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

Hoping to find in them the incarnation Of happiness they visioned in their dreams.

And yet the mob is like a yawning sea,

No sunshine penetrates its depth, and so It must remain in darkness; only its waves, Rolling along the surface, glitter — and It may then happen you are that very wave.

ADAM

Why I?

LUCIFER

Or someone else who is your kin In whom the people’s instinct turns to life,

And who as freedom’s favored partisan Dares to intrude to occupy your place.

Thus the people, gaining nothing at all,

Have their master - only his name is changed.

ADAM

Your reasoning is just an endless circle;

I feel that there is no escape at all.

LUCIFER

Yet there is one. Give a selected few A necklace or a ring, or other trinkets Proclaiming, „Thus, I raise you high above The crowd to make you nobler than the rest!” They will believe you, and they will not care That you despise them whom they, too, despise.

ADAM

Don’t tempt me with this luring reasoning; Release my slaves! Let everyone be free! Proclaim their freedom, go and hurry on;

They should be free before I change my mind.

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