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

In your lust-gardens hungry jackals howl,

And in the desert vagrant beggars prowl. (Everything that Lucifer says becomes suddenly visible.)

And this will not be caused by hurricanes,

Nor by an earthquake rumbling through the plains Just by a breeze that kisses you and wanes.

ADAM

A horrid sight!

LUCIFER

Fear not, only your life expires! But, here, your body as an ugly faced Mummy is still preserved. Time has erased All the inscriptions from it — everything — Nobody knows, was he a slave or a king?

ADAM (leaping up)

Hellish mirages, off with you! Away!

Empty ambitions, silly longings’ play —

My ears still ring with words „Millions for one!” I must enforce the rights of everyone,

But only in free countries, not elsewhere.

The single man may perish if the state Unites the people into something great.

EVE

And would you also leave your love behind? ADAM

I’ll leave you, too, the throne and everything. Lucifer, lead me to this noble goal;

I’ve wasted too much time on errant tracks.

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