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Jan Kochanowski
JAN KOCHANOWSKI - SONG II, 8
SONG 8, BOOK II
Do not turn grey, Nicholas, with worry,
Who will be king: a decree is ready
Before the Lord, not written with a quill,
But carved with a chisel in hardened steel.
Let's not await a master from the north,
Nor from the east, the west, or from the south:
1
He will be the king whom God designates;
All human hearts with ease He persuades.
He turned into laughter our vain counsels,
Passing over our better-known neighbors,
He brought us a king from a distant land,
But soon after someone else took command.
Where are now those boundless mountains of gold?
Where are the Gascons and armed troops enrolled?
2
What for were cannons and our tournaments?
Hopes filled with air burst in disappointments.
Fortune gives orders to the ships at sea,
In battles, Fortune bestows victory;
Councils and diets take advice from her,
While human designs turn into blunder.
Out wordy speakers, stop this grave discourse!
Let us attach on a pole at a course
A gold crown: may chance place it in the hand
Of a faster, if not a wiser man.
3
Translated by Michael J. Mikoś
Notes
1
John III Vasa of Sweden, Ivan the Terrible of Russia or his son Fiodor, Stefan Batory of Transylvania, and Habsburg candidates competed with a French prince, Henri Valois, for the crown.
2
King Henri Valois vouched to support four thousand hired Gascons as well as to arm and array the troops. He abandoned the Polish throne in 1574, after a reign of 118 days.
3
According to Kadłubek's
Polish Chronicle
, written in the twelfth century, candidates raced for the crown as if they were knights in a tournament.