Topic: Irodalom - Literature
The new items published under this topic are as follows.
Dezső Kosztolányi: My mother plays only one song,
a single, lonely song. She toys with the story
as her ivory fingers falter along
on the string of black and white ivory.
She forgets the song, but keeps on trying
for she longs to ascend with tunes, a bird
that could take wing, float, go into soaring,
but she’s pulled back by memories that hurt.
This is the song she played as a young girl,
and when with father they loved each other …
She played it again after I was born
and relearned it after it was forlorn.
Oh, how much longing and how many years
of a gray working life are in a tune…
Amazing that it carries all this swoon,
It’s amazing her burden bides without tears.
Her withering youth had blanched with this song
and dwindled into fading mileposts along...
Clinks and clinks on this sentimental schmaltz,
but it’s deep and it hurts like a Chopin waltz.
Translated by László Fülöp
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Kosztolányi Dezső: Szegény anyám csak egy dalt zongorázik
Egy árva dalt. Azt veregeti folyton,
és megbicsaklik elefántcsont ujja
a fekete-fehér elefántcsonton.
És elfelejti, próbálgatja egyre,
és szállni vágy, mint vérző sas a hegyre,
mert szállni tudna, szállni és röpülni,
de visszahúzza újra ezer emlék.
Ezt zongorázta kisleány-korában,
s mikor apuskával egymást szerették.
Ezt próbálgatta, amikor születtem,
és megtanulta, elfeledte csendben.
Jaj, mennyi vágy van benne, hosszu évek.
Egy szürke dalban egy szent, szürke élet.
Hogy össze nem rogy a szobánk alatta,
hogy össze nem rogy menten, aki hallja.
E dalban az ő ifjusága halt el,
s a semmiségbe hervadt vissza, mint ő.
Kopog-kopog a rossz, vidéki valcer,
és fáj és mély, mint egy Chopin-keringő.
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Rainer Maria Rilke: Advent
Es treibt der Wind im Winterwalde
die Flockenherde wie ein Hirt
und manche Tanne ahnt wie balde
sie fromm und lichterheilig wird;
und lauscht hinaus. Den weißen Wegen
streckt sie die Zweige hin - bereit
und wehrt dem Wind und wächst entgegen
der einen Nacht der Herrlichkeit.
Havat terel a szél az erdőn,
mint pehely-nyájat pásztora.
S néhány fenyő már érzi sejtőn,
miként lesz áldott-fényű fa,
és hallgatózik. Szűz utakra
feszül sok ága, tűhegye-
szelet fog- készül, nő magasba,
az egyetlen szent éj fele.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Fordította Fodor András
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Éva Saáry: October 23
On an anniversary...
(Lugano, 1966)
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Gyula Sipos: ...Of a Russian Soldier
His mother. like my mother...
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Ferenc Fáy: The October Dead
In memory of the 1956 Hungarian Freedom Fighter
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Klári Bartal: On the fifth anniversary
“I’m afraid” you whispered in resistance,
your soul fading in the ambulance…
Perhaps, by misguided turn of mercy,
I was sent out of the emergency.
Then I was standing by your sickbed
and held your hand. Blanket you needed
for your cooling body. Do you hear
my voice, I asked, for I could not glean
where you’d be taken… and where to bring
blankets and pillows for your caring?
Internal medicine ward again?
We were there not long ago - in vain.
They sent me home – I was in a bind
Reluctant, yet I left you behind…
Today your memory would mar less
had I chosen to utter words of caress;
gave you a fleeting kiss – now it hurts
for – perhaps - you craved for my words…
Now my self-deceit is a constant curse.
I should have talked to mother, even burst:
“What d’you fear? Your faith becomes pity?
Are you afraid to cross to eternity?
Dad’s waiting for you on the other shore,
He will embrace you, and as before -,
love abounds – take you by the hand
and lead you into time without end.”
(Translated by Laszlo G. Fulop)
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Attila József: Welcoming Thomas Mann
József Attila:
As a child who’s sorry
he’s being put to bed,
and pleads for another story
(to ward off the dead of night),
the heart longs for your light.
He doesn’t know what to say:
(A story from you or for you to stay.)
So, stay! And before you go
tell us all you know.
Even if we heard it before,
Tell it again, tell it more.
Tell us now more than ever
how we must stick together,
be worthy of each other.
You know the poet never lies,
he's either truthful or he dies.
Tell us what can ignite our art
in this great, gloomy dark.
Let us light one another tonight
like Castor lit Madame Chauchat.
No noise can drown you out.
Tell us about reality. About beauty.
Tell us about longing. About agony.
We just buried poor Kosztolányi.
He was devoured by cancer
as a dictator devours humanity.
So much terror without reason
lurking on a dark horizon.
How will they unleash their poison?
How long will they let you speak?
We are with you. We are not weak.
We are men and we will remain men.
And women, women - free women.
And what is more we are all one.
So, sit down please, Thomas Mann.
Begin your story, and we will listen,
happy to see a true European.
Translated by Peter Hargitai
“Attila József Selected Poems” iUniverse, Inc. 2005
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Julian Kuné: Reminiscences of an Octogenarian Hungarian exile
The Internet Archive has made available a digitized version of Julian Kuné's (Kuné Gyula) Reminiscences of an Octogenarian Hungarian Exile originally published in 1911.
Note: The Internet Archive was the source of the newsreels used in creating the compilation film in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution.
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Sándor Petöfi: AT THE END OF SEPTEMBER
Translated by Adam Makkai and Valerie Becker Makkai
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Attila József: The Seventh
"Let yourself be the seventh one!"
Translated from the Hungarian by John Bátki
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National Song
Poem by Sándor Petőfi
Petőfi "...A fiery patriot, a republican, and a revolutionary, on March 15 1848 he became the voice of the Hungarian National Uprising against the Habsburgs when he recited his rousing National Song (Talpra Magyar)" - the poem below
Note: Translation by Adam Makkai
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Janos Garay : The Old Veteran and Napoleon
There were three at one table: the pot-bellied judge
- the hero on half-pay - the journalist drudge;
and scattered about, from their tables a-gape,
were peasant lads drinking the juice of the grape.
From vespers already they'd sat at their swilling,
in health after health all their glasses refilling;
and toasts to King Mátyás brought less off the shelf
than Háry, the veteran, drank to himself.
There was reason for all the big noise and hurrah,
for the peer of that hero six towns never saw.
All eyes and ears gaped at his utterance bold;
The world was agog at the tales that he told.
Note: Written by János Garay
Translated by Watson Kirkconnell
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Sándor Márai : Casanova
"...He, the athlete, prize-fighter, rope-walker and juggler of love adventures, was also and always the sucker in the adventure..."
Excerpt from the book Four Seasons, pp. 187/MS - translated by Laszlo G Fulop, 1999)
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Sándor Márai : Rilke
Millions of years and millions of experiences are distilled in a poem.
Author: Sándor Márai. The writing appeared in the book: Four Seasons, pp.297, Révai Publishing House, Budapest, 1938.
Note: Márai S.: Four Seasons, pp.297/translated by Laszlo G Fulop
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The Writer's Mind—At The End Of A Long Road
Zora was always excitable. But, this time she was over the top.
“Mr Hutson, Mr. Hutson, he’s here! He’s here!”
Calming her down was never easy. Zora was the only ethnic Hungarian on our consular staff in Belgrade in the early 1970s—the so-called “zlatna doba” (golden times) at the end of Tito’s reign in the former Yugoslavia. While she was one of our most cheerful and caring employees, sadly, she was the least effective. Her job was to prepare U.S. passports, Consular Reports of Birth Abroad, Consular Reports of Death, affidavits and other official documents. Each one was a nerve-wracking experience for her—and for her American supervisors who had to insist that the documents be free of errors. For Zora, an almost impossible task. We all wanted Zora to succeed, and cheered her on at work. Many of us accepted invitations to visit her hometown of Subotica, on the Yugoslav side of the Danube in the Vojvodina—an outing that easily transported one back into a bygone era.
Note: The last moment in the life of Hungarian novelist Lajos Zilahy by Thomas R. Hudson. Restoration of item previously published and lost in a server crash.
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On a day like today...
1031
Death of Prince Imre (later St. Imre)
1686
Retaking of Buda from the Turks.
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