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466 DAVID A. FRICKto the various querelae, threni, querimoniae, etc., that were popularthroughout Europe at the time, in both Latin and the vernacular languages.The humanistic querela can be traced, in turn, through medievalpersonifications of Church and State to ancient representations of Fides andRoma, among others."The popularity of the querela in Poland has been linked to the appearanceof Erasmus' Querela Pads or Complaint of Peace (Basle, 1516;Cracow reprints, 1518, 1534). Indeed, the first generation of humanists inPoland seems to have found the device well suited to its literary needs.Walenty Eck's Laments of Unheeded Religion to Sigismund, King of Poland(Ad Sigismundum regem Poloniae threni neglectae religionis, Cracow,1518) appeared contemporaneously with the first Cracow reprint ofErasmus' Querela Pads. Soon thereafter Andrzej Krzycki made use of theform of address in his Complaint of Religion and the Republic (Religionis etReipublicae querimonia, Cracow, 1522), as did Klemens Janicki in hisComplaint of the Republic of the Kingdom of Poland (Querela ReipublicaeRegni Poloniae, 1538).The querela was enthusiastically received by the next generations, whoemployed the device in Polish verse. Two examples suffice to give animpression of the device's popularity. A work often attributed to MikolajRej bears the title "The Polish Republic, Limping, Wanders about theWorld Seeking Aid and Makes Complaint against Her Lords That They DoNot Care for Her" (Rzeczpospolita Polska chramiac tufa sie po swiatuszukaiqc pomocy a narzeka na swe Pany i'z o nie nie dbajq, 1549); MalcherPudtowski's "Lament and Admonition of the Polish Republic" (Lament inapominanie Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, Cracow, 1561) continues the traditionof portraying the Commonwealth as a bereft mother.By the end of the sixteenth century, the device of the lamenting Mother-Republic or Mother-Religion was fully accepted in Polish literature, and aset of stock images and phrases had arisen. The Mother would bemoan herloss with ei mihi, me miseram, niestetyz mnie, ach mnie, biada mnie, ciezkomnie, etc. Among the commonplaces, we find the image of the Republicdying at the hands of her own sons, an emphasis on the discrepancybetween former glory and present misery, and the opposition between theold, good sons of the Republic and the present-day, unnatural sons.11See Maria Cytowska, "Kwerela i heroida alegoryczna," Meander 18 (1963):485-503;Paulina Buchwald-Pelcowa, Satyra czasow saskich, Studia staropolskie 25 (Wroclaw, 1969),pp. 143-68; Edmund Kotarski, Publicystyka Jana Dymitra Solikowskiego, Towarzystwo Naukowew Toruniu, Prace Wydziatu Filologiczno-filozoficznego (Toruri), 22, no. 1 (1970): 63-73.