 

A syllable is a voice, or a couple of them, which we pronounce with a single breathe:
NIO – a syllable, BE – a syllable, a cloudlet with C, OU and D,
 

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus,
Niobe, Amphion's wife —
 

And you are also this small cloudlet that Stwosz121 sculpted.
And you’re the pipe organs of Cologne,122 which have grown into thousands of figures, people, flowers, strange shapes,
Camels,
Not to mention small squirrels,
 

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus,
Niobe, Amphion's wife —
 

L'art, l'art tu es Niobe, l'art qui rit et pleure,
plus vaste que vos canons, plus doux que le bonheur,123
 

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus,
Niobe, Amphion's wife —124
 

In you [there’s] Orlando di Lasso.125 In you [ther are] the importance and the century.126
Mensch — ja, das klingt stolz.127 W iskusstvie chieloviek,128
 

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus,
Niobe, Amphion's wife —
 

From one pole to another
One matter, one strong,
The century is in its noon,129 the shine is in the human,
Niobe sings the song about [this] century.
 

Sing, Niobe, with your strings,
My [musical] pipe, take it as well.
Who can do any [harm] to you,
When you’re the song of the century!
 

The Earth is close. The songs are close.
The song laughs from the bombs and the bullets.
“Oh, joy, the spark of the gods,
Daughter of Elysium!”130
 

You’re the wind and the symmetry, the golden rain and the harmony.
You hold Europe as a violin in your tireless hands,131
 

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus,
Niobe, Amphion's wife —
 

The forester’s lodge in Pranie, 1950132
 

• 1. The author wrote the poem in 1950, exactly in the middle of the 20th century
• 2. Jan Kochanowski was a Renaissance Polish poet
• 3. Olsztyn is a city in Northern Poland, it is the capital of Warmia/Ermland region, full of forests and lakes. The poet lived in a nearby village of Pranie
• 4. Paper becomes yellowish with the passing of time
• 5. Euthyphro is a Greek name, meaning “straight-thinking”. He is known from one of the Socratic dialogues of Plato.
• 6. The overture is the introductory part of a musical piece
• 7. Tantalus was the king of ancient Greek Thebes. He was favoured by the gods, who used to dine with him. But he decided to test if they are really omniscient, and served them the flesh of his own son as food. Only Demeter, sad after the loss of her daughter, tried it. The gods punished Tantalus. He is standing in Hades (Hell) in water, but when he tries to drink it, it disappears. He wants to take fruits from the branches hanging above him, but when he tries to do that, the wind pushes them away. And a rock hangs over him, and it seems it will fall any moment now. The suffering of Tantalus means not being able to fulfil one’s desires.
• 8. Niobe was the queen of Thebes and mother of seven sons and seven daughters. She boasted that it’s her, not goddess Leto, that should be called the mother of gods, because Leto only had two children: Apollo, the god of archery and art, and Artemis, the virgin goddess of the hunt. Leo complained to her children, and they killed all the children of Niobe with their arrows, while Niobe could only helplessly watch it happen. Zeus turned the grieving mother into a stone, and Amphion committed suicide.
• 9. Diana is the Roman name of Artemis
• 10. This verse recalls the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus said that not even a stone on a stone will remain (chapter 24, line 2)
• 11. The gods didn’t like Niobe.
• 12. I translate the text according to the lyrics on the official website. In a book edition, the text in these two connected versions is a bit different: “and here, a cold, unhappy, shapeless night comes.
• 13. Byzantium was an ancient Greek city located on the strategic Bosphorus Strait. In 335, emperor Constantine the Great moved the capital of the Roman Empire there, renaming it to New Rome. Then it started being called Constantinople. It became the capital of the Christian civilisation, and its ancient name (Byzantium) is the name the medieval Roman Empire is known by in the West. In 1453, the Ottoman Turkish sultan Mehmet II Fatih (the Conqueror), bearing the name of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, conquered the city and moved his capital there. It remained the capital of the Ottoman Empire until ww2. Today it’s known as Istanbul.
• 14. Which seems to mean “[Oh] emperor the provider, have mercy over your prophet/poet, [oh] lord. But not in this sequence. Alme = (food-)provider, Caesar = emperor, vatis = prophet/poet, tui – your, miserere = have mercy”, domine = oh lord. The thanks go to Katarzyna Ochman (PhD), without whose help I wouldn’t have understood this text correctly.
• 15. Antiphon is a verse starting and ending Christian prayers, taken from the Psalms or other parts of the Bible.
• 16. Taliarch is a Greek name, but I don’t know any poet of this name
• 17. Archangelus means Archangel, one of the leading angels
• 18. Nicholas is the name of the saint bishop of Myra, in whose memory Christians give present
• 19. Gerion was an ancient Greek monster, consisting of three merged bodied
• 20. Acroceraunia is the Latin spelling of a Greek name, called “struck by the lightning”
• 21. Michael the Archistrategos means Michael the Arch-commander. It refers to archangel Michael, who lead the angels’ hosts against Satan.
• 22. Rome was the capital of the Roman empire, but also of the papacy
• 23. It was Mehmet II Fatih, the Ottoman sultan, who captured Constantinople. Mehmet being Muhammad in Turkish. But the author didn’t use the usual Turkish name Mehmet, but Mahomet, which is in Polish the form of this name reserved for the Islamic prophet only. Perhaps there’s no reason for it, or perhaps there is. Because there used to be an old prophesy that the Islamic ruler who will take Constantinople will bear a name of a prophet. That’s why the Umayyad caliph Sulayman (Salomon) tried to conquer the city in 717. The prophesy did come true, because Mehmet is Muhammad in Turkish.
• 24. Florence is a city in Italy, the capital of Toscania. It flourished during Renaissance.
• 25. Dante Alighieri was an Italian Renaissance writer. Because (in “The Divine Comedy”) he described descent to Hell, Dantean means scary, hellish.
• 26. Nieborów is a village in Łódź voivodship in Poland. A palace, formerly belonging to Radziwiłł family, is located in it, surrounded by a large park. In one of the park buildings, a marble head of Niobe is placed.
• 27. Fugue is a polyphonic musical form.
• 28. The head was originally Greek, but it was found in Russia, and then it was moved to Poland. Poland and Russia are both Slavic countries. Slavs are a branch of Indo-European peoples, and they consist of Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Rusyns, Poles and Kashubians, Lusatians, Chechs, Slovakians, Slovenians, Croatians, Serbs, Bosnians, Macedonians and Bulgarians.
• 29. Pater noster is the Latin name of the Lord’s prayer, or Our Father, the prayer Jesus said in the Gospel.
• 30. Rotterdam is a trading city in the Netherlands.
• 31. Don Juan is a legendary Spanish lover from Sevilla.
• 32. Albrecht Dürer was a German Renaissance artist.
• 33. Hans Holbein is the name of two German Renaissance artists. There were also other artists of this family.
• 34. Titian was an Italian Renaissance painter from Venice. Venice contributed to the fall of Byzantium by leading the 4th crusade against Byzantium instead of Egypt.
• 35. Lucas Cranach was a name of two German Renaissance painters, a father and a son.
• 36. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, a German Baroque and Classicist composer.
• 37. Johann Sebastian Bach was a German Baroque composer, one of the most renown composers in the world.
• 38. Myrtle is a nice smelling plant. Myrtle was a symbol of youth and beauty, and wreathes made from it were placed on heads of the winners of Olympic games.
• 39. To get to Azov and the Azov Sea one has to pass the Black Sea as well.
• 40. Azov is a Russian city at the mouth of the Don river, falling into the small Sea of Azov. That’s where the head of Niobe was found.
• 41. The Don is a major river in southern Russia, falling into the Sea of Azov.
• 42. Avignon is a city in southern France. It used to be the capital of the papacy for a while.
• 43. Bremen is a major port in northern Germany.
• 44. Chaconne is a type of a musical composition, popular in the Baroque era.
• 45. The custodian of the Nieborów palace.
• 46. The Sea of Azov is a small inland sea between the Crimea and the northern Caucasus region.
• 47. Catherine II the Great was a German princess who became the wife of the Russian tzar Peter III. After having him killed, she assumed the rules for herself. She modernised Russia and conquered most of Poland-Lithuania, Crimea and Kazakhstan.
• 48. Magnates were rich landlords.
• 49. Radziwiłłs are a Polish family of Lithuanian descent. Because Zygmunt II August, the king of Poland and the grand duke of Lithuania, fell in love with Barbara Radziwiłł and married her despite strong opposition, he gave much lands to Radziwiłłs, who quickly became some of the most wealthy families in Europe, and obtained the title of princes from the Holy Roman Empire. Even today Radziwiłłs remain an important family in Poland, two of them held ministrial posts after the fall of communism.
• 50. Ostinato, which means “obstinate” in Italian, is a persistently repeating motif of a musical piece.
• 51. Myrrh is a gum-resin derived from a tree. It is used in perfumery and medicine. Myrrh was one of the gifts Jesus was supposed to receive when he was born.
• 52. Aeschylus was an ancient Greek tragedian.
• 53. Threnody is a wailing ode, written as a memorial for a dead person.
• 54. Trochee is an ancient Greek metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one.
• 55. Iamb is another ancient Greek metrical foot, consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one.
• 56. Sappho was an ancient Greek lesbian poetess from Lesbos. It is her who gave the name to Lesbianism. A Sapphic stanza consists of three hendecasyllable verses and one five-syllable one.
• 57. Alcaeus was another ancient Greek poet, also from Lesbos, contemporary of Sappho. An Alcaic stanza consists of two hendecasyllable verses, one enneasyllable verse, and one decasyllable verse.
• 58. The Aegean Sea is the see between Greece and Turkey, and it is full of islands. Its name comes from Aegeus, the king of Athens and the father of Theseus, who defeated the Minotaur. When Theseus was returning, he was supposed to sail under a red sail if he succeeded, and a black one was supposed to be used if he died. But Theseus forgot to change the sail. When his father saw the black sail, he threw himself into the sea out of despair.
• 59. Prokofiev was a renown Russian 20th century composer.
• 60. Frederick Chopin was a 19th century Polish Romantic composer of partly French origin.
• 61. Acheron is the mythical Greek river of sorrow in the underworld, but it’s also a real river, in Epirus region of Greece.
• 62. Bulrush is a kind of a plant that grows on the edge of the water.
• 63. Heinrich is Henry in German.
• 64. Lyrishes intermezzo means “Lyrical intermezzo,” with intermezzo being a type of composition fitting between bigger parts of it.
• 65. Spleen means here a kind of sorrowful melancholy.
• 66. Pelargonia is a nice blooming plant used put on the windowsills.
• 67. Neptune if the Latin rendering of Poseidon, the god of the sea.
• 68. Lily of the valley (convallaria) is a small plant wish small, white, but nicely smiling flowers.
• 69. Barber surgeon was someone who combined barbery with simple medical procedures, such as tooth extraction, bloodletting, minor operations.
• 70. Gazebo is a small and often latticed building in a garden.
• 71. ”Ballads and Romances” is one of the books of 19th century Polish Romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz, considered the greatest Polish poet ever. Ballads merge lyric, epics and drama and often describe unusual events.
• 72. Literally talk, and talk, and talk.
• 73. Naenia is a type of a funeral song, offen accompanied by a flute.
• 74. Melpomene is one of the nine muses of art, the muse of tragedy.
• 75. Melusine was a sorceress known from a Medieval French story. She told her husband never to look at her on Saturday, or something bad will happen to his family. Yet he peeped at her while she was bathing, and saw that the lower part of her body is that of a snake. Since then his family was torn by quarrels, and he couldn’t help complaining to his wife. Despaired, she jumped out of the window, turning into a winged snake.
• 76. Bergamasca is an Italian folk dance, coming from the region of Bergamo.
• 77. Hornbeam is a kind of a tree.
• 78. A pediment is a gable (portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches) in classical architecture, usually triangular.
• 79. A tympanum is a semi-circular or triangular decorative wall surface over an entrance, door or window, which is bounded by a lintel and an arch.
• 80. A coat of arm is a symbol of a noble family.
• 81. A musket is a 16th century firearm.
• 82. An arquebus is a 16th century firearm.
• 83. A glass harmonica is an 18th-century instrument consisting of a set of glass bowls.
• 84. Arras is a city in France, but it was originally part of the Low Countries. It became famous in the Renaissance era for its tapestries, which featured stories from the Greek mythology or from the Bible.
• 85. William Shakespeare, famous English playwright.
• 86. Venus is the Latin name of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty.
• 87. Adonis was the son of a Syrian princes Myrrha. Her mother used to boast that her daughter is more beautiful than Aphrodite, so she punished her by making Myrrha fell in love with her own father, and tricking him into sex with her. Pregnant Myrrha was turned into a myrrh tree, but gave birth to a beautiful boy, Adonis. Both Aphrodite and Persephone (the queen of the underworld) fell in love with him. The husband of Aphrodite, the god of war Ares, got jealous and sent a wild boar, which killed Adonis. But the quarrel over the lover continued between Aphrodite and Persephone, until it was decided that he would spend a third of his time with Aphrodite, a third with Persephone, and a third as he wills. But he was always choosing Aphrodite. One used to say „beautiful like Adonis.”
• 88. Ludwig van Beethoven, an 18th-19th century German composer.
• 89. So it is in the book edition. In the official website: “as a spider”
• 90. Trill is either birds’ singing or a kind of musical embellishment consisting of rapid alternation between two adjacent notes.
• 91. Bacchus is another name of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, vegetation, fertility etc.
• 92. Satyrs are nature spirits of fertility with the ears and legs of a horse or a goat.
• 93. According to a poem by Nonnus of Panopolis, Bacchus visited India.
• 94. The “Roman Elegies” are one of the books of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, famous German Classicist and Romantic writer. Goethe used to hold the position of the head of the chamber of finances of the duchy of Saxe-Weimar, which explains calling him a minister.
• 95. Monsieur means „mister”, or exactly “my lord”, in French. Chopin’s father was French and he lived in France for a long time, although his mother was Polish and he felt Polish.
• 96. A spinet is a 18th century type of a smaller keyboard instrument.
• 97. Merci bien means „thank you very much” in French.
• 98. Bon soir, monsieur Chopin means “Good evening, mister Chopin” in French.
• 99. Sicily is the most important island of Italy.
• 100. A monogram is a symbol consisting of a couple of letters.
• 101. Poseidon was the Greek god of the seas. His wife was Amphitrite.
• 102. Mercury is the Latin name of Hermes, the Greek god of commerce, and the messenger of Zeus.
• 103. Olympos is a mountain in Greece. It was considered the place where the gods reside.
• 104. The author used a dated term “The cart of David.”
• 105. Vistula is the main river of Poland.
• 106. Archipelago is a block of many small, scattered islands.
• 107. Sirens were mythological creatures, half-women, half-birds (later half-women, half-fish), who were luring sailors by their beautiful singing, and killing them.
• 108. There was only one Scylla. Glaukos fell in love with her, but she did not want him. Despaired, Glaukos asked sorceress Kirke for help, but she wanted him for herself. So instead of giving him a potion that would make her fall in love with him, she gave him a potion that surrounded her with hideous creatures that melted to her skin, turning her into a monster. Since then she resides on one side of the Strait of Messina (separating Sicily from Italy), while Charybdis (a daughter of Zeus, punished for her voracity by being turned into a sea monster, devouring masses of water) resides on the other, and they hunt for the sailors together. Being between Scylla and Charybdis means being surrounded by perils, in a situation of no escape.
• 109. This is the first line of Schiller’s “Ode to Joy”, the music for which was composed by Beethoven. Today it’s the anthem of the European Union.
• 110. Rosemary plant is used in medicine and perfumery, and as an adornment during funerals and weddings.
• 111. Horatius, Horace was the greatest Roman (Latin) poet.
• 112. Flagman is responsible for protecting the crossings of railways with roads.
• 113. Like a blacksmith.
• 114. A dithyramb is a praising hymn in honour of Dionysus.
• 115. A chorale is a stately hymn tune.
• 116. Splitting the atom makes the nuclear weapons possible, and they were produced and first used during ww2, several years before this poem.
• 117. Clarinet is a woodwind musical instrument
• 118. This probably refers to all the dead lost in the fights in the Atlantic Ocean during the two world wars.
• 119. Scipio is the name of two great Roman generals, both of whom fought Carthago.
• 120. Counterpoint is a kind of polyphony: “It is the relationship of two or more simultaneous musical lines that are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour.” (Wiki)
• 121. Wit Stwosz, Veit Stoss, was a German Gothic wood sculptor, working in Poland.
• 122. Cologne is a major city in western Germany.
• 123. These two lines are written in French. They mean: “The art. You’re the art, Niobe, the art which laughs and cries. Vaster than your laws/cannons, sweeter than joy.”
• 124. These two verses were written in English.
• 125. Orlando di Lasso was a 16th century composer from what is Belgium today.
• 126. Or “the weight/scale and the age.”
• 127. Which is a German translation of famous words of a Russian writer Maxim Gorky: „A man – yes, this sounds proud.”
• 128. Which means “The man is in the art” in Russian. I don’t know whose quote is that, perhaps the author’s.
• 129. The author wrote his poem in 1950, exactly in the middle of the 20th century.
• 130. In Polish literally “the star of the fields of Elysium,” but I used I used the text of the , more literal, that I found in the net. As already mentioned, it is the start of Schiller’s/Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”. Elysium is the ancient Greek heaven.
• 131. My idea is that the author compares Europe to Niobe. Europe has also became to proud and, in result, lost its children in ww2. But in general, art is attempting to obtain something divine.
• 132. Pranie (“Washing”) is a small village in northern Poland, in Mazuria (Mazury) region, which encompasses the Warmia/Ermland region, where Olsztyn is located. Today Olsztyn is considered the capital of both Warmia and Mazuria.

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