EPICS OF THE HUNGARIAN PLAIN (original) (raw)

Argument: Piroska Rozgonyi resolves to marry L�rinc Tar though her heart should break, not only for revenge on Toldi but also on herself. Her father does not notice her secret melancholy, which she proudly hides. He looks on her with pride for having raised the fortunes of his house. Every day for weeks he goes hunting with Tar, their house guest, who is more interested in property than love. At last, the day arrives to leave for Buda. The simple people of the village crowd around Piroska to say goodby and bless her for the journey. King Louis welcomes Piroska and takes her to the right wing of the palace to present her to his mother. The queen is holding court surrounded by the daughters of kings and high lords. Piroska kneels before the queen, who receives her kindly and assigns her as the roommate of �rzse, daughter of the Bosnian king. Retiring to their room, the two girls make friends. Perceiving Piroska's own deep but hidden sorrow, �rzse reveals she is hopelessly in love with the Magyar King. Piroska bursts into tears, but does not confess her own secret. As days and nights pass at the court, she watches and waits in vain for Toldi. Half unconscious, meanwhile, Toldi lies in the dungeon. Awakening and staring into a formless night, he hears a voice from the trap door above, and the speaker identifies himself as Jodok, son of the knight Toldi killed on the Danube island. Jodok reveals he had staged an abduction to lure Toldi into the castle. Jodok's younger sister Jodova joins in hurling curses on Toldi's head. The emperor meanwhile learns that his troops, routed by Laczfi-Apor without a fight, had been attacked by castle robbers who killed or enslaved them. He vows to wipe the robbers out personally leading his army. But in the castle there is a surprising event. Jodovna, infatuated with Toldi, secretly lowers food and wine into the dungeon. His energy restored, Toldi seeks for a way out with his sword and great strength, but fails. The trap door opens and Jodovna, revealing that she is the source of the help, offers to kill her brother provided Toldi takes her as his wife or mistress. When Toldi curses her, she slams the trap door down with a scream. Toldi is near madness and starvation when one day soot and sparks rain down on his head. He howls like a lion, the trap door opens, and a rope is lowered. His rescuers inform him that the emperor has taken the castle, ordered Jodok and Jodovna hanged, and commanded the castle be destroyed. They heard Toldi's voice in the nick of time. Brought before the emperor, Toldi asks for permission to avenge himself on the robbers who are still alive and free. The emperor gladly agrees, and Toldi leads off an army while Piroska waits and waits for him to return. At last, she embraces �rzse one night and begs her to learn where Toldi is. Now �rzse knows the cause of her sorrow. Secretly, she initiates inquiries. She learns that Toldi's armor-bearer, Bence, is in camp; she summons him and asks questions about the whereabouts of his lord. She learns that he saw Toldi pursue the giant knight into a castle, but has not seen him since. After waiting for him in a cs�rda for three days, he moved into camp. Piroska flutters like a dove that has been shot down. Toldi's adventure tells her that his most trifling problems are of greater importance than returning and bogging her forgiveness.

How often on ghastly nights she glimpsed the hero lying before her in blood or frozen on distant mountains, abandoned, forgotten, unwept over to the end - and unburied! But again another moment comes more terrible than the first, one thought more bitter than all turns the other agony into peace - "He's alive, alive, but living with someone other than you."

Her two virgin breasts, how they stormed - now what should Rozgonyi's daughter do? A plan races wildly in her mind, the speaker herself hangs it on a "but." "Yes, indeed... oh but! Do you know what?... Ah but! Will you tell the queen?" "No," replies the other, fast and bold, "not even if I were her daughter, I the motherless girl, the orphan."

�rzse took her friend's hand and said - "You are right, it is a sin here for a girl to feel! nothing here but finery, a cold ceremonial pomp. Or you must be a hypocrite from day to day. Bewray one thought with hue or sigh, and only let the queen suspect...! She was never young in her life, I believe.

"I know a way to freedom - but you are timid, all girl. You wouldn't dare, would you... in the bloom of youth...? Unhappy one! Live, go in a cloister! You will win the queen's praise, and with a word throw off your bridal yoke. It would unbind you though you were his wife. No other way can I find."

"Oh," cried Piroska tears welling from the soul. "I will not put that old man in his grave! He would have died long ago - hope for an heir, the birth of a grandchild keep him alive. Now the king's clemency inflates a hope to restore the sunken glory of his house - with this bubble his life would burst...! My heart I gave though this hand wrenched it out."

And seeing no refuge on earth or escape to heaven from the works of fate, this fair creature, this Piroska, began her training to duty. She stared into that dark course until little by little her eyes were used to mist. And she forced a smile to her face until the light penetrated her heart now and then.

She scarcely took heed of the wedding before, now it seems she hurries it up. It's been on for weeks, and only now what a preparation - all the women busy sewing, stitching, and Piroska would make a day of night. She spies the smallest gusset, bustles about, gives orders, now sews now rips a seam - oh, if she could only forget!

But when the plunging stone of giant certainty came, the very last night, she fell on her virgin bed crying like a well that runs over, "Mother, oh my mother!" the words quell forth. "Why did you leave so soon! Or if you had no choice, why did you leave your little orphan!

"If you were alive, oh, I would be too. What happened would never happen. But what can a girl do, an orphan untaught, abandoned, alone among hard-hearted men! Oh, from that bliss look down, look down; if there is a balsam drop of earthly hope, mercy, compassion for my sake, let peace into my unhappy heart!"

And praying heavenward by a peep of light, she grew calm. But she must make ready, too. The young girls were chattering merrily in her ear, such events are puppet shows for them. They dress her with probing, clever hands, imagining impossible things about happiness. They believe a bride need only be an angel, and immediately she goes to heaven.

That day they make an eternal vow to him who hangs on the cross before the altar. The queen is present with her radiant court, Rozgonyi's proudly there with the heroic Tar. Piroska was near to fainting. She took strength from her father's gray hair. "With my heart, with my love!" she mumbles. She went to him... God grant these words be true! Amen.

In the sad season of falling leaves, Toldi rode slowly homeward lost in thought - he had destroyed the robbers to their last castle; now his anger was cooled, and his heart was still and cold. The emperor's letter and pearly gift were in his pouch, but who cared! He dropped his eyes to the horse's hooves as though hopelessly looking for all the time he lost.

He asks the feathered tribes what he dares not of men. He trembles for news, he trembles from it. He charges, though chained, into danger but faces the wind from Buda with fear. Don't speak, mournful winds! Dry leaves, don't whisper! Too soon he will hear what is already too late, how far apart they are rent, that girl and he!

Arriving in Buda, he avoids the court and heads for his little house in an out-of-the-way corner, where Bence waits indolent while his lord's away; and the keeper, the little cobbler, strums his zither. Toldi neither asks nor hears of anything new, although Bence is coughing with good news to tell. As if he dared not even speak, cunningly he started counting his pieces of gold.

Toldi ignores him a while, then can stand it no more - "Well, no-good, where did you get all that money?" Bence handed it over - feel it, look. "Oh, my lord," he said, "everything has its turn. Someone came, my lord, looking for you, its turn had come. Where they like the master, they like his dog... But I'll keep quiet, I'm the no-good."

Unasked, Bence reveals that someone is terribly in love with Toldi - someone, and who! not just any kind of girl - a young lady, and what's more the daughter of the Bosnian king! Toldi almost died of fright. He knew that Piroska was living with �rzse. "Was someone else with her?" he asked in anguish. "There was - the girl who was married in church the other day."

And without heeding the wrath of a stormy night, Toldi tears and rushes like a wandering soul. He wrestles with the wind on Buda's open streets, a snowy rain hisses and stings on his cheeks. Like the wind that blows the flawing sleet, his passions are sweeping up and down. The naked tempest tears his breast, his hair is beating on the waves of a dark tide.

Like a hungry wolf circling the sheepfold, clawing the ground and kicking in rage, he watches outside the Rozgonyi house, where the silent cold stones incite his anger. He runs off and returns, over and over again. He drubs and drills the wall with his head. O what if he should see poor L�rinc now! Do not let him, good Lord, fall into Toldi's hands!

Argument continued: Toldi and L�rinc meet on the street. Toldi seeks to avoid him, but L�rinc runs up eagerly. He invites Toldi to spend an evening with his wife and himself. At first, Toldi rejects the invitation and reminds him of his warning not to mistreat Piroska. But Toldi is drawn to accept, helpless as though he were in a maelstrom. The evening starts with no outward incident although much inner commotion. But when L�rinc carves the roast pig awkwardly with his left hand, Toldi takes the knife. Incited by some mischievous devil, the wine, or her long suppressed feelings, Piroska asks her husband why he spares his right hand which served him so well in the duel. Without thinking, L�rinc strikes her across the mouth. He looks at Mikl�s standing there with the carving knife and with Toldi in pursuit runs to the nearest door and leaps out the window into the street. Piroska intercepts Toldi, lays her head on his breast. He says - "Come, come with me, I shall take you away on my steed where the wind and the sun will not find us - I'll defend you against a whole land, the world!" Piroska disentangles herself like a fly from honey and beseeches him - "Defend, O knight, the honor of a woman!" Toldi knows she is asking him to defend her against himself, and for the first time he realizes how hideous was the deed he committed. His farewell is a long bitter moan, and he flees from Piroska's house.

Sixth Canto

Argument: Left alone, Piroska berates herself for her defiance, her girlish unruliness. Why did she not send Tar away, why not have faith in Toldi, who - she now knows - loves and worships her. If she had not listened to the voice of revenge, everything would be different. But now she has played out her life and her happiness. When her husband comes home that night, he does not dare take it out on her for fear of Toldi. Piroska shudders at the sight of him, and hatred snakes through her heart. She realizes for the first time how much she despises this man she vowed to love. Meanwhile, Toldi returns briefly to Nagyfalu but finds no comfort in his mother, no cheer in Anik�, and he moves on to his newly gained castle at Szalonta. Here he passes the days in sorrow. Nothing interests him. What he starts one day, he drops the next. One day he works madly on rebuilding the old castle, the next day he goes out hunting. He wearies of all this and spends the winter carousing with companions and entertained by women who come to the castle, some willingly some not. The ugly news reaches his mother. At first she does not believe the rumors, but at last she has old Bence take her to Szalonta to see for herself. Toldi is drunkenly watching a lewd dance when the young Bence whispers that his own father and Toldi's mother are coming. Toldi looks out the window and sees his old mother turning into the castle. His mind clears, and with one glance at the disorderly scene he slips down the backstairs like a shadow, leaps on his horse, and flees into the night. Not finding her son, she drives the revelers from the castle and cleans it up. She waits a week for her son to return; and then she entrusts the keys to the keeper and sadly returns to Nagyfalu. Toldi hides out in the bog, sick at soul and full of self-accusations. But he is filled with defiance - if he has lost his honor, let him be dishonored before his mother, too. He criss-crosses the trackless fields and arrives somehow in Buda. He goes to his house and sends the keeper to L�rinc Tar with a message to appear in armor for a duel at dawn on the Danube island, on pain of being beaten to death on the street like a dog. L�rinc rejects the challenge, and putting on his coat of mail he hides in his house for days. Finally, he goes to the palace and throws himself at the feet of the king. He says that Toldi wants to kill him, that Toldi inveigled him into a deal to duel for Piroska, and now he regrets it and is madly in love with her. King Louis can hardly believe it of Toldi; he asks detailed questions, and finally convinced he says - "Hereafter neither you are a knight nor Toldi. Your coat of arms shall be torn from you, and from him. You may go. You have saved your skin!" The king then issues orders to have Toldi seized, as a highway bandit, and thrown into prison. But Toldi is already hiding in the forests. He steals into Buda from time to time, hoping to lay his hands on L�rinc. And one night they meet as Toldi rounds a corner in Buda below the castle. Toldi drags L�rinc down to the bank of the Danube, throws him into a boat, and rows him across the river. Half way over, L�rinc leaps out and the boat tips. Mikl�s dives, brings L�rinc up and swims with him to the island among woods, where he lays him down in a clearing. Toldi allows him a long rest and then armed only with a sword he calls on L�rinc, fully armed, to the duel. With no alternative, L�rinc fights hard, the best he can. At last Toldi pierces him beneath the arm, and he dies a sudden death. Toldi flees by boat to Buda and overland into the forests. The nuns on the island, who could have witnessed the duel, find the body and send word to the Rozgonyi house. The servants place the body into a boat and lay it on the floor of the verandah. Piroska sees her husband, screams and falls dead. By the time old Rozgonyi arrives, the two are laid on the bier. He falls sobbing on his daughter's body and goes mad. They tear him away by force. They close the two bodies in coffins, with gems and jewels, and place them in a vault on Mount Gell�rt. Twenty men roll a huge stone on it. That night Hincz and Kuncz, two dishonest locksmiths, steal there. They manage the many locks, but not the stone. Talking it over, they hear heavy footsteps. It is Toldi - they run away. Toldi puts his shoulder against the stone, raises it. He enters. A small lamp is burning from the ceiling, left behind to die a slow death. It casts a doleful light on the bier, L�rinc on the right, his wife on the left. Toldi raises the coffin lid, he falls on Piroska - and she awakes. She asks, "Where am I? Who is this?" In mad ecstasy, Toldi cries out - "You are mine, you who belonged to another, you whom life and the altar envied of me. Now the hand of death returns you. You are mine, mine, and never will you be anyone else's. Come with me!... I shall take you away, your angel, to heaven, an eternal new life and blessed love! Be dead to the world, and live only for me..." Piroska looks at him in horror and curses him, her husband's murderer - "There is blood between us even in the grave. Be accursed, Toldi, and accursed I too!" Mikl�s runs blindly out, and Piroska falls into a faint again. Toldi returns at dawn to take her from the grave, but finds the vault bolted. He sits by the entrance in helpless agony, then returns to the wilderness. Before his return, the two robbers had come back and stolen the jewels while Piroska was still in a faint, and then reported to Rozgonyi that they saw Toldi rob the grave. Rozgonyi returns to the vault and finds his daughter alive. He is delirious with joy. Piroska allows herself to be led away like a living corpse. On hearing of the events, the king orders the high sheriff to bring Toldi to Buda dead or alive. The Bishop of Esztergom pronounces a curse on Toldi and anyone who shelters him. It is charity, he proclaims, to kill him and not at all a sin.

Seventh Canto

Argument: King Louis receives word from Charles of Durazzo, an Italian duke, of the murder of his brother Prince Endre in Naples. Endre and his wife Johanna were by contract with the late king heirs to the vacant throne; but Johanna, who was jealous of her power and hated her husband, wanted to prevent Endre's ascension by any means and conspired in his death. King Louis prepares for a campaign into Italy to punish Johanna and regain dynastic control over the throne of Naples. A catalog of Hungarian knights and troops.

Eighth Canto

Argument: Toldi's mother goes up to Buda to ask Erzs�bet, the queen mother, to intervene with King Louis on Toldi's behalf, but Erzs�bet refuses. Then Toldi's aged mother decides on going to Naples as a pilgrim to petition the king directly, but Anik� persuades her to let herself and the younger Bence go instead. Anik� and Bence leave with a group of pilgrims, but change enroute into the disguises of a knight and page according to previous arrangements. Piroska becomes a nun in a cloister on the Isle of Hares. �rzse intends to do likewise, aware King Louis plans to bring his bride from Naples. After wandering many long hard days, Toldi comes to a monastery in the Bakony forest, where he is permitted to stay as a brother to perform menial work, and is jocularly known as frater Mikola. But when a priest arrives and nails the bishop's curse on the gate, Toldi flees. Meanwhile, Anik� and Bence seize the two grave-robbers, Hincz and Kuncz, near Venice after overhearing them discuss their robbery of the Rozgonyi vault. They lead the two robbers to the doge, who despatches them to King Louis accompanied by an envoy. Louis' army captures Aquila which Durazzo had incited to resistance. King Louis again receives a letter from Durazzo; it is evident he is conspiring to seize the throne of Naples. Amid double-dealing with everyone concerned, he pretends to be friendly to Louis, who knows, however, that after Johanna's marriage to Taranti, for whom she conspired to murder Endre, Durazzo eloped with her sister Maria, Louis' intended bride. Taranti and Durazzo form an alliance of convenience against Louis. Anik�, Bence, and the doge's envoy overtake Louis at Aquila and relate their story. But the king refuses to grant Toldi pardon because the grave robbery was only one of the charges besides murder and violation of the knightly code. Identifying herself as Gy�rgy Toldi's son, Anik� asks and receives permission to stay and fight by Louis' side. Meanwhile, Toldi flees to Bohemia and joins a group of flagellants. He shaves his long hair and dark beard to the skin. He bares his strong shoulders and scourges himself until he bleeds. From village to village, from city to city they go, carrying the tidings of the Black Death. They torture themselves until the soul shudders; this is how Mikl�s Toldi performs his penance.

Ninth Canto

Argument: The Magyars capture Sulmona. Louis and his advisers discuss the next move in the campaign. It is decided to split the army, swollen with mercenaries, one part to the south, the other to the east, and the king in the middle. Cola Rienzi (leader of a popular movement in Rome hostile to the Pope and the magnates - now in hiding) is taken by the mercenaries, whose leader suggests Louis turn Rienzi over to the Pope to win his backing for the throne of Naples. But Louis, who spent student years in Rome, rejects the suggestion, talks with the fugitive about the City, and then sets him free. Meanwhile, in accordance with the rule of the flagellants, Toldi, without revealing his name, confesses to one of his fellows - an "Italian" lutist who says his name is Szeredai because he was born on Szerda (Wednesday) but is a descendant of the exiled Z�cs family. Toldi relates the story of Piroska and his subsequent wretched life. During the confession, they fall behind the flagellant troop. When the two catch up, the flagellants are camped in a valley indulging in gluttony and all manner of sexual license. Wrathful over their hypocritical behavior, Toldi whips and beats them hip and thigh until they are all dispersed. The lutist is amazed at his strength and says he must be Cola Toldi, of whom people are singing in the market places. Toldi replies. "Call me frater Mikola." They decide to travel together westward toward Bohemia. They encounter a colorful train of horses and vehicles. One of the carriages is mired in a ditch; Toldi lifts it out and puts it back on the road. The passenger is the emperor, who immediately recognizes Toldi. When Toldi says he is a fugitive looking for haven in a monastery, the emperor invites him to "serve with me until your king takes you back - there's plenty of hunting in the woods here for days." They put Toldi up in the royal castle, and in company of the emperor he spends delightful days hunting. But Toldi - why he does not know - must go on, and putting on his cowl he leaves with the lutist, who would lief stay. Toldi suggests they put on a disguise and go help Louis in Naples. The lutist agrees. Pejk�, his steed, reappears like a t�ltos (magic horse). The two companions turn southward.

Tenth Canto

Argument: The siege of Canossa. The king personally leads an attack up the walls. Disguised as a monk, Toldi follows and saves him from a falling rock, and in the trench where they fall protects him with his shield. Believing the king recognized but refused to acknowledge him, Toldi disappears and from a hutch made of boughs keeps abreast of events through Szeredai. Meanwhile, Piroska, now an abbess, writes to the king from her deathbed beseeching pardon for Toldi, testifying he did not visit the grave to commit a robbery but to avenge a woman; it was a more than fair fight in which Tar, according to the nuns who were hidden witnesses, had the advantage of full armor. Piroska withdraws the curse she pronounced in the burial vault. The bishop, too, recalls the ecclesiastical curse and asks King Louis to grant Toldi pardon.

Eleventh Canto

Argument: Durazzo strengthens his forces by hiring Werner, a mercenary leader whom King Louis had cashiered for plundering. Having taken Canossa, Louis resumes his campaign of conquests. Halted by a flooded stream, he scouts about, and comes on a hutch where he sees two horses and Szeredai. The king orders him to swim on horseback across the water and probe whether the army might ford it. At the risk of losing his own life, the king saves Szeredai from drowning with help from Pejk�, who brings back the two of them. While Louis enters the hutch seeking help, Toldi secretly bears Szeredai away and administers him aid. Receiving a report that Durazzo, accompanied by a small force, is moving south from Benevento, Louis quickly decides to intercept him personally with 300 chosen men. Toldi and Szeredai set out to find the king. Seeking to aid Anik� (whom he rescued as she was borne unconscious on her runaway steed), Szeredai unwittingly penetrates her disguise, but she enjoins him to secrecy. Louis' armies encircle Aversa, where Durazzo and Taranti are trapped. Johanna is aboard a boat in the port of Naples prepared to flee. She leaves her infant son behind whom Louis secures and sends back to Hungary. Seeking to avoid surrender although the outlook is hopeless, Durazzo incites Taranti to challenge Louis to a duel. Louis accedes, and the arrangements are made. Unbeknownst to Taranti, however, Durazzo arranges for Werner to ambush Louis at the site with 50 men. Duelling with Taranti, Louis is wounded in the thigh by one of the hidden assailants. Toldi comes to the aid of the king driving off the assassins. Ashamed of the treachery, Taranti discontinues fighting the Magyar forces and flees to Naples, and to Johanna. Louis orders his men not to enter the town - he has reports of the Black Death. The leaders are ordered out. In a hall where Prince Endre feasted before his death, Louis gives a banquet for the Italians and Magyars at the end of which he orders Durazzo executed, thrown from a window, and left unburied (like Endre).

Twelfth Canto

Argument: King Louis receives Piroska's letter. Relenting, he asks Gy�rgy Toldi's son (Anik�) to inform Mikl�s he will be pardoned if he appears before his king. Not knowing her uncle's whereabouts, Anik� prepares to return home. Pejk� reappears and takes first Bence and then Anik� to Mikl�s Toldi. Anik� and the lutist meet again. The Hungarians, meanwhile, are growing restless at Aversa. King Louis broods over Durazzo and the unburied corpse. Reports of the Black Death, many ill omens, volcanic activity at Vesuvius. Louis sees Durazzo in a dream begging for the burial of his body, foretelling that Johanna will escape Louis' punishment. Louis passes among his men as a common soldier and overhears complaints, charges, talk of dissidence, unhappiness over Louis' treatment of Istv�n Laczfi-Apor, the well-liked Magyar chief, whom the king suspected for his failure to take Durazzo, secretly present at the siege of Troia city. Louis comes across the lutist Szeredai, whose life he saved, singing a sad song about Kl�ra Z�cs, his ill-fated relative who was dishonored by the queen's brother; in revenge, Kl�ra's father attempts - the song goes on - to kill her and the king, but only succeeds in cutting off four of the queen's fingers before he himself is killed; the queen demands in return that the whole family be wiped out. Returning from the camp, Louis orders the lutist thrown into prison. Maria, Durazzo's wife, appears, and Louis lets her have the body. He reproaches her for not having waited for him, shows her a letter from the emperor informing him of the death of the princess, Louis' other intended. Anik� informs Toldi of the king's offer. He shrugs his shoulders and says - "I know he is a king and I a worm - but never shall I ask him for pardon." Bence brings word of Szeredai's imprisonment. A messenger of the king arrives commanding Toldi be present at a military ceremony on the morrow. He supplies Toldi with new armor, minus a sword. At the ceremony, the king first forgives Laczfi-Apor naming him regent, and then he grants Toldi pardon, acknowledging the hero twice saved his life and had suffered sufficiently for his sin. He girds a handsome sword on Toldi's waist. When Toldi and the king are alone, Szeredai is brought before them. He tells the story of his exile, which began because his mother was a sister of Kl�ra Z�cs. The king despatches a letter to the bishop requesting that the whole family be pardoned. Toldi requests that Anik� be made legally a son so that she can inherit her father's property, and Louis agrees. The army's spirit returns. Half remains, half moves on with Louis at the head and takes Naples. Rome receives Louis with a warm welcome. Louis receives a letter from his mother that the infant son of Johanna has died, buried at Visegr�d. The Pope's judgment is that Johanna must indemnify Louis with 300,000 gold pieces, but may keep the Crown. Louis rejects the arbitration. A part of the army remains to continue fighting, the rest returns to Hungary. The court led by the queen mother goes down to Segesd to meet the returning army. Toldi's mother is also present. The king greets the queen mother and casts an eye on �rzse, who is dressed in black as a novice. But King Louis reverses her intent, marries her, and thereafter is less prone to foreign adventures. A happy meeting of the Toldis, the Bences, the lutist. They go up to Buda. Toldi hangs up his armor and cowl in his house. Anik� and the lutist receive the blessings of Toldi's mother. Mikl�s swims out to the Isle of Hares hoping to catch a glimpse of Piroska, but only comes across her grave on which he plants four young firs. They all return to Nagyfalu, and then on to the Castle of Szalonta, where the wedding of Anik� and the lutist is celebrated. Anik� and her husband remain in Szalonta, the mother returns to Nagyfalu and Mikl�s Toldi to Buda.

NOTES

I

what is your esteemed name, my brother?: it is a convention of heroic poetry that when a visitor arrives, he is welcomed and fed before being asked his name.

III

J�nos K�k�llei: member of lesser nobility, royal vice chancellor, author of a contemporary chronicle on the reign of King Louis.

IV

the elder Lajos H�derv�ri: tricks and strategems were not considered suitable to the open Magyar character, and thus the old H�derv�ri and the young King Louis of Anjou are presented as having varying value systems.

VIII

Isle of Hares: Margaret Island.

---

TOLDI'S EVE

First Canto

"The king was incensed at Tholdi once... three years he never entered the court."

_Ilosvai

Nature's head has turned an autumn gray, the dew to frost, and the leaves are falling. The sun runs a shorter course from day to day and sleeps longer when done. He pauses on the horizon's farthest edge and beckons the old - "I'm waiting for you!" At this, many an old man shakes his head, but one by one all go to rest.

He paused like this now too; looked back like this. The field was smooth, the heavens clear. The field shone with a million tiny suns; wherever he looked he only saw - it's you! Here on the mirror of a pond, and the fish that leap; there on a tiny insect and the gossamer in the grass; everywhere, everywhere as far as his eye can reach, the old sun sees his kith and kin.

He looked many ways and knew for what, but he stole now the loveliest eye on Nagyfalu and Toldi's garden in the village - perhaps on the dying foliage of autumn? perhaps on the shadows that fall and say a long farewell to the sun? perhaps on the dock-tail chestnut who sadly grazes the tall weeds wherever he may?...

Perhaps on this, perhaps on that... perhaps on the stone cross in the earth at the foot of a knoll... Neither on this nor that - but Toldi, the old man, kneeling by the burial mound. Not a strand of black is left in his hair, his fine silver beard reaches down to his belt, his fine white beard clasped in his folded hands as he kneels.

He prays there, silent and pensive, sometimes a glistening tear on his lower lid; and though his lips stir, ever so rarely, never a sound comes forth. The snows of life have driven over his head. His winter is cold now, but clear and serene; three years since he no longer looks on the court but seeks a better promised land.

Three years passed since the aged knight drew the king's ire on his gray head for knocking the court, its silken ways, graceful customs, and Italian splendor. The palaces were a thorn in his side. He forever grumbled "I don't belong here" until taking him at his word the king sent him away - and Toldi went home to die, the rumor of his death now making the rounds.

The old house was mouldering, streaked with rain and hacked by the old eagle time. It forefeels the day of its decay longing for the soil with every stone. Little winds blow shingles off in their maiden flight. The windfather will take it on in the end, gore it crashing to the ground.

The window is still there which opens on the garden, but not the rosemary which bloomed in it once. There's the little door, but warped of life; the worm was starved out long ago. The latch is rusty; the hinges creak and cry at every turn as though hurt. But Bence cleverly knows the trick, ups the door as he opens it.

Bence was Mikl�s Toldi's old brave bearer of arms, who followed his lord into many a battle, a familiar of death the reaper. Now he stoops with the burden of kindling on his back. Hah, how old he grows, one foot in the grave. He looks like his father, the old, old Bence; the father who gave not only his name but the loyalty of his character to his son as well.

The old bearer stopped on the threshold as he caught sight of Toldi through the narrow cross. He laid his finger on his lips to guard against the whisper of a cough. He kept his eye on the horse, it needed water - then Toldi rose from beside the grave, beckoned to Bence, and ordered him bring a hoe and spade at once.

The servant could hardly believe his ears, and oh he wanted to ask him why. The sowing season had already passed, nor was the garden planted these twenty years. He wondered but went; and rummaging in the rubbish of four rooms, he came across a spade and hoe. He carried them down - struck the spade into the ground and looked with inquiring eye at his lord.

But Toldi scarcely glanced up. He took it and laid out a small stretch of grass - four paces long and half the number wide - simple to measure it with a spade. Bence looked on, wondering to himself what Toldi was doing on top of the mound - one digs for someone who sees the light of the sun no more.

It set Bence to thinking hard how to draw Toldi out. He knew his answers are rare, he hardly replies once every hundred words. And so he did not dare ask - he only looked, now at him now at the fresh earth, the dovegray hair on Toldi's head, the black earth in the narrow trench.

He thought at last of a way to start, and reaching for the spade he spoke like this - "Let me, my lord; it does not become me to stand by and watch with folded hands. I have not dug a grave for many a year..." He stopped and cocked an eye on the master, waiting for a yes or no.

But Toldi was not in a mood to hand it over. Not a word did he say about a grave, or anything else. His face was calm as a frozen lake no earthly wind may ruffle. This face did not tell a thing to Bence. In truth it worried him all the more, and like a distant cloud on a windswept sky, told of a lowering danger.

When Toldi did not give up the spade, the faithful servant picked up the hoe. The work trickled and flowed without a word until at last the long silence wearied Bence. But even more, the secret fear kept gnawing him - you need a grave when someone dies, and without a death why dig?

And still he did not dare speak plain, circling from a wary distance only - "My good lord, solemnly and saving your presence, I cannot believe we are digging a grave. True, it looks like one cut to a man in length and breadth and width; and when we dig the depth, a corpse may sleep the sleep of night.

"But by the heaven's holy angels! Who's to lie there, where's the corpse? We laid out bodies neatly once to dry like sheaves on the fields of battle. We had the dead and dug no graves. In all our house now, there is no soul to bury but us."

Bence paused a bit, wiped the sweat from his face, and rubbed it from the hollow of his hands to grip the hoe more firmly. He gave Toldi a chance to reply, but old Mikl�s was still in a silent mood. To save time, Bence returned to the groove of his speech -

"One death we had, dear to us in life, and in her peaceful grave these many years - our dear lady, L�rinc Toldi's wife, whose name is engraved upon this stone. The letters are worn - no wonder, forty years are gone since then, mouldered by the rain - but let it moulder, for who's to read it soon anyway..."

On hearing these words, Toldi straightened up and looked over the simple mound. Long, long his eyes lingered on the mossy stone above his mother's grave. But he was silent as though mute. He looked at his old armor-bearer, without anger in his eye as if saying - "Speak up, I will not harm you."

And Bence spoke, for he saw that he alone would talk that day. "My dear old father, good old Benedek! God grant you rest in the grave. God grant you rest in the dust of dying because all your life you were loyal and true, faithful to him whose bones lie mouldering where you sleep at his feet.

"Your grave we covered a long time ago too - how many new years in the annals since then! - you do not even want another, this grave we dig may be your son's." The servant was deeply stirred as he spoke brushing a tear from his misting eyes. Toldi looked on the little mound over the other Bence's remains.

The grave hardly showed beneath the cross, beneath the mound; the eye may have missed it but for the mat of weeds and burdock. Toldi looked and remembered all he loved the poor dead man for, but he was still silent as though mute, and once more he put his foot on the spade.

The work flows on and on, they dig, dig without a single word. The work flows on and on, the end is in sight; and still, Bence only suspects what he has dug. Now pressing Toldi, he speaks up again - "Oh, perhaps this grave is for Gy�rgy, perhaps they collected his far-flung bones, and my lord intends to bury them here...?

"What silly chatter! I myself know how foolish it sounds. Don't I know of Gy�rgy Toldi's evil end on a wild bear hunt? his ugly death at the claws of the beast? Two crows flying from a far-off ravine picked his eyes out. The wolves that trailed along pulled straws for his body, that was the end of a wicked brother and son."

The hole was dug. Toldi stood at the bottom, white hair and beard still showing. Bence smoothed the ground, kneeling to reach the bottom of the pit. Toldi looked up and spoke - "Bence!" "What do you com...?" he asked, waiting for the rest. He waited a long time for his lord's words, and at last old Toldi began like this -

"Bence, old bearer of my arms, honest servant, listen to me - we have eaten much bread together, and salt. Old comrade, listen to this. The many changes of life I once saw and now the last decline I see of my days. Among the rows and rows of harvest I walked, and now my own head awaits the scythe - and death.

"Louis, proud Louis, King of the Magyars! I too was loyal but received no thanks. In your heart you knew who and what I was, but you bashed my head in for telling the truth. May God grant you and our country stronger hands than mine. May he grant a better adviser than I was and could have been - God knows how long.

"Now no one binds me to the living. Whoever did are resting in this cool ground. My sword is dark with three years' rust, which the blood of the foe will never wash off. I could have gone on, but now that's over, and the country has no need for me - no need for the ear of ripened grain, more for the weed and whoever raised it.

"Bird of passage, my soul, about to leave for a warm home. You see the world is frozen over! I am a cold and run-down shelter. This is my grave. A few empty days, and then - you, my dear friend, bury me. Bury me here, without a marker but this handle of the spade."

Bence listened to what Mikl�s said, took it to heart, especially the last. He wept, his face hidden behind the arm of the cross. Sorrow welled from his soul; he was softer of heart than his lord, whose eyes look calmly from their socket like a tarn.

Like a burning city; the evening twilight invests a vermillion sky. Then the flames died and what remained was ash and soot - the darkness of night. The splendid palace of the sun fell into ruins, bleak and cold. A shapeless owl nested there for the night, screeching his call of death.

But good Toldi turned his mind elsewhere - a rider was pulling straight up to the house. The old hedge- row died out long ago, no need for him to circle the place. He saw Bence and rode up asking for his lord. Lost for words, Bence pointed to the gaping hole.

The horseman began like this - "To you I come, my great and good lord Toldi. I come as a courier with news from the shining Castle of Buda. Your good old friends remember you, the old hero; remember your many wonderful deeds, and send me with these words -

"Go, my son, go J�nos Posafalvi, and visit old Toldi. Learn if he is sick or a-dying. Sick or a-dying, unable to raise an arm, or swallowed in a grave. Tell him if sick, it is best he die; if dead, let him turn seven times in his grave - tell him the valiant Magyar exists no more, his ancient glory on the distaff side.

"There is a tournament now in Buda, a shining tournament of warriors. Many a Magyar has fallen, but the Italian still stands. The sun shines on him and his world. Magyar! for you the night falls, for you good night. He carries the shield he won - and a coat of arms, our country's beautiful coat of arms. It is for sale, a small ransom not of gold or silver - only a little bit of blood.

"But in all our land you will not find a spoonful. Ours is cheap, commands no price, and pours on the thirsty castle square for free. He returns home with our coat of arms, proud like a peacock..." "To hell he goes!" cries Toldi. "Old eagle, be young again, you have no time for death!"

And speaking these words, the gray knight leaped from the grave as though young again, his soul an angry sea boiling with a volcano's fury. And he said - "Tell my old friends you saw the ancient fighter in the bowels of a grave, but his soul will return to take vengeance on the knight.

"Go, Bence, curry my dock-tail chestnut. Renew me with food and drink. Twist open the swollen bung in the cellar and bring the old wine that makes me young. You, Posafalvi, be my guest. Stay overnight, darkness falls on a lonely horseman. Be my guest. Witness in God's truth how the Magyar drinks and makes merry in his sorrow."

Then they went inside. In the large room Toldi made merry and drowned his anger, wrestling with the wine and trying its strength. And he overcame, keeping his feet while Bence and the other lay soaked on the floor. Toldi too tumbled at last on an old bearskin - sleep brooded over his eyes like a shadow racing on sunlit meadows.

Second Canto

"They all fell to an Italian knight."

_Ilosvai

Dawn, the shining faery, did not sit out next day on the doorsill of heaven. Perhaps ill and abed, she peered out neither morning nor night. The puszta was covered by a thick mist, loath to move up or down, a close heavy fog that weighs on the soul and hangs as a burden.

Toldi went on the way with his servant. He was dressed in heavy clothes - his body in an autumn mist and his soul in an angry cloud. Now and then with a "hmm" he cleared his throat or sighed. Great was the sadness that weighed on him; great the three-year-old hanging on his neck, heavy for even the powerful Toldi.

"The old eagle has gone wild," he thought to himself, "but many days like this will come when they will seek me out and would gladly buy my old arms and rusty weapons with the little word - pardon. But he can grant it all he wants - if he refused before, now it is too late. I wear a mouldy collar of weariness on my neck. My body's broken, my soul lies slain!"

Noon came, but the sun did not shine. Night comes without a moon to light it up, without a sliver of a moon or grain of star where the night sees itself. At last a cool breeze flapped and drove the idle mist away, keen wind of a red dawn on the third day of Toldi's journey.

Buda Castle awakes in its own clamor, in the famous court of old King Louis. The tournament is on, or would be if the knights showed up, at least one. Many - and how many - had turned up before, all forced to leave in humiliation. Though the Italian inflicted no mortal wounds, he lay ten knights a day in the dust.

He was big of body, great of strength; his black steed could hardly bear him, shield and weapons were burden enough, but most of all he was big of bone. Haughtily he pricked his steed back and forth; holding the coat of arms aloft, he badgered the crowd and jeered. His heart was a blown-up blister, and he taunted them again and again with biting words -

"I am no oaf of the sea for the crowds to stare at. Nor was I led here on a leash to be shown like a wild bear dancing. I do not even conjure well - now why be caught in a mob like this? I only know a single trick... If anyone dares, let him come and I'll give him a look.

"But who would? who dares crash his frailness on a rock...? Let's not dawdle our time away... its price is up. Better go home and tend to your knitting. This coat of arms I am taking with me, it's mine forever. - G'night, Hungarians, it's only morning, but I am leaving your castle square."

Like a maddened herd at the smell of blood bellowing, the frenzied crowd broke and charged at the warrior. Their baleful bellow was more terrible than thunder. You see but cannot hear the gnashing of their teeth. They buck one another like waves, and falling at the paling it groans.

The king stood up in his ornate pavilion, his lips atremble, his brows furrowed, eyes livid with lightning, face flushed. But suddenly two youthful knights appeared, born and reared of a single mother. Exactly alike from head to toe, they speak to the king with grace and manners -

"We crave pardon, our gracious king, for appearing in your presence with idle speech. But we are wroth in blood, burning in our souls at this dreadful shame. Look, a villain adventurer has won the games and taken our country's coat of arms with its four bands, seven lions on the four silver bands, a crown and a cross, and three mountains green.

"We respect and honor the Italian at home, but he should not overreach himself in our Magyar land. Let him pick no quarrel with us, laugh at us, for we shall wax angry, no longer respecting the person. Let him not look down from the tower of flesh that is his. Let his eyes not be deluded by the dice of luck - where is glory in childish play? Let him score it up - this affair will end in tears.

"Or is he arrogant because no one wanted to enter the lists? No one has, for when the nation's honor is at stake it is not a game. I do not want to play when the Magyar is wroth, does not desire to disgrace his country - shame and mockery are the rewards of defeat, but glory to the man who dies for his land.

"And so, our gracious king, we pray for leave to face the spiteful knight, face him not only in joust but, as it beseems, for life and death. It is not a game when the nation's honor is at stake. The reward of defeat is a shameful life, but glory to the champion who dies for his land."

While one spoke, the other nodded his head as if speaking too. The people listened devotedly, and the king granted their request. The Italian drew his sword, looked it over; and twice whetting the shining blade along his arm, he wheeled and swept his eyes over the great throng.

The people took no notice of the Italian knight, paid no heed to his shining sword. Now they believed in victory; they knew the name of the handsome youths - not only the name but the father, and their fame as valiant knights. Soul light shone from every eye as they entered the lists.

The two are of the ancient Gyulafi line who sprang from one stock the same day and hour, twin offspring of one mother and alike in eye, in heart, in mind. If one pines, both wither like fruit on a single vine - they were harmonious in the least of their desires, drank from one cup, slept in one bed.

Lor�nt was older - if only by minutes, and sometimes when jesting took pride in it. Bertalan, his brother, was taller by a hair's breath. Sometimes they bantered over this a bit, their only rivalry until they matured and each asked his own.

At the fair age when a young man delights in a girl, enchanted by all that is girl, when he wears on his breast the airy trifles she flings aside; when - O briefest paradise of life! - a flower, a footprint, a spear of grass, a look, a nothing... will bring her to mind and kindle firelight in the heart;

When they arrived, I say, at that fair age, both fell in love with one girl, R�zsa, daughter of P�l Kende, who was prouder of her, he the father, than of his ancient line. He would give her to the one her heart might choose, but between the two she could not decide. Drawn to each in the same degree, their twofold love she returned alike.

Lor�nt said again and again that being older he would give way. But Bertalan said that being younger hecould wait. A hundred times they called on her to choose, but never once did she lean to one or the other. At last the father intervened with strong counsel and set the day for decision three years hence.

The appointed years passed, but time did not lessen their love. Both had sought for death, but found only fame, renown, and glory. Everyone knew the two crests swirling at the front in danger and war; recognized the two swords side by side and faithful as a pair of eyes on looking at a single scape.

They were present when the people of Poland knelt for the second time before Louis the Great, drawing his sword for the last time and bending the anger of the Lithuanian rebels. They were present when proud Venice - bride and favorite of the Adriatic Sea, treasure house of the earth and ruler of the world - begged the Magyar swords for peace.

They were present at the battle of Naples where that woman received the reward of her bloody guilt, the long unpunished wife of Louis' brother, Endre. Now God's avenging hand overtook her with the dreadful weapons of four wrathful Magyars - her name... better she had none... let it be lost the wretch forever!

The appointed three years passed but did not lighten R�zsa's anguish. Sadly she gave her final reply - "Two cannot love me, one I cannot choose." But I leave behind the thread of my story. Hah! how the people surge, how the lists swarm! The Italian is waiting only on my song. His steed is proudly prancing, and he speaks with a frown -

"Boys, this place is not for you. Run now or this steed will trample you down... Why did you leave home without telling where? Your mother's looking and crying for you." This is how he mocked them, but the two knights did not scare. They snatched the blood-red crests from their helmets and sent them with a stern message -

"Tell him, the wretched soul, to hold in check his slurs. Whoever fights with his tongue is a child, we cannot match him in sticking it out. But if he is disposed and has courage to duel like a knight - these are our crests. Tell him choose one and pin it on his helmet, an easy choice - both mean death."

On hearing, he burst into laughter and pinned both crests to his helmet where the wing of an eagle darkened from the peak. He pulled out two tiny plumes and sent them back with this mocking reply - "Both of you come, or as many for whom I manage a tuft."

But the Magyar knights refused to attack as a pair. They drew arrows, and Bertalan's was the longer. He embraced his brother, turned to the charge at tilt. The steed swam, it seemed, on a blue sky, as the lance was lowered and firmly at rest. Man and horse and lance shot out like a long and winged arrow.

The big knight sat - an immovable cliff that spurns the approaching storm. The steed was rigid to the peak of his pricked up ears; but when Bertalan was only five paces away, no more, he wheeled as if by will to the left. The rider tilted, and the lance passed under the armpit of the Magyar knight.

The valiant Bertalan plunged from his horse. The fine steed snorted and ran riderless away, never stopping until it threw saddle and harness. Grieved to witness his brother fall, the other knight loosened the charger and galloped up with his unsheathed sword.

He dealt a great blow at the helmet of the foe, but harder the stroke though dealt by the left, which parried the thrust. Lor�nt's sword sprang apart, and only the hilt remained in his hand. The shining blade arched and buried itself in the sand.

When he blocked the blow with his strong left arm, the giant knight raised the heavy lance in his right (heavy to others, but to him only a dream) and he speared the unlucky youth in the shoulder. He pulled; Lor�nt followed - his neck caught on the iron bill. He pitched forward, ankle in the stirrup; the balky horse broke into a run.

The plunging steed would have fled, God knows where, and crushed the youth's head on stones for thirsty sands to lap his splattered brain. But the Italian knight did not wish him an ugly death. He aimed his long lance and hurled it into the charger's breast - the animal tottered and sank to the ground.

The king's physicians now hastened forth to take the fallen into their care. They comfort the youths, and sustaining them on a shield carry them to a still place. They wash the wounds with sweet water, smear them with precious ointment and bind them. When they leave, dear sleep comes - most skilled physician in all the world.

But the very best physician, the very best nurse is a soft cradle, a swaying boat, or a river bordering life and death, one bank on this side and the other on that. The youths parted for opposite shores of this river. God willed it so - Lor�nt awaking to life and love, Bertalan to rest in a peaceful grave.

Third Canto

"He hurled his huge lance high in the air, and King Louis asks who can he be."

_Ilosvai

The Italian remained alone on the field, strolling proudly up and down. He was not a bit spent, not a hair on his head out of place, and much less was he wounded at all. The herald gallops in mounted upon a white horse. He wears a cloak as ample as a sheet, spangled with silver and gold, sewn and embroidered with many a noted coat of arms.

"Magyars," he calls, "Knights-at-arms! Knights-errant! and other men! The gates are opening to life or death, our coat of arms will soon be regained." He spoke and opened the high palisade gates. Thrice he blew the horn, thrice proclaimed, "The gates are open to life or death, our coat of arms will soon be regained."

A buzz runs through the crowd, they look left and right for a champion to show. The gates are open, the horn sounds, but no one appears to fight a duel. One by one the Italian picks up his arms and withdraws from the gate. The king too stands up angry and ashamed, prepared to leave with the other lords.

Now the gate-keeper blows his horn, and a clatter of hooves echoes from afar. The king pauses, and the lords. The people wait and watch once more with soaring hope. An enormous monk gallops up on a chestnut horse, garbed in a rough and hairy cloth that reaches from the top of his head to his heel, and around his waist a heavy rope.

His face is dark in a red cowl drawn to the nose, and his mouth is hidden behind a moustache and white beard floating like a pennon on the back of the wind. That lance in his left hand... you would think it was a puszta sweep, it's that long, I say, not pliant but strong as a wagon rail.

A huge saber hangs loosely from his side and reaches below the big stirrup that once showed copper but now is green. On either side of the pommel, two enormous pieces of iron - a battle-axe and war club, terrible instruments, ghastly and grisly, on which the gypsy spared no iron.

This is the armory he carries. But coming behind what a character too - "There he goes," they laugh looking his way, "rusty porter of a rusty knight." On his left, he was concealed by a cavernous shield, more than enough for a watering trough. He's loaded for freight, not self-defense. They never sorted all this to the bearer's size.

A rusty-headed pike sticks out behind the shield; it would be broad enough for a spade though split in half. Two bull slings hang down on the saddle's either side; these giant sandals were weighted with boulders as big as my head.

The arrows lay behind the saddle, each as long as a winged spear; the sturdy crossbow was strung on the old man's shoulder, a frightening scene to see. In his right hand, he held a pair of naked irons on the ready, true feringi swords, long and curved and broad, enormous of nature, and scabbed with rust.

Propped by bristling weapons, the horse lags slowly behind. But the other one, the frightful monk, soon neared the gaping crowd. They stared; exchanged looks and kept still. They opened up a wide passage as when the Red Sea divided, and shoulder on shoulder the waves watched in silence.

But when the servant jogged up at last, they burst into a laughter that grows louder and louder with mocking of the old man. One asks, "How much for all your junk, uncle? What about selling it, we're the customers here?" "Cousin, the cracked up washtub, is that for sale?" A half scream higher - "Come, hang it on display."

To a letter, old Bence heard it all (need we waste words on who he was?), heard the gibes and pretended not to understand. He tried straightening his back and managed only to throw his neck out of joint. He bethought himself of his sprightly youth, tried to do what then he could.

He twirled his moustache, and it falls back limp, the shako inverted to a walrus. He jerked the reins, the poor beast almost sat on his rear end in fright. The roguish boys romp all the more at such conceit - O good heavens! "Beware, beware the wild steed, run hard as you can or now you die!"

Bence looks askance left and right; he would like to curse but does not dare. He furrows his brow and thinks - "Who cares about these blathering fools." Chest out, he ambles on like a pigeon. Pursued by laughter, dignity would fit him ill with a pisspot on his ragged old head instead of a rusty helmet.

The frumpy robe is dribbling with forks and tails; his trousers would do, but - horrors - how bare his knees, and not a speck of yellow on his yellow boots - in a flea market this would be the oldest pair. But his spurs are scabby yellow enough, as if treasure hunters dug them up.

He would strut on, but the confounded horse suddenly stops and will not go either this way or that - "Get up, get up!" he commands, but the fallow will not move, his hooves are glued down to the sticky ground. Bence looks back - "What the devil!" Four or five funsters are dragging stoutly on the horse's behind. In anger, Bence forgets his fear and hurls these words of his wrath -

"Rascals, caitiffs, robbers who attack a man by daylight. No-good rotten punks, why didn't ya try that twenty years ago! If I could only swing these old arms like then, ya wouldn't be laying it on so heavy. Now, too, I could show ya who is more of a man if I didn't have all these arms in my hands."

Poor gentle old man, you only harmed yourself, and now the stones come pelting down on your shield. The warrior Bence cowers, pulls in his neck and saves his crown. "Hit him, hit him, there goes the turtle!" The youths play their game, and it would have gone on, but the terrible monk heard their taunting cries.

He heard, looked back, and motioned without a word; he raised his fighting spear on high and shook it. As when a schoolmaster idles his switch and the class falls silent, the screeching died. For all they'd say Bence could walk on the top of his head.

All eyes turned to the ancient monk, who was jumping his horse on the lists. The chestnut steed is not heavy, but his bones are big; he is finely groomed and shining. This is an animal of noble blood, happy to prance how he will. He bears the knight with heed; God did not make him either for the trace.

The monk wheeled about on his steed; hurled the heavy lance high in the air, and caught it - or only twirled it on his fingers like a baton. The heavy rod roared as it propelled the wind. It looped like a large saucer above his head; it looked like a boy's weaving the tip of a fiery stick.

The people are awed and gape at the strength of the knight. They whisper of magic, mutter in mistrust - "This art we see is not of God." One almost sees the monk for Toldi, but thinks him too old for such a ponderous weapon. Another says with a "so help me" old Mikl�s is dead - I was there at the funeral.

Many blow strange rumors up, or hearing none, gladly invent one and pass it on. One makes up a story the uncanny monk is dead Toldi's soul. Fear's contagious, and unbelievers shudder, too.

The king asks if not Toldi, who? "You told me the old eagle no longer lives, but from where could one exactly like him come? Whether I look at that huge frame, white head or terrible strength, I see the old Mikl�s. Where could his living image come from?"

The lords looked at one another, but said nothing. Their faces showed they were perplexed; not one dared to raise a voice as they waited for the other to speak. At last one said - "His moustache and beard may be a disguise, like his clothes. An old man can handle weapons, but swiftness like his belongs to youth.

"And the old Toldi - it was reported widely at the time, you may hold me to it - did not live long after departing the court for his rough and reckless talk. Did he take his crime heavily to heart, or was it old age that stilled his blood? Whatever it was, no one who walks on earth saw him again with human eyes."

The king shook his gray locks, a mist of sorrow in his eyes. "I know," he said, "I know. I remember the much regretted command "depart." I was weak I remember to face the truth - old Toldi was crude but loyal, bitter medicine in a rough wooden spoon.

"Then too... but I can no longer recall his words - I remember he turned out to be right. As soon as he left, I was sorry, and how gladly I would have granted him pardon. But all of you said he carried the king's anger into the grave... this falsehood I would forgive if now my faithful servant were only alive."

The king sank deep into thought, but suddenly he brightened and his face cheered up - he not only sees those muscles are strong but also hears old Toldi's thundering voice. For while the king was speaking with the lords, Toldi thrice rode up and down the lists; but pacing no more, he pulls up in the center and blasts at the people standing around -

"How long must I keep circling like a horse treading corn or a beast with the staggers? Or do you think that I lost my way and blundered here in spite of myself? Do you think I am looking for a way to escape? By thunder, is there no guy here to face up to it when I come to fight!

"Doesn't he understand...? Where is he? Let him come out now and show off his strength! Or has he slipped away with the coat of arms, ashamed to have won it at so light a cost? Oh, why doesn't the Castle Hill open and swallow this herd of stupid sheep! Wasn't it enough your fathers left a free coat of arms behind - must they rise from the grave to defend it?"

The monk shouts out like this, and clearly enough. The knight stands aside and pretends not to see him. Hah, why show himself ready to fight? But he feels ashamed with all those eyes upon him. He leaps on his horse, which buckles under the weight, and he advances to the center with a terrible curse - "Old priest, what do you want here? Are you tired of living?" "Your last rites I bring, sweet knight."

With that the two strong champions clash. Toldi sways in the saddle left and right, left and right drawing the mouth of his well-trained horse and easily avoiding the tilted lance. The other thrusts into empty air, like a spinster passing the eye of a needle.

The giant knight turns suddenly angry - "Damn his soul, does he want to make fun of me? The lance he lets idle upon his shoulder... Defend yourself - for your end is come when I lay to!" His lance misses as before, but the Italian closes in and takes Toldi by surprise with the sword - his hairy cowl is rent, and the people moan in terror - "O monk, you had it!"

It would be dreadful, or perhaps not at all, for Toldi might have died easily without even a sound. But Toldi has a steel helmet under the cowl and knew many hacks like this before. He draws out his sword, the other quickly deals him three sharp blows - with the last ring, the sword snaps leaving only a stub in the giant's hand.

The monk draws on all the strength God gave him. The blade swoops half way to the enormous neck; he will never die if this blow is less than mortal. But seeing his foe without a sword, Toldi checks the terrible stroke and shouts to Bence - quickly, for the knight another sword.

Bence obeys and returns with the sword. Now a long duel begins - arm against arm, blade against blade. These weapons are twins, and neither gives up. Twice they clash and twice they rest, and now for the third time charge again. Toldi himself wonders seeing he spends his strength in vain.

Angered, he strikes a blow that would have counted in his youth. The other parried, and now both the blades were notched halfway in. The giant could not hold on, his muscles ripped - and the pointed sword teetered to rest in an upright post.

The Italian jumped - how lucky! for now the monk strikes so terribly hard he is wrenched aside and barely holds his seat. Toldi pronounces an oath, snatches his club (weighing fifty pounds or more) and hurls. The other suspects, flattens himself on the horse's mane and, let him thank this, escapes his death.

The visiting knight turns swiftly around; his eyes are bloodshot, and he is drunk though not from wine. Whether he lives or dies, he does not care. He attacks, his horse rears, his lance darts like lightning. He wants, it seems, to run over his foe. But Toldi will not let him come that close. He fixes his lance against the warrior's breast, and rider and mount go sailing on their back.

Then old Mikl�s jumps from his horse, and runs at the knight with his weapon drawn. The king would yield - "Mercy," he shouts; but too late for Toldi swings the axe with a downward blow. He leaps back on his horse, beckons to Bence, and is quickly lost amid the crowd. In awe the people stare after him until the two disappear in a nearby street.

After great silence, a murmur arises, at first in single, inquiring voices (by strands, one might say), and only questions, but no replies are heard - "Who was this? Who was it? a devil or monk? Why didn't he show himself to the king? Why didn't he pay homage? Or has he no want for earthly reward, earthly fame...?"

The noise grows louder, chaff of many words, but at last the herald blows his bugle - the funnel of the winding brass resounds, the noise dies, and everyone stares. The herald cries out - "If there be one who dares say he knows the ancient champion, let him come boldly forward, and if he tells the truth, he will be rewarded by His Majesty the King."

Immediately J�nos Posafalvi steps forth, and bending his knees he says to the king - "Your Majesty, I dare state on oath I know the powerful warrior. Night before last I took him word our coat of arms was in foreign hands. I ate and drank with him, and I saw him dance - let me never return home if this be not Toldi."

With this he instilled a spirit into the king, and as reward received two fine estates. To the lords who sit behind him the king says - "Prepare his golden writ." And then he chooses elderly men in splendid dress from among the lords, sends them after Toldi charging them strictly - "Go call him back, do not leave him behind on any account."

The people grow impatient with waiting though and run after Toldi with a cry of joy. The castle almost turns over in their wildness, one would think they are chasing to a fire. The king himself is not in the mood to wait below. He wants to welcome Toldi in private; he is not certain two of four eyes will stay dry - and that is why he retires to his room.

Fourth Canto

"Praise and respect were the monk's."

_Ilosvai

Mikl�s Toldi and his old servant forded the Danube and were riding in the fields of R�kos - Toldi ahead and Bence behind in silence. Nor do you hear the clatter of hooves where horses sink ankle-deep in sand. No tracks ahead and none behind, or soon wimpled away by the northern wind.

Old Toldi rides slowly, brooding as he goes. Who knows what he is thinking? A still river is deeper than a babbling brook. Nor has Bence spoken the entire way. But he cannot bear to be silent for long - let Toldi speak first, and he knows how to keep it going.

He drew up beside his lord as though by chance. Then he coughed (an old manner of his) and prattled to his horse. But this, too, he gave up seeing it was to no avail. They wended their way a good long piece until suddenly Mikl�s burst out saying -

It was worth digging - see, they don't even know us, Bence. Soon they will make a legend of me and say - "We believe this, and we don't." Then he paused a bit, or the words stuck; if we went on, he would surely burst into tears. Now too a lone tear may slowly swell over the white lashes, he hopes not, of his eye.

Toldi needed little time, only as long as a wink or two, to master his heart, and then he spoke - "They place me in the chronicles before my time; they see and seeing do not believe. They think my old arms may do too much? By the arrows of thunder! whom may it be too little for?

"Proud King Louis, you foxy old man, you! Once you had a better eye and knew my arms. You recognized the guard who shielded you with his body in many hard-fought battles. Now you don't know me, do you, although you see my strength? Hm, how could you know every old monk? You shrug your shoulders - Old King! a wily fox is not more fox.

"Or did you think I would crawl like a worm and beg for pardon? Why should I, like a child beaten by his boorish parents without cause? Ask for pardon, I although it was his offense? Bence, you see what he made of me! My soul is dark like a shadow. I am as though I walk on earth no more.

"How did I offend when I spoke out boldly upbraiding the king for his degenerate court? You may scarcely find a Magyar knight there, only monkeys hopping girlishly about. It hurt me to see him turn Magyars into foreign dolls. I told him to his face - King, you cannot do that! If old virtues are corrupted, why be anointed then by the world?

"Old age is not what buries me; as you saw, my hand still wields the ancient sword. My ills, if any, are hardly a torment. It is this mouldy sloth, oh, that kills me! I do not long for the king's pardon - but Louis I loved... and I still do. My soul is drawn to him... But who cares? Burrow away, old man - die, do not open your lips to a complaint."

He forced these last words; as when pouring forth from a narrow neck, water bubbles most at the very end - this is how his voice came out. As he said that, he quickly turned around, drew the cowl over his eyes. He looked straight into the eye of the wind for long, and the great dust soaked up the tears that ran down his cheeks.

From Pest, meanwhile, the crowd comes with a clamor and a cloud of dust. Spying him, they shout, "Toldi, our Toldi." They crush one another to catch a glimpse of him. They surround him, block him off, and hail him with signs and words, however they can.

From the cavalcade a lord rides up, "Mikl�s Toldi! the king greets you. Your pardon has been ready these many years, no need was there to win it once more. He would willingly grant it not once but a hundred times. They said you are dead. Now we know it's untrue, come and accept the pardon that with a willing heart he gives."

He spoke like this and reached out a friendly hand. Toldi hesitated, his eyes glassy as though he could not believe it all. Wherever he looked, everyone's face and everyone's eye was shining with joy. Only he, behold I say, looks with doubtful eyes - no use, he does not dare be happy any more.

At last the spirit fires him; his eyes light up and he gives his right hand. But as though to hide his joy he murmured in his emotion like this - "Oh, my old beard, unwanted guest, the king invites me now to where the young may make fun of me in Buda, but the king commands and I must go.

"If you check your anger and instruct the youth now growing to manhood, I shall adorn you with pearls, as my good beard. But if you shame yourself, I shall pluck you out hair by hair and fling you on the dung heap in the city square. Show yourself, my gray beard, worthy of gold and pearls!"

The people nod at one another in approval, and there is no end to all the cheers; they throng around Toldi, pressing and crushing the lords in splendid dress who surround him. A crowd gathers around old Bence - poor, gentle old servant, he almost dies for joy! "I told you," he boasts, "this is how it would be!" In truth, he never foretold a thing.

They take him by the hand, ask questions, make his acquaintance - "What the Uncle Bence, do you remember when here and here - you know?" And they told of things the good old man never even heard. "How are you, Master Bence? I hardly recognized you." "My fellow, the king will give you a village now." "You really deserve it, so help me - the country can well afford the price."

Bence did not know which way to look, he hasn't hands enough to shake them all. And he would need fifty mouths to answer every question. He only smiled here and there, fingering with his left hand the buttons on his cloak; meanwhile, his right hand passes among the people - he was overcome, poor man, overcome by joy.

Pressing and pushing, they would not give way. The crowd grows, dreams not of dispersing. Those beyond speaking range shout out - "Long live Bence! Long live good Bence!" "Is the old Bence all right? Let's see the old bones!" "Did some crazy fools stone him?" "Who hurt Bence, the devil fiddle them? They're fit to hang from the gallows."

"Where is old Bence, Toldi's lancer? Let's raise him up and let everyone see him!" "Raise him up, raise him up, there are plenty of us - So, so, all together, swiftly, swiftly!" With that, they fall to as hard as they can, and hoist Bence and his horse high up on their shoulders; at first the horse squirmed, then gave up - because he was tired anyway.

The poor servant all but shivered seeing how God prospered his works. He is two heads bigger, that much he shows - one the horse's and the other his. He looked right and left, forward and back - "My God, my God!" this is all he could say. "My God, my God! just think how wonderful!" he stammered. "I would never have believed it."

Riding ahead with the lords, Toldi almost forgets all his cares. He keeps looking back and smiles at Bence's triumph, with envy maybe. But why? He knows whom they really do it for - when guests are few, dogs are fed well, too. Toldi had known his share of glory... but never before as on that single day.

They ride into the city, and the streets are lined with crowds. If His Majesty the King himself were coming, he would not draw such a host of lookers-on. But these do more than look, their mouths are open - "Long live Toldi! Long live!" they cry. The sound swells and dies - even the bare walls echo "Toldi" from far.

Every window is open and filled with heads, so many that only few could see. Young men sit astride every beam in rows, and cheer. Others climb on chimney tops wagging like scarecrows. Wherever the sound, thick or thin, nothing is heard but "Toldi, long live Toldi!"

Old Mikl�s' face brightens up, no patches of sorrow now - like the sky when the clouds break at evening, the sun looks back with a reddening glow. Who cares it will sink soon? A bright hue spreads over valley, mountain, plain - and the raindrops on the meadows are a million pearls not tears.

Wherever he looks he sees a hundred, a thousand eyes shining his way, hats waving, and arms upraised like wings of rejoicing souls. Ardent women flutter kerchiefs from every window. They call his name, which is lost in the roar like the buzz of a lonely bee when it thunders.

Then like a shower, young daughters of old autumn rain down flowers, garlands and evergreen, which like a good name lives on in death. It rains on him, the steed before and behind on the road, from Pest to Buda until reaching the castle, where Toldi stops and addresses the lords -

"My dear good friends, whom once I taught the skills of war, leave me a little while. Report that Toldi will soon reappear - I own nearby a homely house, which these three years I never saw. Now like a good master, let me see whether the stones were loosened by the storms.

"I shall take off this frock, my shield is rusty too, and a good bath will do myself no harm. The arena's uncarpeted and covers the fighter's face with dust. I too may be taken by show and turn into a palace man... some gaudy rags... ah, never mind, my friends! you'll see how fine I'll be fitted out."

The lords would not have believed Toldi, would have suspected a ruse; and they would not let him go had they ever known he broke his word. Now too they trust and leave securely, reporting to His Majesty the King. Meanwhile, cries of long live and applause follow the old knight and his faithful servant home.

Fifth Canto

"King, did I not esteem my knighthood more, I would dash your head with my seven-flanged club."

_Ilosvai

Old Toldi's house was not a palace familiar to the guile of paint and gloss. But it was enough for the old knight to vent his joy and anger when camping in Buda. The house is silent and vacant; now and then a coughing... but the old keeper only starts, and the hoarse walls pick it up and echo on.

Toldi entered with Bence behind. The keeper peered out and drew shut the gate. Outside, the crowds watch for every sign of life. They stare at the tumble-down house. Never did they look their fill at a shelter like this and better, or give it another glance... but all in vain, for the owner does not hurry out.

The gray knight opened the door into one of the rooms and looked happy - no carpets, tapestries, or other furniture of the day. Row on row weapons darkened the walls. A string of worms was chewing the oak table. Bearskinned benches lined the walls, not beds, dear couches or easy chairs.

Still looking about in joy, Toldi felt he was among old friends. The rusty arms beamed like shaggy bruins. He passed his eyes along a line of deadly blades - "My old sword, how long since I saw you last! How are you, my old lance? And you, my spear and pike? How red with embarrassment in your rust!

"Bence, my old friend, polish these poor things to a shine. You too are a rusty old instrument of mine. Polish one another, let it rub off. We must shine, old man, shine once more! Why shouldn't a sword be bright though battered! Do not grieve, do not grow gray, my dearest friend. Saint Martin's summer is still to come.

"I have been dead, too. I was not alive, for three years I entertained a ghost - I want to live now, Bence my friend, live as a man who lives a good life! I shall fling my cares aside like this hood and bid the last three years goodby. I have three times three remaining perhaps, and may they be friends of joy."

He spoke and with the words "now go to hell!" flung the hood into the farthest corner! lucky it was frieze not iron or surely it would have cracked. He took off his helmet and vest of mail. He ordered a kalpak and cloak from his wardrobe, where his clothes were no worse than a little wilted.

Dusting Toldi's cloak, Bence pulled a short club from the sleeve. "Put it back, Bence, without it I won't leave the house. When dogs growl, what is there to frighten them off?" So he spoke. He was soon dressed - to the day he never used a mirror, and still his dark green cloak became him, he was finer in appearance than many spruce young knights.

He starts on his way to the court. He wants to avoid the boodle, pestered by their ways and loath to go with a great hullabaloo. As though escaping from his own court, he slips through a small backdoor into the street. He goes boldly up to the new palace. No one recognizes him, or a few may only suspect.

King Louis is waiting, waiting for old Toldi to open the door. He paces up and down the room, impatient with the leaden pace of time. The old Mikl�s he longs to see. But not so the merry pages, they while the hours away with noise and fun, play the harp, and banter in the halls.

Many young lords serve there - the Losonczis, Mar�tis, B�nfis; Kanizsai, Sz�csi, Kont, Balassa, Csupor, and the great and famous Laczfi-Apor; many of the lesser noble families are there for refinement in the court of Louis; and young men from abroad in exchange for Magyar youths.

Many were also at P�cs, where Louis lit the torch of learning; many were in Paris and Bologna at their expense or with royal stipend. They brought home lovely fruit from the tree of knowledge, the good as well as the bad, for though the unplaned mind is a bludgeon, it may be tooled to a double edge.

The young men study without neglecting the body; they need biceps like their fathers and brains, if possible, which are better developed. This was the king's plan and mind. But now the youths are at play - some sing, some jest, some argue, and one plays this song upon the harp -

The king, the great King Louis speaks - lay on, my vassal Endre, fast; and gird the sword upon your waist. The Tatars have invaded Moldva, this province of our borderland - take ten thousand Sz�kely horsemen, seek out the Tatar, where he's found.

--- --- --- ---

So went the song. They all listened to the end - some looked for faults; some did not like it here, others there; some thought the old Tatar gabbled too much. "It is boring, in short, like a Lenten sermon; good wine's worth more, so is a young married woman. Hey, who knows a lively song?" they shout. And right off a pug-nose boy begins -

Long ago - in a ditty it happened in this Buda city in a house - whoopee, whoopee in a widow's house, O whoopee.

Mikl�s Toldi loved the biddy, and she laughed - O you silly. Whoopee-O he loved the biddy, and she laughed - O you silly.

"Visit me, I say, my Toldi, if I say, come you boldly! Whoopee-O I say, my Toldi, sup with me and come you boldly.

"Mikl�s Toldi, darling one! what about jumping one? Whoopee-O, jumping one - in the corner, darling one.

"My silk is pinned upon the wall, a lion pictured on the shawl. Whoopee-O - up the wall, jump upon the silken shawl."

"Sure I'll jump, my little toots, let me first pull off my boots. Whoopee-O pull off my boots, let me jump, my little toots."

Mikl�s Toldi, I must tell, out into the street he fell, through the window out he fell, and everybody laughs like hell.

When the song ended, the wild youths doubled up for laughter. They clap the pug-nose on the back - "That's bad, drop dead!" They laugh aloud - "This never happened!" "How did it go again? Play it once more, old boy." And pug-nose begins, the others follow. But the door opens, the hero enters - and all at once the noise dies.

It is hard to stop a runaway wagon, harder a spirit once aroused. The youths cannot hold back for long on seeing his blue-red face, his puffy eyes. The wasps begin to buzz again. One shouts - "Phew, what a musty smell!" "Look at the old miller!" whispers another. "Look, they hit him on the head with a sack of flour."

A third rejoins - "That has to be a fisherman, look, a fin or beard of corn on his chin." And still another, "Cousin, what do you want with the white-feathered goose?" And behind Toldi's back the song is resumed. But alas for whosoever joins. A twist of his sleeve, and they fall like summer grass - many injured, three dead right there.

What a fright, a wail from the living and a moan from the dying. Toldi rushes enraged to the king and thunders these words - "King, did I not esteem my knighthood more, I would dash your head with my seven- flanged club. Next time you'd teach your little whelps not to make fun of this old knight's head."

He spoke and the walls shook. He raised his big- headed club, his face a raging fire the snows on his head could not quench. In ghastly anger, he tramples over the youths who are pouring in - and he goes. They scatter as before a bull pawing the dust.

Doesn't the king understand what happened, and why? He only half believes what he sees and hears. His eyes follow the departing knight, his ears deafened with all the din. When he understands at last, his blood runs cold, he grimaces and shouts with a hand on his heart - "Seize Toldi!" "Death on his head!"

Sixth Canto

"And Mikl�s' bones arc still buried there, his boldness known to all the world."

_Ilosvai

Now I return to Bence, who stayed at home, and the great things he meanwhile did. The gentle old man worked up a sweat - sweeping, dusting, and poking a hundred ways. He wiped the scrappy weapons one after the other, put one down and picked up another. He flailed about - for a future order's sake creating a great disorder.

The keeper was there, but he only gazed on; this too was more than enough for him, for Bence's great spirit was like a violent storm. He hummed an old song of which he forgot the words. Outside, the fallow horse, poor beast, whinnied in tune, impatient for his fodder.

Now Bence begins, speaking to the keeper, "Go, nuncle, and hitch the horse in the stall. There are oats and hay aplenty, spread it out. It was left these three years, if you yourself didn't eat it. Hitch them to the rack and feed them I say - I have no time, see I have a thousand things to do." The keeper waited for more guidance, but Bence was scrubbing the floor.

Outside he pondered his entrusted task and eyed the horses from a respectful distance - "Holy Father," he wonders to himself, "what should I do? It bites from the front and kicks from the back." The honest cobbler never rode a horse although he sewed sandals. But he's given that up since he multiplied his eyes from two to four.

He used to work with horses, that's to say, the hide. The fiercest steed that came to hand he subdued right there! Like Satan from hell, he galloped his knife along the horse's back. He scissored, ripped, and sewed, the master then - but now he reaches for the rein with trembling hands.

He tried and tried until he was used to his fright. Once a man's familiar to fear, courage is not long in coming. A boldness settled in the little man's heart, not such as wins battles - that's too much - no, only enough to hitch a horse in the stall.

He hitched them up and spread their oats and spread their hay. But when it was ready, the horses snorted at the invited meal. They whinnied, they neighed and all to no use, for they would not eat of the precious stuff. The cobbler marveled at this great event - why and how could this ever be?

At last he couldn't stand it and reports to Bence the horses won't eat. Bence interrupted his task and hurried to behold the miraculous event. "What the thunder! have you lost your marbles, nuncle? You haven't removed the rein and bit." And Bence laughed until he was faint and there were stitches in his side.

The keeper could have eaten his own hands and feet for not having the brains to see. Then he thinks - what good are brains, his hands were afraid. This cheered him up as Bence laughed right in his face unbridling the horses and returning to his task.

Bence was starting to work when his lord entered in a rage - "My damned wrath!" he muttered choking, his voice drowned in a fit of anger. He flung his club on the table and staved the wood in. Ai, this was - ai, this was the end of his strength! His legs totter, his head reels.

Bence knew that something was ill. He saw his master's bloodshot eye and the taut vein like a rope on his temple. Now the color drains from his face, his lips twitching and turning blue. His knees bend - Bence runs and holds him lest he fall.

Bence struggled with him to a bench. The great knight could no longer walk; his arms were limp, his back gave in. The anger which wiped enemies out like God's curse was penned inside mauling him like a mad lion its trainer.

Bence heard the clock strike. His tears run and fall on the cloak. Toldi stares, stares - the faithful servant turns aside again and again wiping his eyes. At last, God gives him strength before the dying man - he takes a deep breath, and forces himself to speak these words of cheer and comfort.

"What hurts you, my dear good lord? For I see you are troubled and something is wrong - is it nausea, a headache, a chill which is unsettling your worship? I know a good cure, I tried it myself and speak not false - drink a cup of peppered wine... your chill will leave like yesterday's bad dream.

"Before, when something was wrong, your backbone or lumbago, I was the doctor and cured you quickly. The bone I set that was out of place. Shall we try it now? No... what about a gentle massage as though I were coddling a broken egg...?" He spoke, and what is more he believed it, the poor old man, that the rub would bring him ease.

"Leave off, Bence, leave off," quietly Toldi whispered. "You aren't making fun of me, are you? Nothing will help me any more, my comrade, neither good intention nor skill of science." Now Bence looked straight at him, and behold, like the breath on a shining sword or bloom on ripe fruit, a veil fell over the pupil of his eye.

The faithful servant can stand it no more, he bursts into tears harder than before; he covers his face and turns from the dying man toward the window. He glances by chance into the street. Holy God! the house is surrounded. But before he can say it, Allaghi, captain of the guard, steps into the room.

The captain motions the others not to follow; he enters himself and says - "Mikl�s Toldi, you are my prisoner! You have committed murder, brought shame on - polluted the royal house with blood. In the king's name, knight, follow us." Bence pointed in anguish at the dying man; no need though, for the captain saw and spoke in a hushed voice now -

"Oh, why couldn't I bring a better message than this? But if you want to send word or a plea in your troubles, I shall be your spokesman by the king." Saying this, the captain stepped to the knight, bent over him with a look of pity on his face. Now for the first time, Toldi turned his eyes on him, and these are the words that faltered from his breast -

"Tell the king, your mighty lord, to leave me only for an hour. My prison awaits. I go freely where someone not of earth will judge me." He turned his eyes aside, his lips still moved - moved and sighed as in prayer. Simon Allaghi runs off with the report - "Toldi is near to death, my lord, and sends this message -

"He sends this message to my gracious lord - leave him be in the hour of his death. His prison will be a grave where he goes of his own free will; no earthly judge passes judgment on him." The king is shocked and cries - "Almighty God! Is this his end? On the day of his glory - abandoned and ill - disgraced and dying? Fetch my cloak."

And whirling a cape around his neck, he commanded be taken to Toldi's house, the captain of the guard in the lead, behind him the king followed by a faithful servant or two. His habit does not reveal he is king; they would laugh at one who claimed him so. The passers-by who chance to look greet not the king but the captain.

Whether they doff the hat or not, what does the king care? He pulls his cloak lower over his face, goes as fast as his weak legs carry him. He fears he will find the knight is dead. But he arrived - and the joy in his anguish was to arrive in time. Happiness may shine in the bleakness of sorrow like a bright rainbow on cloudy skies.

The king sits on a chair by the dying man, bends over him, and speaks to him by name. Toldi was in the half sleep which would soon weigh him down and drop him into death. He was aroused at the voice - he recognized it - and looked at Louis with deep large eyes. He recognized him - but as though uncertain where he was, he gazed from one ceiling beam to another.

The king spoke - "Don't you know me, Toldi, my old friend? Why do you turn your eyes away? I am the king - not he who harmed you - I, Louis, talk to you, your good old friend. Think back, look at me, don't turn your eyes away. Say only one word, no more - whatsoever - my name - who knows where and when we'll meet? We cannot part without a last farewell."

Toldi came to and gathering all his strength raised his head a little. He strained to turn toward the king and put out his hand, which was cold as ice. And then softly and clearly he said - "What a dream I had! I was already dead. How glad I am you are here - you revive my soul. I cannot die without talking with you.

"Oh, my friend (now let me call you this), forgive me if I ever crossed you; if I was rough, if I was crude, do not weigh every word; forgive me for my good heart's sake. I was punished anyway. But all that is ended. Gone are the many lovely hopes. But whatever is passed is dead, lost - the vigil of memory will die the same.

"I could make a last testament - why? I have precious little. And to whom, if I had more? I have no heir... only a faithful servant. Take him to your heart - and the Hungarian people. Love the Magyar, but do not polish him," he spoke, "his strength, his ways, his rough outer bark. What profits smoothness and good polish? A flitch of wood is hard to break."

Saying this, he sighed and sank back again, his right hand in the hand of the king; his eyes were steady but glazed like horn. The king replies to his words like this - "Why wouldn't I take the old servant in my care? and the Hungarians, the people, whom I always loved? I stretched their empire to the shores of three seas.

"I always tried, truly unto my limits, to win esteem for my Magyar people, respect in war, peace within and without the country's borders. I am not boasting, that is not why I say it... My God! must I justify it - especially to you, we both know how I loved the Hungarian people.

"Was it love or hatred when I began smoothing the virtues of the nation, and I wanted the people to shine in splendor, be my pride and not my shame?... Time drives swiftly on - runs its course - if we mount, it moves us on; if we stay behind, it will not wait; the world changes; what is strong grows weak; and what was weak grows strong.

"Time drives swiftly on, it does not wait. We die, the old die away, and only the fame of our strength remains - a new people, a new generation grows up conquering with reason, not physical strength. The mind of man has discovered, you know, a simple powder which sows death on armies. Toldi or no Toldi... they all fall - the power of reason conquers in that little powder!"

He spoke and looked in the dying man's face - ai, he was dead, his chin had fallen; but their hands were still clasped like twining branches, one dead. The living hand withdrew. A long silence followed. The king wept. Bence drew behind the door, poor man, and cried.

Meanwhile, the calm red light of the sun sank to a winter rest; the rainbows faded from the window, and the high hills drew a veil over it. The king saw to Toldi's funeral and how he was to be buried - his house a simple coffin, but of iron to tell of his strength.

And that same evening, a procession of torches sets out from Buda Castle in the twilight mist. From a distance, you would have thought all the stars were solemnly following Toldi on his way. In the cavalcade, the hearse rolls with Mikl�s Toldi lying under a cover of iron - beside him Bence on the coach step, racked with grief.

The people fill up the avenue like a river, every square and winding alley a little brook. And like water that feeds from a brook into the river, the people flood from one into the other. Everyone is still. They follow silently to the fields of R�kos, where the hearse stops and they lift the coffin on a covered wagon.

The burning torches are all darkened but four that light the road to Nagyfalu. The people remain covered in darkness. They follow the four torches into the night with tearful eyes as far as they can see. And then they turn homeward in little groups, retelling the deeds of the departed hero.

By the third day, on a cloudy evening, a mound rose over Mikl�s Toldi's body, strewn with the fallen leaves of the old garden. The grave was unmarked by costly bronze or marble. Bence was the memorial standing at Toldi's feet - he struck a spade into the earth and leaned on it. The sky covered the grave with new snow.

NOTES

I

dock-tail chestnut: "kurta pej", horse with docked tail and cropped mane to keep from snagging on bushes and branches; a grooming not needed in royal parks.

V

The king, the great King Louis speaks: a poem entitled Szent L�szl� (Saint Ladislas). It tells how the saint-king rose from his tomb, mounted his brass horse and rode off to win a victory over the Tatars saving the country and leading to a conversion of pagans.

---

J�NOS ARANY: A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

J�nos Arany was born March 2, 1817 on the Hungarian Plain to small-farm parents, the youngest of ten children of whom only he and the eldest survived. He lived there for the first 43 years of his life, principally in two agrarian towns - his birthplace Szalonta (a town founded by free peasants - hajd�s) and Nagyk�r�s - and in the city of Debrecen as a student with a bent for literature and language. At the age of 19 years, having read widely, largely on his own, he dropped out of school without a diploma and became an actor. From 1839-1849 he was a village notary in Szalonta; and a school teacher in Nagyk�r�s to 1860.

_His passionate interest in the legends of the Hungarian past was nourished, beginning with early boyhood, in the above surroundings. For an imaginative and impressionistic picture of his early years see Jen� Docy's "Arany, A Boyhood Scene," Budapest, Genius, 1929. Throughout his lifetime, he left Hungary only three times, once to Vienna on a notarial task and twice to Karlsbad for his health. But he was at home in ancient and European civilization, wrote commentaries on outstanding writers, and translated important works (Aristophanes and Shakespeare) into Hungarian.

Returning to Szalonta from his adventures as an actor, he found his father blind and his mother dying. Conscious stricken, he undertook to live the life of an ordinary human being, giving up his artistic and poetic dreams. He married an orphan girl, became a father, and worked with modest results to acquire some property.

_Is was under the influence of a colleague from Debrecen, Istv�n Szil�gyi, who was newly assigned as school principal in Szalonta, that he returned to literary activity. By 1845 he published his first poetic work, The Lost Constitution (a satire on the politics of the nobility) and then in 1846 Toldi, with which he won the Kisfaludy Society (rallying point of the intellectual movement) award and the friendship of S�ndor Pet�fi. Soon thereafter, he undertook the writing of Toldi s Eve, which was eventually to form the concluding portion of the Toldi Trilogy, his life's masterpiece.

During the Revolution and War of Independence of 1848-1849, Arany served as a national guardsman, but most important of all he wrote lyrics of a freedom-fight character. After resigning as notary when the town could not pay the salaries of its officials, he entered state service with positions in Debrecen and Pest. With the collapse of the struggle, he returned to Szalonta, hid out for a while from the Russians, and at the end of 1849 accepted a post briefly in the district administrative office. But with the repression conducted by the Hapsburgs following the Revolution, his status was an uncertain one, to say the least, and he resigned.

Having lost his position and prospects at Szalonta, Arany accepted, after working as private tutor, a teaching position in Nagyk�r�s, where he started anew and lived from 1851 to 1860. During this phase of his life he published The Gypsies of Nagyida (1852), an allegory celebrating a doomed rebellion and satirizing weaknesses that led to the Hungarian surrender at Vil�gos in 1849; a section of the Csaba (Attila-Buda) trilogy, which was never to be completed; Toldi's Eve (1854); The Welsh Bards (1856), an allegorical ballad about the poets beheaded by Edward I for refusing to sing to his glory, and written in satirical response to an official approach for a tribute in honor of the still uncrowned Francis Joseph's projected visit to Budapest. Arany was elected to the Academy in 1855, and to the Kisfaludy Society, as secretary, in 1860. He suffered from the mid-1850's on with a nervous condition - depression, headaches, earaches - described in some detail in his letters.

Arany moved to Pest in 1860 as editor of a new literary periodical. Death of Buda appeared in 1864. He became secretary to the Academy in 1865. His daughter died the same year, and his mental health deteriorated further. His Collected Poems appeared in 1867, and in this same year of the Compromise with Austria he was named to the Order of Saint Stephen. He also published his translations of Hamlet and King John. Toldi's Love, which he began in 1863, appeared in 1879; he thereby fulfilled a long and difficult commitment rounding out the Trilogy. In 1880, he published the Comedies of Aristophanes in three volumes on which he had worked for three years. Most significant for his poetic evolution, however, he wrote lyrics which are some of the most exciting in the language. He died October 22, 1882.

Throughout his life, J�nos Arany remained shy, almost diffident. He was born to his parents in their advanced age, and the poet himself observed that this may have affected his personality. While engrossed in a world of epic and ballad imagery, he was at the same time realistic and industrious, carefully husbanding property and placing the welfare of his young family (the Aranys had a son L�szl� - poet, collector of folktales and literary historians - and a daughter) above his own personal aspirations. In his semi-autobiographical Bolond Ist�k (Dumb Steve) he portrays himself as an antihero.

Arany's labors as a notary, schoolteacher, Academy and Society secretary, editor (and even something of a landowner, business man and lender!) leave one almost incredulous about his own literary productivity. His vast work load, which he carried conscientiously, was in conflict with his literary labors, often accomplished on the principle of nulla dies sine linea. Very likely this had much to do with his poor mental health as he approached his forties. But there is something more significant here, too. Arany had a self-effacing nature although he wrote, especially in his old age, outstanding subjective poetry, which however he was reluctant to publish. Throughout his life he would have preferred, evidently, to be a L�nnrot collecting the Magyar Kalevala - but Hungary by then had no equivalent of Karelia. Herein is the basic contradiction of Arany's work - between the demands of a subjective life and of a strong but besieged culture. Arany's outlook on his art as a basically collective value was paralleled in the career of Zolt�n Kod�ly, who was born in the same year Arany died. Ady and Bart�k represent the innovative side of the Magyar spirit, Arany and Kod�ly the integrative. Tragically, they were not infrequently differentiated by compatriots as "un-Hungarian" and "genuinely Hungarian."

Arany is regarded as the most Magyar of poets. Economy and beauty of diction have seldom been more fittingly wedded. He had an enlightened dedication to Hungarian traditions over his long lifetime and was one of the first to portray artistically the sober character of the Magyar people. Arany is a progressive great in the peasant or popular tradition. His ties to the past and the Plain came from his concern for a world of equality more like Hungary knew with its "Asiatic" and Anjou kings prior to the conditions leading to D�zsa's revolt, and the suppression of the serfs in Eastern Europe.

Although he wrote much more, the extent of Arany's greatness will be measured by his epics. His role as a great contributor to this literary form is secure, if not widely familiar in the world. Unlike anyone, he returned the epic to the extraordinary common from where it originally sprang, and thereby led attention to a way of humanity long neglected. That Arany maintained his artistic integrity despite the vast contradictions of his lifetime makes him the true symbol of the cultural coherence and flexibility of modern Hungarians. His importance in a global sense is his sane involvement with life as he tells the epic story of the peasant evolution.

---

BRIEF BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arany, J�nos. �sszes m�vei (Complete Works). Vol. 1-14. Budapest, Akad�miai Kiad�, 1950-1966.

Arany J�nos n�pdalgy�jtem�nye (J�nos Arany's Collection of Folk Songs) by Zolt�n Kod�ly and Gyulai �gost. Budapest, Akad�miai Kiad�, 1952. /1953/

Bowra, C. M. Heroic Poetry. London, Macmillan and Co Ltd., 1964 (no mention of Arany's epics, but of Hunnish epics in other languages and of Yugoslav poems about J�nos Hunyadi).

Debreczeni, Istv�n. Arany J�nos h�tk�znapjai (J�nos Arany's Everyday Life). Budapest, Gondolat, 1968.

D�czy, Jen�. Arany J�nos. �letk�pek (J�nos Arany, Scenes from His Life). Budapest, Genius, 1929.

Ignotus, Paul. Hungary. New York. Praeger, 1972.

Information Hungary ed. by Ferenc Erdei. Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1968.

Keresztury, Dezs�. Arany J�nos. Budapest, Akad�miai Kiad�, 1971.

Klaniczay, Tibor. Zr�nyi Mikl�s. Budapest, Akad�miai Kiad�, 1964.

L�szl�, Gyula. Hunor �s Magyar nyom�ban (On the Trail of Hunor and Magyar). Budapest, Gondolat, 1967.

Luk�cs, Gy�rgy. "A sz�z�ves Toldi" (The 100-Year-Old Toldi). Magyar Irodalom - Magyar Kult�ra, Budapest, Gondolat, 1970.

Maenchen-Helfen, Otto J. The World of the Huns. Berkeley, Cal., University of California Press, 1973.

Miksz�th, K�lm�n. �j Zr�nyi�sz (New Zr�nyi Epic). Budapest, R�vai, 1910.

Rem�nyi, Joseph. Hungarian writers and literature. Modern novelists, critics, and poets. Rutgers University Press, 1964.

Riedl, Frigyes. Arany J�nos. Budapest, M�velt N�p, 1953.

_Riedl, Frigyes. V�r�smarty �lete �s m�vei (V�r�smarty's Life and Works). Budapest, Csoma K�lm�n, 1905. /1937/

Segel, Harold B. The Baroque Poem. A comparative survey. New York, E. P. Dutton and Co., Inc., 1974.

Tezla, Albert. Hungarian authors. A bibliographical handbook. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1970.

The Hungarian Illuminated Chronicle (Chronica de Gestis Hungarorum) ed. by Dezs� Dercs�nyi, Budapest, Corvina Press, 1969.

_Voinovich, G�za. Arany J�nos �letrajza (Biography of J�nos Arany). Vol. I-III. Budapest, Magyar Tudom�nyos Akad�mia, 1929-1938.

Young, Percy M. Zolt�n Kod�ly. A Hungarian Musician. London, Ernest Benn Ltd., 1964.

---