Petrőczi Éva: "Nagyságodnak alázatos lelki szolgája” Tanulmányok Medgyesi Pálról - Nemzet, egyház, művelődés 4. (Budapest - Debrecen, 2007)

An English and a Hungarian Anti-Episcopal Dialogue from the i6th-i7th centuries

An English and a Hungarian Anti-Episcopal Dialogue from the i6,h-tyh centuries cA?

part of this long introduction is dedicated to the contaminative factors of the colloquial Hungarian, first of all the unhealthy over-abundance of Latin grammatical structures and expressions. One of his most seriously mentioned negative examples was the Passive Voice. He considered it as a burden, ballast on our tongue which easily destroys its natural beauty and fluency. This very part of the Dialogue is a late Eastern European relative of the numerous Elizabethan Defences (Sidney, Daniel etc.) published in the 16th century. Medgyesi’s prologue is almost like a miniature handbook of poetics, written by a real linguistic patriot.^

Returning to the few similarities of the by and large very different two Dialogues: there are only two fragments in their texts which can be interpreted as coincidental meetings of two remote twin-souls. The first such episode or interlude is a quite brutal or plainly disgusting one. Throckmorton’s Idol Minister uses literally the very same words for characterizing the Puritans as the more polite, modest and moderate Medgyesi 60 years later for the bishops and the episcopals: the not very noble action of mutually spitting into one another’s face instead of an elegant verbal tournament. First let me quote Throckmorton: I care not what any of your spiteful Puritans say, so long as I can have the favor of my Lord Bishop.”* 16 *

Medgyesi: „The meaning of the word ‘episcopus’ in Hungarian is guardian, caretaker; therefore our very word is not fit for it because if we make an elision and utter ‘pispök’ instead of ‘Piskop’ (episcopus) we are nearing the word ‘spit’. In Hungarian (with an elision: pök, köp.)”1?

Throckmorton seems to be a close relative of Medgyesi in another episode of his work as well. Here the form, the author’s technique reminds us of the above quoted „spitting paragraph”, the basis of which is a play with the words and with the sounds: „Come down, ye Bishops with your thousands, let your fare be Priestlike and not Princelike...”18

To summarize the similarities and the differences very briefly: Throckmorton’s work was really a „weapon” of the politico-ecclesiastical fights of the Elizabethan era, while Medgyesi’s - in spite of its title - remained within the borders of Hungarian ecclesiastical life. The English author’s words are soaked by acid, while the Hungarian one is much less

*s Quoted - among others - in an important anthology of early Hungarian grammar books, entitled A régi magyar nyelvészek Erdősitől Tsétsiig (The Old Hungarian Grammarians from Erdősi to Tsétsi), kiadta TOLDY, Ferenc, Pest, 1866, 708-712.

16 THROCKMORTON, Job: Dialogue, in: SASEKA. L. ibid. 48.

v MEDGYESI, ibid. 72. - In Hungarian: „Az episcopus magyarul vigyázót, gondviselőt tészen, amint azt mi magyarul nem jól mondjuk püspöknek, ezen episcopus szó, az eleji és utolja nélkül pispök pro Piskop, a mi nyelvünkön gyakran általtévén vagy elcserélvén ez két betűköt, k, p: mint ez illyen szókban, pök,köp...”

18 Job THROCKMORTON ibid. 49.

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