How Ferencz Renyi Kept Silent

W. B. Yeatsfrom Early and uncollected poems136 lines

Hungary, 1848

We, too, have seen our bravest and our bestTo prisons go, and mossy ruin restWhere homes once whitened vale and mountain crest;Therefore, O nation of the bleeding breast,Libations, from the Hungary of the West.

Before his tent the General sips his wine,Waves off the flies, and warms him in the shine.The Austrian Haynau he, in many landsFamous, a man of rules, a victor. StandsBefore him one well guarded, with bound hands;Schoolmaster he, a dreamer, fiddler, firstIn every dance, by children sought. “Accurst,Thy name is?”“Renyi.”“Of?”“This village.”“Good!Hiding the rebels worm in yonder woodOr yonder mountains. Where? Thou shalt be free⁠—Silence! Thou shalt be dead!”

Now suddenlyThe spirit of young Renyi has grown old.He turns where, hung like drops of dripping gold,Flashing and flickering with ever-undulant wingAbout a sun-flushed dove-cot, cooing, clingThe doves whose growing forms he’d watched. Not theseHe numbers. He a brown farm-house sees,Where shadow of cherry, and shadow of apple trees,Enclose a quiet place of beds box-bordered, bees,Hives, currant bushes. There his kin are. HighAbove, the woods where with the soft mild eyeOf her he loved fixed on him full of light,Often he had bent down some bough all brightWith berries. Placid as a homeward bee,Glad, simple⁠—nay, he sought not mystery,Nor, gazing forth where life’s sad sickles reap,Searched the unsearchable⁠—why good men weep;Why those who do good often be not good,Why they who will the highest sometimes brood,Clogged in a marsh where the slow marsh clay clings,Abolished by a mire of little things,Untuned by their own striving.If one suchWere here, he would turn death into a crutch;But this one⁠—this one.Now his head drops low,Drops on his bosom, sombre, moist and slow.“Choose!” Restless Haynau’s fingers tapping go.This sullen peasant spoils the good sunshine,This sullen peasant spoils the good red wine.He whispers to a soldier, who goes out⁠—A neighbouring cricket lifts his shrilly shoutReiterant. A bird goes by the tent,A lizard crawls⁠—the two men gaze intent,As though they’d vowed to measure all its ways.

Returns that soldier in the evening raysHalf hid. He brings the peasant’s only kin,Two women, withered one and small and thin,Bent low with toil and hoariest years. The otherOf middle age.“His sister here and mother.”The soldier thus, and Haynau⁠—“Peasant, speakIf these be precious.”

“I am old and weak,”That ancient mother cries, “speak not, my son.I’m weak, and by the hands shall hold each oneOf my dead children soon, whate’er betide,For I am old and weak.”

And at her sideThe sister: “Sell thy country, and the shameOf traitor evermore is on our name.”Haynau, the man of system, lifts his handSerene. They’re led away, and where a bandOf soldiers ranked is on a grassy spot,A score of yards off ’neath a willow, shot.

“Now hath he kith or kin, or any friend?”A soldier answers: “By the camp’s far endI saw a girl afraid to be too near,Afraid to be too far.” “Ay, bring her here!”

Time goes. The flakèd fire of evening crawlsAlong the tents, the fields, the village walls.The hare hath laid asleep her frolic wits,And every flower above its shadow sits.“On this embroidered cloud,” the sun hath said,“A little will I lay my weary head,Among the gold, the amber, and the red.”A careful field-mouse finds a fallen crumb;Now steps draw close, he hides beneath a drum.That maiden bring they. When the tall red deerIn trouble is, the doe will linger near.A peasant pale and pretty, her eyes for fear,Like small brown moths, a-tremble.

“Renyi sayWhere worm the rebels, or my bullets layThe young one with the others.” Renyi’s paleBut speechless, and the maiden with long wailFlings her before him. “Save thyself and me.Speak, Ferencz, speak. We love each other. See,I am so young. Dost thou no longer know,Beloved, how two little years agoI came the first time to thy village school?Thou hast forgotten. On the oaken stoolI sat me down beside thee, and I knewSo little. As the months passed by we grewTo love each other. In my prayer-book stillThe violets are that on the wooded hillWe gathered. Ferencz, nay, I must not die:I am to be your wife. A village highAnd lost and far in yonder hills I know;There far away from all we two will go,And be so happy.”

To his hands she clings,With cries and murmurs. Suddenly he flingsAway her clinging hands, and turns. She throwsHer arms around his feet. The signal goesFrom Haynau’s lifted fingers⁠—two draw nighAnd seize her, and thus floats her quivering cry:“Assassin, my assassin! thou who let’st me die,I curse thee⁠—curse thee!”

Renyi silent stands,And she is dragged to where the willow bandsWith quiet shade its ever dewy-plot.Noise! and a flash, a momentary blot.So ends a brain⁠—a world!

The smoke goes up,Creeping along the heavens’ purple cup,Higher and higher gold with evening light;It seems to fondle, with a finger brightAnd soft, one glimmering star.

Renyi has castHis bonds away, sore struggling.

Now at lastHaynau, thine hour has come, thy followers farBeside the willow.

Nay, to yonder star,Yon bauble of the heavens, he lifts his hands,And over tillage fields and pasture landsWhere lies the cow at peace beside her calf,He rushes, rolling from his lips a madman’s laugh.

Text: Poetry, by W. B. Yeats (Standard Ebooks, 2024), from the collected editions of 1908 to 1928. Public domain.

In brief

Summary

A Hungarian schoolmaster refuses to betray rebels, even as his family is shot.

Set in Hungary in 1848, the poem opens with Ireland, "the Hungary of the West", saluting a fellow nation that has seen its best go to prison. Then comes the story. The Austrian general Haynau, sipping wine before his tent, questions Ferencz Renyi, a village schoolmaster and fiddler, about where the rebels are hiding. Renyi will not speak. Haynau has his old mother and his sister brought in; they beg him to stay silent, and are shot. Then the girl he loves is brought; she pleads with him to save them both, and when he turns away she curses him and is shot too. Renyi stays silent to the end, then breaks free and runs off laughing like a madman under the evening star.

Lines to remember

Therefore, O nation of the bleeding breast,

Libations, from the Hungary of the West.

He rushes, rolling from his lips a madman's laugh.

Line by line

Lines 1 to 5Ireland to Hungary
The speaker, for Ireland, says "We, too, have seen our bravest and our best / To prisons go". Ireland pours "Libations" to the "nation of the bleeding breast", offering the poem as a toast from one oppressed country to another.
Lines 6 to 20The interrogation
Haynau, "a man of rules, a victor", lounges with his wine and waves off flies. Before him stands Renyi, bound, a schoolmaster, dreamer and fiddler loved by children. The clipped questions and answers ("Renyi." "Of?" "This village.") end in the choice: speak and be free, stay silent and die.
Lines 21 to 45Renyi remembers
Renyi's spirit "has grown old" in a moment. He sees doves round a cote, then in his mind the brown farmhouse, the orchard, the bees and hives, and the wood where he gathered berries with the girl he loved. He had never searched the mysteries of life; he was "Placid as a homeward bee". His head drops.
Lines 46 to 53Haynau waits
"Choose!" Haynau's fingers tap; the silent peasant "spoils the good sunshine". A soldier is sent out. The world goes on indifferently: a cricket shrills, a bird passes, a lizard crawls, and the two men stare at it as if nothing else mattered.
Lines 54 to 72Mother and sister
The soldier returns with Renyi's "only kin", his withered old mother and his sister. The mother says "speak not, my son"; the sister warns that betrayal would shame their name for ever. Haynau lifts his hand "Serene", and they are shot beneath a willow.
Lines 73 to 89Evening falls
A soldier has seen a girl hovering near the camp. While she is fetched, the poem pauses on the evening: fire crawling along the tents, the hare asleep, the sun laying its head on a cloud, a field-mouse hiding beneath a drum. She arrives, eyes "Like small brown moths, a-tremble".
Lines 90 to 108Her plea
Haynau threatens to shoot her. She flings herself before Renyi: "Speak, Ferencz, speak. We love each other." She recalls sitting beside him in his village school, the violets pressed in her prayer-book, and the far hill village where they meant to live and "be so happy".
Lines 109 to 121Her curse
He flings away her clinging hands and turns. At Haynau's signal she is seized, crying "Assassin, my assassin!" and cursing him. She is shot where the others died. "So ends a brain, a world!": each death is the end of a whole world.
Lines 122 to 136Renyi's madness
The gun smoke rises and seems to touch "one glimmering star". Renyi tears off his bonds. For a moment it seems Haynau's "hour has come", but Renyi lifts his hands to the star and runs off over the fields, "rolling from his lips a madman's laugh".

Themes

Loyalty and sacrifice

Renyi's silence costs him everything: mother, sister and the girl he loves. His mother and sister choose it with him ("speak not, my son"; "Sell thy country, and the shame / Of traitor evermore is on our name"). The girl does not, and her curse, "Assassin, my assassin!", shows the full horror of what loyalty to a cause can demand.

Ireland and Hungary

The opening stanza frames the story as Irish. Ireland is "the Hungary of the West", a nation that has also seen "our bravest and our best / To prisons go" and ruined homes on its hillsides. Hungary's struggle against Austria becomes a mirror for Ireland's against Britain.

Cruelty and indifference

Haynau is a "man of system" who lifts his hand "Serene" to order a killing, and is chiefly annoyed that the peasant "spoils the good red wine". Around the horror, nature carries on: the cricket, the lizard, the hare asleep, the cow "at peace beside her calf". The calm makes the violence more shocking.

Context

This is one of Yeats's early poems that he did not keep in his collected work. It was printed in The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems (1889). The subtitle, "Hungary, 1848", sets it in the Hungarian revolution against Austrian rule. Haynau is the Austrian general Julius von Haynau, notorious for the harsh reprisals he carried out after crushing the Hungarian rising. The poem's framing, with Ireland saluting Hungary as a fellow sufferer, reflects the nationalist feeling of Yeats's early twenties, when he was writing patriotic verse for Irish readers.

Form

A narrative poem in rhymed pentameter, mostly couplets with some triplets ("best", "rest", "crest", "breast", "West"). Lines are often broken between speakers or events and set out in steps across the page, and the last line stretches to an extra length, like the wild laugh it describes.