and in her hand she waves a bloody kerchief.”—Mickiewicz, Konrad Wallenrod.]
146 Father Poczobut, an ex-Jesuit, and a famous astronomer, published a work on the Zodiac of Denderah, and by his observations aided Lalande in calculating the motions of the moon. See the biography of him by Jan Sniadecki.
147 [Jan Sniadecki (1756-1830) was a man of real distinction both as an astronomer and as one of the intellectual leaders of Poland. During Mickiewicz's student days he was professor at the University of Wilno. The young poet disliked him, as a representative of the cold, rationalistic tradition of the eighteenth century.]
148 [At Jassy, in Roumania, peace was concluded in 1792 between Russia and Turkey. The poet represents Branicki and his comrades as rushing to the protection of the Russian armies: compare p. 334.]
149 [Fvlmen Orientis Joannes III. rex Poloniarvm ter maximus. Calissii typis Collegij Societatis Jesv. 1684.]
150 [Rubinkowski, Jan Kaz. Janina zwycieskich tryumfow Jana III. Poznan, S. J. 1739.]
151 [Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski (1734-1823), a cousin of Stanislaw Poniatowski, and one of the leading men of his time in Poland.]
153 [See note 29.]
154 [See p. 171 and note 121.]
155 Properly Prince de Nassau-Siegen [1745-1808], a famous warrior and adventurer of those times. He was a Muscovite admiral and defeated the Turks in the bay [of the Dnieper, near Ochakov]; later he was himself utterly defeated by the Swedes. He spent some time in Poland, where he was granted the rights of a citizen. The combat of the Prince de Nassau with the tiger [in Africa!] was noised abroad at the time through all the newspapers of Europe.
156 [Thaddeus, though he may catch a glimpse of this scene through the keyhole, apparently does not hear the conversation, if one may judge by his later ignorance: compare p. 261.]
157 [In the original Switezianka, a nymph that apparently Mickiewicz himself invented as an inhabitant of the Switez, a small lake near his home. One of his ballads is entitled Switezianka, another Switez.]
158 [The Polish "short mile" was of 15,000 feet, or somewhat less than three English miles; the "long mile" was of 22,500 feet.]
159 [A sort of Polish Puck. He figures prominently in Slowacki's tragedy Balladyna.]
160 [See note 21. The name of Plut's birthplace might be translated Skinnem.]