Pan Zagloba

With Fire and Sword:
Pan Zagłoba
February 27th 2017
Ink, gouache, white charcoal
Toned paper
5x7 inches

Pan Jan Onufry Zagłoba is an old, lesser Polish nobleman who is one of the main characters featured prominently throughout Henryk Sienkiewicz's whole Trilogy. Pan Zagłoba meets Pan Jan Skrzetuski early on in the book in a tavern in Chyhyryn in the Ukraine. He's described as being fat, prone to excessive drinking, blind in one eye, and with a hole in his forehead. A Falstaff-like character, he has a sharp tongue and he's a braggart who loves to be in the center of attention and tell wild, outlandish tales about his exploits. Other characters compare him to Odysseus, as he is a cunning man who is able to extricate himself out of dangerous situations using only his wits, and since he's also cowardly, this tends to be one of his best assets. He also has some of the best dialogue in the books. Pan Zagłoba meeting with Pan Jan Skrzetuski is described thus:

Old Pan Zachvilihovski laughed and laughed until tears were flowing down his weathered face. "Ah, that Tchaplinski..."

"A mongrel dog!" a hoarse new voice bellowed from the crowd and a fat, bald knight came up to their table. One of his eyes were glazed over with the white film of blindness, and naked bone shined like yellow ivory through a round hole, the size of an imperial thaler, that gaped in his forehead. "A yowling whelp, I say! Allow me, sir," he went on, bowing to Skrzetuski. "My compliments to you. I am Jan Zagloba! My family crest is known as 'In-the-forehead,' which anyone can tell by looking at this proof of martyrdom I wear. A bandit's bullet did that to me while I was on pilgrimage to the Holy Land to make amends for the sins of my hot-blooded youth."

"Come now, Zagloba," chided Zachvilihovski. "You've told me that you had that hole knocked out with a beer mug in Radom."

"A bandit's bullet, as I live! That Radom business was something altogether different."

"Well," the old man said, laughing. "You may have had a stray thought about a pilgrimage but it's certain you never went on one."

“True, true.” The fat noble nodded and went on as naturally and smoothly as if no one had challenged the truth of his story “But that was only because I’d already earned my martyrdom among the Turks where the Sultan allowed himself certain gross indignities against me. Call me a prince of mongrels if I’m lying! To your good health, lieutenant!”
...
Pan Zagloba, who was always ready to outdrink and outshout the entire Commonwealth if he wasn’t paying for his own refreshment, proved to be the thirstiest and the loudest of them all. “Gentlemen!” he bellowed until the windows rang. “I’ve sent a summons to the Sultan! I’m taking him to court for his crimes against me while I was in his hands at Galata!”

“What’s that? A summons?”

"As I live and breathe!”

“More lies! You’ll fray your mouth with them!”

“What? You don’t believe me?” Pleased to be the center of attention, the fat knight turned to Latin which the gentry used as the language of law and erudition. “Listen then: ‘Quatuor articuli judicii castrensis: stuprum, incendium, latrocinium et vis armata aedibus illata.’ And isn’t what the Sultan did to me a clear case of vis armata? I’ll sue his last minaret out of him!” This brought another howl of laughter from everyone around.

“Oh . . . that’s enough, enough!” the reeling nobles cried through their helpless tears.

"And I’ll win the case!” Pan Zagloba bellowed. "And he’ll be posted an outlaw, stripped of his name and substance! And then we’ll go to war with him with a clear conscience!”

“To your good health!” the gentry cried and drank.

~ With Fire and Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz, translated by W.S. Kuniczak