Page:A history of Hungarian literature.djvu/86

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72 HUNGAR IAN LITERATU RE become galley-slaves. When we read them, we seem to hear the unhappy captives singing pl aintively of their sufferings, to th e tune of some hymn they had loved in happier days. The world-farned Rákóczy March did not receive its present form until the year 18o6, yet even in its original shape it is a powerful creation, and expresses strikingly the two contending feelings of the time, a fierce love of fighting and a profound melancholy. When Francis Rákóczy we nt into ex ile, never to return, he left his family, his dreams of freedom and glory, his crown, and his immense wealth behind hím, and became a horneless wanderer. There were still some, however, who dung faithfully to him in the days of his exile ; among them was a you ng nobleman, t we nty-one years of age, Count KELEMEN MIKES (IÓ90- 1762). He accompan ied Rákóczy in all his wanderings. First they went to Po land, then to England, and at length to France, wh ere anather exiled prince, James II. of England, had been hospitably receíved in the hope that so me dip­ lomatic advantages might follow. At the Freneh Court Mikes became aequainted with Freneh literature, and translated several books, chiefly religiaus works. The Hungarian exiles did not stay long at Versailles. Th ey went to Turkey, and finally took up their abode at Rodosto, on the coast of the Sca of Marmora. Here Mikes dwclt until his dying day, spending thirty years in exile. On peaceful evenings the exiles watched the sun as it sank into the blue waves of the Marble Sea. In the morning th ey saw it rise above the minarets, never, alas, to heraid the day of their f reedom. Years ra lled by, and Rákóczy died. He was soon followed by his faithfui general, Bercsényi, and one by