Mickiewicz provided his own commentary on the text of Pan Tadeusz; these notes, which he called “Objaśnienia” (“Explanations” or “Glosses”), appeared at the end of the text. I have translated them as they are, though I have omitted a few of the notes referring to Polish expressions that do not appear in my translation of the poem.
In the title:
The Last Foray in Lithuania
Under the Polish Republic the carrying out of judicial verdicts was extremely difficult in a country in which the executive powers had no police to speak of under their command, while the wealthier citizens kept their own private regiments, some, like the Radziwiłł princes, even maintaining their own armies of several thousand men. The plaintiff, then, having obtained a decree, in order to carry it out was obliged to turn to the knightly class, which is to say the gentry, who also had such executive power. Armed relatives, friends, and neighbors rode out with the decree in hand and, accompanied by the bailiff, in many cases not without bloodshed, took whatever the plaintiff had been awarded, which the bailiff legally conveyed temporarily or permanently into the plaintiff’s possession. An armed execution of a decree was called a foray (zajazd).
In former times, when the law was respected, even the wealthiest magnates did not dare oppose the court’s verdicts; armed attacks were rare, and violence hardly ever went unpunished. History has taught us the sorry end of Prince Wasil Sanguszko and that of Stadnicki, known as The Devil.
The lessening of decorum under the Republic led to an increase in the number of forays, which continually disrupted the peace of Lithuania.
BOOK I
Our Lady! You safeguard Częstochowa; shine
In Ostra Brama
Everyone in Poland knows of the miraculous image of Our Lady at Jasna Góra in Częstochowa. In Lithuania the images of Our Lady of Ostra Brama in Vilna, Our Lady of the Castle in Nowogródek, and of Żyrowice and Boruny, are all known for miracles.
…but don’t conclude
The Judge’s household lacked solicitude
In the countries it conquered, the Russian government did not immediately abolish civil laws and institutions, but gradually undermined and eroded them with ukases. In Little Russia for instance, the Statutes of Lithuania remained in force till very recently. In Lithuania the entire former system of civil and criminal courts was left in place. Thus, county and city judges, and regional judges in the provinces, are elected as before. But appeals are directed to Petersburg, to many instances at different levels, and so local courts are left with only a shadow of their traditional authority.
…for the Warden to get changed
The Warden (tribunus) was at one time the official guardian of the gentry’s wives and children at times of a general levy. For a long time now this position has been titular alone, without duties.
In Lithuania there is a custom by which respected persons are given for the sake of courtesy any ancient title that can legally be bestowed. Thus, for example, neighbors will appoint a friend of theirs Prefect, Pantler, or Cupbearer, at first only in conversation and in correspondence, then later even in official documents. The Russian government forbade such titles and has attempted to ridicule them, and replace them with titles from their own official hierarchy, which Lithuanians continue to execrate.
The Chamberlain’s here, with wife and girls in tow
Chamberlain, once a notable and important office, Princeps Nobilitatis, under the Russian government has become merely titular. The Chamberlain continued for some time to occasionally adjudicate boundary disputes, but in the end lost even this part of his jurisdiction. Now he sometimes deputizes for the Marshal and appoints the district surveyors.
The Warden and Protazy the Bailiff stood
With candles in the hall
The Bailiff or General, selected by the tribunal or the court from among the resident gentry, delivered summonses, announced repossessions, conducted court-ordered visitations, convened current court cases, etc. This office was usually held by someone from the petty gentry.
He was sought out, the way small birds harass
A falcon
It is common knowledge that small birds, especially swallows, in large numbers will chase after hawks.
Bonaparte knew magic
In Russia, among the common people there are many stories about the magic performed by Bonaparte and Suvorov.
Assessor and Notary ever more loudly
Were sparring
Assessors constitute the police of a country district. In accordance with particular ukases, they are sometimes elected by the citizens, sometimes appointed by the government; the latter are referred to as royal assessors. Lithuanian High Court judges are also known as assessors, but it is not they who are being referred to here.
Filing notaries are in charge of a lawyer’s chambers; scribing notaries record the verdicts; all are appointed by the clerk of the court.
And Voivode Niesiołowski – how would he
React?
Count Józef Niesiołowski, the last voivode of Nowogródek, was chairman of the revolutionary government during the Jasiński uprising.
Even Białopiotrowicz was rejected!
Jerzy Białopiotrowicz, the last Royal Scribe of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, played an active role in the Lithuanian uprising led by Jasiński. He presided over the trials of traitors in Vilna. He was much respected in Lithuania for his righteousness and patriotism.
The Bailiff then removed the Judge’s sash –
Słuck handiwork
The Słuck weaving mill, producing cloth of gold and sashes made of it, was famous throughout Poland; it was improved by Tyzenhauz.
It was a lawsuit register
The Lawsuit Register or Vocanda was a slim, elongated little book in which were recorded the names of the opposing parties in the sequence in which their cases appeared in the court records. Every lawyer and bailiff had to be in possession of such a register.
…tossing down
Before the French the bloodied flags he’d won
General Kniaziewicz, sent by the Italian army, laid down before the Directory the colors he had captured.
Of Jabłonowski, who went voyaging
Where the sugarcane grows
Prince Jabłonowski, commander of the Danube Legion, died in Saint-Domingue, where almost the entire Legion perished. A few veterans of that ill-fated expedition still can be encountered among the Polish exiles; one of them is General Małachowski.
BOOK II
An organ, various instruments there’d be
In former times an organ would be installed in the gallery of a castle.
…and he
Was served black soup
Black soup, served at table to a young man asking for the hand of a young lady, meant a refusal.
Or from the barges
The barges are large vessels plying the Niemen; the Lithuanians use them in their trade with East Prussia, delivering grain and bringing back colonial goods in return.
…from Prince Dominik once
When we went hunting
Prince Dominik Radziwiłł, a great lover of the hunt, emigrated to the Duchy of Warsaw and at his own cost raised a regiment of cavalry, which he commanded. He died in France. With him ended the male line of princes in Ołyka and Nieśwież, the greatest lords in Poland and probably in Europe.
…and General Mejen too
Mejen distinguished himself in the national war in Kościuszko’s time. The Mejen Line of trenches can still be seen outside Vilna.
BOOK III
The ladies looked for the slim boletus known
In song as the mushrooms’ general
In Lithuania there is a popular folk song about the mushrooms going to war under the command of a boletus. The song describes the properties of edible mushrooms.
The Polish painter Orłowski
A well-known genre artist; a few years before his death he began to paint landscapes. He died not long ago in Petersburg.
…my two mastiffs…
The dog’s called Sheriff, the bitch Inquisitor.
The English breed of stocky, powerful dogs known as “mastiffs” is used for hunting big game, especially bears.
A sheriff is the chief of police in a country district. An inquisitor is a kind of government prosecutor. These officials often abuse their power and are held in abhorrence by the citizens.
BOOK IV
He dreamed of an iron wolf
According to tradition, on Ponary Hill Grand Duke Gediminas had a dream about an iron wolf and on the advice of the archpriest Lizdejko founded the city of Vilna.
…the last king to wear
King Witold’s kalpak
Sigismund Augustus was elevated in the ancient manner to the throne of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania; he fastened on his sword and crowned himself with a kalpak. He was very fond of hunting.
Is Baublis still alive?
In the county of Rosienie, on the property of District Secretary Paszkiewicz, there grew an oak tree known as Baublis, which in pagan times had been worshipped as an object of veneration. Inside this rotted giant Paszkiewicz set up a cabinet of Lithuanian antiquities.
By the parish church, does Mendog’s Grove still bloom?
Not far from the parish church in Nowogródek was a group of ancient lindens, many of which were cut down around 1812.
The speaking oak
Which told the Cossack bard such prodigies!
See Goszczyński’s poem The Castle of Kaniów.
…kolomyjkas he’d heard played
In Halicz
Kolomyjkas are Ukrainian songs resembling Polish mazurkas.
…he knew grain markets, trade
By river barge
See note to Book II, this page.
His spot…the “corner place”
The place of honor where formerly the household gods were kept, and where to this day Russians place holy images. It is here that the Lithuanian peasant seats a guest to whom he wishes to show especial respect.
The eagle no longer able to take food,
His ancient beak grown crooked and closed for good
The beaks of large birds of prey become more and more bent with age until in the end the upper part curves around so much it closes the bill and the bird must die of starvation. Certain ornithologists have lent credence to this folk belief.
This is the reason that on human ground
Bones of dead animals are never found
Indeed, there is no case of a dead animal’s skeleton being found.
How about it? A wee fowling-piece like this
A fowling-piece is a small-caliber shotgun that fires a little bullet. A good marksman can hit a bird in flight with such a gun.
…till gold dripped in the sun
At the bottom of bottles of Gdańsk vodka there are sometime flakes of gold.
…a piece of land
That could be covered by an oxhide
Queen Dido had an oxhide cut into strips, and in such a way, within the hide she enclosed an extensive piece of land upon which she founded Carthage. The Warden had read the account of this incident not in the Aeneid, but probably in the commentaries of the scholiasts.
NB: Certain passages in the fourth canto came from the pen of Stefan Witwicki.
BOOK VI
The title:
The Settlement
In Lithuania “settlement” (zaścianek) was the name given to a gentry community, to distinguish it from regular villages or hamlets.
Wołodkowicz, known for his insolence
After causing numerous disturbances, he was captured in Minsk, tried, and shot by firing squad.
To rescue Pociej
Aleksander Count Pociej, having returned to Lithuania after the war, lent support to his compatriots leaving the country to fight, and donated considerable sums to the Legions.
BOOK VIII
Up higher is David’s Wagon, hitched and ready
David’s Wagon is the constellation known to astronomers as Ursa Major.
The way the priest bedecked the church at Mir
With ribs and bones of giants unearthed near there
There was a custom of displaying in churches bones that had been dug up, and that were thought by the common people to be the bones of giants.
A comet of great size and brilliance
The famous comet of 1811.
Father Poczobut, famed astronomer
Father Poczobut, a former Jesuit and well-known astronomer, published a book on the zodiac of Denderah, and with his observations aided Lalande in calculating the courses of the moon. See the Life by Jan Śniadecki.
Among the retinue of the governor
Was the German Prince de Nassau
Properly the Prince de Nassau-Siegen, a renowned traveler and adventurer of those times. He served as a Muscovite admiral and defeated the Turks in the Dnieper delta, then later was himself thrashed by the Swedes. He spent some time in Poland, where he naturalized. De Nassau’s encounter with the tiger was reported in all the European newspapers of the time.
BOOK IX
“D’you know the Yellow Book?” the Major said
The “Yellow Book,” named for its cover, is the barbaric volume of Russian martial law. Often during peacetime the government declares entire provinces to be under martial law, and on the authority of the Yellow Book gives complete power over the lives and property of the citizens to a military commander. It is common knowledge that from 1821 right up until the revolution the whole of Lithuania was subject to the Yellow Book, whose executor was Grand Duke Konstantin, the Tsarevich.
And dragging behind him with the other one
A massive six-foot length of wood, engrafted
With flints and knobs
A Lithuanian club is made as follows: A young oak is found, and incisions are made in it with an ax from bottom to top in such a way as to cut into bark and pulp, to injure the tree. Sharp flints are inserted into these notches, which eventually heal over, forming hard knobs. In pagan times clubs were the principal weapon of the Lithuanian foot soldiers; they are still sometimes used, and are known as hashers (nasieki).
One Czarnobacki, a lone citizen,
Killed Deyov, and drove the Cossacks from the town
After the Jasiński Uprising, when the Lithuanian forces were retreating towards Warsaw, the Russians drew close to the abandoned Vilna. General Deyov led his staff through Ostra Brama Gate. The streets were empty, the people having locked themselves in their houses. One citizen, noticing a loaded cannon left in an alleyway, aimed it at the Gate and fired it. That one shot saved Vilna at that time: General Deyov and several officers were killed, and the others, fearing an ambush, pulled back from the city. I do not know for certain the name of the citizen in question.
Thus the last foray in Lithuania ended
In fact there were other forays even later, not so glorious, but still widely known and bloody. Around 1817, in the Nowogródek Voivodeship Citizen U. defeated the entire Nowogródek garrison and took its commanders prisoner.
BOOK X
This one for Novi, this for Praysish-Ilov
No doubt Preussisch-Eylau.
Then Targowica offered me a position
The Pantler seems to have been killed around 1791, during the first war.
BOOK XI
In the list of contents:
Spring portents
A Russian historian similarly describes the prophecies and forebodings of the common people of Moscow before the war of 1812.
his tome – The Perfect Cook
This book is hard to find today; it was published well over a hundred years ago by Stanisław Czerniecki.
Urban the Eighth admired these meals and praised them
This Roman legation has frequently been described and depicted. See the introduction to The Perfect Cook:
This legation, admired by every western country, demonstrated the boundless wisdom of my lord Ossoliński, and also the splendor of his house and the adornment of his table…such that one of the Roman princes declared: Today Rome is fortunate to have such an envoy.
NB: Czerniecki himself was Ossoliński’s cook.
Picked by the county with one voice to be
Provincial marshal for the confederacy
In Lithuania, after the arrival of the French and Polish forces confederations were formed in the voivodeships and deputies were elected for the parliament.
At Hohenlinden
It is widely known that at Hohenlinden the Polish Corps under General Kniaziewicz tipped the scales for victory.
BOOK XII
The Orphan-Prince Radziwiłł, legend has it
Radziwiłł the Orphan traveled far and wide, and published an account of his journey to the Holy Land.
In the meantime, though, the service had changed color
In the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries, in the age when the arts flourished, artists were often called in to organize feasts, which were filled with symbols and theatrical scenes. At the famous dinner given in Rome for Leo X there was a service depicting in turn the four seasons of the year; no doubt this was Radziwiłł’s inspiration. Dinner customs changed in Europe around the middle of the eighteenth century; in Poland they survived the longest.
Has old Pinetti shared his tricks?
Pinetti was a magician famous throughout Poland. We do not know when he visited the country.
“Am I Cybulski,” the Steward said in a huff,
“Who, the song says, played cards and lost his wife
To a Russian?”
A lament, well-known in Lithuania, about Mrs. Cybulska, whose husband lost her at cards to the Russians.
…his wife forbade him
The kontusz, and by marriage contract made him…
A fashion for wearing French attire swept the provinces from 1800 to 1812. Most young men changed their way of dressing before their marriage, on the insistence of their future wives.
Rejtan and the Prince of Nassau’s row
The story of the quarrel between Rejtan and Prince de Nassau, which the Warden does not bring to a conclusion, is known from tradition. We include its ending for the curious reader.
Rejtan, incensed by Prince de Nassau’s boasts, came and stood next to him in a narrow defile. Right then a huge boar, enraged by the shots and the dogs, came running into the defile. Rejtan snatched the gun from the Prince’s hands and threw his own on the ground; taking a hunting spear himself and handing another to the German, he said: “Now we’ll see who’s better with a lance.” The boar was almost upon them when Warden Hreczecha, who stood nearby, dropped the creature with a well-aimed shot. The gentlemen were angry at first, but later they reconciled and rewarded Hreczecha generously.
When he gave freedom to his serfs
The Russian government does not recognize free people except for the gentry. Serfs freed by their owner are immediately recorded in the listings of the Tsar’s possessions, so that instead of corvée they have to pay a higher tax.
It is common knowledge that in 1818, in the regional parliament the citizens of Vilna province voted to free all the serfs, and to this end appointed a delegation to send to the Tsar; but the government ordered the bill to be annulled and never mentioned again. The only way to free a person from the Russian government is to adopt him into one’s own family. And in fact many people were made gentry in such a manner, out of kindness or for money.