King Matthias in Gömör by János Garay (1812-53)

Doing a little research on William Morris' A King's Lesson, which I posted last week, I came across this interesting article by Éva Péteri discussing the historical sources used by Morris. I won't repeat everything she wrote, please do go and read the article if you are interested, but she demonstrates that there are enough similarities between Morris' story and a poem by Hungarian János Garay entitled King Matthias in Gömör to suggest he had access to it, despite the fact that it wasn't translated into English at the time he wrote A King's Lesson and that Morris spoke only a little German - a language it had been published in. The tale is apparently a well known one in Hungary and this poem is simply the most popular mid-nineteenth century rendition of it. Despite this it is still very hard to find in English and so I thought I would publish it here.

 King Matthias in Gömör 

Every one loved King Matthias, when his charger he rode

To victory in all our battles and our enemies bestrode:

In peace his strength made him the velvet couch despise,

He came and went, for his people's good, listening to our cries,

Through Transdanubia, through all our mighty land,

Through the counties of Tisza he waved his judge's wand,

And none who fell before his knees and cried their grief

Went from his court with less than justice and relief.

And last he came to Gömör and held a royal feast,

As is the Magyar custom, from ancient times at least.

Ten thousand toasts were drunk both serious and gay,

The golden wine of Tokay flowed as night was turned to day.

"God damn the bloody Turk, bring Germans to defeat,

May Christ our Saviour lay all Czechs beneath our Champion's feet!"

The warrior toasts were drunk. At last the country's wealth

Was coupled with the cries, "Our good King Matthias' health!"

Alas, when at the end the nobles could drink no more

And when, in silly drunkenness, they fell upon the floor,

One toast they had forgot, "To those who press the wine,

The toiling peasant daylong bending o'er the vine."

"Gentlemen," King Matthias smiled, liking the idea of a joke,

"The workers have toiled all day beneath a heavy yoke

That we might royally feast. 'Tis time we gave them rest.

They shall sit down in our places and drink of the very best."

The king rose from the table, like the sun in midday sky,

"Up, follow me," he cried, "or I'll know the reason why."

The besotted nobles staggered up to fall in with his command,

"Come," he roared laughing, "we go to conquer the land!"

The sun stood still in wonder, wide-eyed the peasants stare

As their mighty king, their Champion, combed out his golden hair,

And wonder more than wonder, no longer the sword and shield

His conquering arm began the humble spade to wield.

But their wonder changed to laughter, when the courtiers they saw,

Full of soft living, the spade making their hands raw.

And while the weak nobles sweated, with anguish filled,

Their Champion, Matthias, more than an acre had tilled.

Oh, the cries that rose from the little men, the sky was rent,

"Release us, O Majesty, from this hard punishment.

None of us fear the sword but, alas, O King, we're afraid

Of this mighty instrument we cannot wield — the peasant's spade."

In the end Kind Matthias relented. Using his spade,

Which he drew from the shining furrow his work had made,

As a royal sceptre, his words and his mien severe,

"Listen, O you fat courtlings, listen to me and hear

This lesson: You now have learned half dead with toil,

That your soft living is founded on this clumpish soil,

That they, who till it and make it yield its crop,

Work till their muscles scream and until they drop.

So, back in your banqueting halls, by riches beset,

Remember my words. When you toast you will not forget

To lift your glasses to lift your hearts and minds

To the vine-dressers, cowherds, the shepherds, and hinds."

In Gömör, thus did King Matthias enhance his noble joke,

Laying upon his people the lightest of heavy yokes,

And so increased their love for him, no sweat was too severe,

That even today they love him, and his mighty name revere. 

By János Garay (1812-53) and translated by James Turner

Source: Makkai, Á (Ed.) (1996) In Quest of the Miracle Stag: The Poetry of Hungary, University of Illnois Press

Review: Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier

I have just finished Le Grand Meaulnes (translated in my Penguin edition as The Lost Estate), having found it lying in a charity shop, seemingly rather unloved and, if I am honest, I was enticed by the cover image, having never heard of the novel before. And I am not alone, it is barely known in this country, but is a set study text in its native France and voted there the 6^th best novel of the twentieth century. It is a great shame that the work isn’t more widely read here as the book is an excellent novel and Adam Gopnik is right in saying that it is a work that leaves an impression on you, which it is hard to shake off. Listening to an album shortly after I couldn’t help be keep drawing parallels between the two and likewise reflecting on my own experiences of youth as I went through the day. 

Written by Alain-Fournier in 1913 it was to be his first and only complete novel, as he fought and died in the First World War and to a degree the novel is autobiographical in the sense that it concerns a instant connection (love) between two people, for whom the hope of long term relationship is denied – he even names the ethereal main character after his own lost love; Yvonne.

One of the most striking elements of the book is the sense of freedom that prevails, more generally through their childhood, but specifically within the school and their relationship with Monsieur Suerel.

Many of the reviews of the book make a point of saying that it is a novel that means different things in youth than it does in adulthood and that it is only in this later state that one can understand the loss that Alain-Fournier writes so wonderfully about. Reading it for the first time in my early 30’s I am not too old to have forgotten many of the emotions and events that so easily span a hundred years, but likewise I am old enough to know that it is an age, that even in our current desire for eternal adolescence, that has passed me by. The fights and carefree adventures were never a part of my childhood, but the sense of longing for intimacy, identity and independence I can remember well, along with the frustration and repression of youth.

The arcadia of the early chapters, where we are lead around the estate and along the lanes of the countryside is slowly swept away, until at last in the final chapters it disposed of entirely. Leaving you feeling almost slightly foolish for having fallen for its charms; this is real life, this is adulthood, the book seems to say, here there is no place for dreams and utopias. A stubborn mule is beaten by the same children that led Meaulnes excitedly around the corridors; ducklings lay dead in the garden of the playhouse.

And yet the illness and death of Yvonne, suddenly and beautifully roots her in the world of the living. Gone now is the abstract and dreamlike fairytale princess and instead we have a girl, a woman, who feels, who suffers. With it goes also is our rose tinted youth as we emerge to find ourselves in a much more readily recognisable world of pain, responsibility and with a clearer sense of mortality.

There is no doubt that most of Le Grand Meaulnes was, for me, a melancholy read, particularly as it drew to its conclusion and all hope of the promised fairytale ending vanished, but for all that it carried with it a sense of the beauty of the human condition and captured wonderfully the transitory moments of dreamlike pleasure that make up a part of what it is to be alive.