Rej Górnickiego. Filologiczne śledztwo w sprawie skatologicznych „trefności”

The second book of The Polish Courtier, Łukasz Górnicki’s paraphrase of Castiglione’s The Book of The Courtier, contains a study of courtly jesting. This is where, among other jests, two scatological jokes attributed to Mikołaj Rej appear. Most scholars considered them as evidence of a coarse sense of humour, incompatible with courtly pleasantry. And yet Górnicki treated Rej’s witticisms as superb examples of sophisticated jesting. The article presents an analysis of these jokes in the context of Górnicki’s discourse on courtly wit, Castiglione’s The Book of The Courtier, Cicero’s De oratore, Renaissance jests and old Polish satirical poetry. The analysis reveals complexity, unobvious meanings and function of scatological witticisms attributed to Rej and allows to understand reasons for the high regard in which Górnicki held them.