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bus« by Ae. Silvio Piccolomini, received in Polish an uncouth verse form from the pen of a certain Cb. Golian, who called it (38) »The History of Eurialus and Lucretia« (1570).

The next groap of stories is bound up with tlie traditions of ancient poetry. Sonie of them have been lost, e. g. (39) »An-tigone the Theban Yirgin« (1574) and (40) »Leander and Hero« (1572) by W. Jakubowski, as well as the anonymous (41) »Lucr-etia the Koman and Christian Lady« (ca 1600), the smali fragmets of which prove that it was based on Ovid’s »Fasti«. Among tliose preserved there are four stories in verse from the »Metamorph-oses«, mz. (42) »Actaeon« (1588) by A. Zbyłitowski, (43) »Thisbe and Pyramus«, (44) »Atalanta« and (45) »The Judgment upon the Mail of Achilles«, all of them by A. Dębowski. Again, M. Pudłowskie (46) »Dido« (1600), which I have mentioned above, represents a sacrilegious attempt at blending together the yarious portions of Virgil (Aen. I and IY) and Ovid (»Heroides«) to ren-der the fuli story of the unfortunate Queen. Apart from the items enumerated, one should mention an anonymous and exceptionally fine specimen of poetry preserved in three 17-th century reprints, called (47) »Lucretia«. The unknown writer abandoned in it the traditional imitation of Livy and Ovid,, that is he disposed of the details of the heroic Toman legend. Instead, he introduced into his narrative particulars (Tarquinius^J letter to Lucretia) modelled on modern love-stories, and concentrated on the lyrical side of the subject, on the lamentations of the heroine in particular.

The most valuable achievement in the whole class is to be found in the short, delightfully precise story in verse written by Jan Kochanowski and called (48) »Chess«. Its simple plot con-cerns a gamę of chess played by two young gentlemen wooing the Danish Princess Anna. The stimulus to this tale, as the poet frankly confessed, was given to him by H. Yida’s celebrated work the »Scacchia Ludus«. Prom it Kochanowski took his techn-ical description of the gamę and the rules of it. To Yida he was also indebted for the gay spirit of the whole. At the same time, however, he developed the borrowed elements into a charm-ing tale, free from the burden of classical erudition, amusing and entirely human both in characterisation and in the generał atmosphere of the narratiye. This poem of Kochanowski was soon imitated by an obscure poetaster, M. Kobiernicki who called his