Fraternity-Testvériség, 1958 (36. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)
1958-05-01 / 5. szám
2 FRATERNITY M ICH A EL VÖRÖSMA RTH Y: * THE OLD GYPSY Gypsy, strike up! You've gulp'd your wine for pay. Step lively now, and let your tunes be fine! What's life on humble fare? Have done with gloom! Fill up the empty glass with ruddy wine! This earthly life is ever more the same, With alternating frost and dancing flame. Strike up! Who knows how soon the day will come When fiddle-bow is bent and music dumb? Grief's in your heart, but wine is in your glass: Play, gypsy, play, and let your trouble pass! Your boiling blood should eddy like the tide, The marrow of your brain be stirr'd and warm, Your eyes should glitter like a meteor, Your sounding string be like a thunderstorm, Yea, sharp and deadly as the crash of hail Where yonder human harvest blench and quail. Strike up! Who knows how soon the day will come When fiddle-bow is bent and music dumb? Grief’s in your heart, but wine is in your glass: Play, gypsy, play, and let your trouble pass! * Vörösmarthy, Michael (Mihály) — (Ver-esh-marr-tee) 1800-1855. One of the greatest Hungarian poets, remarkable for his strength and vivid imagination. He was born on December 1, 1800, of an impoverished but noble family at Kápolnásnyék, studied philosophy and law at Pest. He achieved fame with his “Flight of Zalán” (1825), an epic of the Hungarian conquest. In 1848 he was elected to Parliament, but had to go into hiding after the failure of the revolution until pardoned in 1850. He died at Pest on November 19, 1855. Although he devoted years to the writing of dramas and epics, he was essentially a lyric poet. The splendour of language and sense of awe, always characteristic of his work, are at their height in his last poems dealing with the nation’s catastrophe. He was a profound student of European literature and his translations of King Lear and especially of Julius Caesar rank among the best in Hungarian. His “Appeal” (Szózat), sung to the music of Benjamin Egressy, became a cherished national song.
