A poet marries a peasant girl and their wedding reception follows.
The celebration of the marriage moves from the church to the villager's house. In the rooms adjoining that of the wedding reception, guests continually get into arguments, make love, or simply rest from their merriment, dancing and feasting. Interspersed with the real guests are the ghosts of well-known personas from Polish history and culture, who represent the guilty consciences of the living. The two groups begin a series of dialogues. The wedding guests are hypnotized by a rosebush cane straw-wrap (Chochoł) who comes to life and joins the party from the farmhouse garden. The "Poet" is visited successively by the Black Knight "Zawisza Czarny" (a symbol of the nation's past military glory), the "Journalist", then by the court jester "Stańczyk" who's a conservative political sage; and by the "Ghost of Wernyhora" (a paradigm of leadership for Poland). Wernyhora presents the Host with a golden horn symbolizing the national mission, and calls the Polish people to a revolt. One of the farm hands is dispatched to sound the horn at each corner of Poland, but he loses the horn soon after. Thus, the wedding guests, who symbolize the nation, waste their chance at national freedom. They keep on dancing "the way it's played for them" (a Polish folk proverb) like puppets, failing in their ultimate mission.
>rosebush cane straw-wrap