SCENE ONE
(Before the castle of Zápolya. Zápolya, Póki, Basi come through the gate.
Martinúzi at a distance. To the right and left, small houses.)

ZÁPOLYA
(Reading a letter.)
Palatine Perényi is dead.

BASI
Here stands his heir.

SZAPOLYAI
His dying will was that the king himself
Should bear his coffin down to the Danube’s edge,
The magnates to the boundary-line of Pest.
A hundred torches blaze, a hundred banners fly. —
A petty soul, an empty vanity
Flung on the grave. — My father, blessed in death,
The palatine of old, left to his prince
A wine-cup and a horse, as friend to friend.

BASI
And what will his son leave, when, palatine, he dies?

SZAPOLYAI
A blessing or a curse — I cannot say —
But this I feel: a great name, certainly.

PÓKI
I wonder they have not yet called you to Buda.

BASI
This you must wait upon, for your high rank.
(Martinúzi laughs.)

SZAPOLYAI
Knave, why do you laugh?

MARTINÚZI
That lords so wise
should hand each other counsel so absurd.

BASI
How insolent is this one?

SZAPOLYAI
Come closer, son,
and speak out boldly what you’d have me do.

MARTINÚZI
That you’d have saddled up already first,
and only then have asked me what I think.
The eagle does not wait to call the crows
in their flock to the prey. It strikes among them like the lightning.
The leopard does not wait for cunning foxes
to smooth his pathways out for him beforehand.
Still you have not saddled up?

SZAPOLYAI
Póki, we ride!
What fee do you ask, György, for this counsel?

MARTINÚZI
Take me along with you as well, my lord!
Out of these narrow walls I crave the world.

SZAPOLYAI
Does your ambition stoop already down
as far as to the kitchen?

MARTINÚZI
No, no — it stoops only so far
as spirit and as strength descend.

SZAPOLYAI
Boy, where do you come by ideas like these?

Your fellows guzzle in my stables,
and dice and revel are their highest aim.

MARTINÚZI
My lord! You’ve seen the rose and seen the nettle,
yes? — in one same soil. The one draws fragrance forth,
the other poison — from the earth, which is neither.
(Outside: noise, a drum-roll; people run into the houses and bar them.)

SZAPOLYAI
What is this?

A WOMAN
Oh — the tax-collectors!
(She runs off.)

A GIRL
Help!
(She falls at Szapolyai’s feet.)

SZAPOLYAI
Rise up, my daughter! Speak — what is the trouble?

GIRL
My lord!
You are mighty: defend me from this shame.
(Pursuers come and halt. Pekri, Kulifay, and a few peasants enter.)

BAILIFF
Halt there — behold, the noble lord.

PEKRI
I could have laughed to see our hunting-hounds
fall drunk from lapping up the sweet new wine.

KULIFAY
And our host — the niggard burgher who
begrudged that nectar even to himself —
how he looked on, scratching his head.

JUDGE
My lords!
I beg you, mercy for this wretched village.
Two years now we have paid the dreadful tax,
a good half of our whole revenue.
To a lord even half his income is a treasure
from which he lives in lordly style; the poor man,
with his whole little property, still scrapes along,
and on the half starves to death.

PEKRI
Hush, craven peasant.

JUDGE
We do not even wish you any loss, my lords.
I’ve gathered up each jewel from our women —
as token of our thanks we offer it, a keepsake —
only let that drumming be struck dumb.
The treasurer, lord Szerencsés Imre,
sends out his hawkers to seize up our cattle
for a trifling price, knocked down at the forced sale.

PEKRI
Let’s see —
(They look at the jewels with curiosity.)
True, it must be a wretched village
where such poor trash goes by the name of jewels.
We’ll see in time; we’ll do what can be done.
(Kulifay pockets the jewels.)
But that little girl — which way did she run off?
Well, I must say — a handsome hospitality.
Then I shall act on your behalf.

SZAPOLYAI
(Stepping forward.)
What’s happening here, upon my own domain?
Who are these two impudent fellows?

KULIFAY
Noble lord,
we are the king’s own tax-collectors; we
collect the levy fixed upon at Tolna.

SZAPOLYAI
Fixed at Tolna? That was a faction’s diet.
The lesser nobles and their loud-mouthed leader
Verbőczi, the personal presence — these are not yet the nation.
Show me but one illustrious name,
one lord alone who took a part in it.

PEKRI
And yet the king gave it his sanction.

SZAPOLYAI
If he sanctioned it, then let him keep it so;
we never gave consent, and will not pay.

PEKRI
I beg you, noble lord!

SZAPOLYAI
Ho there, men —
to your pitchforks. Drive these robbers out
beyond my borders. — What you’ve stolen,
you rogues, out with it. That I do not have you
strung up on the gallows-tree, I forbear only for the king.
[The manuscript breaks off here.]