The Tragedy of Man is considered a
classic piece of literature. It was written in 1860 by a Hungarian writer,
Mr.Imre Madach. He wrote it in the Magyar language and it was translated into
English in 1903 by Mr.William Loew. This book is now published by a company,
aptly called The Forgotten Books, because the book is not well-known; but
should be. The translation itself leaves much to be desired. But, we need to focus
on and savor the imagination and the wisdom of this writer.
The plot
is based on imagining Adam and Eve being reborn into this world several times
at crucial points in the history of human civilization. Lucifer also gets
reborn. (The original Lucifer is a biblical version of the Hebrew version “helel”, meaning “morning star” or
“bringer of dawn”. Later this name was applied to the Devil, before his fall
from Divine Grace. Currently, Lucifer is used synonymous with Satan/Devil). The
entire book is in the form of a play with multiple scenes set in different
points in the history of the western world. The dialogues are full of
observations, reality-checks and insights.
I wish
to start at the end of the book. This is the final scene. Adam, Eve, Lucifer
and the Lord are there. Lucifer ridicules Adam (of course, the mankind”) for
letting “….prejudice and superstition with ignorance united, hold their sway”
and says that man is “too dwarfed for wisdom yet too great for blindness”. Adam is frustrated and asks what meaning
there is to life. The Lord says: “I have told thee, man, strive and trust”.
In Scene
VI, Catulus says: “ All beauty fades, but even if it did not, that which today
attracts, satiety tomorrow brings, and lesser charms allure with all the magic
force of novelty”. Later, Eve says: “The
moment is a flower and fades away”. This
scene is set during the period of crusades and there are several passages
lamenting the ways the scripture had been misused by the clergy. For example,
some monk is saying: “…. This book indicates what is to be done in your most
sorry plights. This book will show how long your souls in hell for theft, or
for church robbery must dwell; how long for fornication or for rape. It teaches
also how you can escape hell’s tortures, by the payment of a fine……The rich man
pays each year, a score and odd soldi……
and if he (the poor) cannot pay even three, the peace of his poor soul
may be purchased, by several thousand lashes well applied”. (page 97)
After
the period of renaissance in which Adam wonders where all of the flowering will
lead to and gets dejected, he says “….for daily, stronger grow ideas than all
matters was before. Matter can be felled by forceful blow, while my ideas live
forever more”. Then, a student says:
“Here I am with trembling soul, I long great nature’s workshop to investigate;
to grasp it all, enjoy more than the throng. To gain the well-earned right to
dominate the realm of matter, and the spirit world”.
Scene XI
is set during the industrial revolution and the poor plight of the workers.
Adam says: “ Stretched on a couch how easy it must be laws to create, but
difficult the art to judge with understanding, the human heart” (page 171).
Later, it is the age of science, when “The human mind fears what is infinite
and seeks to find restricting barriers, and without doubt in inner worth doth
lose, when spreading out to past and
future jealousy it clings.”
Adam
learns about an automated society where man has lost his individuality and
laments the dogmatism of science and the trashing of the arts. He laments the
depletion of the bounties of the earth. A savant says: “Our one idea is
livelihood” and how the sun will be gone in a few thousand years. Man has to
create energy and water and he can do it through research. And he can be made
in “retorts” ( through chemistry). Lucifer asks what kind of monster that would
be. “….. the lifeless matter animate with life imbue, what sort of soulless
man, what monstrous frightful thing you have brought to life? What can he be?
Unspoken thought, yearning for love, without an object then to love? And, how,
of man, the character and trait who is born in glass retort on chemist’s
grate?”
A superb
question comes from Adam (page 203) “What is all life without the bliss of
loving and strife?” During his discussion with the Spirits of the world, Adam
asks: “To frighten me thou sleekest in vain. My body be thine, the soul within
me though, is mine, and mine alone! No bounds are set for truth and thought,
for they existed even before was brought thy world of matter into life”. The Spirit answers: “Vain man! A punishment
most dire will meet thy pan. Was fragrance of the rose before the rose? Does
form exist before the body grows? And light before the sun?.....”Thou shudder
with affright, for all sensations, all perceptions, are but emanations of this
material mass thou callest earth. Without earth, thou and I had never birth”. Later still, Lucifer says: “And what was
life, but just a dream, who knows?”
Towards
the end, every human has been decimated and the only one left is an eskimo. The
eskimo sees Adam and Lucifer and thinks they are “Gods”. He says: “Pity, my
gracious Lord. The first seal I can slay, I give my word, I will sacrifice to
thee, but hear my prayer; My life, o gracious sire, do thou spare”. Lucifer asks: “And to that seal, what right
hast thou, tell me. That with its life, thine own thou dost redeem?” For which the eskimo answers: “The right of
force. Do I not always see the insect snatched by fishes in the stream? The seal devours the fish, the seal I slay”.
Later
the eskimo offers a seal as sacrifice. Adam is aghast and says how cruel it is.
Lucifer reminds Adam: “And dids’t thou otherwise. He sacrifices seals, while
though kill men, in honor of that God they fancy wrought, just as his fancy,
his own God has sought, why wilt thou be so proud and haughty, then?” Lucifer also reminds Adam: “The logic is that
but of the man well-fed, while this man with his empty stomach thinks; from
reason and philosophy he shrinks”.
Adam
asks the eskimo what he wants, and the eskimo says: “ Oh, please, if thou art
God, grant my request; Let not so many men our land infest; And send into this
world more of the seal, and fewer men; for this I make appeal”.
Lucifer
and Adam discuss free will and fate. Lucifer says that no one knows why one
mouse gets eaten by a cat and one by a hawk and some other mouse “be sly and
may live to a great age, and hoary and die in his domestic circle”. Why are
some “martyrs” and others “scoffers? “Of
fate, which all so well apportioneth; sin and virtue; faith, marriage and
death; madness and suicide”. Adam says
he can defy Lucifer, because he knows that “I know I need not live against my
will” and heads towards a cliff to jump. Lucifer says: “Is not each moment,
end, beginning too?” This last statement is almost the same as a sentence in
Yoga Vasishta where Rama says: “Everything starts at one moment and ends in one
moment”.
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