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Translated Text: ‘Song of the Bison’: About the size, the Ferocity, and the Hunting of the Bison

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2021

Frederick J. Booth
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Summary

1. ABOUT THE SIZE, THE FEROCITY, AND THE HUNTING OF THE BISON

1. About the Serpent

This house, which once governed lands and kingdoms,

has carried its crest with a sure justification:

A serpent devours the vicious and does not spare the young,

so good people can live pleasantly in peace.

2. About the Same Serpent Joined with an Eagle

The serpent is here joined to the high-soaring eagle,

so that, flying, it may mingle the lowest matters with its own properties.

For God often sends right advice to the highest

through hearts which keep close to the ground.

3. To the Most Serene Princess and Lady, Lady Bona

By God's grace Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania, Russia and Prussia etc. Lady

Nicolaus of Hussów

Most serene Queen, when I was in Rome, Pope Leo X, one day recalling the hunts in the northern lands and the size of the wild beasts, in a long roundabout discussion, suggested to the most reverend Lord Erasmus, Bishop of Plock, who was then Your Majesty's ambassador at the Papal Curia, that the body of a bison, which we call a żubr, its hide stuffed with straw, be put on display at Rome. The Bishop promised that he would do this, and he sent a letter to Radziwiłł, the Palatine of Vilno, asking how to obtain a pelt of as large a bison as possible. The Bishop, who wished to demonstrate the animal's appearance to the Pontiff by words as well as by the actual specimen, then enjoined me, his assistant at the time, to write something about the nature and hunting of this beast. But all of this came to nothing because of the sudden death of Leo.

Nevertheless, this little work remains, which was composed with a scarcity of time and talent. I have decided to publish it under the name of Your Majesty, and I dedicate it to you as a small gift, hoping that sometime in the future, when your Royal Majesty goes out to hunt, as is your custom, this little book of woodland lore will win you over to reading it.

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Song of the Bison
Text and Translation of Nicolaus Hussovianus’s “Carmen De Statura, Feritate Ac Venatione Bisontis”
 , pp. 31 - 52
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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