Magdolna Rúzsa - Felix Lajko - Még azt mondják (folk song)
Lajkó is playing the zither like nobody's business. Thanks to cousin Mihály Ráday who sent this in an email tonight. It will do as accompaniment to the next episode of my very unfinished translation of Petőfi's János Vitéz
4.
It is late by this time and the brook is a mirror
Where stars in their thousands fitfully glimmer:
Could this be her yard where the water is twinkling?
But how did he get here? He hasn’t an inkling.
He takes out his reedpipe and tries a few phrases
From the saddest of tunes that meanders and grazes.
The dew in the grass is silently creeping
Down the dark stalks as if heaven were weeping.
The porch is the place in the high heat of summer
Where Helen is nestled and swept up in slumber,
But, light and familiar, the melody catches
And brings her to John where he whistles and watches.
She’s barely awake yet, but straightaway hurries
Down to her lover who knows how she worries.
‘How pale you are, Johnny. What ails you, my only one?
The moon on the wane looks no sadder or woebegone.’
‘Reason enough, sweet, for pallour, not knowing
When we can meet again, nor where I’m going...’
‘Don’t talk so dear Johnny, for heaven’s sake spare me,
Stop moping like that or you really will scare me.’
‘My springtime, my blossom, no more will I meet you,
No more will my pipe sing its heart out to greet you.
No more can I hold you, no more may I kiss you,
I leave now for ever, for ever to miss you!’
Venting his grief thus, in words fit to melt her,
Johnny collapses and looks to takes shelter
In fair Helen’s bosom, desperately trying
To hide from his sweetheart the fact that he’s crying.
‘My darling sweet Helen, it’s time that I started.
God bless you, remember me once we have parted.
If you see a dried stalk chased by high winds recall me,
Your fugitive lover, whatever befall me....”
*
And last night's 2-0 win against Schalke was glorious. Highlights tonight at 10:35.
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