Pan Tadeusz

three couples then betrothed,
Of all the guests there present, all invited,
All friends whom living any one recalled,
And those now dead whose memory was holy.

And I myself was there among the guests:280
I drank the wine and mead, and what I saw
And heard there I have written in a book.

Endnotes

1. “Z archanielskiemi skrzydlami i glosem,
   Ty czasem dzierzysz i miecz archaniola.”

   ↩

2. In the time of the Polish Republic the execution of judicial decrees was very difficult, in a country where the executive power had scarcely any police force under its authority, and where powerful citizens maintained private regiments; some, like the Radziwill princes, armies of several thousand men. A plaintiff, therefore, who obtained a decision in his favour was forced to apply for its execution to the Equestrian Order, that is, to the nobility, in whom was vested also the executive power. The armed relatives, friends, and confidents of the plaintiff marched with the decree in hand, and with a Wozny (summoner) in their company, and conquered, often not without bloodshed, the estates adjudged, which the Wozny legally made over, or gave into possession of the complainant. Such an armed execution of a decree was called a zajazd (or foray). In former times, so long as the laws were respected, the most powerful lords dared not resist decrees; armed attacks rarely occurred, and violence never escaped unpunished. The corruption of public manners in the Republic increased the number of zajazdy, which continually troubled the peace of Lithuania. ↩

3. Everyone in Poland knows about the miracle-working picture of the Virgin on Jasna Gora (bright mountain) in Czenstochowa. In Lithuania the pictures of the Virgin over the Ostra Gate of Wilna, of the castle of Nowogrodek, and also of Zyrowiec and Borun, are equally famous.

   [The Czenstochowa picture, like many other paintings of the Byzantine school, is credited to St. Luke. It is remarkable that miraculous properties are far more often attributed to these earlier and more imperfect productions of art, than to any of the higher masterpieces of painting.] ↩

4. This passage is stated, in a critical work recently published in Warsaw, to refer to a real incident in the childhood of the poet. ↩

5. A sort of loose garment in the old national costume. ↩

6. A part of the national costume, very like the Hungarian Hussar uniform, but with long skirts. The czamara is still very widely used in Poland, notably in Galicia, where high officials of the Crown wear on state occasions the full national costume, consisting of the zupan, pas Slucki, kontusz, karabella, and kolpak.

   —⁠E. S. N.

   All these terms are explained in subsequent notes. ↩

7. Thaddeus Rejtan, in 1773, was posel or deputy from Nowogrodek to the Diet at Warsaw, and in that capacity made an energetic protest against the first partition treaty. When this measure was presented for confirmation Rejtan solemnly adjured the assembly by the Saviour’s wounds not to commit this crime, and when all other means were exhausted endeavoured, by using the privilege of the liberum veto, to render the proceedings null and void. This is the last occasion in Polish history of the exercise of the veto. But despite the efforts of Rejtan and five other deputies who supported him, the treaty was confirmed, and the six deputies forcibly removed from the capital. All efforts to bribe or terrify Rejtan into withdrawing his opposition were fruitless. He shortly after became insane with grief, and destroyed himself with a piece of glass out of a window. ↩

8. The insurrections of Krakow, Warsaw, and Wilna, broke out or the 24th March, the 17th of April, and the 23rd of April 1794 respectively. In the former two hastily formed companies, along with some of the citizens, disarmed the Russian garrison of 3,000 men, and took 1,500 prisoners, with General Arseniew at their head. The Lithuanian forces were commanded by Colonel Jasinski. He subsequently fought three battles in the open country with the Muscovites, Niemenczyn against Lewis, Polany against Dejow, and Sioly against Zubow. When Jasinski was later on summoned to Warsaw by Kosciuszko, the command in Lithuania devolved on General Wielhorski. After unexampled efforts Wilna was compelled to surrender to the Russians on the 12th of August. ↩

9. The heroic Jasinski and Korsak perished in the terrible carnage of Praga, by Suwarow, on the 4th November 1794, when 60,000 of the inhabitants, of every age and sex, were massacred. ↩

10. The Russian Government never immediately overthrows the civil laws and institutions of subject countries. In Little Russia, for example, the Lithuanian statutes, modified by ukases, were retained till lately. All the ancient regulations of the civil and criminal courts were left untouched in Lithuania. The urban and rural judges in districts, and the chief judges in governors’ divisions, were therefore elected as in former times. But as all appeals go to St. Petersburg, before numerous institutions of different degrees, scarcely a shadow of their former power remains to the local courts.

    [In 1832 Russian institutions were completely substituted for the ancient order of things.] ↩

11. A Wojski, or Tribune, was in former times the guardian of the wives and families of nobles summoned in a general levy. This office has long been a titular one without obligations. In Lithuania it is the custom to give to persons of dignity some ancient title by courtesy, which title becomes a legal one by use. Neighbours would