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

ADAM

I heard it first today.

Do not listen; it’s not a pleasant song.

Kiss me, my darling, and forget the world.

(To Lucifer.)

Now go to them and silence every woe!

LUCIFER

That I cannot. That is the people’s right Inherited together with their yoke.

(Outside the yelling begins again. Eve cries out;

Adam rises from his throne.)

ADAM

Lady, you suffer; yet I do not know How I can help. Across your heart their cries Lightning-like strike my head; and so I feel That all the world is shouting out for help.

EVE

Crush me, my King, but pardon me if this Woe of the people does not let me rest!

I am your servant; therefore, I know well My purpose is to entertain my king.

I shall forget myself and everything:

Misery and death, my fancy and desire - My smile becomes a bliss, my lips a fire.

But when the people — this million-handed one — With their whipped shoulders yell in unison,

Then I, their bleeding bodies’ tiny part And their uprooted daughter, in my heart Must feel the very pains they feel outside.

ADAM

And so I feel with you. „Millions for one!”

These are the words. The dead man told me so.

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