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eb00kie's review
4.0
Laments expresses Kochanowski's grief after his 30-months-old daughter, Ursula, died. The theme is reminiscent of [a:Tennyson|13638502|Alfred Tennyson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1454788521p2/13638502.jpg]'s [b:In Memoriam A. H. H|6192910|In Memoriam A. H. H (Dodo Press)|Alfred Tennyson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348803768s/6192910.jpg|1194370], but the style is much more direct, less condensed.
I was given to understand that Laments kick-started Polish enlightenment and thus I keenly feel the lack of any Polish skills. It's a robust work, yet very delicate in expression and beyond the words, all I can hear is Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Shakespeare. Bah! I would love to hear what it sounds like to a Polish reader.
I was given to understand that Laments kick-started Polish enlightenment and thus I keenly feel the lack of any Polish skills. It's a robust work, yet very delicate in expression and beyond the words, all I can hear is Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Shakespeare. Bah! I would love to hear what it sounds like to a Polish reader.
jnepal's review against another edition
4.0
He lost a daughter young, his grief in poems poured out; these are his, now mine, laments.
Excerpts:
“Thou hast made all the house an empty thing,
Dear Ursula, by this thy vanishing.
Though we are here, 'tis yet a vacant place,
One little soul had filled so great a space.”
Lament VIII
“What man did his own goodness e'er advance
Or piety preserve from evil chance?
Some unknown foe confuses men's affairs;
For good and bad alike it nothing cares. Where blows its breath, no man can flee away;
Both false and righteous it hath power to stay.
Yet still we vaunt us of our mighty mind
In idle arrogance among our kind;”
Lament X
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not sure the translation I read was as good as it could have been. Rhyme matters less to me than imagery, and sometimes it felt like rhyme was master to the detriment of the overall quality of the poem(s).
But these laments are quite good, they faithfully reveal what grief is truly like, although there were a few poems I would quibble with or at least suggest an alternative view.
This was written almost 500 years ago. I never get over that, that as much as time changes, as much as we have supposedly changed as a species, yet there is nothing new under the sun. Grief is still what it ever was.
Excerpts:
“Thou hast made all the house an empty thing,
Dear Ursula, by this thy vanishing.
Though we are here, 'tis yet a vacant place,
One little soul had filled so great a space.”
Lament VIII
“What man did his own goodness e'er advance
Or piety preserve from evil chance?
Some unknown foe confuses men's affairs;
For good and bad alike it nothing cares. Where blows its breath, no man can flee away;
Both false and righteous it hath power to stay.
Yet still we vaunt us of our mighty mind
In idle arrogance among our kind;”
Lament X
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not sure the translation I read was as good as it could have been. Rhyme matters less to me than imagery, and sometimes it felt like rhyme was master to the detriment of the overall quality of the poem(s).
But these laments are quite good, they faithfully reveal what grief is truly like, although there were a few poems I would quibble with or at least suggest an alternative view.
This was written almost 500 years ago. I never get over that, that as much as time changes, as much as we have supposedly changed as a species, yet there is nothing new under the sun. Grief is still what it ever was.
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