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Rh Hungarian history, and may be assigned to the middle of the 12th

century; the Carmen Miserabile of Rogerius; the Liber Cronicorum of Simon Kézai, belonging to the end of the 13th century, the so-called “Chronicon Budense,” Cronica Hungarorum, printed at Buda in 1473 (Eichhorn, Geschichte der Litteratur, ii. 319); and the Chronicon Rerum Hungaricarum of John Thuróczi. An extraordinary stimulus was given to literary enterprise by King Matthias Corvinus, who attracted both foreign and native scholars to his court. Foremost amongst the Italians was Antonio Bonfini, whose work, Rerum Hungaricarum Decades IV., comprising Hungarian history from the earliest times to the death of King Matthias, was published with a continuation by Sambucus (Basel, 1568). Marzio Galeotti, the king’s chief librarian, wrote an historical account of his reign. The most distinguished of the native scholars was John Cesinge, alias Janus Pannonius, who composed Latin epigrams, panegyrics and epic poems. The best edition of his works was published by Count S. Teleki at Utrecht in 1784.

As there are no traces of literary productions in the native or Magyar dialect before the 12th century, the early condition of the language is concealed from the philologist. It is, however, known that the Hungarians had their own martial songs, and that their princes kept lyre and lute

players who sang festal odes in praise of the national heroes. In the 11th century Christian teachers introduced the use of the Roman letters, but the employment of the Latin language was not formally decreed until 1114 (see Bowring, Poetry of the Magyars, Introd. xix.). It appears, moreover, that up to that date public business was transacted in Hungarian, for the decrees of King Coloman the Learned (1095–1114) were translated from that language into Latin. Among the literary relics of the 12th century are the “Latiatuc” or Halotti Beszéd funeral discourse and prayer in Hungarian, to which Döbrentei in his Régi Magyar Nyelvemlékek assigns as a probable date the year 1171 (others, however, 1182 or 1183). From the Margit-Legenda, or “Legend of St Margaret,” composed in the early part of the 14th century, it is evident that from time to time the native language continued to be employed as a means of religious edification. Under the kings of the house of Anjou, the Magyar became the language of the court. That it was used also in official documents and ordinances is shown by copies of formularies of oaths, the import of which proves beyond a doubt that the originals belonged to the reigns of Louis I. and Sigismond; by a statute of the town of Sajó-St-Peter (1403) relating to the wine trade; by the testament of Kazzai-Karácson (1413); and by other relics of this period published by Döbrentei in vol. ii. of the R. M. Nyelvemlékek. To the early part of the 15th century may be assigned also the legends of “St Francis” and of “St Ursula,” and possibly the original of the Ének Pannónia megvételéröl, an historical “Song about the Conquest of Pannonia.” But not until the dawn of the Reformation did Magyar begin in any sense to replace Latin for literary purposes. The period placed by Hungarian authors between 1437 and 1530 marks the first development of Magyar literature.

About the year 1437 two Hussite monks named Tamás and Bálint (i.e. Thomas and Valentine) adapted from older sources a large portion of the Bible for the use of the Hungarian refugees in Moldavia. To these monks the first extant Magyar version of part of the Scriptures (the Vienna or

Révai Codex ) is directly assigned by Döbrentei, but the exact date either of this copy or of the original translation cannot be ascertained. With approximate certainty may be ascribed also to Tamás and Bálint the original of the still extant transcript, by George Németi, of the Four Gospels, the Jászay or Munich Codex (finished at Tátros in Moldavia in 1466), Amongst other important codices are the Jordánszky Codex (1516–1519), an incomplete copy of the translation of the Bible made by Ladislaus Bátori, who died about 1456; and the Döbrentei or Gyulafehérvár Codex (1508), containing a version of the Psalter, Song of Solomon, and the liturgical epistles and gospels, copied by Bartholomew Halabori from an earlier translation (Környei, A Magyar nemzeti irodalomtörténet vázlata, 1861, p. 30). Other relics belonging to this period are the oath which John Hunyady took when elected governor of Hungary (1446); a few verses sung by the children of Pest at the coronation of his son Matthias (1458);   the Siralomének Both János veszedelmén (Elegy upon John Both), written by a certain “Gregori,” as the initial letters of the verses show, and during the reign of the above-mentioned monarch; and the Emlékdal Mátyás király halálára (Memorial Song on the Death of King Matthias, 1490). To these may be added the rhapsody on the taking of “Szabács” (1476); the Katalin-Legenda, a metrical “Legend of St Catherine of Alexandria,” extending to over 4000 lines: and the Feddöének (Upbraiding Song), by Francis Apáthi.

In the next literary period (1530–1606) several translations of the Scriptures are recorded. Among these there are—versions of the Epistles of St Paul, by Benedict Komjáti (Cracow, 1533); of the Four Gospels, by Gabriel (Mizsér) Pesti (Vienna, 1536); of the New Testament, by John Erdösi

(Ujsziget, 1541; 2nd ed., Vienna, 1574 ), and by Thomas Félegyházi (1586); and the translations of the Bible, by Caspar Heltai (Klausenburg, 1551–1565), and by Caspar Károli (Vizsoly, near Göncz, 1589–1590). The last, considered the best, was corrected and re-edited by Albert Molnár at Hanau in 1608. Heltai published also (1571) a translation, improved from that by Blasius Veres (1565), of the Tripartitum of Verböczy, and Chronika (1575) adapted from the Decades of Bonfini. Karádi in 1569 brought to light the earliest national drama, Balassi Menyhért. Among the native poets, mostly mere rhyming chroniclers of the 16th century, were Csanádi, Tinódi, Nagy-Báczai, Bogáti, Ilósvay, Istvánfi, Görgei, Temesvári and Valkai. Of these the best and most prolific writer was Tinódi. Székely wrote in prose, with verse introduction, a “Chronicle of the World” under the title of Cronica ez világnac yeles dolgairól (Cracow, 1559). Csáktornya and Kákony imitated the ancient classical poets, and Erdösi introduced the hexameter. Andrew Farkas and the homilist Peter Melius (Juhász) attempted didactic verse; and Batizi busied himself with sacred song and Biblical history. During the latter part of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th two poets of a higher order appeared in Valentine Balassa, the earliest Magyar lyrical writer, and his contemporary John Rimay, whose poems are of a contemplative and pleasing character.

The melancholy state of the country consequent upon the persecutions of Rudolph I., Ferdinand II. and Leopold I., as also the continual encroachment of Germanizing influences under the Habsburgs, were unfavourable to the development of the national literature during the next literary period,

dating from the Peace of Vienna (1606) to that of Szatmár (1711). A few names were, however, distinguished in theology, philology and poetry. In 1626 a Hungarian version of the Vulgate was published at Vienna by the Jesuit George Káldi, and another complete translation of the Scriptures, the so-called Komáromi Biblia (Komorn Bible) was made in 1685 by the Protestant George Csipkés, though it was not published till 1717 at Leiden, twenty-nine years after his death. On behalf of the Catholics the Jesuit Peter Pázmán, eventually primate, Nicholas Eszterházy, Sámbár, Balásfi and others were the authors of various works of a polemical nature. Especially famous was the Hodaegus, kalauz of Pázmán, which first appeared at Pozsony (Pressburg) in 1613. Among the Protestants who exerted themselves in theological and controversial writings were Németi, Alvinczy, Alexander Felvinczy, Mártonfalvi and Melotai, who was attached to the court of Bethlen Gábor. Telkibányai wrote on “English Puritanism” (1654). The Calvinist Albert Molnár, already mentioned, was more remarkable for his philological than for his theological labours. Párispápai compiled an Hungarian-Latin Dictionary, Dictionarium magyar és deák nyelven (Löcse, 1708), and Apáczai-Csere, a Magyar Encyclopaedia (Utrecht, 1653). John Szalárdi, Paul Lisznyai, Gregory Pethö, John Kemény and Benjamin Szilágyi, which last, however, wrote in Latin, were the authors of various historical works. In polite literature the heroic poem Zrinyiász (1651), descriptive of the fall of Sziget, by Nicholas Zrinyi, grandson of the defender of that fortress, marks a new era in Hungarian poetry. Of a far inferior character was the monotonous Mohácsi veszedelem (Disaster of Mohács), in 13 cantos, produced two years afterwards at Vienna by Baron Liszti. The lyric and epic poems of Stephen Gyöngyösi, who sang the deeds of Maria Széchy, the heroine of Murány, Murányi Venus (Kassa, 1664), are samples rather of a general improvement in the style than of the purity of the language. As a didactic and elegiac poet Stephen Kohári is much esteemed. More fluent but not less gloomy are the sacred lyrics of Nyéki-Veres first published in 1636 under the Latin title of Tintinnabulum Tripudiantium. The songs and proverbs of Peter Beniczky, who lived in the early part of the 17th century, are not without merit, and have been several times reprinted. From the appearance of the first extant printed Magyar