THE POLISH GRAIN TRADE 207ships, with their high castles and crow's-nests - which, as a countryman, he calls
bocianie gniazda (storks' nests) - confused, elated, and suspicious, he wanders
along the quayside to find a buyer for his corn, and a lawyer for his contract:
Your smart-suited bosmen wait here for their clients,
For gentry from far afield, and for merchants.
'For Sale!', 'Buy up!', 'It's a deal!', 'Come off it!'
Each looks to his profit.
Smile, if you're selling; wince, when you buy;
And pick on a dullard, not a bright sort of guy ...
Will he pay cash? Insist in advance.
Your translator's greeting should await his response.
Or, sprechen yourself, if you think you can barter;
But watch for a sharper.
In a difficult suit you'll need that translator,
And a professional agent, a shrewd operator.
Or else, with those dealers, you'll find yourself pratin'
In broken Latin:
'Heus, mane, quieso faciesque grautum
Indica nobis, puer, advocautum,
Omnium sub quo dirimuntur omnes
ludice causae'
The German's reply is as gross as his grammar
With no sense of shame. 'Pocz my old Mama,'
He cries: 'Kfyd folunt? aut me tomini Poloni
Indice quaerunt?
Hie vere causas adzit adfocatus.
Hiudicat fero dirimitque nostra
More scultetus, focitatque Teuto
Nomine Schultzum.
Ficus est longus, tomus alta toto
Eminet fico; patet ilia cuifis
Ista sculteti domus est, in dzilla
Dziura ministrat.'
You ask your friend, 'Hear that Martin!
Does this Kryksman speak Latin,
Or is it German?.. .'
Then at the Rathaus, at the Court of Appeal
Your contract is sealed.
As the clocktower's melodies chime on, hour by hour
And you wait at the Prussian Registry, by the door,
A Russian month will pass! How you've been flayed
By this Grain Trade!^9
From an early date, Danzig acquired a reputation for gaiety and vice. Writing
in the first half of the sixteenth century, Jan Dantiscus, poet laureate of the
Empire and later Bishop of Warmia, likened the sins of his native city to those
of Nineveh in a tirade entitled lonas Propheta (Jonah the Prophet):