HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES - See also - Harvard University

80 PETER A. ROLLANDby their crown, mitre, and tiara. In the foreground fallen warriors lie trampledunder the chariot's wheels and the bulls' hooves. Such coincidences oftheme and content are too great to be mere chance.Likewise, a plate illustrating Petrarch's work must have served asPolacki's source of inspiration for lines 19-24 of his text. This sextetdescribes the triumphal passage of Fame, who rides in a splendid vehicledrawn by elephants and is accompanied by an entourage that, according toPolacki's text, includes Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and the "eloquentCato." Both this text and Benz's plate illustrating Rej's "Sława dobradługo trwa" have Petrarch's "Trionfo delia Fama" as their ultimate model.In lines 25-30 of Polacki's text and in Benz's plate that appears as part ofRej's thematically related emblem, "Czas prętko leci," we can discernseveral similarities: the figure of Winged Time, the swift hinds which drawTime's chariot, and the allegorical figures of the seasons which strive tokeep pace. All these argue convincingly that Polacki's verses were inspiredby some visual representation of Petrarch's "Trionfo del Tempo."We have argued that all the above segments of the Połacki text containdetails of both theme and content which support the argument that the textreflects an engraving or engravings illustrating Petrarch's Trionfi. This typeof evidence is not found in lines 31 -34 of the poem. Nevertheless, the verytheme of this fragment—"Sam jeden Chrystus wiecznie triumfuje"—together with the evidence adduced above, suggests very strongly that thisquatrain, like the other stanzas, is the author's rendering of a plate inspiredby Petrarch's "Trionfo della Divinitá," which appears in the 1574 edition ofRej's Zwierzyniec as "Bóstwo jedyne."This comparison of Polacki's text and Benz's plates has demonstrated avery close correspondence in theme and detail; it is, therefore, safe toassume that some engraving or engravings based on // Trionfi served as thesource for the Polish verses. 23A reading of Petrarch's texts discloses an23A comparison of Rej's ordering of themes with Polacki's exludes the Zwierzyniec as asource for the latter poem. Polacki's themes are ordered exactly as they are in Petrarch's workand in any of the illustrations based on it that were available to me at the time of writing.The theme of "The Triumph" seems to have been one of interest to the young Belorussianstudent. Virtue triumphant is the theme of a text whose name and detailed imagery call to mindboth "Wściektemi biegasz, końmi, Kupidynie..." and "Czasu odmiana i różność." Foundamong Simiaon's earliest verse (CGADA, fond 381, MS. 1800, fol. 115 V ; GIM, Sinod. Sobr.,MS. 731, fol. 122/144 r " v ), the text is entitled "Triumf cierpliwości pięknemi obrazywyrażony." The full text reads:Nadzieja z Żądzą ciągną wóz jak koniePod Cierpliwością na wspaniałym tronieW ogniu, przed którym serce nie szwankujeWięc jej Niewolą Fortuna hołduje.