Without question Tadeusz Nowak reached the height of his poetic powers in a series of poems he called psalms (Psalms for Home Use, 1959; Psalms, 1971; and New Psalms, 1978). Although they form a distinctive group with common characteristics, it is hard to see what could possibly connect them with the lofty verses of the Book of Psalms. Having said that it can be argued that they belong to a Polish tradition of psalms developed by Kochanowski, Kochowski and Krasiński. The Polish psalms come in two varieties, those with sweeping visions of national history and identity, and the homely, or more personal, in focus and tone. Nowak rarely mentions the grand themes, yet when he does so his utterances are pregnant with meaning (though with no touch of the messianic fervour typical of the Polish psalms). His Psalms for Home Use are decidedly ‘homely’ in the sense of being personal and private (even autobiographical), and because they exhibit a mind of the common people from the country. If there is any connection between Nowak’s Psalms and their Biblical prototype it is maintained not so much by the occasional literary allusion as by the casting of the characters in the poems in the role of modern psalmists. Like King David, they know they are sinners, and that knowledge imparts to their ‘psalms’ the candidness of a cry from the depth.

This article attempts to formulate a new interpretation of the mysterious messianic character marked "Forty and Four" from the Vision of Priest Piotr in Adam Mickiewicz's poetic drama Dziady ( Forefathers' Eve), Part III. After a review of earlier readings of this crux and its symbolism, the author of the article presents his own proposal, which contextualizes the enigmatic number in three historical frameworks. The first of them is ancient history, and, more specifically, 'Forty four' is seen as a reference to the Ides of March in 44 B.C., the date on which Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of conspirators led by Brutus. The other two relevant contexts are the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, and the high tides of modern history culminating in tyrannicide. In effect, the 'Forty four' passage is seen as an affirmation or even a sacralization of tyrannicide, symbolized by not only by inexplicit references to Brutus and the Israelite heroine Judith. It is a theme which reverberates not only in Dziady but also throughout Adam Mickiewicz's work.