O Sacred Love of the Beloved Country

"O Sacred Love of the Beloved Country" (Polish

Polish language

Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

title: "Święta miłości kochanej ojczyzny"; also, "Hymn do miłości ojczyzny," "Hymn to Love of Country") is a patriotic poem by the Polish Enlightenment author and poet, Ignacy Krasicki

Ignacy Krasicki

Ignacy Krasicki , from 1766 Prince-Bishop of Warmia and from 1795 Archbishop of Gniezno , was Poland's leading Enlightenment poet , a critic of the clergy, Poland's La Fontaine, author of the first Polish novel, playwright, journalist, encyclopedist, and translator from French and...

, published in 1774. It became one of Poland's national anthems

Polish national songs

This is a list of Polish national and patriotic songs.Bogurodzica Boże, coś Polskę Czerwone maki na Monte Cassino...

History

Ignacy Krasicki (1735–1801) was the leading literary representative of the Polish Enlightenment—a prose writer and poet highly esteemed by his contemporaries, who admired his works for their plots, wit, imagination and fluid style.

Krasicki read his poem, "O Sacred Love," at a Thursday Dinner

Thursday Dinners

The Thursday Dinners were meetings of artists, intellectuals, and statesmen held by the last King of Poland, Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski in the era of Enlightenment in Poland....

hosted by King Stanisław August Poniatowski. The poet published it in 1774 in Zabawy Przyjemne i Pożyteczne (Pastimes Pleasant and Profitable). It subsequently became part of song 9 of his 1775 mock-heroic

Mock-heroic

Mock-heroic, mock-epic or heroi-comic works are typically satires or parodies that mock common Classical stereotypes of heroes and heroic literature...

poem, "Myszeida" (The Mouseiad).

Popular during the Enlightenment, Krasicki's patriotic poem became the anthem of the Warsaw

Warsaw

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

Corps of Cadets. It has gone through many translations, including three into French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

.

The poem is written in lines of 11 syllable

Syllable

A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...

s, with rhyme

Rhyme

A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes.-Etymology:...

scheme: ab, ab, ab, cc.

Below is an English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

translation

Translation

Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...

by Christopher Kasparek

Christopher Kasparek

Christopher Kasparek is a Scottish-born writer of Polish descent who has translated works by Ignacy Krasicki, Bolesław Prus, Florian Znaniecki, Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Marian Rejewski and Władysław Kozaczuk, as well as the Polish-Lithuanian Constitution of May 3, 1791.He has published papers on...

Text

O sacred love of the beloved Country,

Only good and true minds can experience you!

For thee, virulent poisons are savory;

For thee, chains and fetters are not an abuse.

Thou embellish cripples with scars of glory;

In the mind, thou dost nestle pleasures most true.

Might one, to thy succor, endeavor to fly,

'Twere nothing to live poor, 'twere nothing to die.

History

Text

See also