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I w rzeczy samej, zdaje się, że natura w każdym człowieku wznawia i niejako powtarza proces powszechnej formacji wszystkich dzieł swoich, przebiegając przez stopnie i schody pośrednie tą samą drogą od początku ku końcowi. Tryb postępowania jednaki, toż w przyrodzeniu, toż w człowieku, toż w historii.¹²⁴

It seems indeed that naturę itself starts anew and repeats in every human being the universal process of the creation of all its works, taking the same path and the same steps from the beginning until the end. The essence of the process is the same whether in naturę, in man or in history.

Mochnacki believed that mountains, being the first link in the chain of evolution, correspond to the earth’s first inhabitants—the Titans:

Pierwsza w dziejach epoka anorganiczna przypomina naturę. Ma ten sam kształt i podobieństwo. Tam w dali niedościgłej postrzegamy kolosalne postacie pierwszych synów ziemi, — malarskie figury, grupy patriarchalne. Wielki był człowiek w początkach. Są to niejako skały pierwiastkowej formacji w porządku historycznym.¹²⁵

The first non-organic era in history resembled naturę. It had the same shape and formation. We became aware of giant figures at great un-attainable distances, the first sons of the earth, figures from paint-ings, patriarchial groupings. Man in his beginning had greatness in him. Those were the rocks of history, its primeval formation.

Support for the hypothesis that the protagonist of Piąta pora roku perceives a parallel between Titans (and people raised to the status of Titans, e.g. the great Romantics) and (the) mountains is to be found in Stanza 8 of the poem. Here the mountain-top is described anthropo-morphically as a ‘bare skuli’ (goła czaszka). Further support for this hypothesis is lent by the (well-known) Polish legend about enchanted knights sleeping in the western Carpathians (in that section known as the Tatra mountains).¹²⁶

In Piąta pora roku the poet would seem to have been endowed with superhuman status.¹²⁷ The highest points in the landscape (the mountains and the trees) would appear to be analogues of the highest flights of the poet’s imagination, which rebuilds the initial unity of all Being—this in accordance with Romantic conceptions of sublimity:¹²⁸

¹²⁴    Mochnacki, op. cit., p. 28.

¹²⁵    Ibidem, p. 31.

¹²⁶    Cf. Śpiący rycerze (in:) Kazimierz Tetmajer, Na Skalnym Podhalu. Kraków 1976.

¹²⁷    Wierzyńskim concept of the superhuman status of the inspired poet has nothing in common with Nietzsche's concept of the Uebermensch.

¹²⁸    Cf. W. K. Wimsatt jr. and C. Brooks, Romantic criticism. London 1970.

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