Page:A history of Hungarian literature.djvu/151

 MICHAEL VÖ RÖSMARTY I37 The best possible translation coul d hardly enable a foreign reader to appreciate the importance of this work. He would find powerful descriptions of battles, much pathos, and fine pictures in it, but the characters would scarcely seem to him striking or interesting. The whole epic is really a long description of the war, in the well-known maoner of Virgil, and as it deals whoily with hattles it is somewhat monotonous. Another draw­ back is that Vörösmarty, wishing to be faithfui to ali the Virgilian traditions, introdneed the mythological element. But the ancient Hungarian mythology was practically unknown, for Ch ristianity stamped out cvery trace of it by persecutio n until hardly any tradition survived among the people. Vörösmarty was therefore obiiged to in vent a mythology for the purposes of his epic, and to introduce deities in which no one believed. Th e two principal gods are Hadur (the lord of battles) and the evil deity Ármány (Ahriman). It may be that thcse deities had never been worshipped by the people, and that none but the epic poets used their names. All this, however, is unimportant. The real signi ficance of the poem lies in its language, which had the effect of a revelation. No other H ungarian poet had ever sung like this. N one of the n ation's bards before him had been endowed with such dignity and melody, such grandeur and pathos. Vörös­ marty's hexameters flow so melodiously and with such force that it is universaily agreed that since the time of Virgil no literatore can show such perfect verses. • Vörösmarty continued the work so successfully begun by his Zalán's Flight. The hero of h is next epic poem, nation, is based upon accent. But curiously enough the Hungarian language is j ust as suitable for the Greek and Latin verse forms, in which quantity is considered instead of accent.
 * Hungarian prosody, like that of every other modem European