CHAPTER XXII.
The national and literary current of which Vörösmarty was the chief exponent brought several other great epic works to the surface. Andreas Horvát de Pázmánd (1778-1839) was working for many years at a national epic in twelve long cantos, singing the history of Árpád the conqueror. In 1831, at last, he published the huge poem which, however, was distanced and soon silenced by the masterwork of Vörösmarty. It certainly helped both to set off “The Flight of Zalán” still more strongly, and also to widen the circle of old Magyar mythology.
An epic poet of far superior merit was Gregory Czuczor (1800-1866). Had he not been a monk, and so lost much of the vivifying contact of civil life, he might have soared very high. It must be, however, added that his conflict both with poverty and with the Austrian Government, did make up largely for the lack of experiences of romantic, conjugal and family conflicts. His was a vigorous, systematic and finely discerning mind. To the epic he felt attracted not only by the general literary tone of his time, but by his personal bent for popular or rather folk-poetry. The naïveté of the latter, which forms its distinctive feature, is also one of the chief elements of the epic. Among Czuczor’s epics, “Botond,” in four cantos, is the best. It tells part of the life of that famous Hungarian hero of the time of the conquest. Botond had brought home from his Byzantine campaigns a charming Greek girl, Polydora. One of the Magyar heroes, Bödölény, who also loves Polydora, takes her secretly back to Constantinople. Now Botond again invades the Greek Empire, and with his huge war-club breaks a hole in the gate of the capital. In the end he gets back Polydora. This simple plot is enlivened with recitals not only of military and heroic exploits, but also of touching love-episodes. The contrast between burly, brave Botond and the refined Greek maid, the episodes in which Szende, the page occurs, and the beautifully rolling hexameters lend a peculiar charm to this epic. Perhaps now, after the realization of most of the ardent political hopes of Czuczor’s age, his epic will be considered even as much better than at the time of its appearance when it had to compete with the more fiery epic muse of Vörösmarty. Of Czuczor’s linguistic works we have already made mention ([see page 112]).
A contemporary of Czuczor, John Garay (1812-1853), although not a poet of great distinction, must be here mentioned, on account of the popularity of his innumerable ballads and similar epic poetry, covering almost every one of the memorable events of Hungarian history. Rather a rhetor than a poet, he wrote his ballads, of which “Kont” (relating to the martyr-death of thirty Hungarian patriots at the hands of Emperor Sigismund), is the best known, in an easy-flowing popular style. He trusted rather to the attractiveness of the story itself than to his own poetic genius. When well recited, many of his ballads are still very effective.