Page:Poetry of the Magyars.djvu/121

Rh Hajmási still persisted, and their weapons,

Unsheathed, were swiftly drawn upon each other;

And sorely, sorely was Hajmási wounded.

Then spoke the wounded man to his companion,

"Forgive me, friend! for I am well rewarded:

Well recompensed is he who breaks his duty.

"I had a gentle wife and two fair children—

The thought o'erwhelms me—I am justly punish'd:

Brother in arms! farewell—and O forgive me!"

So each bestow'd on each a friendly greeting;

Szilagyi took the maiden to his dwelling,

And made a bride of that imperial maiden.

[This Ballad has been just published by Schedel. He has done me the honor of dedicating the volume which contains it, to me, in terms far too flattering for any deserts of mine. There is a concluding stanza which says that the Ballad was taken from an old History, and written in 1571. Schedel thinks it not improbable that the Michael Szilagyi of the Poem was afterwards the Governor of Hungary, and the uncle of the famous Matthias. The character of the Ballad in form and manner remarkably resembles the uarrative poetry of the Slavonian nations]