Talk:Three Bards

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Appleseed asked me on my talk page whether we should consider changing the name of this article, now that I added the other two spare candidates or replacements. On one hand there is no problem with keeping the current article as the group in almost all cases consists of only three of them, what changes is the names included. On the other, I have a problem with the word "bard", which has quite a different meaning in Polish and I doubt anyone would call Mickiewicz a bard... I know it's English wiki, but perhaps we could find some better title..? Halibutt 20:13, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Halibutt, what don't you like about the word "bard"? Is it the "tribal poet-singer" meaning of the word? That is Meaning 1 of the "bard" on m-w.com, but Meaning 2 is simply "poet", which I think should work for us. Also, poltran.com, gives "wieszcz" as one of the translations of "bard". Appleseed 01:54, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, the Polish bard is in most cases a synonym to trouver or troubadour and not necessarily a guy who forsees future. But the English word is a false cognate of the Polish one. Halibutt 13:37, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

The Polish word is wieszcz. It is an equivalent of Latin vates. Virgil renewed old Latin word which signified a soothsayer and put it in the context of poetry, vates meaning a (propheted) poet. Polish word wieszcz has the same origin and connexion with prophesying but it is also used in the sense of a poet. A good example of this usage is a passage from Słowacki's Beniowski:

Panna Prakseda, gdy chodzi w zapasy

I chce traktować kogo jak szatana,

Co ma pod ręką katolickich wieszczy,

Rzuca na głowę i bije, i wrzeszczy.

(an ad hoc translation:

Miss Prakseda, when she fights someone and wants to treat him like a devil, throws at him all Catholic bards [i.e. their books] she has at the moment and hits him, and cries...)Kameal (talk) 00:49, 2 June 2008 (UTC)