Kołczan miłości, czyli o metamorfozach starej alegorii
The quiver of love or on transformations of an old allegory

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is to show how the allegory of an arrow piercing the heart, as an element of erotic discourse, functioned in early-modern Polish poetry (both secular and religious). The author analyses two poems: a vernacular poem by Jan Kochanowski, from his collection of {Songs} (I 4), published in 1585 in Krakow, and its Latin paraphrase written in 17th century by Elisaeus a Sancta Maria OCD, who was the author of a verse collection {De vita, gestis ac miraculis sanctae matris nostrae Theresiae a Iesu, Seraphicae virginis Lyricorum libri IV, epodon liber unus duoque epigrammatum}, published in 1650 in Krakow as well. Elisaeus calls his paraphrase a “palinody” because of its polemic tendencies. The analysis of Kochanowski’s song focuses on finding the dominant elements of each stanza for the purpose of demonstrating that the Carmelite poet saved their order, but presented them in a completely different dimension, in a new ideological context, opening a metaphysical perspective.

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