The first of the works composing the analyzed cycle begins with an apostrophe to the entire funeral tradition (that is, the funeral):
Everything is crying, all Heraclitus tears
I lamenty, and Simonide's complaints,
Everything in the world, sighs
And regrets, and phrase, and breaking hands,
Wear everything and everything at home once in a while,
And help me to cry, my graceful girl,
It is a kind of invocation to the whole cycle, on the one hand, of authors of funeral works known to the poet, on the other hand, it is an exaggeration of pain, even a cry for his maximum concentration, intensity.
Death will affect every human being, and all people are aware of it. It is always time to die, death closes the earthly path of man: usually in old age, with many experiences, sometimes even tired of life. Something else is the death of a child: sudden, nonsensical, cruel and a verdict as if contrary to God's intentions, life giver. This death in Trena I takes a helpless creature out of the world, she is blind, ungodly force, it has a criminal character:
So the dragon, having chosen a hidden nest,
He collects poor nightingales, and your greedy
The throat grazes;
The dragon of death knows no mercy, it does not weigh in this case the merits and faults of these, which he chose, decided to take away from the world. He takes only a three-year-old child – innocent, free from sins, and exceptionally good, obedient, beloved by parents, being the joy of their lives. Not only the girl suffered the most terrible harm, The parents who love the child were also openly, unfairly and cruelly punished. It's a crime, says the lyrical subject, it can not be like this, in the face of such injustice, it is difficult to maintain yesterday's image of justice, the goodness and purposefulness of all decisions of the Most High. Already in the first session, the poet's great dialogue with God begins. First of all, the fundamental principle of divine justice is questioned. Science did not lead to happiness, it did not allow us to effectively defend ourselves against personal tragedies. Also, piety offers no protection against calamity, who does not choose between religious people and indifferent to God, it affects everyone equally. In Lamentations, doubting human reason accompanies the questioning of the value of virtue, wisdom, doubting divine justice and unshakable moral order in the world.
In the second part of the piece, saturated with comparisons, metaphors, symbols, references to the Bible, we will already see an introduction to the fundamental philosophical content of the entire cycle: death is incomprehensible, the death of an innocent child is a senseless event, not falling into human categories of thinking. All human efforts must prove to be in vain, there is only helpless despair that robs us of hope, belief in the order of the world, his justice.
Different attitudes can be adopted about death. The poet argued with many of them in the last six lines of this work. Choosing the right posture is not easy, either of two extreme positions: reconciling with death or expressing regret by any means, despair. The trains have just become lyrical, a poetic record of pain, despair and at the same time an attempt to control feelings, emotions, an attempt to rationalize them.
Almost superhuman, enormous suffering must have undermined faith in the sense of philosophy, become a great disappointment with philosophy understood as the backbone of human existence, learning to control emotions. It was enough to keep virtue, morality and stoic moderation, to be a happy man. It was always possible to appeal to the authority of the ancient philosophers, find confirmation of this in their works, in fact, consistently optimistic, vision of the world and man's place in it.
In Threach, the authority of the ancient thinkers was completely denied. Because the poet has lost his Renaissance optimism, belief in the order of the world and a belief in the truthfulness of the philosophical teachings of antiquity. Years of gathering wisdom, the study of philosophical works was essentially lost. Life does not choose between a fool and a sage, does not reward the latter with anything. The lyrical hero of Trena feels humiliated, humiliated by misfortune, his poetic fame is nothing in the face of his cruel death. Kochanowski already wrote in Trena I: We grope, where he softens things, / And it presses everywhere. Only despair remains (man has the right to it, will be repeated by the poet), tears: I don't know, what's easier: or to expressly regret it in sorrow, And that is, to struggle with human nature by violence.
Threnody I is not clearly defined, specified addressee (the next pieces of the cycle turn to, for example,. to death, wisdom, also God): lyrical subject – the father talks to the whole environment, to each of the silent witnesses of his tragedy.
Ten train, like all the rest, is a continuous poem (stychic, and not a scandal, that is, divided into individual stanzas). It was written in twelve syllables, has even rhymes.
