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Jan Kochanowski
JAN KOCHANOWSKI - SONG I, 24
SONG 24, BOOK I
I hear the clock striking,
Away, profound mourning.
Staidness is for the day,
Eve and night to be gay.
We are fools in God's eyes,
Though among men blameless,
And the more we labor,
The greater our error.
If one tried on this earth
To find out what takes place,
This truth I likely think,
Man is but God's plaything.
High places and stations
Are mere deviations,
Death treats us all the same,
Power can't much reclaim.
Nothing is more piteous
Than a man covetous,
He reaps for another,
While suffering hunger.
And so if all youngsters
Were just like their fathers,
For years because of that
The world would turn to beg.
But God found the answer,
What some put together,
Others quickly squandered;
The world should not be starved.
Hard to rule after death;
You, father, did not err,
The son just counts his gains,
Did not inherit brains.
1
So these groundless worries
Are the devil's curses;
When they leave our heads,
Let them find Fokar's chests.
2
Bring us wine, let it flow,
And soon good cheer will grow,
Sorrow washed down with wine
Melts like snow in sunshine.
Translated by Michael J. Mikoś
Notes
1
In lines 17-33, Kochanowski elaborates upon a popular contrast between thrifty fathers and wasteful sons.
2
The most likely meaning of this phrase is that rich bankers of the Fugger family should worry about such matters as inheritance and disposition of money. Jakob Fugger (1459-1525) of the imperial free city of Augsburg was one of the wealthiest merchant bankers in the world. Fugger acquired his fortune from trade, finance, mining, and investments in new industries. He was also the founder of the Fuggerei, the oldest social welfare settlement, built in 1519, which to this day houses the poor elderly in a building with inner courtyards, resembling an Italian palace. Some members of the Fugger family settled in Poland, where they were called Fokars, Fukars, or Fukiers. Another reading suggests that all worries should hide in Fugger's coffers, from where they would not be able to escape.