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PAN TADEUSZ OR
THE LAST FORAY IN LITHUANIA
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PAN TADEUSZ
OR
THE LAST FORAY IN LITHUANIA
A STORY OF LIFE AMONG POLISH GENTLEFOLK
IN THE YEARS 1811 AND 1812
IN TWELVE BOOKS
BY
ADAM MICKIEWICZ
TRANSLATED FROM THE POLISH BY
GEORGE RAPALL NOYES
1917
LONDON AND TORONTO
J. M. DENT & SONS LTD.
PARIS: J. M. DENT ET FILS
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
CONTENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS IN "PAN TADEUSZ" WITH NOTES ON POLISH
PRONUNCIATION
BOOK I. THE FARM
BOOK II. THE CASTLE
BOOK III. FLIRTATION
BOOK IV DIPLOMACY AND THE CHASE
BOOK V. THE BRAWL
BOOK VI. THE HAMLET
BOOK VII. THE CONSULTATION
BOOK VIII. THE FORAY
BOOK IX. THE BATTLE
BOOK X THE EMIGRATION. JACEK
BOOK XI. THE YEAR 1812
BOOK XII. LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER!
NOTES
PREFACE
THE present translation of Pan Tadeusz is based on the editions of
Biegeleisen (Lemberg, 1893) and Kallenbach (Brody, 1911). I have had
constantly by me the German translation by Lipiner (ed. 2, Leipzig, 1898)
and the French translation by Ostrowski (ed. 4, Paris, 1859), and am
deeply indebted to them. The English translation by Miss Maude Ashurst
Biggs ( Master Thaddeus; or, The Last Foray in Lithuania : London, 1885) I
did not have at hand until my own version was nearly complete; after that
I consulted it only very rarely. I do not think that I am under obligation
to it in more than a half dozen scattered lines of my text. (Perhaps,
however, my use of foray as a translation of zajazd is due to an
unconscious recollection of the title of Miss Biggs's volumes, which I
looked over several years ago, before I had even formed the plan of my own
work.) In my notes, however, my debt to Miss Biggs and her collaborators
in her commentary on Pan Tadeusz is important; I have striven to
indicate it distinctly, and I thank Miss Biggs heartily for her kind
permission to make use of her work.
To my friend Miss Mary Helen Sznyter I am grateful for aid and advice in
the rendering of several puzzling passages. But my greatest debt I owe to
my wife, whose name, if justice were done, should be added to my own as
joint translator of the volume. Though she is entirely unacquainted with
the Polish language, nearly every page of the book in its phrasing bears
traces of her correcting hand. The preparation of the volume for the press
and the reading of the proof have been made easy by her skilful help.
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA,
December 9 , 1916.
INTRODUCTION
"No European nation of our day has such an epic as Pan Tadeusz . In it
Don Quixote has been fused with the Iliad . The poet stood on the
border line between a vanishing generation and our own. Before they died,
he had seen them; but now they are no more. That is precisely the epic
point of view. Mickiewicz has performed his task with a master's hand; he
has made immortal a dead generation, which now will never pass away. {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
Pan Tadeusz is a true epic. No more can be said or need be said."(1)
This verdict upon the great masterpiece of all Slavic poetry, written a
few years after its appearance, by Zygmunt Krasinski, one of Mickiewicz's
two great successors in the field of Polish letters, has been confirmed by
the judgment of posterity. For the chapter on Pan Tadeusz by George
Brandes, than whom there have been few more competent judges of modern
European literature, is little more than an expansion of Krasinski's pithy
sentences... Continue reading book >>
