Mars za Wenerą skryty. Jeszcze jedna próba rozwiązania „Gadki” Jana Kochanowskiego

Abstract

EWA CYBULSKA-BOHUSZEWICZ Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw MARS HIDDEN BEHIND VENUS ONE MORE ATTEMPT AT SOLVING JAN KOCHANOWSKI’S “GADKA” The text is one more attempt at solving the literary riddle contained in Jan Kochanowski’s Gadka. The piece is ambiguous; efforts to dismantle it were made by such eminent scholars as Julian Krzyżanowski and Janusz Pelc, as well as by younger generation researchers, namely Joanna Duska, Radosław Grześkowiak, Maciej Eder. Each of them pondered over what “źwierzę o jednym oku” (“an animal with one eye”) indeed was, and none of the analyses brought a concluding solution. The suggested proposals point to designates referring to erotic-scatological matter (male or female bottom, female sex organ, portable toilet) or to matters unconnected to it (firearm: a piece of ordnance or its smaller counterpart, a musket). It must be remembered that older generation researchers favoured the respectable (artillery) solutions while the younger one turned to the obscene. A next solution to the riddle is contained in the article. It differs from the previous ones above all in that it considers not only Gadka’s cultural and poetic contexts (sufficiently analysed by the abovementioned scholars), but it is an example of a detailed lexical examination which respects the meanings of individual words, phrases, and even syntactic elements present in the text. As a result, it is a semantic analysis, referring to the 16th c. Polish language condition, i.e. to the texts produced at the time when Gadka was composed. The basic tool that facilitated such analysis was Słownik polszczyzny XVI wieku (Dictionary of 16th Century Polish), containing excerpts from over 700 texts written at the times of the Polish Renaissance. Zadawali gadki sobie; Z krotochwile to działali, Iż je sobie wykładali. Który wyłożyć nie umiał, Sampierzowi dań dać musiał: A tymże się zwyczaili, Iż potym rozumni byli. Przeto Ezop, gdy to umiał, Iż gadki dobrze rozumiał: I króla babilońskiego Uczynił barzo sławnego [...]. Nie sposób w tym miejscu nie wymienić również królów Edypa oraz Salomona, którzy potrafili zmierzyć się z najtrudniejszą (za)gadką czy problemem.