According to the Gregorian calendar, today is August 17, the day of Hyacinth. Exactly 48 years ago, the TIT Budapest Planetarium opened in Népliget, and also 48 years ago, the Russian nuclear icebreaker Arktika broke through the ice cover of the Arctic Ocean basin for the first time in the history of navigation and reached the North Pole—where there was nothing.
In the morning, Microsoft Bing greeted me with beehives as a background image, perhaps by chance, perhaps not, since yesterday I visited an apiary. And on the radio, two analysts were analyzing the summit meeting. It is such an interesting thing when clever people explain what Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are thinking. Especially in Trump’s case, this whole “thinking” business is rather curious. It’s so great that we have such analysts—I don’t even understand why we need Trump and Putin: the analysts could say everything without them, and they could just go fishing and have a laugh. Ah, I get it! We need such figures to whom analysts can attach their thoughts. Otherwise, by the end of the sentence, they might forget what it was about in the first place… Anyway, the analysts were chewing at length on what is happening nowadays with American democracy. Well, ladies and gentlemen… eh! Exactly what Plato wrote down two and a half thousand years ago. Go read it!
Perhaps the only thing more pathetic than political analysis is poetry analysis—we’ve all experienced this, since in school literature class we had to mass-produce essays on the theme of “What did the poet mean?” My greatest memory of this was when some commercial TV channel made a timid attempt to resurrect the much-remembered School Television. They put together some sort of program series for the morning block, then eventually abandoned it. There was a literature segment too, and they invited Sándor Kányádi.
Note: Sándor Kányádi (1929 – 2018) was one of the most important Hungarian poets of the 20th century, and a central figure of Transylvanian Hungarian literature.
The program was hosted by two teachers, soured over two coffee-Frontin cycles, winners of the Golden Chalk Award, and there were also two diligent, top-of-the-class girls. One of the teacher’s pets recited a poem by Kányádi, while another gave a lengthy analysis of it. The two teachers discussed the interpretation, pointing out its strengths and weaknesses. Up to this point, it could have made an excellent prep class for final exams, while poor Kányádi just sat there silently. But they didn’t leave him in peace—one of the teachers finally turned to him: “Come now, poet sir, why don’t you add your thoughts?”
— “Well, you see… I am not so well-versed in literature as to be able to weave together such fine thoughts,” Kányádi began, embarrassed. “So I would only like to add that I usually read this poem a bit differently. You see, the emphases fall in slightly different places. Like this:” — and he read the poem aloud in his own way, and within two minutes brought the entire glorious analysis crashing down, trampling underfoot the lofty thoughts of the two teachers. There was a stunned silence, and then the program ended—they thanked him for coming to the studio.
Yesterday an acquaintance of mine shared a parody of Sándor Weöres’s poem Bóbita (The Fairy), rewritten with a focus on cleaning. It turned out quite well, singable even to the tune of Halász Judit’s song: “Dust bunny, dust bunny dances…” (in Hungarian: „Porcica, porcica táncol” is similar to original text: „Bóbita, Bóbita táncol”) Well, there’s a place for that too! Weöres was versatile, working in many genres and styles—yet for most of us his name is familiar from kindergarten, thanks to his children’s poems, many of which were set to music. We can rightfully call Weöres the Arany János of Hungarian children’s poetry! (Ugh! Pardon me!).
Note: Sándor Weöres (1913 – 1989) was one of Hungary’s greatest poets of the 20th century—an extraordinary, playful, and highly versatile writer whose works range from children’s rhymes to deeply philosophical verse.
Note: János Arany (1817 – 1882) was one of the greatest Hungarian poets of the 19th century, often called the “Shakespeare of ballads” in Hungarian literature. He is regarded as a national classic, both for his mastery of poetic form and for his deep influence on Hungarian identity and culture.
So it’s no wonder that some media worker once breathlessly asked Weöres, in connection with his children’s poems, whether “Uncle Sanyi” must surely love children. With his odd, slightly whiny voice he seemed like a mischievous little elf. And he replied mischievously: “Since I have no children of my own, I neither know children, nor do I love them.”
And that was surely the case, for part of the “children’s poems” were selected from his volume Rongyszőnyeg (Patchwork Rug), which is in fact a mosaic-like collection of free verse written for adults, not intended specifically for children. Among the playful-looking but dead serious poems, some are even downright horrific. For example:
Grandfather Descended into the Lake
He descended into the lake,
grandfather descended into the lake,
clang-clang,
grandfather descended into the black lake.The green fish watches,
the green fish watches grandfather’s ankle,
the green fish watches grandfather’s toe,
clang-clang,
the green fish watches grandfather.He descended into the lake,
clang-clang,
grandfather descended into the lake,
grandfather changing into a water shade,
grandfather changing into a black stone,
grandfather descended into the lake,
clang-clang.
Relax! If you read it aloud to your child in the evening, nothing bad will happen: in a few days they’ll learn to speak again. Or let’s look at another one!
Topics of Little Boys
1
When I’ll be six year old
I will mary Ibi for wife
I drive a mersedes car
but Ibi can not sit in it
she stayz home, that’s her life.2
|KARRY IS STOOPID|
|GYONGYI IS STOOPID|
only me is clever
I even got a hed in my but.3
Rite turn
left turn
I march at the front line
we are barryin granny.[…]
5
Tibor grabs Zsuzsa.
First he beat her hard.
Then he chokes her.
At last he cutz her to peeces.
He layz out her harts and livers
from one fence all the way to other.
Zsuzsa thinks: I dont tell on you,
but if you cant undo it,
you can as well go to the juvy
7
Pityu and Pöszi
in the kindagarden they do all sorta thingz
wow what pigz
other kidz stand arround them
the Teechur Laydy lookz
yuk wot a big swynes
she grabz a form and a sharp pen
and wratess, all shakky with angryness:
“Dear Perents!”
“Nex time make better kidz. ”
And the perents answr:
“Deer Teechur Laydy!
Sumtymes we get marry sumtymes we divorse
we just xperiment with diffrent kidz.”
But let’s take a look at this much-adored poem Bóbita! Since we’ve already warmed up to the cult of Weöres’s poetry, let’s analyze it a little!
Sándor Weöres: The Fairy
Bobita, Bobita dances,
Angels sit round in a ring,
Hosts of frogs play their flutes now,
Hosts of locusts fiddle and sing.Bobita, Bobita’s playing,
Spells wings onto a small pig’s back,
Mounts him, and promises kisses,
Laughs as she sends him aloft with a crack.Bobita, Bobita’s building,
Her castle of dawn’s misty wall,
In her halls many guests gather,
Dwarf-king’s children, daughters and all.Bobita, Bobita’s drowsy,
Slumbers on autumn leaves deep,
Two snails are guarding her dreaming,
Dozing in branches that sleep.
Bobita, Bobita dances,
Angels sit round in a ring,
Hosts of frogs play their flutes now,
Hosts of locusts fiddle and sing.
A very vivid image: Bóbita is like a bored oligarch, surrounded by his buddies who are trying to entertain him.
Bobita, Bobita’s playing,
Spells wings onto a small pig’s back,
Mounts him, and promises kisses,
Laughs as she sends him aloft with a crack.
Well, I won’t go on. Malacka is obviously the most unfortunate of the whole bunch, so Bóbita picks on him and starts bullying him out of boredom. Malacka can’t fly, but Bóbita casts a spell on him and makes the terrified pig fly. Just because he has the power to do so, he does it. Tell me: how is this any different from simply hanging him out of the school window? But that’s not enough for Bóbita! He sits on him, promises him a kiss—that is, he climbs on top of him and sexually abuses the poor animal. Not a pig, not a young pig, but a piglet, i.e. clearly an underage animal. Bóbita – whom the author portrayed as a golden-hearted young man – is therefore a pedophile.
And this poem was set to music and included on Judit Halász’s 2009 album Csiribiri (in fact, it had already appeared on her very first album in 1973, also titled Bóbita). I wasn’t able to find the name of the composer—perhaps not by accident. Well, ladies and gentlemen… eh! It’s clearer than daylight that Bajnai’s Brussels goose-agents had a hand in it, who even deployed fairy mercenaries hired with Soros’s money against our national kindergarteners. But our great general, doctor, prime minister, His Excellency, is an even greater chess master than János Kádár, since with one ingenious bladder-move he made kindergarten compulsory for everyone. Thus, not even the Brussels intelligentsia can shield the children from the attacks of the Sorosist liberal NGOs plotting kindergarten coups. As they say in Pest: the ice cream licked back! Sándor Weöres would probably have liked that!