Ad fontem Sonam (Ep 2) Macieja Kazimierza Sarbiewskiego. Opowieść o źródłach

The aim of this study is to discuss the rhetorical strategies and literary sources in Epode 2, Ad fontem Sonam. In patrio fundo, dum Roma rediisset by Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski (Casimir). It opens the possibility of an intertextual reading of the text (Catullus 31, Horace III 13, Ovid Metamorphoses III (407-417). My thesis is that the text, like the Horatian ode, demands a metapoetic reading. The “source Sona” and its waters, wherever located in fact, stand for an allegory of poetic inspiration, to be identified, again as in Horace, with both the poet and his poetry, but probably also with God’s grace. Thus the image of the poet’s motherland takes on a symbolic dimension and may be understood as an expression of the poetic identity of his own, a hallmark of the poet and of his individuality. In this way the poem becomes a kind of prayer and a performative act of speech.