„Nyomában sem léptél illy sokat olvasván..." : három örökkévalóság-vers forrása

Abstract

This paper describes a Latin religious meditation about eternity, and — as a first step — a poem that was included in this meditation. The said poem provided the pattern for the translations of three Hungarian writers, Mátyás Nyéki Vörös, Gergely Szentgyörgyi and Gergely Malomfalvay: while the first one paraphrased only the poem, the other two versions contained the full-length text of the meditation, too, so the poem was translated as a part of the main text. Although only one decade separates the three Hungarian translations from each other, these works reveal the differences of the stylistic tone, the worldview, and the theology of Hungarian baroque; this latter aspect appears of course more characteristically in the renderings of the prose. Here the unique features of the three Hungarian poems emerge: Nyéki's transcription hits a moralistic and rebuking, slightly medieval tone, the version of Szentgyörgyi — following the original text — concentrates on the beauty of the four seasons, and in Malomfalvay's work the description of nature is widened towards the direction of Macrocosm, and the poem is enriched with the minute details of Microcosm, according to the scientific interests of his age.