Mud & Mammon: 10 Polish Quotes About Money
#language & literature
Money makes the world go around, and the writers and poets on it are no exception. Culture.pl checks how filthy lucre was treated by noted Polish authors from different eras – from the Renaissance to the 2010s.
Money on your deathbed
Money has accompanied Polish literature right from the start. One of the pioneers of the Polish literary language, the Renaissance writer Mikołaj Rej, mentions it in his 1545 drama The Life of Joseph. The work is loosely based on the biblical Joseph who in ancient Egypt advised the Pharaoh to stock up during the ‘seven years of abundance’ to prepare for ‘seven years of famine’. The lengthy drama touches on many issues, money being one of them:
Mikołaj Rej
People are of such a bred,
Even on their deathbed,
When you mention money,
All raise heads in a hurry.
Translated by the editor
In this quote, Rej displays the comic inclinations that transpire through a number of his works, such as Figliki, a series of humorous epigrams revolving around the Polish nobility’s banquet culture.
Beautiful, successful & celebrated
Another sarcastic quote about money comes from Adam Naruszewicz, the well-known poet, dramatist, historian and translator from during Poland’s Enlightenment. Although his verse writings are often criticised (Wacław Borowy, historian of Polish literature, called Naruszewicz’s Bajki [Fairy Tales] ‘utterly dull’ adding that they were but ‘a tribute given at the altar of literary fashion’), Naruszewicz is generally valued for his sense of humour, particularly his poems which wittily make fun of the realities of his times.
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Wise, well-behaved, thoughtful, praised, loved,
Noble, funny, beautiful, successful and celebrated
Is money
Translated by the editor
The citation is part of the poem Pieniądze (Money), in which Naruszewicz ridicules the social radiance of money and how certain positive qualities are (declaratively) attributed to the rich for reasons little do with their actual characters. Seems like some realities haven’t really changed since the Enlightenment…
Things money can’t buy
The ‘magical’ powers of money, such as the capacity to make a person ‘noble’ or ‘beautiful’ (at least in the eyes of others), intrigue also contemporary penmen. In one of his clever sentences in his 2015 English-language book Aphorisms, Andrzej Majewski seems to agree with what Naruszewicz had to say all those years ago:
There are things money can’t buy, but they are yet to be discovered.
The quoted phrase and other similarly catchy ones have given Majewski a reputation as one of Poland’s leading contemporary aphorists. Professor Jan Miodek, a celebrated authority in linguistics, once stated that ‘(…) Andrzej Majewski’s aphorisms and sentences are exceptionally independent, original and – most importantly – humorous (although often in a bitter way), I’m inclined to encourage everybody to read them…’
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Can’t buy me happiness
As intriguing as Majewski’s cited aphorism may be, many people wouldn’t agree with it. For instance, the Beatles famously sang ‘money can’t buy me love’. Looking a bit further back in the sphere of Polish literature, one finds the following quote which also counters Majewski’s sentence:
(…) Being rich has little to do with happiness; it makes you suave, demanding and accustomed to easy living, so the rich experience less joy than the poor, because they feel not what’s good and see every shortcoming as a disaster.
Translated by the editor
This may be illustrated with a simple example: a man with no shoes is truly happy to receive a new pair. A person with a hundred pairs doesn’t really notice any difference after obtaining yet another…
Emptying the heart
Apart from concentrating on what money can or cannot get, it’s only natural to ask how does one actually get it, this highly coveted thing. An answer, a rather pessimistic one, is provided by the socially-engaged writer Eliza Orzeszkowa in her 1909 novel Bracia (Brothers):
Eliza Orzeszkowa
It’s very hard to fill the coffer without emptying the heart.
Translated by the editor
Indeed, for most people only hard work leads to ‘filling the coffer’. And work usually involves devoting your time to things you’d typically avoid given the choice: commuting, listening to angry customers, or, as was common when the writer was alive, putting your health at risk in a coal mine... In this sense Orzeszkowa’s message that obtaining money drains the soul or ‘empties the heart’ seems to be in line with what is written in Genesis, the first book of the Bible:
Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
Only for Mammon
It’s harder to find a clearer example of someone ‘emptying their heart’ for money than a musician. They have to draw on their sensibility, emotions and personal life to create a message that’ll somehow engage the audience, eventually convincing them to finance the artist’s activity through purchasing an album, a concert ticket and the like. This dynamic is keenly expressed in the 1998 song Mamona (‘Mammon’) by the influential rock band Republika:
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Wrote a song today, feeling better, feeling ok,
But I want it to be, only for Mammon.
Not a word about love, spite, politics
Or anything else, no meaningful add-ons
(…)
This song was written for money!
This song is sung for money!
Translated by the editor
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
In an interview for the monthly Nowa Fantastyka, the singer commented:
We’d like our albums to retain their niche and experimental character, but to sell at least half a million copies. Ideally, we’d be avant-garde and commercially successful at the same time. When I realised that sincerely, looking in the mirror, I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I freed myself by calling the problem by its name.
The gates of heaven
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Agnieszka Osiecka, photo: Włodzimierz Wasyluk / Reporter / East News
osiecka.jpg
Another Polish song, Wystarczą Pieniądze na Bilet (Money For A Ticket Is All You Need), brings a more sentimental approach to the subject through the lyrics by noted lyricist and writer Agnieszka Osiecka:
Agnieszka Osiecka
Money for a ticket is all you need
And in a flash you’re at heaven’s gates
Money for a ticket is all you need
And like a butterfly you swim all the way
Where at the end of the world meet they
Who share not their nights nor days
The happy have a rendezvous with the sad
And the white cats meet with the black
Translated by the editor
The song (possibly evoking a visit to a movie theatre) was written for a 1960s TV show called Listy Śpiewających (Singers’ Letters). Here’s how pianist Adam Sławiński, composer of the song’s music, remembers working on the tune:
(…) The Letters was a series of poeticising shows whose heroes talked to one another through letters. Like in the 19th century or even earlier. (Today the show would perhaps be called ‘Singing Emails’).
Quote from the 2015 book Koleżanka: Wspomnienia o Agnieszce Osieckiej (A Friend: Remembering Agnieszka Osiecka) by Karolina Felb
Adam Sławiński goes on to say that Money For A Ticket Is All You Need (which has been sung by a number of performers over the years) is among his favourite compositions made for the show.
Food, sex, payments, taxes
Some would like the air which covers all of this and is unchangeably black, to hold something else. A voice. An echo. A truth. A treasure. Some may actually believe that that something is there, but most don’t even give it any thought. They think about food, sex, payments, taxes. Mainly they think about money. That they haven’t got enough of it. Those who think of something other than that are at a disadvantage. They lose focus.
Translated by the editor
In this dark vision, money is the thing that drives most people. There is no question whether you serve Mammon or not, it’s more or less taken for granted that you do. And if you don’t, well… it’s not something to be proud of. Interestingly though, the hero who ponders on ‘losing focus’ by ‘those who think of something other than’ money, ends up losing focus himself, big time.
Poison your life
The next quote refutes that money is basically the only thing worth thinking of:
To create a budget: to poison your life even before paying the expenses.
Translated by the editor
This humorous sentence is attributed to Janina Ipohorska, a writer and long-term journalist of the weekly Przekrój. She is most commonly remembered for writing, under the pseudonym Jan Kamyczek, the periodical’s regular column devoted to good manners titled Demokratyczny Savoir-Vivre (The Democratic Savoir-Vivre). This fixture kept appearing from 1947 to the early 1980s and became a real institution of Polish journalism. Shortly after its start, it took on the form of replies to letters sent in by the readers.
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Janina Ipohorska always treated those seeking advice seriously, without ridicule, but with a lot of humour and sometimes with ‘warm, delicate irony’. She often displayed a light-hearted approach to the rules of savoir-vivre (after all it was meant to be democratic!) and had a predilection toward the rational notion of ethics.
Quote from Demokratyczny Savoir Vivre Jana Kamyczka or Jan Kamyczek’s Democtratic Savoir-Vivre, a paper by Wanda Matras, published in 2008 by The Pedagogical University of Cracow
Indeed, the quotation saying that planning your expenses is like ‘poison’ does contain ‘a lot of humour’ but does it convey a fully ‘rational notion’? The next, and last quote, will try to provide an answer to that question…
Money is mud
They say only those who’ve never been poor can afford to show disregard for money. And although a relaxed approach to finances can come about as appealing (and act as a great topic for a witty aphorism), it can only seem that way when one has enough money to put food on the table. When you don’t, suddenly ‘every penny counts’. Or you count every penny creating a budget that’ll help you get through the ‘years of famine’.
Money is mud, but mud isn’t money.
Translated by the editor
In other words, money ‘has little to do with happiness’, as Klementyna Hoffmanowa put it, but that doesn’t mean its worthless. The saying from Horacy Safrin’s book is somewhat similar to another traditional Jewish sentence about money that appears, for example, in the 1967 compilation of Jewish humour and sayings Mądrości Żydowskie (Jewish Wisdom) by Andrzej Drożdżyński:
It’s not as good with money as it is bad without it.
Author: Marek Kępa, May 2018
polish literature
eliza orzeszkowa
mikołaj rej
jakub żulczyk
agnieszka osiecka
Republika
polish poetry
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