Biblijna kosmologia Jana Kochanowskiego. Ciała niebieskie w „Psałterzu Dawidowym” na tle XVI-wiecznych przekładów Biblii

Abstract

In the text, the astronomical references in Jan Kochanowski’ Psalterz Dawidowy are discussed. This text is one of the richest of these motifs poet’s works. The celestial themes focus on the structure of the universe, the most important celestial bodies: the Sun and the Moon (followed by stars) and their movement in the sky, the cosmic order and praise of the harmonious creation of the Creation and its Author. The text discusses selected motifs related to astronomical themes in the Psalter: sunrise and sunset, linked to the order of time, the image of the earth’s circle, the opposition God in the heights – earth below, a pair of the most important astronomical objects: the Sun and the Moon. Selected astronomical motifs in Kochanowski’s Psalter are compared to two sixteenth-century translations of the Book of Psalms, which can be considered the most important for the two main circles involved in disputes over holy texts: the Protestant Brest Bible and the Jakub Wujek’s Catholic Bible. The article is not to seek direct dependencies (in the case of Catholic translation, later than the Kochanowski collection, they are impossible), but to confront the poetic work with the concepts of reading and translating the Bible created in the confessional translations.