Lament VI → ← Lament IV

Spis treści

Jan KochanowskiLamentsLament Vtłum. Dorothea Prall

Just as a little olive offshoot grows

Beneath its orchard elders' shady rows,

No budding leaf as yet, no branching limb,

Only a rod uprising, virgin-slim —

Then if the busy gardener, weeding out

Sharp thorns and nettles, cuts the little sprout,

It fades and, losing all its living hue,

Drops by the mother from whose roots it grew:

So was it with my Ursula, my dear;

A little space she grew beside us here,

Then Death came, breathing pestilence, and she

Fell, stricken lifeless, by her parent tree.

Persephone [1], Persephone, this flow

Of barren tears! How couldst thou will it so?

Przypisy

[1]

Persephone — Greek goddes of vegetation, daughter of Demeter and Zeus, abducted by Hades, god of underworld; her Roman counterpart is Proserpine. [przypis edytorski]