A Funeral Rhapsody in Memory of General Bem information

"A Funeral Rhapsody in Memory of General Bem" (in Polish Bema pamięci żałobny rapsod) is a poem by Polish poet Cyprian Norwid,^[1] a descendant of the Polish king John III Sobieski. It is an elegy for a famous Polish commander, Józef Bem,^[2] who was a hero of three nations, Polish, Hungarian and Turkish. It was written in 1851. The poem is a description of an imaginary funeral. It is described as a funeral of a medieval knight or Slavic warrior, encased in armour, with his horse and a falcon, accompanied by groups of boys and girls.^[3] The poem is especially interesting because of its form. It was written in rhymed hexameter. All the lines are made up of fifteen (7+8) syllables according to the pattern ' x ' x x ' x || ' x x ' x x ' x.^[4]

The rhapsody opens with a Latin citation of Hannibal:

iusiurandum patri datum usque ad hanc diem ita servavi

(The oath given to father I have kept even unto this day)

Norwid's poem was often used and performed by Zbigniew Herbert and was translated into English by Adam Czerniawski.

^ Jerzy R. Krzyzanowski, Cyprian Norwid, Polish poet at Encyclopaedia Britannica.
^ Józef Zachariasz Bem, Polish general at Encyclopaedia Britannica.
^ Lucylla Pszczołowska, Wiersz polski. Zarys historyczny, Fundacja na Rzecz Nauki Polskiej, Wrocław 1997, p. 218.
^ Wiktor Jarosław Darasz, Mały przewodnik po wierszu polskim, Towarzystwo Miłośników Języka Polskiego, Kraków 2003, p. 72.

[1] Jerzy R. Krzyzanowski, Cyprian Norwid, Polish poet at Encyclopaedia Britannica.

[2] Józef Zachariasz Bem, Polish general at Encyclopaedia Britannica.

[3] Lucylla Pszczołowska, Wiersz polski. Zarys historyczny, Fundacja na Rzecz Nauki Polskiej, Wrocław 1997, p. 218.

[4] Wiktor Jarosław Darasz, Mały przewodnik po wierszu polskim, Towarzystwo Miłośników Języka Polskiego, Kraków 2003, p. 72.