Why Did Pasek Give the Maiden Booties?

Abstract

This paper deals with certain aspects of the Old-Polish erotic language and allusions that may be found in the Polish seventeenth-century works. The problem is linked with a custom to give a maiden booties. This custom is described in the texts written in the so-called high culture, and in popular literature. An analysis of the character of the relationship between the men giving shoes and the women who received them sheds some new light on the note in Jan Chryzostom Pasek’s “Pamiętniki” [Memoirs]. It enables us to verify the sense of a passage from the famous poem “Żeńcy” (from the “Sielanki”) by Szymon Szymonowic.