Bereczky Erzsébet (szerk.): Imre Madách: The Tragedy of Man. Essays about the ideas and the directing of the Drama (Budapest, 1985)

Imre Madách: The Tragedy of Man - full text of the drama - Translated by Joseph Grosz

THE LORD

And you, Lucifer? You stand in silence with A cocky face, can you not find a word Of praise? Do you dislike my great creation?

LUCIFER

What should I like? This cosmic matter has A kind of forceful quality that You Could not dream of before it was revealed.

But if You knew about it, then You did Not have the strength at all to alter it.

And now this matter kneaded into globes, Attracting and repelling one another,

Awakes to life inside some tiny worms Till everything is finished and cooled down, Leaving behind it only a neutral slag —

In his own workshop man will also strive To do the same when he discovers how.

You placed Your man inside Your kitchen, and You are indulgent of his bungling ways;

He tries to cook and thinks he is a god.

But when one day he spoils and squanders all That You have brewed, then Your belated wrath Will wake. What else can You expect from such An amateur? What is the sense of Your Creation? For Your own glory You composed A song and placed it in a faulty structure.

Yet now You are not weary that the chanting Always and forever is the same.

Is such a plaything worthy of an Old One Like You? Only a child could like a game In which a mud-made spark could ape its master, Reflect his image but not his real face.

Freedom and Fate are chasing one another Yet falling short of harmony and sense.

132