All language subtitles for Dali+ís id+Âk (J+¦zsef G+®mes, 1983)

HEROIC TIMES

Like a herdsman's fire blazing on autumn nights

across the vast sea of the Puszta,

Mikl�s Toldi's face flares before me

over nine or ten generations of antique time.
(J�nos Arany, 1817-1882)

My life began in the middle of that summer,

which, now I know,
was the last summer of my childhood.

My brother and I got orphaned early.

My father, the king's knight,

died in battle,

so we were raised by our widowed mother.

My brother, as the rightful heir
of the title and the estate,

enjoyed the limelight of the royal court,

while he threw me, his blood brother,
amongst his servants.

I was not afraid of work.

I also valued our servants,

since I ate the same bread,

that we ploughed together,
with our sweat, in the rough soil.

It's just that I imagined,

that I could be destined to
some more glorious purpose.

I was inspired by my father's example.

In my feverish, restless adolescent dreams

I too rode my horse in front of heroic armies.

I won many laurels in battle,
with my father's invincible sword.

Oh, that sword!

That sword,

He kept it sharp until his death.

In the middle of that summer,

a shiny army crossed our land,

and their captain,
who rightly took me for a stray servant,

asked me about directions.

The haughtily thrown reward coins

caused the cup of my bitterness
to flow over the brim.

I decided to finally rebel
against the destiny that was enforced on me,

to get my inheritance
and leave the parental house.

Oh, damned anger!

Heavy burden of my life.

If my mother did not
threw herself in between us,

my rage could have lead me
into the terrible sin of fratricide.

But my loving brother

knew,

how to keep fanning the flames,

without himself getting burnt.

He ordered his servants to confront me,

expecting their blatant aggressivity

to deprive my anger of its last restraint.

I killed.

I murdered a poor, ignorant person.

I became

the tool and the victim
of my brother's nefarious plan.

My only wish

was to say goodbye to my mother.

But the night's shadows
whispered bad advice in my ears.

"She too wants your blood, like wolves."

"A snap, and you are free."

"Why do you hesitate? Kill her!
You are already a murderer, after all."

God moves in mysterious ways.

Was it his will, that sparked a storm
that washed away my footprints?

Was it his will, or just chance,
that lead me to the king's court?

I don't know.

Days, weeks, went by.

Time is blurred in my memory.

At that time it was custom

that a knight-errant, visiting the royal courts

called out the local braves to a duel.

The loser's weapons
were usually given to the winner.

While wandering in the city,
I've heard about the bull-headed Knight,

who was defeating our best fighters,
one after the other.

He did not spare anyone.

The king attended every day these tournaments,

and each day brought
new disappointment for him.

On the day when two young men
volounteered to fight him,

I ventured among the onlookers.

The king welcomed delegates
from some distant country.

The bystanders whispered

that the visitors brought
the image of the king's wife to be,

in a pledge for the future marriage
that could transform our country to an empire.

At that time, I did not bother with all this.
The fight took my full attention.

The foreign knight easily beat our first fighter,

and I could not help but to look
toward the king's tent,

to see how he reacts to another setback.

I was shocked, like struck by lightning,

to see my hated brother in the tent,

whispering into the king's ear.

My last hope went up in smoke;

the king knows about everything,
maybe more, maybe even worse
than what actually happened.

Nobody volounteered to fight the knight.

Not surprising for my brother;
storm always finds him under eaves.

But our country's illustrious warriors

one after another
cowardly refused the king's calling.

Even though more than one of them

could have stood a better chance against
the knight, than the two brave youngsters.

But their precious life,

their only life ...

It's at this moment that the idea
germinated in me:

"If only I defeated this knight!"

Fighting, without weapons and armor...

At that time I was a pennyless, wanted man.

As I stood in front of a blacksmith's workshop,

eagerly watching the treasures
that were out of my reach,

suddenly there was panic on the street.

A runaway bull was chasing away
people and live stock.

I took this for a heavenly guidance:

"Defeat the bull, and you will beat
the bull-headed Knight too!"

I brought back the bull to the slaughterhouse,

kindling foolish hopes that the reward
will help to reach my goal.

But the celestial order is wiser
than the feeble man,

who would trade his virtue
against small change money.

The mother's heart found the trail,

that the brother's hatred had sought in vain.

My mother found me
and brought with her my holiest relic:

my father's weapon.

The victory was complete.

With a single blow of the sword,
not only my earthly sin was forgiven,

but I cut off the viper's head of envy
and scheming.

My brother was disgraced,

and I rose up.

From outcast, marginalized, sinner

I became the King's knight!

Oh, then and there,

why did the immense happiness
not blow up my heart?

I did not know, I could not know,
that then and there,

was the pinnacle of my life.

It was a glorious battle.

We fought to protect our country,
a noble goal,

for the last time of my life, now I know.

The enemy's superior forces
almost crushed our small troops,

when an outerwordly power
took possession of our flabby arms.

They say, it was a miracle.

Raising out of the dust,

the legendary knight King himself
helped our tired troops to victory.

I took a sacred oath then,

as a loyal knight, to dedicate my whole life
to my country and king,

to purity, to honesty,

to knightly valor and to fraternal love,

and to even sacrifice my life for it, if I must.

Fine words,

light colored petals.

I believed in those words.

But the coming years did not bring
serious challenge.

I expected heavy burdens, not knowing that
eventually I would stumble
on a tiny lump of earth.

Candidates fought in tournament
for a girl's hand.

A girl, red rosebud from God's flower garden.

I did not contend.

I did not think of marriage,
at that time I valued other things more.

Retreated from the noise of the juvenile play,

I spotted one of my fellow combattants,
whom the sky did not bless
with great physical strength.

The poor guy was clumsy too.

His eyes were lingering helplessly
on the winner's award.

I got pity on his suffering,
so I proposed light-heartedly:

let's switch clothes, and I'll get the girl for him.

It would have been better
if I was struck dead by the lances!

Death would have saved me
from my fate's further misery.

At the end of the tournament

I saw the girl.

My world was suddenly upside down.
I was all confused.

What had been sacred to me:
my faith, my life, my honor,

I would have thrown away everything, everything,
for one smile of her clear blue eyes!

I knew, I felt,

that she was the only one,
that she had to be mine.
That she also knows, she must know,

that I had fought for her with honor.

With honor...

a man, who is a knight,
can not fight in vile disguise.

My poor red flower!

Neither the real owner of the armor,
nor its usurper was worthy for laurels.

What is this painful and yet sweet
choking sensation?

Secret power? Demons or angels'
invincible will?

I had already seen that girl,
but not like I saw her this time,

never.

And since then, I always see her that way,

forever.

Then a herald arrived.

The emperor asked our young king
to venerate him.

Alert, enthusiasm all around me,
to take up arms to retort to the insult.

"For our country! For the king!"

Fate strucks with one hand
and the other offers easy resolution,

but at the end of the road,
where man suspects salvation,

a new trap is waiting.

I wanted to fight,
like a thirsty man wants a cool spring.

The storm of war, perhaps,
will launder my honor,

or it will bring death to my struggling soul.

But our wise king, having compared our
army's strength with that of the emperor's army,

devised a strange trick.

He disguised our warriors.

This carnival disguise burned my skin,
like embers.

To put on a disguise again?

What was dishonest in the tournament arena,
will become warrior's virtue on the battlefield ?

What brought me shame, can honor the king?

For our noble goal, must not we fight
with immaculate weapons?

How can our knight-king open up the gates
to such deceits?

The victory was complete.

The merriment ended superbly.

As a pledge of perpetual peace,
the terrified Emperor offered

his daughter's hand to our lord.

The tears of shame and helplessness
gnawed my throat.

Out of here as soon as possible!
Out of the bloody fair of shame and lust.

How to measure my stumbling

to this mad revelry of betrayal and murder?

The holy knight-king, whose oath I took

will maybe forgive my sin.

And that girl, I feel it,

she will love me.

I weaved fine words,

to come up with an excuse
for my thoughtlessness.

She cannot reject me,
because heaven created us for each other.

A happy life's long years will prove,

that I am worthy of her hand.

All these years should be able to tilt
the balance of judgment,

because on the other side of the balance lies
only a quick moment's light weight.

When I saw that screaming girl
in the robber's saddle,

it was as if I had seen Her.

At the bottom of a stone pit,
lying on dirty straw, with broken bones,

tossing around feverishly, I found out
that the fruit of revenge had matured.

The bull-headed Knight's children
drew me into a trap,

to punish me for their father's death.

No one has ever seen me afraid.

This is more a disease than a virtue.

But I dreaded that girl,
the bull-headed Knight's daughter.

I, who always longed for pure love,
did not know,

that this hell of lust and wild passions
can burn in the human soul.

The horror and desire to escape
multiplied my strength.

I broke out of my jail.

Perhaps it's not too late, perhaps that girl
is still waiting for me, I was hoping.

It is not possible that for one single fault,
the heavenly judge would strike me
with such a blow!

I could hold her in my arms
for a few moments.

A few moments of happiness,

while an autumn leaf falls to the ground,
while a snowflake melts from the heat
of our hand into a water droplet.

Fate gave this much to me, for a whole life.

Her husband came in.

My brave fellow champion,
and raised his dirty hand on her.

I would have crumbled him into small pieces,
had she not stepped in between us.

I know, she protected me from the grime,
rather than this bastard worm,

who, while I was away,

stained my name with slimy slander.

The shameful!

I murdered again, I murdered him anyway.

"It's a knight's duty to get revenge
for the offense taken on a weak lady",

this was my excuse.

While in reality I just wanted to sweep away
with my sword the barrier that rose up
between us.

And she,

this pure soul,

horrified by the idea of blood stained
happiness, measured my deed
on the balance sheet of conscience.

We were both struck by her cruel verdict.

She rejected me.

I was hoping to find peace of mind
in the solitude of a cloister.

I joined as a fellow servant.

There was no inferior, beastly work,

which I did not undertook with humility,

to punish myself.

The king's wife, the dim daughter
of the Emperor

was summoned by the Creator.

Our king did not want to stay widowed
for a long time,

he was looking for the consolation
of a new woman.

Thus, re-appeared the picture
of his abandoned bride.

That the former betrothed is now
a happily married woman,
what difference does it make!

This can not prevent an ambitious plan:

the unification of the two countries.

It seems that destroying
a happy marriage is a lofty noble idea too,

if the king wills it.

Anyway, for me it was a chance.

Hope gleamed in me:
I get to fight back my knighthood!

Surely the king will forgive my sin!

And maybe that girl too.

Bloodthirsty days.

The sizzling meat, the pungent smoke
of burning towns.

growls, screams,

the stench of corpses rotting
in the murderous fire of the sun,

foxes, ghouls sneaking around in the night,

this is war.

That's the price of fulfilling a dream.

Finally, a quick and accurate strike,

as a surgeon cuts off gangrened limbs,

the prince's death.

There is no obstacle anymore to the marriage.

The country can recover.

I have achieved everything as well,
since the king, in exchange of saving his life,

and for my dedicated fervor,

graciously forgave me.

Like the broken branch,
tumbling in the stream,

that sometimes drifts on the surface
of the water, and other times is pulled
into the deep,

so we struggle in the unpredictable
turbulence of our destiny.

The tired swimmer

hoping to land safely
in the marsh grass greens,

his legs are caught in black swamp.

At the bottom, a cruel death awaits him.

The girl is dead.

And I died too with her.

The world is dead.

Purpose and reason,

everything perished.

The cherished dream of empire was gone.

The Heavenly Judge sent his exterminating
angel over our triumphant troops.

The angel's name:

Horror and Damnation.

The angel's name: Hatred and Revenge.

The angel's name:

Plague and Black death.

Sin is sin, even if committed by kings.

Even they can not do everything
with impunity.

Years and decades passed.

The country's life got dynamic again.

The king, as if he wanted to make amends
for his sins, the deceit, the destruction,

has devoted his life,

to clean the dust of the old-fashioned ideals
out of the country.

But I did not find ...

I could not find my place in this new world.

Like the ghost of past time,
I wandered on strange streets and squares.

And strangers, kept out of my way,
as if I was a ghost.

A past era's images floated in front of me.

Sword against sword.

Lance againt lance.

What need is for that now?

When a single miserable scrub

can sweep away entire armies
with his gunpowder?

What do we need the old virtues for?

What do we need me for?

Then one last time

a satanic fury rose up in me.

I just remember a Black Knight,
who beat everyone.

Blood punded in my head.

To hell with you, vile!

To hell with you all,
who smear with dirt the holy ideal,

the pure faith of people!

To hell with the whole world!

Let all perish!
Down with this flashy comedy world!

Oh, my Lord.

We yearn for brightness and purity.

But our vile passions yet so often
smear with mud our once clear goals.

You poor little red flower!

My Lord, have mercy!

Script based on Toldi Trilogy,
written by J�nos Arany.

Music: J�nos Decs�nyi