Translation:Baltic to Tatras, sonnets / IV. Oliva

by Stanislaw Tarnowski

IV.

Oliva

Why famous (for the peace in history) Oliva ^[1]
You which have been a symbol of peace since Noah's days.
Why you are so merciless just to us
That you're greeting us with a terrible pain of anxiety?
   Though the horses are calm, but the German coachman
   In a cold sweats among the painful contractions:
   And though the carriage quietly rolling along the road...
   To hear the crash like a hundred thunders – his stomach grumbles so much.
Already the deathly pallor tainted his smooth face
By God, where we rescue, where will we find a defense?
Maybe like the Almanzor will infect us with cholera
This woman trembles for the child, this man trembles for the
mother, that man trembles for the wife. . . .
Suddenly whoa! – The horses stopped. . . . .
                                 The German will get off the dick(e)y – ^[2]
What's next? Eternal muse drop the curtain on this!

1. „The Treaty of Oliva” or „The Peace of Oliva” of May 3, 1660 – one of the treaties ending the Second Northern War.
2. „z kozła złazi” – kozioł – kozioł na wozie, w sensie siedzenie woźnicy – Driver’s seat, coach-box, dicky, dickey.