„Parthenopea lues” or the ultimate farewell to Lydia: a gloss to elegy III 17 of Jan Kochanowski

Abstract

The author gathers and scrutinizes the cases in which Jan Kochanowski, the most prominent poet of the Polish Renaissance, mentions Naples or Campania, one of his destinations while travelling through Italy in 1555. One of the designations in question appears to be „Parthenopea lues” from his Latin elegy III 17, a periphrastic term for syphilis, a disastrous veneral disease which truly decimated the population of then Europeans. It’s mentioned as part of a long tirade against a woman who, according to the poet’s wishes, is going to pay high price for her wrongdoings, especially those against love. The ultimate punishment she will suffer, right before immersing herself in the abyss of Tartarus, will be, devastating for her health, „morbus gallicus”. The paper ponders on the right identification of the female protagonist of the elegy, taking into consideration the existing theories about it as well as comments on a peculiar name syphilis was given by the poet and the medical knowledge she shares with a reader.