W Warszawie, w Krakowie i we Lwowie, kto bez grosza, głodu się dowie
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What it means
“In Warsaw, Kraków, and Lwów, anyone without a penny will know hunger.” In big cities, money is needed to eat. The saying warns that city life is hard for people without it.
Vocabulary
- grosz — penny, small coin
- głód — hunger
- dowiedzieć się — to find out, to come to know
- bez — without (+ genitive)
Grammar note
'Bez grosza' uses the genitive after 'bez'. In 'głodu się dowie', 'głodu' is the genitive object of 'dowiedzieć się'.
Cultural context
Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine) was one of the three great cities of historic Poland. The proverb reflects the economic realities of city life in pre-modern Poland.
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