ATTILA JÓZSEF

He was one of the greatest Hungarian poets of the 20th century.  Although his first poems were published when he was 17, real  reknown became after his death. He was born in 1905 in Budapest  in a really poor family. His father was a Roman or a Serbian man,  but he left the family .His mother was a very poor washerwoman,   and made her a symbol of the working class. He had 2 sisters.  When he was 9, the 1st World War was broken out,  so his family’s  life became worse. When he was 15,his mother died. He  worked  ona board of a steamer on the Danube. Then he finished his  schools so fastly. He learnt in the University of Szeged, but one of   his teachers said, that he would never be a Hungarian teacher, so   he stopped his school. Under his schoollife he tried to kill himself,  because he felt himself very lonely.    Then he learnt in the University of Wien,then in the Sorbonne. Then  he came back to Bp.and entrolled for the University. In 1936 he   became one of the cofounders of the review Szép Szó. He took his  own life in 1937, because he was depressed. He died under a  train. In his own poetry Attila József presented the intimate pictures   of proletarian life. He immortalized his mother, the poor  washerwoman, and made her a symbol of the working class. He   created a style of melancholy realism, infused with irrationality,  through which he was able to express the complex feelings of  modern men and reveal his own faith in life’s essential beauty and  harmony.    He had many beautiful poems,and most of it were so sad and  melancholic.He wrote poems for his mother,for his country. As I  wrote it, he worked on the board of a steamer on the Danube,   and he learnt in Szeged, which is a city next to the Danube. So  that’s why he loved the Danube. It was as melancholic as he  were. He wrote a beautiful poem, about this river. This poem is one  of my favourite poems.It’s so sad,but also beautiful.Unfortunately I  couldn’t find this in Englih,but I try to translate the most beautiful  part of the poem.In this poem he said, that the nations always   fought , and they needn’t have had to do it, the posterity have to  stop the fights. The offsprings have to work for stopping these  opposites. He wrote, that the Danube is the past, the present and  the future, and  it helps to make peace (because it links us)and to  sort out our  reconciles. And it’s our job, to live in peace ,and solve  the problems.   

I think ,that this poem express the whole subject, and the whole  project that we do,and it helps to understand the substance ofthe   project.The Danube links us,so we have to take full advantages of  this link.And if we do it,we could live in peace with together.So I’m  sorry,because I didn’t show the English version of the poem,but  enclose the poem in Hungarian: 

József Attila:A Dunánál  

A rakodópart alsó kövén ültem,  
néztem,hogy úszik el a dinnyehéj. 
Alig hallottam, a sorsomba merülten,  
Hogy fecseg a felszín,hallgat a mély. 
Mintha szívemből folyt volna tova,  
Zavaros, bölcs és nagy volt a Duna.  

Mint az izmok,ha dolgozik az ember, 
Reszel kalapál,vályogot vet,ás,
Úgy pattant,úgy feszült,úgy ernyedt el
Minden hullám és minden mozdulás.
S mint édesanyám,ringatott,mesélt,
S mosta a város minden szennyesét.

És elkezdett az eső cseperészni,
de mintha mindegy lett volna,el is állt.
És mégis,mind aki barlangból nézi
A hosszú esőt-néztem a határt:
Egykedvű,örök eső módra hullt,
Színtelenül,mi tarka volt a múlt.

A Duna csak folyt.És min a termékeny,
Másra gondoló anyának ölén
A kisgyerme,úgy játszadoztak szépen
És nevetgéltek a habok felém.
     Az idő árján úgy remegtek ők,
     Mint sírköves,dülöngő temetők.
 
 
 
 

   Én úgy vagyok,hogy már százezer éve
   nézem,amit meglátok hirtelen.
   Egy pillanat,s kész az idő egésze,
  Mint százezer ős szemlélget velem.

   Látom,mit ők nem láttak,mert kapáltak,
  Öltek öleltek,tették,ami kell.
  S ők látják azt,az anyagba leszálltak,
  Mit én nem látok,ha vallani kell.

  Tudunk egymásról,mint öröm és bánat.
  Enyém a múlt és övék a jelen.
  Verset írunk-ők fogják a ceruzámat
  S én nézem őket és emlékezem
 
 
 

Anyám kún volt, az apám félig székely,
Félig román, vagy tán egészen az .
Anyám szájából édes volt az étel,
Apám szájából szép volt az igaz.
Mikor mozdulok ők ölelik egymást.
Elszomorodom néha emiatt-
Ez az elmúlás.Ebből vagyok.”Meglásd,
Ha majd nem leszünk!…”-megszólítanak.

Megszólítanak,mert ők én vagyok már;
Gyenge létemre így vagyok erős,
Ki emlékszem,hogy több vagyok a soknál,
Mert az őssejtig vagyok minden ős-
Az Ős vagyok,mely sokasodni foszlik:
Apám- s anyámmá válok boldogon,
S apám,anyám maga is kettéoszlik
S én lelkes Eggyé így szaporodom!

A világ vagyok-minden,ami volt,van:
A sok nemzetség mely egymásra tör.
A honfoglalók győznek velem holtan,
S a meghódoltak kínja meggyötör.
Árpád és Zalán,Werbőczy és Dózsa-
Török,tatár,tót,román kavarog
E szívben,mely e múltnak már adósa
Szelíd jövővel -mai magyarok!
 
 
 
 
 

…Én dolgozni akarok.Elegendő
harc,hogy a  multat be kell vallani.
A Dunánál,mely múlt,jelen,s jövendő,
Egymást ölelik lágy hullámai.
A harcot, amelyet őseink vívtak,
Békévé oldja az emlékezés
S rendezni végre közös dolgainkat,
Ez a mi munkánk;és ez nem kevés.
 

Attila József
                                               BY THE DANUBE
I sat there on the quayside by the landing,
a melon rind was drifting on the flow .
I delved into my fate, just understanding:
the surface chatters, while it's calm below
As if my heart had been its very source,
troubled, wise was the Danube, mighty force.
Like muscles when you work and lift the axe,
or harvest, hammer, excavate a grave,
so did the water tighten, surge, relax
with every current, every breezy wave.
Like Mother, dandled, told a tale, caressed,
laundered the dirt of all of Budapest.


A drizzle started, moistening the morning
but didn't care much, so it stopped again.
And yet, like someone who under an awning
watches the rain - I gazed into the plain:
As twilight, that may infinitely last,
so grey was all that used to shine, the past.
The Danube flowed. And like a tiny child
plays on his fertile, dreamy mother's knee,
so cradled and embraced and gently smiled
each playful wave, waving hullo to me.
They shuddered on the flood of past events
like tombstones, tumbling graveyard monuments.


For hundred thousand years I have been gazing
and suddenly I see what's there to see.
A flash, and time is fully-grown, embracing
 what generations scan and show to me.

I see what they've not seen, for they defended,
embraced, dug, murdered, their living to ply,
and they see now, in cold matter descended,
what I can't see when I'm to testify.
We all relate, like blesséd to the damn’d,
Mine is the past and theirs is the today
We write poems - my pencil in their hand,
I sense them and remember what to say.


III
Mother was Kún, Father was Székely,partly,
and half, or maybe, pure Romanian.
>From Mother's lips the food was sweet and hearty,
from Father's lips the truth was radiant.
They embrace again when I am stirring.
This fills my heart with deep melancholy- 
 we are all mortal. It's me, re-occurri: 
"Just wait, we'll soon be gone!..." -
They call, I know we are now one: this one-ness 
has made me strong, for I remember well
that I am every parent in the boundless 
succession to the primal lonely cell.
till I become my father and mother,
then father splits and mother, procreating 
the multiplying me and none other!


I am the world - the ancient, endless story:
clan fighting clan for creed or crazy greed.
I march among the conquerors in glory, 
I suffer with the conquered in defeat.
Árpád and Zalán, Werböczi and Dózsa: 
lavs, Mongols, Turks and other variants;
in me, we shall redeem the long foreclosure
with gentle future - new Hungarians!
 
 

...I want to work. It's hard for human nature
 to make a true confession of the past:
The Danube, which is past, present and future
 entwines its waves in tender friendly clasps.
 Out of the blood our fathers shed in battles
fows peace, through our remembrance and regard,
 creating order in our common matters,
 this is our task, we know it will be hard.
 

Another beautiful poem from Attila József is the Mama.It was
written to his mother.He loved his mum very much.His mother was
a washerwoman,who worked a lot for his family.His mother died
when Attila was just 15 years old.I think it’s his most heart-rending
poem,but I really like this.So let’s read it :

Mama
 

On Mama now my thoughts have dawdled
All of a week.Clothes-basket cradled
Creak on her hip;she’d climb the stairway
Up to the drying-attic’s airway.

Then,for I was an honest fellow,
How I would shriek and stamp and bellow!
That swollen laundry needs no mother.
Take me,and live it to another.

But still she drudged so quietly,
Nor scolded me,norlooked upon me,
And the hung clothes would glow and billow
High up above,with swoop and wallow.
 

It’s too late now to still my bother;
What a giant was my mother—
Over the sky her grey hair flutters,
Her bluing tints the heaven’s waters.

 And this is my last favourite poem from the poet.It’s so
strange,ang good as all his poems.

Attila József:Ode

I’M sitting
Here on a glittering wall of rocks.
The mellow wind of the young summer
Like the warmth of a good supper
Flies around.

I let my heart grow fond of silence.
It’snot so difficult,
-the past swarms around-
the head bends down
and down hangs the hand.

I gaze at the mountains’ mane
Every leaf reflects the glow
Of your brow.
The road is empty,empty,
Yet I can see
How the wind makes your skirt flutter
Under the fragile
Branches of the tree.

I see a lock of your hair tip forward
Your soft breasts quiver
-as the stream down below is running away-
behold,I see again,
how the ripples on round white peebles
the fairy laughter spouts out on your teeth.
 
 
 
 
 

O how I love you
Who made to speak
both the wily solitude which weaved it’s plots
in the deepest caverns of the heart
And the universe.

Who part from me, in silence, and run away
Like a waterfall from it’s own rumble
While I, between the peaks of my life,
near to the far,
cry out and reverberate
rebounding against to sky and earth
that I love you,you sweet step-mother.
 

I love you like the child loves his mother
Like silent pits love their depth
I love you like halls love the light
Like the soul loves the flame,
Like the body loves repose.
I love you like all mortals love living
Until they die.

Every single smile,movement,word of yours
I keep like the earth keeps all fallen matter.
Like acids into metal
So my instincts have burnt your dear and beautiful form into my mind,
And there your being fills up everything.

Moments pass by,rattling
But you are sitting muttely in my ears.
Stars blaze and fall
But you stand still in my eyes.

Like silence in a cave,
Your flavour,now cool,
Still lingers in your mouth
And your hand upon the waterglass
And the delicate veins upon your hand
Glimmer up before me again and again.
 

O what kind of matter I am
That your glance cuts and shapes me?
What kind of soul and what kind of light
And what kind of amazing phenomenon am I
That in the mist of emptiness
I can walk around
The gentle slopes of your fertile body?
And like the word
Entering into an enlightened mind
I can enter inti this mysteries…

Your veins like rosebushes
Tremple ceaselessly.
They carry the eternal current
That love may blossom in your cheeks
And they womb may bear a blessed fruit.

Many a small root embroiders through and through
The sensitive soil of your stomach
Weaving knots,unwinding the tangle
That the cells of your juices may align
Into clusters of swarming lines
And that the good tickets of your bushy lungs
May whisper their own glory.

The eternal matter happily proceeds in you
Along the tunnels of your bowels
And the waste gains a rich life
In the hot wells of your ardent kidneys.

Undulating hills rise
Star constellation oscillate
Lakes move,factories operate
Millions of living creatures
Insects
Seaweed
Cruelty and goodness stir
The sun shines,amisty arctic light blooms-
Uncoscious eternity roams about
In your metabolism.
 

Like clots of blood
These words fall
Before you.
Existence stutters
Only the law speaks clearly.
But my industrious organs that renew me
Day by day
Are now preparing for silence.

But until then all cry out.
You,
Whom they have selected out of the multitude
Of two thousand million people,
You only one,
You soft cradle,
Strong grave,living bed
Receive me into you…
(How tall is the sky at dawn!
Armies are dazzling in it’s ore.
This great radiance hurts my eyes.
I am lost, I belive…
I hear my heart beating
Flapping above me.)

(By-Song)
(The train is taking me,I am going
perphaps I may even find you today.
My burning face may then cool down,
And perhaps you will softly say:

The water is running,take a bath.
Here is a towel for you to dry.
The meat is cooking,appease your hunger,
This is your bed,where I lie.)

Agnes Pongracz
Berze Grammar School, Gyongyos