MÁRIA, Queen of Hungary
ERZSÉBET, her mother, widow of King Louis I
GARA MIKLÓS, palatine
FORGÁCH BALÁZS, chief cup-bearer
LACZFY ISTVÁN, voivode of Transylvania
FRANGEPÁN JÁNOS, chief doorward
HORVÁTHY PÁL, bishop of Zagreb |
HORVÁTHY JÁNOS, commander | brothers
HORVÁTHY LÁSZLÓ, banneret lord |
PALIZSNAY JÁNOS, prior of Vrana, knight of St. John
DEZSŐ JÁNOS, governor of Red Ruthenia
SIMONTORNYAY ISTVÁN, a Croatian lord
DE ORANIS MARINUS, a Dalmatian lord
DURAZZO, or CHARLES THE SMALL, king of Naples, later of Hungary
MARGIT, his wife
LÁSZLÓ, their small son
ALBERICH, captain of the guard
ZSIGMOND, margrave of Brandenburg, Mária’s betrothed
JOBST, duke of Moravia, Zsigmond’s kinsman
PIERZCHNOI DOMARATH, a Bohemian lord, Zsigmond’s favourite
SUBINI SANDIVOG, Polish envoy
VAVELSKY PRZECZLAV, Polish lesser noble
BARBO PANTALEON, envoy and commander of Venice
SZOFRA, a Croatian girl
PALIZSNAY’s castellan
FIRST |
SECOND | citizen of Buda

HERALD
LORDS, SOLDIERS, PEOPLE
The action runs from 1382 to 1387.

SCENE ONE
(A hall in the castle of Vrana. Palizsnay, Horváthy Pál, János,
László, Simontornyay, Oranis at a laid table. Szofra serves and
keeps sitting down.)

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
Just as I said, it all fell out so.
At great Louis’ loss there stood in tears
Every eye —

PALIZSNAY
— so that none could see clearly. —
Wine, Szofra, wine, not always for Oranis.

SZOFRA
But you yourself sent me.

PALIZSNAY
Now I call you back.

SZOFRA
A whimsical man. — Hey, of this cake here
A piece for me too, lords.

SIMONTORNYAY
And drink with it.

SZOFRA
Your health. — Let me sing one
Of wine and love; away with care,
For under all this tedious talk of yours
You all grow old.

PALIZSNAY
Leave the jesting, Szofra,
Speak when we ask. Now, János, on.

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
So the great men of the realm gathered as one,
Anxious where they might find a hand
To guide with firm gentleness the rein
That fate’s disposing decree had wrenched
Out of the wise king’s grasp.
And his sixteen-year-old daughter, Mária,
Ringed round with reverence and with beauty,
Appeared among them in her deep mourning.
What simpler than that they bowed
To the twofold spell, and cried with one voice:
Long live Queen Mária!
Cardinal Demeter crowned her,
And the bishop of Veszprém, Benedek,
Anointed her with the consecrated oil.

PALIZSNAY
For all I care, let him have anointed her with sunlight.
The rest, and the white-bearded
trinketed boys, might well have issued
Under seal to the coquettish girl,
That as her father was the greatest king,
So such a child too was the most he could beget,
But from them no more than such a letter.
Only they might have left us our peace
With the woman-king, and her the throne,
For he gets the worst use of it
Who hangs the man,
And of the beauty, who sets her on the throne.

ORANIS
More respect, prior, for the queen.

PALIZSNAY
Less respect, more self-conceit
Is fitter with women. — Szofra, sit in my lap,
This is your throne; smooth my brow,
Smile; why do I keep you, if you do not smile?

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Just eighty-one years and eight months ago
They stripped the daughter of Andrew the Third,
The last scion of the Árpáds,
Of her inherited throne, because our coarse breast
Was still ashamed to bow before a woman,
And now with a king’s daughter of foreign stock
We make our error good. Oh, wondrous,
Adorable is the ordinance of God. —

PALIZSNAY
What ordinance of God — a pretext!
Or shall we straightway christen so
Whatever a few cunning men foist on us?
Then every madman is a wise Solomon,
Every robber a chosen of God.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Yet even if the king is a woman, there are
Many wise lords on whose counsel she may walk.
There is Gara.

PALIZSNAY
What, this Slavonian
Peasant command me? — Never.

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
Yet he commands, for he is all-powerful,
And Erzsébet’s dear man.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
There is Zsigmond, the Brandenburg count,
Our queen’s betrothed.

PALIZSNAY
This scatterbrain,
This vagabond Bohemian — I truly do not know
Whether to curse or only to laugh;
But a hundred words come to one end,
I will have none of petticoat rule.

ORANIS
A pity you did not go to the Diet;
There all this would have had its place,
What is now rebellious talk.

PALIZSNAY (springing up)
Go, Szofra, go, why do you get underfoot,
Has the Italian’s eye perhaps bewitched you?
You I will strangle, if you bar my way. (All spring up.)

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
Think — he is your guest, here in your castle.

PALIZSNAY
And is the harmful worm not in our dwelling;
Who says even then we should not stamp it out?

SIMONTORNYAY
Remember, you are a man of the church.

PALIZSNAY
In church, but here I am the castle’s lord,
And let my sword show I am a knight as well!

HORVÁTHY PÁL
If Oranis hurts, then I will wail.

PALIZSNAY (calmed)
But why provoke me, why keep saying
Why I did not dispute at the Diet
With those worthless ink-lickers,
Whose heads a little girl turns about?
For I too have a voice here at home,
And from my rampart’s height it carries far. —
Or should I perhaps have gone to the assembly,
So that here the Zrínyis and the Frangepáns,
Like the mouse-tribe when it scents no cat,
Would have darted to the very heart of my castle.
As it is, keeping order costs
enough broken heads. Hey, Péter, Jancsi, Gergely! (Three retainers with bandaged heads come in.)
Here, my lords, behold how we write,
Here, our calling-cards. — (The retainers leave at a sign.)

HORVÁTHY PÁL
See, János, again you could not master yourself.

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
Calmed now, you regret it, don’t you?

HORVÁTHY LÁSZLÓ
And you too, why provoke him, since you know him,
Especially when there is reason on his side.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
True, for there are nearer kinsmen too
To the daughter of Stephen the Fifth,
From whom the house of Anjou gained its right
To the throne, than Mária is.

SIMONTORNYAY
Then join
Hands.

PALIZSNAY
So be it. Pour, Szofra, wine.
Let us touch cups.

SIMONTORNYAY
And let bishop Pál
Explain to us that lineage,
He is a man of books in any case.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
I can tell it, since it is a real matter,
Though I draw no conclusions —
I understand no politics. — Stephen
The Fifth’s daughter married Charles
The Second, and they had three sons:
Charles Martel, in whose grandson
Louis the male line has now died out,
His second son was John, and his grandson
Charles of Durazzo, king of Naples,
The third son being Robert,
Whose great-granddaughter is Charles’s wife.

PALIZSNAY
Hear, hear, Italian, let us now toast each other.

ORANIS
Your health, fair girl! He who does not bow
To grace is no man, and he who bows
For no reward is a coward. — Rebels, this for you. (He kisses Szofra and dashes down the cup.)

PALIZSNAY
Ha, my axe, let me cleave him in two,
No — two hydras would grow of him that way,
Into a leather sack with him, drown him in water,
Hey, men! (Servants come.)

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Hold him! What are you doing!

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
Oranis, out, let us avoid a scandal!

PALIZSNAY
Out, out, but not by the gate, fling him down
From the bastion.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
László! See him out. (Oranis, H. László, servants leave.)

PALIZSNAY
You shameless thing, you, so this is why I fatten you,
That before my very eyes you embrace another.
Who knows what you do behind my back.
There to the corner, on your knees, not one word more. (Szofra kneels.)

SIMONTORNYAY
Well, now you have given us all we need.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
I wash my hands, for I am innocent.

HORVÁTHY LÁSZLÓ (returning)
What will they say to all this at Buda?

PALIZSNAY
What do I care, the air is cleaner,
I breathe more easily.

HORVÁTHY LÁSZLÓ
That is the truth.

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
If you fall into trouble, you may count on my arm.

HORVÁTHY LÁSZLÓ
On mine too; that Italian’s face
Is unbearable to me.

PALIZSNAY
And, Pál, you say nothing?

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Horváthy Pál always stands by the good cause.

PALIZSNAY
Bishop! You will not deal out holy water now,
It may be that much noble blood will flow.
One must know the foe, and the good friend;
A two-faced word is now a brother-slayer.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
There is an enemy that turns harmless
Once we know him for what he is: there is a good friend
Who turns harmless the moment he confesses.

PALIZSNAY
The devil take that politics
Which calls a thing warm when I am frozen,
And has a fur coat sewn in midsummer.
For me the reed is always straight,
And the fish-hook always looks crooked. —
Why, Szofra, still kneeling there?
Come, come, my soul, I was a little hasty.
Kiss me, so, now the peace is holy.

SZOFRA
Palizsnay, a fine song came to my mind.
You laughed at it once, because it is sly. (A horn sounds.)

PALIZSNAY
What is that?

CASTELLAN (entering)
A herald from Buda.

PALIZSNAY (running through the letter)
Let us see.
Gara, the palatine, summons me to his seat
For breach of the peace, and demands
That I make restitution to Frangepán.
Does the palatine not know that I am a lord in my own right!
Or does he think that, like two worthless peasants
Who fall to law over one cow,
Palizsnay too goes seeking a judge?
If he has business with me, let him come himself.
Here, Szofra, the sheet, it will do to curl your hair,
Let the proud palatine serve your charm. —
And now, lords, let us embroider no longer,
I have a grave word.

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
Then send this girl out first.
What touches men is not for a woman.

PALIZSNAY
Did you ever send out your dog
When you laid the plans of your battles?
To me Szofra is what the dog is to another,
A friend who guards, who now and then amuses.
She always acknowledges my mastery,
And if I beat her, she licks my hand.
But, lest you think me stubborn: Szofra,
Go! Szofra, come once more, smile on me —
Now go, go warm my bed through. (Szofra leaves.)

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
Now speak, Palizsnay.

PALIZSNAY
Here, this writing!
Whoever wants no woman-rule,
Let him set down his name; here stands Tvartkó,
Bosnian king, and many a notable shall stand.

SIMONTORNYAY
What do we begin, if we shake off Mária?

PALIZSNAY
What do I care, only let there be no peace,
This petty, huckster world chokes me,
This lawful disorder, in which one cannot
carry through a single honest jest:
This stagnant pool, where only frogs are bred.

SIMONTORNYAY
I should think it best to set up again
The rule of the seven chieftains.
We divide the country.

PALIZSNAY
For my part.
I want no share but a single sword.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
I do not pronounce what my view is
On the matter, I lay it down only as a principle,
That the party which looks for victory should take
Upon its banners a lawful watchword,
In which many interests unite, not one
In which the seed of discord lies hidden.
Such, in the present case, might be
Charles of Durazzo, king of Naples.

PALIZSNAY
Let it be, only sign your own name too.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Being bishop of Zagreb, that I should write
Beneath you.

PALIZSNAY
Then write above us.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
How
Could that consort with the humility
I have vowed.

PALIZSNAY
Then write yourself to hell.
I cannot tell where I am with you.

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
Leave him be; we, his brothers,
Stand surety in his stead as well.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Tomorrow I journey to Buda, lords,
I only beg you, in God’s holy name,
Do not let yourselves be carried away.
For wise Solomon has written it already:
For everything there is a fitting time,
For work, for embracing, for repose. —
A little while, and you shall hear of me.
My blessing be with you.

PALIZSNAY
God be with us. (All leave.)

SCENE TWO
(A hall of state in the royal residence at Buda. Mária, Erzsébet,
Gara, Forgách, Horváthy Pál, Oranis, Frangepán, Laczfy, Dezső,
lords, come in procession; the queens mount the throne, the rest
stand to right and left.)

LORDS
Long live Queen Mária!

ERZSÉBET
Receive, my daughter, graciously
From your subjects the homage that is due.

LACZFY
How do you like this tone, bishop?

HORVÁTHY PÁL
The palatine spoke.

LACZFY
It is always he who speaks, when you hear the queen.

MÁRIA
I greet you, lords, and firmly believe
That as you now greet me with kind words,
So you will not be slow to uphold me in deed.

GARA
Yes, queen, all things will uphold you,
For he who wishes to go on living
Does not deny the sun — or dies.

FRANGEPÁN
Zsigmond stands without, the Brandenburg margrave.

MÁRIA
Already here? — (Aside) Oh, alas, that in this bright play
At once some shadow comes to remind me:
I am only a woman, no fairy.

FRANGEPÁN
What shall I answer?

ERZSÉBET
Let him wait without — is it not so, daughter?

MÁRIA
Yes.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Permit, your Majesty, that at your footstool
I too lay down all the homage
Which, like a heavy burden on my aged breast,
Would not let me rest until
From far Croatia I brought it
Here to present it.

MÁRIA
Now that you are eased, good father,
Straighten up again; that is not
Your place, down there.

ORANIS
Most gracious queen,
I seal the seacoast’s faith
With this kiss upon your gracious hand.

MÁRIA
Carry to your land my favour.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
After the throne, great lord palatine,
It is you I honour foremost.

GARA
And I feel honoured in this hand
Which you press.

LACZFY (to himself)
Would it had broken it off.

FRANGEPÁN
Subini Sandivog, the Polish envoy,
Asks to enter with a brilliant suite.

GARA
When it pleases you, most gracious queen,
To receive them, then command them.
Till then you may wait, Polish lords,
This little lesson suits you well in any case.

DEZSŐ
Trembling I step, most gracious queen,
Before you, for among so much homage
As gathers to your throne from the Baltic
To the Adriatic, my word is a spectre,
A herald of disaster; oh, why has this tongue grown old,
That it now serves its grief so ill.

MÁRIA
Do not reopen the aching wound,
We know already that Red Ruthenia
Is, so to speak, finally lost to us.

ERZSÉBET
Yes, disgraceful traitors to the homeland
Sold its strongholds for money
To Lyubart, the Lithuanian prince,
Sparing their blood for the headsman.

DEZSŐ
They could not hold against the risen Poles.

GARA
So this is your plea, faithless governor?
I know you are no better than your accomplices.

DEZSŐ
In such great troubles as this, I do not wonder
That the word too is born more roughly,
Nor do I come to excuse myself; rather I came
That, according to the law of the homeland,
The great men of the realm should judge me.

LACZFY
This is a fair request.

GARA
Indeed, surely,
We shall make much sport with such traitors.
It is even great mercy, what I have meant for you,
For I am the judge, palatine of the realm
And chief captain. (Murmuring.) Now, who is displeased?
Who is in league with them? Fetters on him,
Off to the dungeon. — And here the sentence (He takes out a paper.)
For the perfidious castle-commanders.
Loss of head and goods, on their children
Disgrace. — Sign it later, my queen. (Armed men lead Dezső off.)

DEZSŐ
Innocent I must perish, lady!
May another’s guilt bring down no curse on you. (He leaves.)

GARA
Now let the noble order of the golden spur,
Its new knights, queen, be allowed
To fall before your feet.

MÁRIA
Let them come.
(The spurred warriors kneel one by one before the throne; Mária touches their shoulders with the sword.)

ORANIS
Reverend bishop, for you this
Weighty letter from the council of Cattaro.
In return for the great service which
At Vrana you rendered with your cool wisdom —
As a token of our trust.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
For a nothing
Never was such usury taken
As I now take of you by this honour.

ORANIS
A like letter to Ladislas,
The duke of Opole, to Cardinal
Demeter, to Gara and to Laczfy
I have brought too; perhaps to these last two
I may hand it at once.

HORVÁTHY PÁL (running through the letter)
Not so, my friend!
(Aside.) Our whole scheme is discovered!
Presence of mind, do not forsake me. A good face
To the bad game. (Aloud.) These are proud
Lords; familiarity would offend them;
You must go pay them your respects.
(As Forgách kneels before the throne, Mária by chance draws his blood.)

MÁRIA
Alas, blood! Ah, my God, what an omen.

FORGÁCH
A dear omen, which shows perhaps
That even the last drop of my blood
I will pour out for my queen.

MÁRIA
Lords, you are all dismissed.

ERZSÉBET
Daughter, what are you doing?

MÁRIA
I do not know, mother,
What fever takes me, what dazed weakness,
All these events have shaken me:
Glory, grief.

ERZSÉBET
A child’s game, daughter.

MÁRIA
Not yet to me, and I feel that in the queen
The woman wins. — Let no subject see her lord
In her folly. — Mother, you too,
I beg you, now leave me alone, leave me alone.
(She steps down from the throne; the rest go out.)

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Forgive me, palatine, that I hold you back.
But every delayed moment: treason.
I have had a letter from Croatia.

GARA
Then we go together.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Perhaps Laczfy too
I shall invite, if you think it well.

GARA
Leave him,
He grows grey for it, a child even now,
He has not forgotten the nurse’s tales,
Only his fist has grown strong; come, my friend. (All leave; Forgách stays the last.)

MÁRIA
Forgách!

FORGÁCH
Command, most gracious queen.

MÁRIA
Yes, queen, and you only cup-bearer,
See how distraught I am, I scarce can
Find again the thread of my thoughts.
And all this caused by a few drops of blood.

FORGÁCH
If I felt that there was in me such a drop
As makes for you one dark moment,
I would long ago have poured it out, were it the last.

MÁRIA
See, Forgách, why is the king a woman, when
She rewards and wounds; or why is the woman
A king, when from the throne the kiss too is a sword-thrust.

FORGÁCH
Oh, let me die then twice through you.
Queen, you have lost the ribbon.

MÁRIA
That Mária lost, not the queen,
Do not betray to her that she let it fall to the dust.

FORGÁCH
Then I may keep it.

MÁRIA
Bind up with it
That wound which the queen has dealt.

FORGÁCH
Let me kiss your Majesty’s hand.

MÁRIA
When I stand on the throne, to receive
My betrothed, Zsigmond, then, Forgách.
You may go.

FORGÁCH
Oh, how much bliss, and what a hell. (He leaves.)

LACZFY (entering)
Forgive me, lady, that I have stolen
In after you, and rob you of moments
Which you saved for yourself from your throne.
But look on this grey head — it was still dark
When I gave myself into your father’s service.
I saw you born, and swore an oath
That I would never weary of serving you too.

MÁRIA
I know well your faith, old Laczfy,
But since when must you steal in
To your queen, who waits with open door?

LACZFY
Ah, lady, behind the open door
Stand Gara, and the widowed queen.
A mightier lock than any iron bar,
For it lies on your heart.

MÁRIA
Then am I to tear away
My mother? Or to thrust out Gara,
Than whom not even you can be a more zealous servant?

LACZFY
I do not mean to bring him under suspicion,
But oh, queen, it is not always to our good,
What care lays in our interest.
A wild people is the Magyar, it needs room,
Like the blood-horse, to play out its fire,
And it pulls well; Gara only strains the bit.
Now too he has offended so many great lords,
Yet in vain — the great, in falling, is still great,
And in its fall drags many a small thing with it.

MÁRIA
I have pitied them enough.

LACZFY
Oh, if you pitied them,
Why did you not give body to that holy feeling.
True power is always merciful.
We should be damned, if our God too
Were not so. — See, my people out of reverence
Made me queen, orphaned, forsaken.
Now if, as a queen, you step among them,
It will exalt you to the home of the stars.
But even the falcon knows
On whose fist it sits, and at the command
Of every churl it will not soar on high.
What is the widowed queen? She is your mother,
Honour her, as a daughter, and not as a queen.
The nation did not call her to its throne,
Let her live for her mourning, as befits a widow.
What is a Gara? As palatine I honour him,
Vigorous, brave, a victorious commander,
Let him counsel, if he can, but let him leave the throne
To her whom the people chose for it.
From a low fist the falcon does not soar —
In a word, queen, govern yourself.

MÁRIA
It cannot be done.

LACZFY
A senseless word.
True, it is easier on the field of battle to stand fast
Than against intrigue; but I vowed
To your father that I would not weary of serving you,
And I will redeem my oath, only will it.

MÁRIA
Come, my friend, to my more hidden chamber,
Let us weigh it well before we act.

LACZFY
Oh, alas, that Majesty must hide,
When it asks justice of its servant.
(Leaves with Mária.)
HORVÁTHY PÁL (who entered with Gara toward the end of the talk)
Did you hear, palatine? Here they were praising you.

GARA
I’ll crush the fool between two fingers.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Already I, as a man of the church, would advise
A gentler way.

GARA
Let us hear it, if it is good.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
He must be removed from here.

GARA
How?

HORVÁTHY PÁL
We send him to Croatia, the disturbance
Which I have only now disclosed to you...

GARA
For which you may count on my eternal thanks.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
To probe and to put down.

GARA
Very good. (Laczfy comes.) You come just in time, voivode!
From Croatia alarming news has come,
Mutinous unrest everywhere,
But the guiding hand is still concealed.
Result here can be won only by great experience
And vigour. Bán Bebek is elsewhere.
My queen has placed her trust in you.

LACZFY
What, I, go off to Croatia
To round up a few vagabond stragglers?
I need rest now, palatine,
Choose a younger man for this part.

GARA
Is this how you repay the throne’s favour?
In an hour your commission will be here. (Leaves.)

LACZFY
This was hatched again in your brain.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Strange, strange a thing,
Why, for Transylvania’s voivode this is an insult.
So I see, my friend, that we have grown threadbare
In this glittering hall.

LACZFY
True it is, and always the good wears thin,
While the worthless lies idle on the peg.
Shall I, the voivode, go to Croatia,
And like an aged schoolmaster, with a rod, search out
Who chattered, who slept in the schoolroom.
All perhaps so that here they may shake me off...
Stay, palatine! But what shall I begin there,
I do not know a single soul,
I do not understand what tongue is spoken, what face
Vice and virtue wear in those parts.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
I will give you a few letters
To my brothers, and to some good friends,
If you will gladly take them.

LACZFY
With great thanks.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
I too am going, before they drive me out.

LACZFY
My worthy friend!

HORVÁTHY PÁL
God bless you!

SCENE THREE
(Mária’s inner chamber, with one door to the balcony, one to the
chapel. Erzsébet, Horváthy Pál, Gara come in.)

ERZSÉBET
Come, bishop, the service you have done
Entitles you to share in our council.
Palatine, speak.

GARA
Here is a letter from Naples.
Charles of Durazzo, your kinsman, asks aid
Against Louis of Anjou, who has attacked him.

ERZSÉBET
Our power is perhaps still too young and weak
To lend an arm.

GARA
On the contrary, queen,
Only he can be strong who at all times
Seems strong; to him all things bow,
While the one whose weaknesses are spied out
They hasten even to forsake. Let no one say
That at the Hungarian throne he begged in vain.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
So says my brother too.

GARA
Good that you mention it.
He shall be our leader; where could I find a worthier?
Now there remains the most important still.
Zsigmond and the Poles.

ERZSÉBET
Oh, alas, that these
Two matters give me no rest even in my dreams!
Now, wise lords, now give me counsel,
How we might shake Zsigmond off our necks,
Whose folly bred the Polish people’s
Decree, that though they remain faithful
To Louis’ daughters, the Hungarian
And Polish thrones shall be held by two apart.
Or, if we cannot manage to shake him off,
And to unite the two crowns,
Help me, that my Hedvig may remain
Queen of Hungary, with her lovable
Betrothed, the Austrian William,
Whom the wild Pole hates even more
Than this Bohemian, and let them take Mária.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Who gains time, may gain everything in it.

ERZSÉBET
What shall we say again to the Polish lords,
That we may bring them again to patience,
When we have run out of every pretext,
Awaiting the favourable moment.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
It is here already.
Now or never; fortune comes once,
Then one must seize it by the forelock.
Promise Hedvig, as they desire,
As soon as the civil war is ended,
Detain the embassy here
With honeyed words, or, if need be, by force,
And send Zsigmond at once with an army,
As viceroy, to set the peace to rights.
Then leave him there until Hedvig comes of full age.

ERZSÉBET
Zsigmond with an army. My bishop,
You do not know this petticoat-hero,
Who at the head of one chosen band of ours
Could reap nothing but disgrace.

GARA
He too is but a man, perhaps in his heart as well
Some honour and strength may yet wake,
If we shake him hard; then he too understands.
Go on, my friend.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Now when all
Poland stands in blood and ruin,
Zsigmond appears as the angel of peace,
The wearied spirits range themselves to him,
And if at home Hedvig weds William,
Zsigmond, as one with whom they will probably
By then be reconciled, they accept.

GARA
Very good; and that all may go better,
Jasko of Tarnów, bán of Sandomierz,
I send today to make Kraków secure.

ERZSÉBET
A foreboding still torments me,
That all this fine plan will break on Zsigmond,
Yet what among you reasoning
Breeds, men, foreboding in women
Whispers often, and far more surely.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
One more request, hear it, queen.
Long ago I vowed that St. Peter’s grave
I would honour as a pilgrim; grant me,
Going to Rome, to set my soul at rest.

ERZSÉBET
You will be missed, but go, that you may have your wish.
Let us go and receive the envoys.

SCENE FOUR
(A hall, as in the second scene. Frangepán brings in Zsigmond,
Jobst, Domarath, and some Bohemian lords.)

FRANGEPÁN
Here the queen will appear.

ZSIGMOND
I have no concern with the queen,
I came to embrace my bride.

FRANGEPÁN
And with that
I have none. (Leaves.)

DOMARATH
I tell you, I never yet
Saw so cold-blooded a bride.

ZSIGMOND
The hotter, then, her ladies-in-waiting.
These two will balance each other out.
Hey, Domarath, you are so clever,
Only those wild Polish lords
Will not believe it, and would not bear me as governor;
Find out for me, who is that dark girl
Who threw this nosegay in my path
With a roguish wink.

DOMARATH
I have known long since,
Gara the palatine’s —

ZSIGMOND
Daughter?

JOBST
Chambermaid.

ZSIGMOND
So much the better; the golden fleece
Charms no less when no dragon guards it.

JOBST
Again you are in your wonted mood, Zsigmond,
When gravity would be just in place,
For to me all things show only this,
That here they take us for a fool.

ZSIGMOND
And does it mend matters, if I am not merry?
With a grave face they would laugh at me even more.
We pass the time as best we may.

JOBST
But what will the bride say?

ZSIGMOND
She will be proud
To possess one for whom so many pined. —
Do you remember still, Domarath, when
The Polish nobles drove me out,
And then were left without women.

DOMARATH
Oh yes,
And not even that service appeased them.

JOBST
This much delay, this shilly-shally
Does not please me, and your levity besides.

ZSIGMOND
If I had your purse, I would not be light.
You might lend me money again,
My good kinsman; on the road I ran so short.

JOBST
On your word?

ZSIGMOND
No, that would be much from a kinsman.
On the crown which my bride...

JOBST
With what disquiet she brings it before you!
Here, one gold piece, and even that I risk.
(Mária, Erzsébet, Gara, Horváthy Pál, other lords, Sandivog and the embassy come. The queens mount the throne.)

MÁRIA
Welcome, Subini Sandivog,
And noble embassy; what good have you brought?

ZSIGMOND
Permit, Mária, a bridegroom’s
Impatience — let me embrace you.

MÁRIA
Away from the throne, here two do not fit,
You might only kneel at its footstool, and to bend
I am not able, that you should embrace me.

ERZSÉBET
Why do you not wait
Your turn, Zsigmond?

ZSIGMOND
Are they then to take precedence,
These factious Poles, these rebels,
Who, despite the holy oath sworn
At the Zólyom Diet, do not acknowledge me
As their king, their lord.

SANDIVOG
I protest against the title of rebel.
We came before you with homage,
And asked only this: put away Domarath,
We begged you, dwell among us, and heal
Our crying wounds. — You refused.

ZSIGMOND
I demanded unconditional submission;
And what has my right to do with Domarath,
Or your wounds, how do they impair it?
And if not — a rebel, who does not acknowledge it.

SANDIVOG
We owe no fealty to you, Zsigmond,
But to the daughters of Louis the Great.

ZSIGMOND
You lie.

ERZSÉBET
No more — at our throne we will not suffer
Such brawling. Speak, Sandivog!

SANDIVOG
Yes, we kept our fealty.
The Radom Diet’s decree, too,
Only Zsigmond’s guilty rudeness
Brought about; we begged him to send us
Either of your daughters, and we submit.
But in vain has gone already so many an embassy
To learn what was decided concerning us,
Each time an empty word was our reward.

ZSIGMOND
How accursedly tedious!

DOMARATH
He is able
To deal out his speech even six ways.

ZSIGMOND
We have got ours already. — Palatine,
Here a gold piece, heads or crown?

GARA
Perhaps neither one nor the other.

ZSIGMOND
Who plays with me?

SANDIVOG
Zsigmond you sent at the head of an army
Instead of your daughter; we boldly drove him back,
And yet wearied not to ask again.
But to all things there is at last a limit,
In many, patience ran out,
And proud Siemowit they raised
To be a party-king; now brother stands against brother,
Burnt-out villages proclaim our misery.
And I have come again to ask for Hedvig. —
Here the best youth of our land,
I leave as hostage, for your charming daughter,
And crowned, like a flower unharmed,
I lay her again into your arms,
Only promise that without our consent
You give her no husband.

ERZSÉBET
Hedvig is yours.

SANDIVOG
I fly with this good news.

ERZSÉBET
Patience,
I cannot send her into the throat of revolt.

SANDIVOG
Let us hasten, then, to curb the storm.

ERZSÉBET
Stay among us, let us make a little merry.

SANDIVOG
Forgive me, lady, we have our orders.

ERZSÉBET
Tomorrow we view Visegrád.

SANDIVOG
Oh,
Impossible, I set out.

ERZSÉBET
But know, with us
Hospitality is a wondrous thing.

SANDIVOG
With us, duty. (Leaves with the embassy.)

ERZSÉBET
Frangepán!
Do not lose sight of these lords,
By fair word and by force let them stay here. (Frangepán leaves.)

MÁRIA
My cup-bearer! Your queen has long owed you,
Here, for your blood which I shed. (She has Forgách kiss her hand.)
Withdraw, all of you. (All leave save the queens, Gara, Zsigmond and his companions.)

ZSIGMOND
Is it my turn now?
Oh, Mária, how I hate this throne,
Which holds you far from me; would it might change
Into a bridal bed.

MÁRIA
I gave you no warrant
For such speech.

GARA
A harder bed
Waits for you first; the soft pillows
Only hard steel can guard, margrave!
With a chosen army tomorrow you set out
To pacify Poland.

ZSIGMOND
And where do I get money?

GARA
That is all our care, more of it later,
When I have escorted the queens. (Leaves with the queens.)

ZSIGMOND
To go to camp again, a fine thing,
But dangerous, and uncomfortable.
Jobst, I already know the Hungarians,
How they provide for money; they think:
The soldier should make do with bread,
Drink water, lie on the green turf,
And know no sweetheart but his sword.
But the devil he will be a warrior so. — Lend me
Thirty thousand gold pieces or so.

JOBST
A very ticklish matter; your inheritance
Is mine already, you have nothing more. Yet it
Is true, if they entrust an army to you,
Perhaps they will not thrust you from the throne either.
God be with it!

ZSIGMOND
You, Domarath, come with me,
We shall be merry.

DOMARATH
Now, about the little chambermaid. (All leave.)

SANDIVOG (entering)
So this is how we stand, basely entrapped.
Good, good, you do not guess what an old fox
You have crossed swords with. — I have other ways out.
The skiff waits that will carry me across the Danube,
All along my road, at every stage, horses,
Here a disguise — farewell, Buda!
Whatever you brew, I shall be home before you.

HORVÁTHY PÁL (who entered, having long been listening)
A prosperous journey. Today I have not been idle.
I stand in the throne’s favour now myself.
Old Laczfy, the throne’s faithful counsellor,
Is removed, and I should be much mistaken
If, just because he is too honest,
He did not become the blind tool of our plan.
My brother with an army in Naples.
All other armed folk in Poland,
I free to go to Durazzo myself:
I stand on the first step of my greatness.

SCENE ONE
(A royal garden in Naples. Charles of Durazzo,
Horváthy Pál and János come conversing.)

CHARLES
All that you have told me is right, my friend,
My claim to the crown is beyond doubt,
And the support of such men as you,
The good name I have won among you,
As your sorrow, set beyond all question
My victory; and still I waver,
Not knowing what to do.

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
You may not waver,
That is the right of mediocrity,
Which, whatever it does, has settled only its own fate.
But the great man’s every step
Shakes a kingdom, and as to the proud oak
A hundred boughs have their life bound,
So his fate is not his own, but shared,
Like divine providence. How
Will you reckon to our homeland, to our fate,
If you deny your calling.

CHARLES
And how shall I reckon for my soul, robbing
Of his throne the child of my benefactor,
Who himself became my benefactor, and sent you,
Despite the church’s curse upon me,
To defend my domain against proud Anjou
Louis.

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
And is the robber a benefactor
Who asks only our treasure, and lets us live?

CHARLES
And how will you break your oath, Horváthy,
With the army entrusted to your faith?

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
I do not break it; I promised to set you
In your rights, and I will set you there.

CHARLES
No, no, it still cannot be; on the holy host
I swore before King Louis,
That I would never seek
The Hungarian crown.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Then do not seek it.
But could you have sworn this also,
That the Hungarian people would not seek you?
Or that you would defy the voice of God,
Which in a nation’s voice calls you to the throne?
My king, behold my robe, you know
My power. See, I absolve you
Of every petty scruple of the soul.
(Margit with her small son and Alberich come.)

MARGIT
How long I seek you, Charles, and find you here
Again in the garden’s most hidden corner,
As if you fled your wife’s smile:
How pale you are — oh, speak, what ails you?

CHARLES
Nothing, my Margit!

MARGIT
So much the worse,
For this dark face, then, concerns only me.
I was the sickness that has caused it.

CHARLES
You are the sun that brightens it.

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS (to Pál)
What think you, Pál, will we bring him to speak?

HORVÁTHY PÁL
He is already won, for he reasons;
Conviction does not argue.

CHARLES
I was speaking of this and that with these lords;
Life is not always smiling, Margit.

MARGIT
It was, until these lords came.
Ah, speak — is it the custom with you,
That the guest steals from his kind hostess
The husband’s heart, as you do?
For the Hungarian people is open, honest,
What are you?

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
Your Majesty’s faithful servants.

MARGIT
Then I ask one service only:
Withdraw, lords, for ever since
You have been here, in vain I cry, Charles!
He only muses, as after a dream-image
Which I do not know; when I kiss him,
He shudders, as if he started from sleep;
In his dreams he speaks many a fearful word,
Blood, crown, battle — what will come of it all!
Oh, my Charles, turn again to your Margit!

CHARLES
And have I turned away from you? Never,
But see, the man is not created only
To love; into his soul his god
Has grafted nobler feelings too,
Ambition, the sense of duty.

MARGIT
Oh, Charles, and you call nobler feeling
All this than love? My Charles,
Would you forsake the scent of our orange tree,
This soft sky, your Margit’s smile,
To watch out nights, far off, under a grey sky,
On bloody fields?
Your trees will wither, your sweetheart,
And what will you win in their stead?

CHARLES
You have won, my Margit!
In your arms I wake from my nightmare. (He embraces her.)

MARGIT
Do not forsake, my Charles, this magic ring,
Do not look up to these Hungarian lords, for
Their eyes bewitch, like the basilisk.
Withdraw, withdraw for ever!

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
Good, we withdraw. Disappointed, though, for Charles
The world holds noble and valiant.

CHARLES
Who can maintain the contrary?

MARGIT
If they so hold him, then he has already proved it,
And there is no need of a new trial,
Let another try; the victorious sword
They hang to rest above the altar.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Pardon for all this grief
Which we have caused; we did not know that Charles
Would have so disagreeable a guest, who calls him
To the debt of honour.
My country, and with it Queen Mária,
Your friends and your benefactor kinswoman
Groan under the wilfulness of a few small tyrants;
You were called by fate to be their defender,
And in faint-hearted fear you recoil.

CHARLES
Forgive me, Margit! Fate draws me, I go,
Your arm cannot stay its wheel.

MARGIT
Oh, Charles, if you would yet stay here —
But ambition is an eagle, which, when it has saved
The little dove from the foxes’ teeth,
Can it master itself, do its sharp claws
Not draw blood from the sheltering embrace?

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
King! Receive from me my homage.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
My blessing, king, on your glorious road.
I go on ahead with the good news.

CHARLES
Hey, Alberich! To you I trust the fitting
Ordering of my journey.

MARGIT
Trust him first
To lead me away — I am falling.
Come, come, my son, your father needs us no longer.
Lead the orphan and the widow,
Good Alberich, that at least they may not hear
The mocking laughter of those who triumph,
Who have murdered the father of a family. (She faints.)

LÁSZLÓ
Do not weep, mother!

ALBERICH
Help.

CHARLES
My Margit!

SCENE TWO
(The second-scene hall of the

, at Buda. Mária,
Erzsébet, Zsigmond, Gara, Forgách, Frangepán.)

ERZSÉBET
So my foreboding did not deceive me — our hero is here,
He went as far as Lubló to seek laurels.
But thought it too far.

ZSIGMOND
And did I not do well,
When at home a rose awaited me?

MÁRIA
The flush of disgrace.

ZSIGMOND
Do even these fair lips speak
In such warlike tongue? I will silence them. (He moves to kiss her.)

MÁRIA
Back from me.
A woman may submit only to a man,
The queen to a champion, and you are neither.

ZSIGMOND
With us, women do not judge a man by this,
Whether he goes farther than Lubló.

MÁRIA
Among my knights there is not even one
Who would not have done wondrous deeds
For his queen; speak, warriors.

GARA
I would have beaten every enemy
Of your Majesty, the more the better,
Sealing her right with their blood.

FRANGEPÁN
And I would have grieved at only this,
That I fought so plainly for the right,
I would for a single whim of my queen’s
Have wished to lay the earth waste.

FORGÁCH
I, queen,
Would have died for the price of one tear.

MÁRIA
So then would my knights have done,
And you, what did you do, you who claim
That from my throne I should bend down to you:
You flee at the head of a champion’s army.

ZSIGMOND
Easy to talk at home.

FORGÁCH
I must endure,
And it chokes me.

GARA
We have spoken elsewhere too.

FRANGEPÁN
And may speak, if it please you.

ERZSÉBET
Peace.

GARA
Oh, with that fine army, why did I not
Rather have feathers plucked, than that a
Bohemian should teach it to run?

ERZSÉBET
Hush, when I tell you,
Speak then, what did you do, Zsigmond?

ZSIGMOND
A peace-pact,
I put an end to a bloody war,
I brought the Polish envoys to agree
To wait for Hedvig until Whitsun,
And we send back all the hostages.

GARA
Excellent, excellent.

ERZSÉBET
And do you think we accept it?

ZSIGMOND
That is all one to me, only now let me go
To rest. What I suffered in the camp
You do not believe. I hope, my ladies,
To find you again in a brighter mood. (Leaves.)

MÁRIA
Oh, that you mock me with the name of your queen,
That on my nod the fate of peoples hangs,
And I myself have not one happy moment.
I burn, like a fire, consuming myself,
While others warm themselves around me.
Take my throne, give it
To the meanest of my serving-maids,
Who sees my splendour set so high
That, blinded, when she looks up,
She cannot even envy it, and in its stead
Give me one moment of her freedom.
Mother, lords, whatever may befall,
I will not go to the Brandenburg count.

ERZSÉBET
And I cannot take it ill of you, daughter.

GARA
If we look at it rightly, there is no cause for it,
He has gambled away the Polish throne, his patrimony
He squandered long ago, and such a man
As he is nothing but a scarecrow.

ERZSÉBET
But tell me, how do we shake him off our necks?

GARA
We dispatch a hundred and fifty knights
To Charles the Sixth, king of France;
And to his brother, Louis of Orléans,
We offer Mária and the crown,
Either is more than enough, that he need not want her.

MÁRIA
Forgách, you shall be the hundred and fifty’s leader.

FORGÁCH
I, lady!

MÁRIA
You do not serve gladly? (Vavelsky enters.)

ERZSÉBET
What rash stripling thrusts in here?

MÁRIA
See, Forgách, another woman has a world of the heart,
In that she is happy; for me, in its stead, fate
Gave a cold splendour, that is my world,
And though it does not warm, it dazzles,
I will forget that other, and I shall.
Forgách, serve me on this glittering road,
Elsewhere there is no field.

ERZSÉBET (to Vavelsky)
Will you ever speak at last?

VAVELSKY
Vavelsky Przeczlav is my name, queen,
Who, as my country’s last noble,
Came last too, to warn you: send away
Your daughter as soon as may be, to take
The throne offered her, and do not think
That Poland is already so abject
That it is just reduced to needing a girl.

ERZSÉBET
What voice is this?

VAVELSKY
Such as you have deserved.

MÁRIA
Has the throne then sunk so low
That such croaking can reach up to it? (Aside.)
To such a godhead do we sacrifice, tearing
The heart out of our breast. Is this our recompense?

ERZSÉBET
You stand here, warriors, and bear it? (The lords reach for their swords.)

VAVELSKY
Gently, lords, here is my letter,
And besides I have done my errand,
And I go. (Leaves with Frangepán.)

ERZSÉBET
This outrage kills me.

FRANGEPÁN (returning)
Without is Sandivog, in plain dress,
Asking audience.

ERZSÉBET
Let him come, we will hear him.

SANDIVOG (entering)
You wonder perhaps, most gracious lady,
That he who once barely escaped
Your prison is now here again?
But duty drove me back.
You saw to what a pass the matter has come.
The people does not jest that speaks in such a tone,
One moment’s delay, and Poland is lost.
The wild Jagiełło, grand duke of Lithuania,
With his fearful host, like a flood,
Has no dam; like jackals clinging to a horse’s mane
They swam across the Vistula,
And the fortress of Zawichost fell to ruin.
I took as my pretext, that I might come to you,
The ransoming of the young hostages.
And now, oh queen, on my knees I beg you,
Do not thrust a nation’s heart from you,
Give your daughter, and the youths with her,
With a fairer escort she cannot come among us
Than if she brings our children back,
And she shall be the angel of peace among us.

ERZSÉBET
I honour, Sandivog, your faith,
I trust Hedvig to you, let it be as you say.

SANDIVOG
Oh, let me kiss your hand,
Then let me be the first to do
Homage to my queen. (Leaves.)
(A herald brings a letter to Gara.)

HERALD
Letters
From Croatia.

GARA (running through the letter)
Disturbances again!
On the castle of Vrana already the banner
Of open revolt floats. Palizsnay has beaten
Laczk Béla, whom we appointed in his stead.
(To Erzsébet.) Tvartkó has seized your dower,
The Hum province, gracious queen.

MÁRIA
And what does Laczfy do?

GARA
He is silent of all this
And always writes that all is in order.

MÁRIA
Could he too be a traitor? — No.

GARA
In hard times, helplessness too
Is treason.

MÁRIA
Greater is over-zeal.
If we set ourselves to see a devil,
He comes. — See, palatine, it amuses me so,
That so many men break out against me,
I feel that I am more, am other, than a woman.

ERZSÉBET
What must we do here? A small thing turns to great.

GARA
Have no fear of that. As in nature,
If there is long quiet, the vapours gather,
Lightning and thunder fill the sky,
While the kingly sun steps forth victorious,
And in the whole battle only the air is renewed:
So it happens among peoples too.
Now these Croatian lords are seething,
Step among them, oh queens,
With all the pomp of your glory,
And whoever will not bow to your greatness
Will bend his neck to womanly charm.
This has long been my plan, and the sooner
The better, let us set out for the rebel province,
That you may receive its submission.

MÁRIA
So, palatine? A fine plan, only leave out
That woman from the play, that I may not see
That she is mightier than the queen,
And when the queen is helpless, the woman helps.
Then weeping she steps into her Diet
And out of pity they set her on the throne.
Then again she offers heart and hand
To some coward she cannot love,
But who secures her throne and her homeland.
Coquettishly she steps among the factions,
To shear them like a new Samson.
And at last, when the queen looks round
From her throne — why she lived, she cannot find.

ERZSÉBET
All sentiment, yet still the throne is good.

MÁRIA
Sentiment? — Oh, I am past that now,
You have cured me of it. And just for that
I would wish another course, such as befits
A king. Struggle, not feigned smiles.

GARA
We will renew the golden bull of Andrew
As well; by this we give nothing new,
And the Magyar takes to such a thing greatly.

ERZSÉBET
How shall we renew it, when no one asks it.

GARA
I have provided for that too; I have found
Two good lords, the one Osztopán,
Padvarsia the other, these will then
Petition for it, as men sent by the lords.
(Zsigmond, Domarath come conversing.)

ZSIGMOND
What said Zombi Miklós, the treasurer?

DOMARATH
That he guards only the country’s money,
Our own we should seek among the Jews
And the loose girls.

ZSIGMOND
A good jest, but coarse.
Did he not say to think well
With whom he speaks; did you not press him again?

DOMARATH
I said everything, but he answered one thing only:
He gives nothing, for the queen has forbidden it.

ZSIGMOND
Why did you not pledge my crown?
Why did you not ask of some usurer-magnate?

DOMARATH
I asked a hundred, but all answered only this:
A mile from Lubló is my treasury,
There I would have given.

ZSIGMOND
The insolent fellows!
My queen, what is happening I do not understand;
It seems it gives you pleasure, that whoever offends me,
Your betrothed. In such conditions
I cannot stay at your court.

MÁRIA
Then go, in God’s name!

ZSIGMOND
Gladly.
In any case I must set my inheritance in order,
But you know how I have spent myself
In your service, I have not even travelling-money.

MÁRIA
For that purpose my treasury stands open, margrave.
(The queens and their suite leave.)

ZSIGMOND
Every ill has its good side.
What we did not gain by favour, that was given
By disfavour; but truly I rejoice
That we escape this wolf-pit.

DOMARATH
Tedious women, blockhead lords,
Little pleasure, much moral talk,
Truly I would not be king among them.

ZSIGMOND
Wait, only till I am one — then it will be otherwise. (Leaves with Domarath.)

SCENE THREE
(A street in Zagreb. Palizsnay, Horváthy Pál,
Simontornyay, Szofra appear with armed men.)

PALIZSNAY
Now is the chance to reach what
We desire, with one bold step.
Look at this girl, I keep her only to kiss,
When a tedious moment comes, or when my bile
Boils over, that I may have someone to pour it on,
And she has taken up arms, to share my adventure.
And would you recoil?

HORVÁTHY PÁL
No, my friend.
But to endanger a good cause is a sin.

PALIZSNAY
And without danger, victory is no delight.
Here come the queens, with them is
A nest of traitors; we seize them,
And when Charles comes, we need no longer be ashamed
That Naples was our deliverer — half the work was ours.

SIMONTORNYAY
János is saying something.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
But not much,
Either leave the leading to me,
Or I forsake you. In so bold a step,
We must know the temper of the people.

PALIZSNAY
What, the people’s temper! Idle talk,
The people is a string the great men pluck.
Only let us win, and approval will come.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
And what should we do with this handful of folk, too few
To seize one straggling brigand.

PALIZSNAY
What?
Devil, hell, priest!

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Gently, my friend,
Go back, keep yourself in your castle,
Let us work here freely,
And do not betray that you hold with us, for
We should all be lost. (Laczfy comes from another side with armed men.)

SIMONTORNYAY
Hush, here comes old Laczfy.

LACZFY
Ha, insolent prior, robber knight!
And you dare come as far as Zagreb?

PALIZSNAY
Insolent
Bán! You dare to forbid me.

LACZFY
Rebel,
I summoned you to my seat, you came not,
You know I have set you outside the law.

PALIZSNAY
I write a law that you are within.

LACZFY
Seize him, in my king’s name.

PALIZSNAY
Strike him down, since he calls a petticoat to his aid.

HORVÁTHY PÁL (stepping between them)
Off, bán, off, prior, apart, men!
The queen is coming, and on blood-stained streets,
Amid battle, shall she enter our city?
Away with the swords, go, Palizsnay,
Leave him, bán, another time call him to account.

PALIZSNAY
Till we meet again.

LACZFY
You will not thank it.

PALIZSNAY
Come, Szofra.

SZOFRA
Oh what a pity, I had so looked forward
To the spectacle that was to follow here.
I am bored, a little novelty would be welcome.
(Palizsnay, Szofra, armed men leave.)

LACZFY
We are prepared, then, in the most brilliant fashion
To receive our queen as she deserves.
Let her see how those honour her
Whom Gara painted as rebels.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Evil times, when the subjects
Must whisper together by night like robbers,
To save their sovereign
From some scoundrel like Gara.

LACZFY
True.
But tell me once more, dear friend,
What said Charles — once my comrade
Still in his bán days. Does he come, and when,
At the voice of a man’s duty
To save his dear kinswomen?

HERALD (entering)
The queen is coming.

LACZFY
Lords! To meet her!

PEOPLE
Long live Queen Mária! (Mária, Erzsébet, Gara, suite, people come.)

LACZFY
Hail, lady! Behold, on my knees
I lay at your feet the keys of Zagreb,
And my office; what would the moon do,
If the sun has risen?

MÁRIA
Stand up, good old man,
Receive my thanks, and as a token of it,
We lift from your shoulder the burden of your office,
Your successor Templin, the count of Szentgyörgy.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Through me the high clergy do you honour,

SIMONTORNYAY
And through me the Croatian high nobility.

PEOPLE
Long live our queen!

LACZFY (aside)
Does a dream pursue me?
This dishonour! —

MÁRIA
All noble words,
But just a prelate and a high noble
Have raised the banner of revolt
Over the castle of Vrana. In a province
Where such a scandal is endured,
The queen cannot sleep in peace.
Therefore, if you have more than words to give,
Horváthy Pál, Simontornyay István,
Bring me the keys of Vrana! (She turns away.)
On now, further, we must rest a while.

PEOPLE
Long live Mária!

MÁRIA
Lords! Until we meet again! (Mária, Erzsébet, Gara, suite leave.)

HORVÁTHY PÁL
How is it with you, Laczfy? I nearly called you: bán.

LACZFY
Good bishop, I nearly told you: go to hell.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
A fine world, this.

LACZFY
It pleases me as well,
For now I know what I must do.
But whether you know, my good friends,
That is the great question.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
We will bring Vrana’s key.

LACZFY
Fine, fine, but that Palizsnay,
Thunderbolt-stubborn, and Laczfy is no child either. (They leave on different sides.)

SCENE FOUR
(The first-scene hall in the castle of Vrana, of the

.
Palizsnay resting his head on Szofra’s shoulder.)

SZOFRA
And then the king’s son lived long after,
With his fair fairy, in peaceful repose,
And had many children.

PALIZSNAY
Leave it, leave it, Szofra,
He has slain every dragon, and braved
Every danger; the rest is tedious.

SZOFRA
Is this hour, then, tedious to you too?

PALIZSNAY
If they tell it, yes; in the living, no. —
Thunder, news is long in coming from Zagreb. (A horn sounds.)
Ha, a horn! Szofra, look out, who it is. (Horváthy Pál and Simontornyay come.)

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Friend or foe, as you will.

PALIZSNAY
How so, Pál? What ambiguous speech?

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Call your people together, then I will speak.

PALIZSNAY
Castellan! To arms, hey, men, forward.
What will come of all this! Your form is friendly,
The expression hostile,
And a hodgepodge of the two was your speech.
Tell me what you want, you know I have no patience. (The castellan comes in with armed men.)

HORVÁTHY PÁL
In my queen’s name I speak,
Palizsnay, surrender your castle,
And at her footstool beg pardon.

PALIZSNAY
Had you come with battering-rams, Pál,
And with an army, I would believe you speak in earnest.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Wholly in earnest. Not battering-rams,
Not war-folk, but mercy I have brought.
You know how many rose against
The woman-rule, holding it
A debasement. Such was I too;
Oh, woe to us, who were so blind.
The queen came among us, like the dawn,
Not fearing that the guilty night would conquer her,
And our foolish eyes were opened.
What in a man only our reason commends,
Majesty and strength, may daunt us perhaps,
But in a woman, paired with gentleness,
It lifts and enchants. Our heart goes to her side.
Only a woman can say: I came, I saw, I conquered!
When to us too the royal maiden came,
Holding in her hand the lightning and the rose,
The clergy, the magnates, people, army,
In rapture did her homage, and not one could tell
Whether to the rose-stalk or the thunderbolt,
But each felt that neither one disgraced him.

PALIZSNAY
Well, well, you can be a love-singer too.
But what do you draw, then, from all this?

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Only this, that you give yourselves up,
Since you are left alone in any case.

PALIZSNAY
Easy for you to talk, who are among such comrades,
You are not alone. — Will you forsake me, men?

ARMED MEN
Not unto death. Long live Palizsnay!

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Worthy soldiers! Oh, what a pity, what a pity,
That you bleed in vain.

CASTELLAN
Why?

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Because there is no winning. Did I not say
That all are come over, you are left alone.
What a sinner, who so much noble blood
Sacrifices in vain!

CASTELLAN
That is true indeed.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
To me, then, to me, my brothers, my friends!

ARMED MEN
Long live Horváthy!

PALIZSNAY
What do I hear, men!
Does a priest now beat you with his tongue,
You who in so many fights have always won?

HORVÁTHY PÁL
I say it too: it is shame to be beaten.
Would you not submit to a whole kingdom?
I did not come for that, with war-gear,
But to bow to a royal maiden
Is never disgrace. Than the man’s coarse strength
A hundred times nobler
Is a woman’s pardoning forbearance.
All is forgiven, then, after me.
Long live our queen!

ARMED MEN
Long live!

PALIZSNAY
Cowardly worms!
Has a breach opened in the wall since yesterday,
Or is a smaller portion due to you?
But I am not angry with you, never
Looked I for else from you, people, you base tool,
A sword ready to kill in our hands.
But you, but you!

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Let us not let him speak.

ALL
Seize him!

PALIZSNAY
Off, whoever wants to live!

SZOFRA
Strike only to the right, this here is my place.

PALIZSNAY
Look at this girl, perfidious comrades!
You egged her on, you provoked me,
To raise the banner, and you betrayed me
For a gaudy doll! — Oh, shame, disgrace.
But I swear now by my living God,
That this doll, your godhead, this queen
Shall yet clasp my knees,
Shall beg for one kiss, one smile,
And when you see then what your godhead is,
What a woman is, then I shall be the one to laugh.

SIMONTORNYAY
Give yourself up, the fight is uneven.
We will plead for you.

PALIZSNAY
Plead for your own soul.

LACZFY (entering)
Do not give up, Palizsnay, do not.

PALIZSNAY
You mock me too! You are too few here yet,
Call up hell for ally.

LACZFY
I would call it at your side,
Oh, alas that I came late, but we will mend it.

PALIZSNAY
My mind stands still — who is foe, who friend,
But the sword explains it better
Than the tongue.

LACZFY
And my sword will be better than my tongue was.

SZOFRA
This way, men, there is the hidden passage,
I will guard the entrance. Quick!

PALIZSNAY
Forward, Laczfy! — Till tomorrow, friends. (Leaves with Laczfy.)

SZOFRA (in the doorway)
Now, men, come on, come on then,
Surely, so many of you, you will subdue one woman.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Down with the swords, we do not fight a woman.
(Secretly.) Here, Szofra, this purse, perhaps it will be enough
For travelling-money to Tvartkó’s court,
Say I greet him, my dear good friends.
(Aloud.) Warriors, now up! — Long live the queen!

SCENE ONE
(A field on the seacoast, by the town of Zeng. Charles, Horváthy
János, Alberich, armed men on one side; Horváthy Pál, Laczfy,
Palizsnay, Simontornyay, armed men on the other.)

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Hail, Charles, in your ancestral heritage,
Receive the homage of these few of your faithful,
Whom their zeal has brought to meet you at Zeng,
While the greater number long for you at Zagreb.

CHARLES
Hush, hush, let me hear no more such speech.
I beg you only, however fortune favour,
Let our every step be temperate,
I forbid you to forget that the queens
Are my good kin, that I came as their defender,
And if I have other aim than from their petty tyrants
To rescue them and my homeland, damnation on me.

LACZFY
Royally you speak, God bless you for it!

PALIZSNAY
For this it is not worth a bald sparrow’s dying.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Let it be, friend, he comes just now from shipboard,
Still dazed; thus would speak each of us.
Let him only go forward, his mood will come,
And by the time he reaches Buda, he will be at the throne.

SIMONTORNYAY
Blessing fall on you from your first footsteps
Upon my country’s soil.

LACZFY
As you in turn
Bring blessing on it.

PALIZSNAY
Unconditionally I greet you.
Now at last there will be life.

CHARLES
Thank you, my friend!
But, alas, I have already seen several proclamations
Which did not speak with fitting respect
Of the queens; one among the rest
Devised of Erzsébet a scurrilous collusion
With the traitor Gara. This I disapprove.
And this was your work, Palizsnay.

PALIZSNAY
You dare accuse me!

HORVÁTHY PÁL
For God’s sake, calmly. (He draws him aside.)

PALIZSNAY
Charles the Small, so you begin, you whom but now
We hatched, with the eggshell still
On your back. You may come to much.

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
Be silent, you fool. — Do we not set out?

ALBERICH
We should, my king, that you may rest.

CHARLES
Then loose the banners to the wind,
Beat the drum. To Zagreb then,
But let no one speak of rest
Till we have sent up thanks to our God.
(All leave.)

SCENE TWO
(The third-scene hall at Buda, of the

. Mária, Erzsébet, Gara.)

MÁRIA (at her dressing-table)
So I am not wanted, then, by the duke of Orléans,
For another lady the heroes ride to battle,
Even my lowest serving-maid requires
That her favour be earned with toil,
I offered a whole kingdom into the bargain
With my beauty, and they scorn me. False mirror.

ERZSÉBET
Make haste, daughter, do not embitter yourself,
You know that Charles already stands before our gate,
His retinue swells daily, and to this day
We still do not know why he comes. Everywhere
They whisper against the woman-rule,
Here swift action is needed, a man is needed for the throne,
We have summoned Zsigmond, and he waits for you,
To lead you to the altar.

MÁRIA
I know all this.
But overlook it, if even in the last moment
Once more the womanhood rises in my heart,
Which I thought I had buried long ago
In my husband, and I feel the void he left.
Overlook it, if I still play a little
With this rose I pin upon my head,
For it is the last in any case.

GARA
For your crown
One rose is not much.

MÁRIA
Not much? Oh, alas, palatine,
Why are you not a woman, that you might understand me. —
But speak, what does the Diet decree
Concerning the defence of its queen, or
Was it for this we turned to it in trust,
Granting whatever it desired,
That now it should faithlessly forsake us.

GARA
I opposed the Diet,
Do not blame me. I said: command,
Do not ask; you willed it otherwise, queen.
I know the proud, factious breed,
Only by force does it bow its head,
And if it spies a moment when the throne is weak,
It will not cease to exploit it to the end.
Loudly they talk of petty tyrants,
They befoul me and the widowed queen,
And while Charles stands two miles off, whom
Would they set against him — they have not one soldier.

MÁRIA
Worthy lords! Behold, I am the quicker,
I am ready already with my bridal dress.

ERZSÉBET
And I with my plan; if only Forgách would come,
Whom we sent to the king, what good he brings from there.
But lo! Here he comes! (Forgách, Frangepán come.)

FORGÁCH
Charles greets you, queens,
And as your good kinsman, he says, so he comes to Buda.
Far from his heart is pride and self-interest.
Your thanks alone he asks,
If he saves you from your false friends’ clutches.

ERZSÉBET
The good kinsman. — As far as we are able,
We too will then requite his kindness,
But meanwhile, let the bridegroom come!

FRANGEPÁN (at the door)
My queen desires you, Brandenburg count! (Zsigmond, Jobst, Domarath come.)

ZSIGMOND
I greet you, queens, fair bride!

ERZSÉBET
Welcome, Zsigmond!

MÁRIA
Let us go, if it please you.

ZSIGMOND
Here are my witnesses.

MÁRIA
Here are mine.
Forgách, lead me — I do not go with my betrothed.

FORGÁCH (leading)
You ask a great thing. To do battle with a world
For you I might be able, but to lead to the altar
One who — who knows.

MÁRIA
Forgách, he who chooses the sun
For his star, let him overlook it,
If every blade of grass shares its rays.

FORGÁCH
But it shines only on its chosen one. Smiling
You go with your betrothed.

MÁRIA
There is one thing to which
Any greatness may, without shame, with pride,
Bow — that is the decree of fate.

FORGÁCH
My queen, I have bowed.

MÁRIA
I too, Forgách! (All leave to the chapel; Erzsébet and Gara remain.)

ERZSÉBET
Palatine, stay, I cannot watch this wedding,
My heart aches for Mária. Ah, but away,
Barren grief, where one must act. In haste
Prepare all, that in the most brilliant fashion
We may go to meet the treacherous kinsman,
And with glittering pomp receive him,
If he plays the hypocrite, we will too,
And with that weapon, let us see whether the woman wins.

GARA
I do not understand your plan.

ERZSÉBET
Leave that to me, palatine,
Do you act there, where a man is needed at the breach. (The wedding returns.)

MÁRIA
Mother!

ERZSÉBET
Daughter, here, oh, here rest. (She embraces her.)

ZSIGMOND (aside)
A touching scene.

DOMARATH
A barbarous custom.

ZSIGMOND (aside)
From this embrace now my wife, my mother,
Do not shut me out either.

ERZSÉBET
Come, my son!
My blessing on you.

ZSIGMOND
Dear wife, one kiss.

MÁRIA
One, Zsigmond. — For your wife this is enough.
You who took only the throne by her in any case.
And it now asks not kisses, but deeds.
Charles is before our gate, and there is none to defend it.

ERZSÉBET
Hasten to your land, gather there war-folk,
And defend her — only so are you worthy of her.
Every moment is loss.

MÁRIA
God lead you!

ERZSÉBET
Now to receive Charles! — (Mária, Erzsébet, Gara, Forgách, Frangepán leave.)

DOMARATH
In my life
I never saw such a wedding.

JOBST
No matter, so long as it was,
That is the main thing. Then with honour
We may withdraw, to our peaceful fair hills,
For here life will be no amusement in any case.

ZSIGMOND
Yet it is vexing, after the wedding
To go recruiting. — Reluctantly I left
My little intrigue with my saucy countess
For this wedding, and now I confess it rather galls me,
To have to take it up again.

DOMARATH
Wounded vanity,
Love’s usual substitute. —

JOBST
I breathe more easily already for my money. (All leave.)

SCENE THREE
(The second-scene hall at Buda, of the

. In front stand
petitioners; behind, Horváthy Pál, János, László, Simontornyay,
Palizsnay, Laczfy and other lords in a group.)

FIRST CITIZEN
What do you seek here?

SECOND CITIZEN
That which you do, comrade.
You know my old grievance against Gara,
Over my house, which he had pulled down
For the sake of his view.

FIRST CITIZEN
And now you await Charles.

SECOND CITIZEN
Not a bad plan, is it; he hates Gara,
And will do me justice. And you, what do you seek?

FIRST CITIZEN
I have a lawsuit, very, very doubtful,
But whoever steps now into the throne-room,
At the threshold is not sparing,
For every good word is a step forward.

SECOND CITIZEN
I understand. — Each puts the events
To the use that fits his circle.
The storm shakes the world,
Charles perhaps fishes a crown out of it,
I the price of a house, and you your lawsuit.

FIRST CITIZEN
Hush, the queens are coming, let us step aside. (Mária, Erzsébet, Gara, Forgách, Frangepán come.)

ERZSÉBET
What do you say, Gara, to Charles’s humility,
He does not lodge with us, but in a little citizen’s house,
I could barely force him into our carriage.
And he will come to kiss our hands, he says, fawning.

GARA
Too smooth a tongue, for me to look for good from him.

ERZSÉBET
You lords, why do you stand here so silent?

LACZFY
From the Diet a message
We bring to Charles.

ERZSÉBET
Indeed, and are you so
Dismayed in your office,
That you no longer even see the queens.

MÁRIA
The Horváthys here, Simontornyay,
Old Laczfy, all, all old acquaintances;
Long since we saw each other — perhaps you no longer dare?
See, our memory is better. Kneeling
We saw you last! — Let us go, good mother.

ERZSÉBET
What folk are these here!

MÁRIA
Petitioners, perhaps.
Say what you wish, or hand over that writing.

FIRST CITIZEN
Humbly I kiss the hand
Of your Majesty, in truth I did not
Come even to trouble you.

MÁRIA
And you?

SECOND CITIZEN
I too hold with this good comrade.

MÁRIA
Strange, but then what is your wish?

SECOND CITIZEN
To tell the truth, we came in fact
To Charles.

ERZSÉBET
Oh, disgraceful breed,
Why do you even deal with them, do you not feel
The filth of their breath?

MÁRIA
Let be, mother,
Do you not see the excuse for their deeds
In their poor rags. Here, your letter,
God grant you better justice than from me,
And if you cease to be ragged, perhaps you will be more honest.
But why did you embroider it so long,
That you came to Charles? He is the lord,
Though he goes in plain dress, lodges below in a house,
And if a bankrupt shopkeeper greets him,
He bends to the ground, as if astonished
At this undeserved honour.
What had you to fear from me, a weak woman.

FIRST CITIZEN (falling to his knees)
Pardon, lady, do not judge me ill,
A poor man lives only as he can.

SECOND CITIZEN (also kneeling)
We do not know what is between you,
It does not concern us, nor do we decide it,
We only do homage to whoever commands us. (Charles comes with Alberich.)

THE LORDS
Long live King Charles!

PETITIONERS
Long may he live.

MÁRIA
Oh, alas, only rise quickly,
These lords would be put to shame
That there is still so much reverence in you,
And that you spare from humiliation
What once you adoringly feared. (The citizens rise.)

CHARLES
My queens, I greet you.

ERZSÉBET
I thank you.

CHARLES
Little sister, how are you?

MÁRIA
Well, if you are great, brother.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Hail, Charles, in the name of the estates,
We have chosen you protector of the realm.

CHARLES
An undeserved distinction, lords.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Your modesty only adorns you the more.

MÁRIA
And whom will you protect, Charles, us
Against the realm, or it against us?
If not, against us both, the crown.

CHARLES
You are sharp, Mária, see, see, who would think
That this coral lip could be so venomous.

MÁRIA
Only its kiss is venomous, killing every joy,
But that you need not fear.

CHARLES
Now in earnest.
I know how much wrong is mere misunderstanding;
Reconciliation shall be the aim of my life.
Yes, I will protect you altogether.
And as I will do, so help me God.
Bear it as news to the Diet
That I prized the goodness of their intent,
Not my own strength, in that they chose me,
And this I thank them for. But they, I know, are strong,
And if they uphold me, the homeland will flourish.

ALL
Long live King Charles!

ERZSÉBET
Lo! Here is my hand,
Let us be friends!

LACZFY
My hope does not deceive me, then,
God bless your covenant.

ERZSÉBET
Now then
Do not refuse to lodge in these halls,
Your rank requires it.

CHARLES
I thank you, queen.
That you may see I cannot gainsay you,
Let it be so.

ERZSÉBET
Come, Charles, share our breakfast.

CHARLES
I follow at once. — What do you wish, my friend,
You cannot ask what is unlawful, never fear...
Nearer, nearer, only with full confidence.
(He goes graciously round the petitioners and takes up their writings, then goes out with his suite, the queens and their faithful having left before.)

SCENE FOUR
(The Diet hall at Buda. The Diet sits in session. Gara, Forgách,
Oranis, Horváthy Pál, János, László, Simontornyay, Palizsnay,
Laczfy and other lords.)

PALIZSNAY
Yes, we need a king.

MANY
Long live Charles!

ORANIS
Here is Zsigmond, why, scarce a few days
Have passed since you made him guardian
Of the realm.

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
Zsigmond is a puppet.

PALIZSNAY
Disgrace on him!

FORGÁCH
Lords! Not in such a temper should
The die be cast over a homeland,
I demand of you the coolness
You who would be called the people’s fathers.

PALIZSNAY
Let us not hear this insolent fellow
Who dares to gainsay a homeland’s voice.

HORVÁTHY LÁSZLÓ
Down with him, the traitor. Long live
King Charles!

SEVERAL
Long live King Charles!

FORGÁCH
No! — While there is a last drop of blood in my heart,
Let no one say I was silent out of cowardice,
Sacrificing the holiest cause
For a few disgrace-laden years.

PALIZSNAY
Let us not hear him!

HORVÁTHY LÁSZLÓ
Down with him!

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
Cut him down. (They draw swords.)

FORGÁCH
Come on then, come on, when history one day
Judges this age, let it except me.

PALIZSNAY
Death to him!

HORVÁTHY PÁL (stepping before them)
Do you not see that he is mad?
Poor boy! — Up for Charles, my friends!
Now is its place.

GARA (drawing Forgách to the forestage)
Come, Forgách! Calm down.
Against blindness not even Hercules can fight.

LACZFY
Too much is too much, even I do not like this.

FORGÁCH
Oh, why do you not let me, let me, let them kill me.
Let me set an example, how a knight
Should die for his queen, when
He can do no more.

GARA
Why? — Show rather
How one should live.

PALIZSNAY
Let the deputation go! (Several of the lords go out.)

FORGÁCH
When I see how many sit here among us
Who feel with us, and dare not speak,
On whom the royal favour still shines
In which they shared, and let perish
What gave them life, out of faint-heartedness;
While the bold, the factious minority
Brazenly lords it over us:
Rage chokes me. (The deputation returns with Charles.)

SEVERAL
Long live King Charles!

CHARLES
My friends! Lords, I do not even know
Whether to thank or to disapprove
What you have done; I must thank you,
That in me, the unworthy, you have placed
Such trust, and yet I must disapprove,
For the Hungarian throne is not vacant.

GARA
Would he not accept?

FORGÁCH
A serpent’s hiss.

CHARLES
Your trust is precious, I will not
Cast it off, and so I cannot scorn it,
And if I do not scorn it, I become a traitor
To my kin. Now then, wise lords,
Do you give counsel, how it may be
To join these two.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
If Mária
Renounces her throne of her own will, and renounce it
She will, if she sees that the common good requires it.

LACZFY
True, that does alter the matter.

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
Then let a deputation go to her,
And ask her in the name of the estates.

PALIZSNAY
A useless waste of time.

CHARLES (to Horváthy Pál)
Go, holy father, you, with a few more lords,
And bear to her my homaging hand-kiss. (The deputation leaves.)

FORGÁCH
Oh, what shall we live to see, Gara!

GARA
No matter.
The main thing is that we live to see; later we shall see.

PALIZSNAY
And if she still does not renounce, then what do we do?
We shall have to say: it is not even needed;
And so it would have been finer to begin with that.

HORVÁTHY LÁSZLÓ
Of course she will renounce, when she sees how
The matter stands, she cannot defy the nation.

PALIZSNAY
You do not know woman. We call her weak,
And this weakness is her very greatest strength.
(Mária, Erzsébet return with those who just left.)

MÁRIA
I have come, my faithful, to learn
What you ask of me, and I warn you, henceforth
If you send to your queen,
Choose better who it is.
These learned to speak among their serving-maids,
They do not know what a queen is,
And besieged me with such senseless talk
That I do not understand it, and so have no answer to it.

CHARLES
I am sorry, fair sister, if you misunderstood,
If our word hurt, for we are all
Your zealous admirers. May my God only help me
Till I make this good in deed as well.

MÁRIA
So God has already forsaken me. — Oh, Charles! When with the sword
We conquer and kill a rival,
We honour him, for we fear to leave him living.
You, like the cat, deluded me, a trusting
Dove, with flattery,
And still let me flutter, playing, among your claws,
This is not honouring!

CHARLES
Calmly, my queen!

MÁRIA
Calmly? You hunt me, as dogs the stag,
And I am to be calm?

CHARLES
Oh, believe my word. See,
You are a woman, fair, gentle, tender woman,
Your qualities raise you to be a queen,
And your throne no power can reach.
The other throne is to you but a hundredfold burden,
Which lays low even a stronger man.
And for you it withers only your charm,
Your tenderness. Do I not love you, then,
When from this I wish to free you,
Strengthening your true throne.
Oh, Mária! I know your soul,
Great and noble, therefore I turned to you,
That you might hear the voice of your people.
And I believe you will hear it; from your fair hands
Laying down the rule, while in honour
You will always be queen in our hearts,
And before the world an ideal.

MÁRIA
Renounce the throne? And would you renounce,
Charles, your valour for ever?
Can the eagle renounce its high flight,
Or can the lion turn into a hare?
Renounce the throne to which I was born,
And learn anew now to speak, to walk?
My knee does not bend, my speech does not flatter,
I do not know the serving-maid’s way. —
You may kill me, Charles, do it, if you see fit,
But I will die as a queen.

PALIZSNAY
No one is born to the throne.

MÁRIA
Not born? Then look about you,
The oak grows high, royally,
The stunted nettle tears at its robe in blind fury.
You are the nettles, you base ones!
Or is the wolf not created to bite?
You wolves, whom my father reared,
Now you bite his child in thanks?

ERZSÉBET
For God’s sake, daughter, with moderation,
Do not reach boldly into the serpents’ nest.

MÁRIA
But I was not born to the throne, then — good,
And yet I feel that it is mine alone.
Tell the merchant: give up his treasure,
For which, to amass it, he watched out the nights;
Tell the hero to give up his fame,
Which he had to win at the cost of his blood,
Will he give it up? I, at a price more grievous
Than all of these, bought the throne; for it I gave
Every joy, every soft feeling
That God has woven into a woman’s life,
And shall I renounce it? No, Charles, never!

ERZSÉBET
Daughter, prudence demands
That we yield. Surely a time will come!

PALIZSNAY
Queen, we ask you still, but it is you who must
Yield. Renounce.

MÁRIA
And what is your reason?

PALIZSNAY
The reason may be yours, the sword is ours,
What do you do without us, and we have no need of you.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Spare the homeland a civil war.

MÁRIA
I must renounce, then! And to whom shall I renounce?
Where here is my equal, to treat with me?
With you, perhaps? Who bargains with a servant?
If he grows weary of his burdens,
He may break his yoke, may even conquer;
But oh, for all that, always a servant in revolt.

ERZSÉBET
Lords! Forgive this child!
She looks on her crown as a plaything,
And grieves only to part from its glitter.
I, her mother, her guardian, here before you
Renounce all my child’s rights,
I see the homeland needs a man’s arm,
Let Charles, then, be king!

MANY
Long live Charles! — Live, noble queens!

MÁRIA
Oh, Forgách, hold me up, see, my mother too forsakes me.
And among all this folk not one hastens
To catch me, a fallen queen.
(She sinks into Forgách’s arms.)

PALIZSNAY (shouting in her ear)
Do you renounce, then?

MÁRIA
I renounce, alas, I renounce,
Only leave me in peace, and let me not see you.
(They lead her away.)

CHARLES
You have heard, my faithful! — This is a day of peace.
When I have set on the consecrated crown,
Let my thanks be shown in the deed which now
No word could render. To you, good queen,
I owe the most. Oh, be my mother!

ERZSÉBET
My son! Take Mária as your sister.

CHARLES
Yes, yes, we shall yet dwell
Under one roof, like a single family,
In spite of every intrigue and scheme.
For Mária too will perhaps be reconciled?

ERZSÉBET
Only leave it to me, that she share my feeling.
A child must be dealt with indulgently.

CHARLES
I have one more request of you, queen!
To my coronation feast you will come
With your daughter.

ERZSÉBET (aside)
This too! Woe is me!

CHARLES
I might demand it of you, but see, I only ask.

ERZSÉBET
Let it be as you wish.

CHARLES
I thank you,
And now, lords, let us to the holy church!

SCENE ONE
(At Charles’s lodging, in Buda. Gara, Forgách, Alberich, Palizsnay.)

ALBERICH
Forgive me, my friends! That I do not admit you
Now to the king — so deeply have the dread,
The extraordinary events affected him,
Which day by day pursue the poor man,
That, watching out the nights, exhausted,
He has just now lain down to slumber a little.

GARA
We can wait.
Truly it is dreadful, what we live through,
As if nature itself in rebellion
Were casting off God’s eternal law.

ALBERICH
True. — When we came from Fehérvár,
The terrible storm that struck down towers,
Hurled lightning with thunder
In the dead of harsh winter.

GARA
The earth shook
Like a wind-struck ship, beneath our feet,

ALBERICH
And wailing the procession scattered apart,
Seeing houses collapse around it.
Now too, these few days past, a hundred thousand
Crows have settled on this royal hall,
Cawing they hacked with their beaks
At its windows, and there was no power
To frighten them off, as if, tormented
By hunger, they scented prey there.

GARA
Incomprehensible.

PALIZSNAY
All natural.
But then, if it is an ill omen, who knows whom
It concerns; many dwell in Buda.

ALBERICH
But one
Only is king. If peril threatens the cobbler,
Perhaps his ditch breaks its bank,
Or an owl screeches at his window.
The fate of peoples, of kings, it proclaims,
When nature falls into disorder.

PALIZSNAY
Who says so?

ALBERICH
Common belief. — To us no one
Explains all these wonders. Now patience, my friends,
I will look in on the king. — Until we meet again. (Leaves with Palizsnay.)

GARA
Do you remember still the coronation?
When in royal splendour Charles came forth,
And before him they bore St. Stephen’s banner,
In the church door it caught,
And to rags fell apart, that consecrated relic?
Do you remember, when the oath-breaker
Was already crowned, and in the mass
Came the gospel,
How the people started at its prophetic words,
When wondrously they sounded thus:
"Behold, this is set for the fall of many, and for the
rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign which
many shall speak against." (A pause.)
Do you remember, when the haughty Charles,
Ringed round with splendour, with power,
Sat on his throne, at King Louis’ grave
How the two mourning queens knelt?

FORGÁCH
Oh, alas! How should I not remember that
Which I wrote in my heart with a bloody dagger?
There they knelt, like twin guardian spirits,
Erzsébet, like the shadow of forgotten greatness,
Accusing the nation of ingratitude,
In wrath, with threats.
And Mária like a reconciled spirit
Weeping in pity over the base people’s sin. —
Ah, that sight! — Why did not all so see it! —

GARA
So all did see it; or, when toward the people
Demeter turned and thrice cried out:
"Lo, do you desire Charles for king!"
Did not ever fewer answer,
Till at the last only a few factious shouted?

FORGÁCH
But he is king all the same.

GARA
As long as we endure it!

FORGÁCH
Why do we endure it, then? — Friend, long I have seen
That you brew something in secret;
I watched you, and the widowed queen,
Whispering together, your eye flashed,
Your lip drew tight, while the sovereign lady
Looked down on you with lofty dignity.
Do not hide what is in preparation,
What I have already half guessed,
And if there is a part that asks for sacrifice,
Do not pass me over, I am weary of life.

GARA
And would you be able to do everything?

FORGÁCH
Everything. — My valour you do not, perhaps,
Call in doubt. Oh, but he who is only brave,
And can be noble for an ideal image,
He has yet sacrificed nothing;
This a man does for his own sake.
I would commit a crime at which the earth
Would shudder, I would suffer shame gladly
For my queen.

GARA
Hush, here comes Charles. (Charles, Alberich, Palizsnay, Horváthy Pál, Laczfy come.)

CHARLES
Welcome, lords, what good do you bring
From my beloved kin?

GARA
A greeting
And a request, that you be so gracious as to come
To them; from Zsigmond a letter has come
Which it is urgent to share with you.

CHARLES
Tell them their wish
Is my command. — Hey, Alberich! (Gara, Forgách leave.)

ALBERICH
My lord!

CHARLES
Have you doubled the guards?

ALBERICH
Yes.

CHARLES
Good. You are a man, Alberich! —
But why even this precaution?
They will still think I fear these two women.
What should I fear? They who sob so, as they did
At Fehérvár. — — Alas, just that sobbing!
That sobbing! — Is someone weeping outside?

ALBERICH
The wind is moaning.

CHARLES
Ah! — (He laughs.) What foolish fancy.
Horváthy! Mária renounced
Of her own will, did she not — you were all there.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Yes, she renounced at the Diet.

CHARLES
And the jackdaws too have left the castle now?

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Left already, my king.

LACZFY (aside)
Conscience has not yet.

PALIZSNAY (aside)
Instead of a woman-king, a fool-king! (All leave.)

SCENE TWO
(The third-scene hall of the

.
Mária sits, Erzsébet paces up and down in agitation.)

ERZSÉBET
What hour is it, daughter?

MÁRIA
Near five.

ERZSÉBET
Strange is the human heart, it yearns and longs,
Beats high toward some turning-point,
And when it is near, it shrinks again, again,
Would wish to delay! Or is this woman’s weakness?
Away with it, away, let there be in my breast
Nothing but the offended queen.

MÁRIA
Mother, you terrify me with your words.
Do not wish to defy fate, it is holy,
Stronger than man, and the struggle
Is so wearying that it is not worth
Exchanging one wound for another.

ERZSÉBET
What? My daughter speaks so?
Is this how a queen feels?

MÁRIA
Just so.
It is for child and churl to resist
Out of defiance. I feel the queen within me,
Neither fate nor man can kill it.
Without defiance I smile at every injury.

ERZSÉBET
I cannot grasp this dullness.

MÁRIA
True, I clung to my foolish splendour.
It amused me. It was, it is no more, I no longer
fear, no longer desire it, for now I know it.
Mother! By God I beg you, with every plan
Whose ill omen I see in your eyes,
Have done.

ERZSÉBET
Have done? No, my dear daughter!
I am your mother; when you were still a helpless
Child, would you not have perished
Had I not, even without your knowing, with my heart’s blood
Fed you, till you grew fair and great,
And who blames me, that I defied your fate?
Again you are a child, weak, helpless,
Again you would perish without me.

MÁRIA
What light
Glitters in at our window, what uproar?

ERZSÉBET
Gara’s troop is making a farewell salute.
Have no fear, daughter. (Aside.) Ha! My heart contracts!
(Charles, Alberich, Gara, Forgách, with a suite, come.)

GARA
And so I beg you, most gracious king,
Release me, that my daughter’s wedding
I may hold in my castle, by ancient custom.
Here stands my troop already, ready for the road.
And my friend Forgách will likewise escort me.

CHARLES
A prosperous journey, palatine and cup-bearer,
Make haste back to Buda as soon as may be.
Good evening, fair queens, what do you wish?

ERZSÉBET
Pardon, that we have troubled you;
But from Zsigmond, who with his army stands
At Győr, I have had word, and since I have hope
That we may strike a peaceful pact with him,
Sparing all bloodshed, from which
My heart recoils, I wished to speak with you.

CHARLES
My queen, I am listening.

ERZSÉBET
How can you wish
That before so many folk, of so delicate a matter
I should speak? — I do not wish it, send them out,
Though it pains me, that you find so many armed
Grim men a needful escort,
When you come to visit two poor women.
You know yourself best why you do it,
We, defenceless, do not even fear that perhaps
You plot our ruin; our heart is calm, for it is pure.

CHARLES
My queen, lay it not to my cowardice,
But to my men’s over-zeal,
This great escort, and that I may show you
With what feeling I am toward you,
Lo, I dismiss them. — Leave me alone!

ERZSÉBET
Do not send them off, you would feel uneasy.

CHARLES
Do not offend me, queen! — I said — go.

ALBERICH (secretly)
My king, we will be here on the gallery.

CHARLES
Do not gainsay me, Alberich.

ALBERICH (secretly)
Do not be over-confident.

CHARLES
Let him dread me,
Who dares to skulk and spy. (Alberich, suite leave.)
Now we may speak.

ERZSÉBET
Here is this letter,
Read it, and tell me your opinion. (Charles reads.)

GARA (to Mária)
My queen, my troop goes to a far land,
It would wish to see your face once more.
Come to your balcony.

MÁRIA
Then lead me out, palatine! (Leaves with Gara to the balcony.)

FROM WITHOUT
Long live Queen Mária!

FORGÁCH (striking at Charles)
That Mária may live, you must die!

ERZSÉBET
Strike, strike, do not heed that I collapse.
Only my legs give way, my heart is strong. (She sinks down.)

CHARLES (defending himself)
Help, ho! My friends, they murder me by stealth.
Ho!

GARA (without)
To the castle, on, on, my people,
Hew down whatever resists.

FORGÁCH
Your life is stronger than a serpent’s. (They fight, Charles and Forgách.)

MÁRIA (rushing in)
Ah, my God, send not this blood upon my head. (She sinks beside Erzsébet.)

GARA (entering)
Up, my ladies! Now is no time for prayer. (Armed men come.)
Lads! This way.

ARMED MEN
Long live the queen!

GARA
In the chapel guard them;
For their safety your heads shall answer!
(The queens go to the chapel with part of the armed men. Gara leaves on the other side with armed men. Separate fighting bands cross over; at last the three Horváthys, Simontornyay, Laczfy, armed men on one side, Gara, Frangepán, Forgách, armed men on the other, come and clash.)

GARA
Are you all here, serpent-brood?

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
By our blows you may know us.

FRANGEPÁN
You too, grey child, old traitor to your homeland.

LACZFY
Not with your tongue now, you see I have a sword.

GARA
Who is falling back here? Devil and hell?

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
On then, my sons! Now or never! (They press Gara and his party out.)
My friends! Let not this success deceive you,
We cannot win against the greater force.
The city has risen, the alarm-bell roars,
Let each escape singly,
That he may reach the open unnoticed.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Zagreb is the rallying-point. There by a new plan
We begin anew.

HORVÁTHY LÁSZLÓ
Until we meet again, then.

SIMONTORNYAY
For me this glory has been enough already. (Palizsnay, Szofra, armed men.)

PALIZSNAY
Who are you, foe or friend?

SIMONTORNYAY
Friend, but you come just in time.

PALIZSNAY
Why?
Must we fight?

SIMONTORNYAY
Rather, escape.
He may rejoice who can reach his ancestral nest.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
By the heavens,
Do not be stubborn again. Charles is dead,
The majority is against us, serves only him
Who would sacrifice himself to no purpose,
While by caution he might conquer another time.

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
Later you shall hear all, now only come,
Gara will be here at once with redoubled force.

PALIZSNAY
So much the better, then I can beat him twice.
Only run.

LACZFY
Come, it would be a pity for such a brave man.

PALIZSNAY
I said I stay.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Let us leave him to himself,
Let him see to it, if he is deaf. We must live.
God be with you!

PALIZSNAY
Where shall I find you, if I conquer? (All leave save Palizsnay and his own. Gara comes with his own.)

GARA
Who are you?

PALIZSNAY
A Croat.

GARA
Surrender!

PALIZSNAY
Thunderbolt!

GARA
You are scattered, broken.

PALIZSNAY
You see I still stand. (They clash.)

GARA
This can be none other than Palizsnay!

PALIZSNAY
Palatine! Though your cause is bad, I honour you,
For you defend it well.

GARA
Would you were with me.

PALIZSNAY
Woe to me, that struck home. (He falls.) Do not boast,
Gara, it was fate, not you, for it is dark.

GARA
Now only after them. This one has had enough. (Pursuing Palizsnay’s men, leaves with his people.)

SZOFRA (bending over Palizsnay)
Do you live still, János? Do I hear your heart?
No. All is silent. So then, God be with you.
I was your faithful one while you lived; now
I can no longer help you, and for myself
I must take thought. (She starts off.)

PALIZSNAY
Woe to me, that I live.
They have left me to fall into their hands...

SZOFRA
You live, my János? — Oh, thank my God.
But what shall I do now. — I have it. — My lady!
My queen! Hear out a woman’s lament,
If you are a woman!

PALIZSNAY
What are you doing, Szofra!

SZOFRA
Not a word more! (She covers Palizsnay; Mária comes from the chapel with armed men.)

MÁRIA
Who wails here?

SZOFRA
My queen, have pity!
Here lies my beloved, wounded,
In the battle’s din I fear a hundred dangers...
Have him carried down under your protection.

MÁRIA
And who is he?

SZOFRA
Do not ask whether foe or friend.
I beg of your grace a dear one’s life.

MÁRIA
Carry him after this woman!

SZOFRA
My queen!
My thanks are endless. Could I but win you over!
(They take up Palizsnay and carry him out after Szofra; Gara comes toward them, covered with wounds.)

GARA
Stop, what is this?

SZOFRA
In my queen’s
Name, make way, palatine!

GARA
You may go.
(All leave on either side.)

SCENE THREE
(Zsigmond’s camp at Győr, night. Zsigmond with a trumpeter.)

ZSIGMOND
Blow, blow on; what a cursed sleepy crew,
An hour and a half I rouse them, and not one comes. — (The trumpeter blows; Domarath, Jobst, lords come.)

DOMARATH
What is the trouble, Zsigmond?

JOBST
My God, what trouble?

ZSIGMOND
A fine time to ask, for if there were trouble,
Jericho would long since have fallen!
As I see, for you even on Judgment Day
The trumpet will sound in vain.

JOBST
But in earnest, tell me, why this alarm?

ZSIGMOND
Alarm? And you come in your nightclothes,
You without your swords, a worthy army, truly,
To win a kingdom back from Charles.

DOMARATH
We know you by now, we knew it was a jest again.

ZSIGMOND
Not at all. The strangest reality:
I have money. Győr last evening sent
Four thousand florins; I could not sleep,
And now have roused you, to set it circulating.

JOBST
Why did you not give it me, at interest?
And gone to sleep.

ZSIGMOND
I am no fool.
To give at interest what is in hand,
What everyone will take from me.

JOBST
Then you should have given it
To those who supply provisions
And other necessaries.

ZSIGMOND
Should I not use, perhaps, the glorious invention
I made, since I find such pleasure in it
For others, and in nothing for myself? —
Patents of nobility for them, then, still further.

DOMARATH
But it will lose its worth, there are too many already.

ZSIGMOND
New need, new invention. Ah, but good
That it comes to my mind, the one who lately
Brought fish has not yet been rewarded.
It is not fitting that a king remain in debt
To his subjects. — A patent for him, then!
Let there be on his shield, in a red field,
Two fine silver fish, a shining sign.
My chancellor! Yours is the execution.

DOMARATH
And the one who sent a chicken?

ZSIGMOND
You mock,
As I see. In vain; or maybe he
Who saves his sovereign’s life
And on the battlefield gets nobility as reward,
Shall he not get it, who provides for his welfare?
Or is a starving king not more dreadful
Than a murdered one? — You see, the one who now
Brought a chicken would, on a fit occasion,
Surely be able to die for us as well;
Thank God there is no need of it.
But shall he suffer for the age’s fault,
Shall so noble a breast perish?
A patent for him too: an iron hand
With a palm in his shield. And now let us go,
I told you I have money, and still you tarry?

JOBST
Stop a moment, Zsigmond!

ZSIGMOND
You are the first to say it.
The Hungarians charge me besides
With standing too long already. — What do you want?

JOBST
You know well, your debt has fallen due,
Which you took on for the Lubló campaign.

ZSIGMOND
You know that I made over to you for it
Every spoil I won.

JOBST
You jest still,
Though truly I am your good kinsman.
Give a pledge, Zsigmond, and I leave you in peace.

ZSIGMOND
You jest, Jobst, unless it is a patent you want.

JOBST
This land between the Morva, Vág and Danube.

ZSIGMOND
If Charles does not gainsay it, good, for my part.

JOBST
Charles is a usurper, he has nothing to do with it.

ZSIGMOND
And even so, Mária is there still,
She is the king.

JOBST
Yes, but you are her husband.
Leave that to me, I know women;
Out of shame alone she will redeem it.

ZSIGMOND
Then let it be.

JOBST
Can they draw up the deed?
A hand on it — so. Now I too tell good news:
Charles is dead. We may go on to Buda.

ZSIGMOND
Dead? — Beat the drum, forward!

DOMARATH
But the money you spoke of?

ZSIGMOND
We play on the road. (All leave.)

SCENE FOUR
(The second-scene hall of the

. Erzsébet, Gara come.)

ERZSÉBET
What do you know of Charles, palatine?

GARA
He still lives.

ERZSÉBET
Ha! Like a serpent, with crushed head,
We must poison him; in his prison
Let him rot there, the church’s curse
Is on him in any case. And from Croatia
What news have you heard?

GARA
The scattered
Traitors are beginning to gather there,
But not even sympathy has risen toward them.
The horror of the great events
Has shaken every breast too much, for them
To dare yet take the field anew.

ERZSÉBET
They will recover, and then woe to us.

GARA
But we give them no time! Again
My plan is what it was, I step among them
And the factious, confused, forsaken,
Will flee to Tvartkó’s court.

ERZSÉBET
One tool does not usually serve twice.
Besides, by now they have smelled blood.

GARA
And we have silenced a usurper
Since then, and our sword is better than ever.
My queen, I beg you, hear my counsel,
For at the worst there is my castle,
Which offers shelter.

ERZSÉBET
Good, let it be so, then.
When do we set out? Only as soon as may be.
(Mária, Forgách, Frangepán, Oranis come with lords.)

MÁRIA
No, no, you are ill informed,
Such insolence cannot come from my husband.

FRANGEPÁN
Yes, most gracious lady, as I said,
He has pledged the whole region,
Our country’s soul, which is itself a kingdom,
Greater than his forebears ever held.

ORANIS
And this he does, who cannot grow in it
Even one wretched plum tree?

FORGÁCH
You will not take it ill,
Then, if we, the great men of the realm,
Who grow and dwindle with this homeland,
Who do not look on it as a passing leasehold,
For our fathers bled for it
And our grandchildren will live in it,
Have leagued together, that these two uninvited
Guests we may put with the sword in their place.
History makes us answerable. —

MÁRIA
Forgách! Is it only the patriot that speaks in you?

FORGÁCH
I feel in my breast but one person,
Who has lost his god; and in Zsigmond
I see but one, who has dishonoured.

GARA
Who is spoken of here?

FRANGEPÁN
Of Zsigmond.

GARA
I see.
My queen, all that they say is true.

MÁRIA
Ah God! Another disgrace, then.
Your vengeance your queen cannot take ill of you.
But still, lords,
Allow it, if the woman doubts.
Let us get to the bottom of the matter.

FRANGEPÁN
Lo, here he comes himself. (Zsigmond comes.)

MÁRIA
My heart breaks.

ZSIGMOND
My queen, I greet you. I grieve, though,
That fortune denied me
The chance to save you from your perils;
Yet the consciousness of my striving,
And the spell of seeing you, console me.

FORGÁCH
The insolent man.

ERZSÉBET
Where did you strive, Zsigmond?

ZSIGMOND
To cross the Rubicon at Győr.

MÁRIA
Lords, withdraw, you might feel
That a young pair, when they meet,
Wish no witnesses. Their feelings’
Flood is constrained by every stranger.

FORGÁCH
Again a drop of poison from the magic flower.
(All leave save Mária and Zsigmond.)

MÁRIA
We are alone, Zsigmond; now with dissembling
Have done. It wearies me; tell me, oh tell,
What have you done again?

ZSIGMOND
What, fair Mária?
I worshipped you, as always in my dreams.

MÁRIA
You pledged a portion of the realm,
Like some adventurer to the Jew
A found treasure, of which he does not know
How it came to him, for which he did not toil,
And so does not prize it. — Oh, be ashamed of yourself,
Twice the worthless king of this proud people.

ZSIGMOND
Worthless is the people, and if proud, so much the worse,
When its king has not even money;
What should I have begun, when I longed and longed
For you already.

MÁRIA
Leave this, Zsigmond, all my jewels,
If need be, even the crown, I will sell,
And redeem the pledged region.
You do not understand, Zsigmond — for my own sake
I must conceal this endless scandal.
Ask Jobst, will he accept it?
If not, I will no longer bar the way
Of the great lords. Let them drive them all out
With their nest.

ZSIGMOND
I will speak with him, perhaps with success.

MÁRIA
As reward have all the profit of that land,
But go, this matter must be acted on quickly.
Do not take leave, Zsigmond — we know each other. (Zsigmond leaves.)
Oh, woe to me, such a husband for a Mária!
Such a bloody throne for the daughter of Louis the Great!

SCENE ONE
(A wooded place at Diakovár, near Gorján, a rock in the centre.
Palizsnay is brought in a chair, Horváthy Pál, János, Laczfy, armed men come.)

PALIZSNAY
Halt, this is the Diakovár
Wood, yonder the towers of Gorján,
By this road they must pass. — Oh, alas,
That the thunderbolt does not rather strike me dead,
Than these vile wounds, that limb by limb
Waste me to a puppet. Why must my strong
Soul have so shattered an instrument!
Alas, alas, whom shall I kill.

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
Why not stay at home
Till you recover.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
We would act in your stead.

PALIZSNAY
There is so much for each to do
That none can discharge another’s task.
And then, where is the one who was ever sated
With another’s mouth. I hunger for deeds,
And if here the toil perhaps kills me,
At home idleness would surely kill me.
Woe to me! I feel the torment of hell.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
With such carelessness you will not even mend,
A soothing balm and tender nursing
You need.

PALIZSNAY
Off with your soothing balms.
I know already this system’s effect.
When Mária was first here
And I would then already have seized her,
You counselled such a balm. When I had raised
The banner of revolt, again you shrank
Back from the decisive measure,
And under such a system you betrayed me.
When Charles came, Laczfy on the spot
Asked of him that he fight for us,
But not ask the prize of battle, the crown.
Now, wise lords, are you not all there
Where I am, fugitives,
Hunted, and over this only me
Does consistency exalt
In our enemies’ eyes and in my own soul?

LACZFY
Leave off, my friend, this fault-finding,
Which among us can only breed ill blood,
We are all in it now, and for our common cause
Let each do as much as he can.

PALIZSNAY
I know no common cause; only our fight
Is common, but each one’s aim is different.
One loathes Gara, another hunts for power,
And one perhaps burns for his homeland,
While another only secures his skin.
For me all this is nothing, I rebelled
Because to fight against the standing order is my delight,
I rebelled because I need strife and exasperation,
To feel that I am alive. — Mária
I will seize only to prove
Whether she is more than a woman, for if not, my friends!
I shall win her heart, as I vowed,
And for one kiss of mine she will sink at my knees.

LACZFY
What an absurdity.

PALIZSNAY
It draws me all the more.

HORVÁTHY PÁL
You speak in fever. For such an aim you cannot fight.

PALIZSNAY
Why not? For worse, too, men have fought
Better than I; and I do not know, if one day
With her kiss she leans over my aching wound,
Whether I shall not hold out to her the crown,
Like a fair plaything to a dear child.

CASTELLAN (entering)
Lords! The queens are coming already.

PALIZSNAY
On!
Oh, alas, I forgot my cursed wound.

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
To your places, all, with speed,
Watch for the signal.

PALIZSNAY
Me
To this peak carry, lads,
A curse on you, fate, life, godhead,
Idle I must watch such an event.
Alas, alas, kill me, pain, if you can.
(All leave on different sides with separate armed bands; Palizsnay is carried to the rock-top. Mária, Erzsébet, Gara, Forgách, suite come.)

MÁRIA
What mild air among these wooded hills.
I am renewed.

GARA
My queen! Lo, yonder
My castle shows, thrown open for you,
There you may rest. This path leads
Over the ridge, beyond it our horses wait.
(A horn sounds; the rebels rush the queens from every side.)

ERZSÉBET
We are lost.

PALIZSNAY
On, cut them all down,
Only let the queen live. Whoever harms
A hair of her head, dies by my hand.

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
You see the odds, down with your weapons.

GARA
With robbers the palatine does not bargain.
To me, who is a man.
(Meanwhile the queens have drawn quite under the rock; Gara with the suite stands forward in defence. They fight.)

MÁRIA
Forgách, do not forsake me,
For we cannot win in any case, can we?

FORGÁCH
Alas, that we cannot.

ERZSÉBET
So basely we perish, then, so meanly.
Oh, how hard it is to die!

GARA
To me, to me!
All rebels, wicked Horváthys,
You aged sinner Laczfy, and all that you are, (Fighting.)

FORGÁCH
You see, my queen, I stand at the grave’s edge;
To the dying they are wont to forgive
His last confession; oh, forgive you too.
I love you without end, unspeakably.
I was not rash, I did not thrust myself
Toward your throne’s splendour; now in this last moment,
When the barrier between us has fallen,
Kiss me, Mária — whisper, whether you love me,
For I shall come no more before your eyes,
To make you blush for this moment of weakness.

MÁRIA
I love you, Forgách, from my soul’s depth,
And now I seal you for death with my kiss,
There — Mária is yours — how good to die. (She kisses him.)

PALIZSNAY
What do I see! A kiss. No, it cannot be,
My eyes deceived me. — Hey, comrades,
Can you not deal with this bear yet?
You wait for me, do you, Gara, that you may not die.
(A common Croat, getting round Gara, drags him down from behind; several fall on him with swords. The greater part of his escort has fallen or been taken.)

GARA
I do not wait for you; oh, find no rest in the grave,
If your fate scourges you untiringly. (He dies.)

PALIZSNAY
Go to hell. Now with the rest
We shall deal more easily.

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
Here too an assassin,
Behind petticoats. (He fights with Forgách.)

PALIZSNAY
Only peace to Mária.

FORGÁCH
I see your tongue is sharper than your sword.
Why do you not strike better, why do you not come in greater numbers?

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
You cut down Charles better, did you not.

FORGÁCH
Better, for more nobly. From you
I watch for death in vain.

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
Then do not watch for it. (He strikes the sword from his hand.)
Another fate awaits you. Bind him. (They bind him.)

FORGÁCH
You have forsaken me, God! (They surround the queens.)

MÁRIA
Oh, alas, kill me.

ERZSÉBET
No, no, let no one perish in vain.
Enough is the blood already shed for me,
There is no other guilty here but myself. (Meanwhile Palizsnay is brought down from the rock.)
Look on this child, how should she be
So great a tyrant, so blood-thirsty,
As you are wont to paint her rule?
I did everything. — Oh, Palizsnay,
Horváthy János, and you holy father,
Old Laczfy! Once my husband’s friend,
Lo, on my knees I am here before you,
Your queen kneels; if we have sinned,
In penance murder me,
Only let my innocent daughter live.

PALIZSNAY
Raise up the widowed queen,
Devil, hell, round her are knights
And she kneels? It does not pain me, when hundreds
On hundreds of warriors I see writhing in blood,
But a woman’s wail, a woman’s tear I cannot bear.

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
Carry the prisoners with all due honour
To Krupa. Before long
We follow ourselves.

LACZFY
We have won, then, my friends.
The traitor is dead, now is the moment
To make peace with honour; let us do homage
To our queen.

HORVÁTHY JÁNOS
Do you speak in fever, perhaps?
Did we bleed for this, that when the wage
Is in our hands, we cast it away.

LACZFY
Are we robbers, then,
To hunger for spoil? We fought for the homeland.
We have saved her, and our swords into the sheath.

HORVÁTHY LÁSZLÓ
So only a like old fool can talk.

LACZFY
So only a malefactor. (They reach for swords.)

HORVÁTHY PÁL
Quiet, my friends!
To the majority let each one bow.
Let us hold council, and so decide
What is to be done.

PALIZSNAY
That is no care of mine,
I will guard the captive queen,
From the whole world, like a dragon the treasure,
Yes, even from you, if need be. Let us go. (All leave.)

SCENE TWO
(The first-scene garden at Naples, of the