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  What it means

  Literally “Suffer, body, since you wanted it.” The body (or person) made a choice — and now must live with the consequences of that choice, however painful. There is no sympathy here: the suffering is self-inflicted. It is used reproachfully or with dark humor when someone complains about a situation they themselves caused.

  English equivalent

  You've made your bed, now lie in it. / You reap what you sow.

  Vocabulary

  • cierpieć — to suffer (imperfective)
  • cierp — suffer! (imperative, 2nd person singular)
  • ciało — body
  • skoro — since, given that
  • chciało — it wanted (past tense neuter of chcieć)

  Grammar note

  Cierp is the imperative of cierpieć — an unusual command directed at one's own body. Skoroś is a contraction of skoro + eś (the archaic 2nd-person singular auxiliary), meaning 'since you [body] wanted.' Chciało uses the neuter form (agreeing with ciało), not the usual 2nd-person. This archaic clitic -ś is rare in modern Polish but survives in fixed proverbs.

  Cultural context

  The proverb has an archaic, slightly literary flavour thanks to the -ś clitic. It is used with dry humor or genuine reproach — rarely with real cruelty. Poles quote it when someone complains about a predictable outcome of their own actions, such as eating too much, staying up too late, or ignoring advice.

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