Korzkiew (Aptekarzowa)

Song Meaning

This bleak ballad opens with a direct address, a narrator urging a passerby to "listen to the song," immediately framing the narrative as a grim, unwelcome tale. The setting is established with stark finality: "here, under the linden tree in Korzkiew, / the bitter finale took place." This sets a somber, almost foreboding tone for the story of the Apothecary's wife. The core of the tragedy lies in a desperate act born from a horrific situation. The Apothecary's wife, described as "beautiful, / ethereal and airy," is married to a "master, a brute, / a necrophile, Korzkiew's terror." Faced with her husband's monstrous nature, she attempts to poison him by adding "a pinch of arsenic" to his drink. This reveals a desperate bid for freedom from an unbearable torment. The twist, however, is a brutal subversion of her plan. The husband consumes the poison with beer but instead of dying, he "revived." This perverse turn leads him to commit an unspeakable act: "He wanted perversion, / he desecrated her poor body." The ultimate horror unfolds as he then buries his wife "under the linden tree," concluding the grim account with chilling simplicity: "The matter is finished." The lyrics' effectiveness stems from their stark, unadorned delivery of a deeply disturbing narrative. The narrator's detached recounting, punctuated by the repeated, mournful "bitterly the linden tree rustles," emphasizes the enduring, inescapable sorrow of the event. The final lines, a somber echo of the beginning, leave the listener with the lingering weight of the Apothecary's wife's tragic fate, a story etched into the landscape.