Changes

Let's start by saying a few words about the the Tribune himself, one of the more colourful characters in ''Pan Tadeusz''. We don't know his first name, but we do know that his surname was Hreczecha (pronounced, very roughly: ''gretch-{{small|EH}}-hah''). "Tribune" (Polish "''wojski''", Latin "''tribunus''") was a medieval title, originally used by officials who took care of knights' wives and children while their husbands were away at war; in Hreczecha's case, it was an unofficial honorific title awarded by the local gentry out of respect for the old man. A middle-income nobleman, also known as a ''grykosiej'', or "buckwheat-sower" (in fact, Hreczecha's own surname comes from "''hrechka''", the Belarusian word for buckwheat), even though he had his own estate (he gave could afford to give his younger daughter, Tekla, a village in dowry), he preferred to live , along with Tekla, in the household of Judge Soplica, his friend, distant relative and might-have-been son-in-law (the Judge, in his youth, had been engaged to Marta, the Tribune's elder daughter, but she died before the wedding and he never married anyone else). In Soplicowo, the Tribune had the role of a kind of seneschal, managing the Judge's domestic servants.

The Tribune was also a big talker. He could talk for hours about astrology, fly reproductionflies' mating habits, local legislatures and, most of all, about hunting. The poem is interspersed with the Tribune's chatter – often in episodes as he keeps getting interrupted. He manages to finish only some of his stories by the end of the epic; there's one whose ending the author poet had to tell in a footnote. Silence made the Tribune fell feel tired, so when anytime he couldn't find anyone to converse with, he would run off to the noisy kitchen.

In his formative years, which he most likely spent in some Jesuit school, the Tribune must have been made to read classic epics, such as Homer's ''Illiad'' or Vergil Maro's ''Aeneid''. He wold later refer to the latter as "my friend Maro",<ref>A. Mickiewicz, ''op. cit.'', Book IV, verse 977</ref> even though he probably knew the ''<i>Aeneid''</i>'s plot from scholars' commentaries rather than from the epic itself. Mickiewicz himselftoo, no doubt, had to read the same classics, in their 18th-century Polish translations, as a schoolboy. And while he didn't think very highly of these translations' poetic value, they must have left a deep impression on his memory. Just see Take, for yourself; take example, this excerpt from Book XI of ''Pan Tadeusz'':

A tu, dla porównania, pierwsze wersy z&nbsp;drugiej księgi And now compare it with the initical verses of the second book of the ''IliadyIlliad'' w&nbsp;tłumaczeniu Franciszka Dmochowskiego:

| <poem>All now slumber: the Gods and the mortal host;But Jove's eyes closed not while in his mind he tossedAll night long his projects for how to, in Troy,Grace Achilles and thus the Greeks to annoy.</poem>| źródło = own paraphrase based on: {{Cyt | nazwisko = Hobbes | imię = Thomas | inni = edited by Sir William Molesworth | tytuł = The English Works | nazwisko r = Homer | inni r = English translation by Thomas Hobbes | rozdział = Iliads | adres rozdziału = https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Homer%27s_Iliads_in_English#LIB._II. | wydawca = Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman | miejsce = London | rok = 1839–1845 | tom = X }}| oryg = <poem>Inni spali, bogowie i&nbsp;ziemscy rycerze;

| źródło -oryg = {{Cyt

| inni = tłum. Polish translation by Franciszek Ksawery Dmochowski

| oryg = <poem>Ἄλλοι μέν ῥα θεοί τε καὶ ἀνέρες ἱπποκορυσταὶεὗδον παννύχιοι, Δία δ᾽ οὐκ ἔχε νήδυμος ὕπνος,ἀλλ᾽ ὅ γε μερμήριζε κατὰ φρένα ὡς Ἀχιλῆατιμήσῃ, ὀλέσῃ δὲ πολέας ἐπὶ νηυσὶν Ἀχαιῶν.</poem>| źródło-oryg = Homer, ''[https://el.wikisource.org/wiki/%CE%99%CE%BB%CE%B9%CE%AC%CF%82/%CE%92 Ἰλιάς, Ῥαψωδία Β]'' }}

Rym ten samThe rhyme is the same, z&nbsp;tym że tu mamy boga wszystkich bogów planującego wojnę trojańskąbut here we've got the god of all gods making plans for the Trojan War, while there we have a simple nobleman making plans for a&nbsp;tam – drobnego szlachcica planującego obiaddinner. Takich zbieżności można znaleźć więcejMind you, it's not the only such parallel; in fact, much of ''Pan Tadeusz'' to w&nbsp;dużej części po prostu parodia is a parody of an 18th-century Polish translation of the ''IliadyIlliad''. Co ciekaweInterestingly, Mickiewicz najczęściej parafrazuje epos Homera właśnie wtedy, kiedy pisze o&nbsp;Hreczeszeis most likely to paraphrase Homer when he's writing about the Tribune. Ale nic w&nbspThis is no coincidence;tym dziwnego: przecież kiedy Wojski zabiera się za gotowaniefor every time the Tribune gets busy in the kitchen, to efektem nie będzie zwykły posiłek – ale prawdziwie epicka ucztawe're in for some epic cooking!