Since Your Departure, my Head has been filled with Questions and whole Sentences I did not have the Opportunity to utter at our Meeting, and since You have given me License to write, I shall take Advantage of the Opportunity to defend myself against certain of Your Charges, as well. And since we are in the Depths of Winter in Firlejów now, all I do is tend the Stove and sit over my Papers all Day long, though it spoils the Eyesight, as does the Smoke.
You ask: Why Latin? And You, like other Members of the fairer Sex, advocate for Polish to be more widely employed in written Forms. I have Nothing against the Polish Language—but how are we to speak in it, since there aren’t enough Words?
Is it not better to say “Rhetoric” than “Way with Words”? Or “Philosophy” instead of “Love of Knowledge”? “Astronomy” as opposed to “Learning about Heavenly Bodies”? You save Time, and it’s easier on the Tongue, too. You can’t manage without Latin in Music, either—as it happens, Tone, Texture, and Melody are all from Latin. And if Poles—as is now invaluit Usus—were to give up Latin and the Borrowings from Latin made into Polish by Way of Calques, to begin only speaking and writing in natively Polish Terms, then we would need to return to the long-lost and now incomprehensible Slavic we find in that Song of Saint Wojciech:
The Time hath come, Hour of Bede and God’s right Rede.
But what does this mean? What is an Hour of Bede? What Rede is right? Would Your Ladyship wish to say “Tir” instead of “Glory”? I doubt it! “Lyft” rather than “Air,” “Lac” instead of “Sacrifice”? How foolish such Words sound; what a Lac it would be. Meanwhile, anywhere in the World You can communicate with the Aid of Latin. Only Pagans and Barbarians avoid it.
The Polish Language is clumsy in so many Ways and sounds like a mere Peasant’s Tongue. It is suitable for the Description of the Landscape, of Agriculture at the most, but it would be difficult to express complex Matters in it, or higher Themes, or spiritual ones. Whatever Language a Person speaks is the Language in which he thinks. And Polish is neither clear nor tangible. It is more suited to a Traveler’s Descriptions of the Weather, but not to Discourses, where one must exert one’s Mind and express oneself clearly. Well, it does lend itself to Poetry, my dear Madam, our Sarmatian Muse, for Poetry is indistinct and intangible. Though it really does give some Pleasure in the Reading, which cannot be expressed directly here. I know of what I speak, for I have ordered from Your Publisher Your little Rhymes and found in them great Pleasure, though not Everything seems to me clear and obvious in them, on which Subject I shall write to You again at a later Date.
I opt for a shared Language, held in Common; let it even be a little simplified, but such a Tongue that Everyone in the whole World might understand it. This is the only Way that People will have Access to Knowledge, for Literature is a Form of Knowledge—it teaches us. For Example, Your Verses might teach the attentive Reader what grows in the Forest, what Type of wild Flora and Fauna there are, and a Person might pick up various gardening Skills, and learn about various domestic Cultivars. One can, by Means of Poetry, train in all sorts of useful Arcana, and perhaps the most useful Thing is that one can also learn of others’ Ways of Thinking, which is very valuable indeed, for without this one might conclude that everyone thinks alike, and after all, this is not true. Every one of us thinks differently, and imagines Something altogether singular when he is reading. Sometimes it unsettles me greatly to think that what I write with mine own Hand may be understood in a completely different Way from how I had intended.
And so, if You’ll allow, it seems to me that Print was invented and Black put on White so as to make a good Use of it, so as to record the Knowledge of our Ancestors and collect it so that every one of us might gain Access to it, even the smallest, so long as he learns how to read. Knowledge ought to be like clean Water—for free and for Everyone.
I thought for a long While about how I, Your humble Servant, might bring You some Pleasure with my Letters, given all that is occurring around You, our native Sappho. Ergo I have taken up the Idea of sending You in every Letter the various Miranda I have devised within my Books, that You might boast of them in the good Society in which You—unlike myself—appear.
And so Today I shall begin with Devil’s Mountain, which is near Rohatyn, about eight Miles from Lwów. On the very Day of Easter, in the Year of 1650, on April 8, before the War by Beresteczko with the Cossacks, this Mountain was transferred from Place to Place, i.e., Terrae Motu (earthquake), i.e., ex Mandato (by the Will of) Our Great Lord. The Rabble, not knowing of Geology, believe that Devils wished to knock down Rohatyn with this Mountain, except that the Rooster crowing robbed them of their Power. Hence the Name. I read this in Krasuski and Rz?czyński, both of the Soc. Jesu, thus I have it from a trustworthy Source.
7.
Yente’s story
Yente’s father, Mayer of Kalisz, was one of those righteous few to be granted a glimpse of the Messiah.