Szyfr, kod i konwencja. Staropolskie sposoby "mówienia mitologią" [Cipher, code and convention. Old Polish ways of "speaking mythology"]

Using mythological tradition is one of the ways of enrichment the semantic level of old literature. Partially it is caused by entire nature of myths which from ancient times were interpreted as plots consisting additional, hidden senses. Allegoreze, popular especially in Mediaeval Ages, has an influence on ways of adaptating and using mythologisms in Mediaeval and Reinessance literature. Motifs and characteres appear in texts of Old Polish literature most usually with allegorical “background”. Same of that allegories have universal character (being a result of searching in myths some general truths), the others, as a result of adaptation ancient themes to Christian worldview, have lost their currency yet still play an important role in understanding texts of culture.
Notions of “cipher”, code and convention, that are used in the article, mean ways of making use of mythology in Old Polish texts: from hiding specific information under the layer of literal meaning (e.g. bucolics of Szymonowic and Bartłomiej Zimorowic), by enriching text with cultural allusions (for example in poetic letters), to conventional using, in which mythologism has mainly ornamental function.