Together: 'Lullaby'
'Lullaby' by Edwin Morgan
The poet says...
"Before I had any contact with the Hungarians
at all, I discovered Attila József in Italian translation,
and made my own translations from that, out of sheer excitement and
delight at coming across a poetry of such deep urban pathos and concern – it
was almost like finding a kind of poetry I had been half-searching
for … but never truly experienced till then. Budapest and
Glasgow!"
Backround
Attila József was born in 1905 a poor area of Budapest, the
youngest of three children. His father soon deserted the family,
and Attila and his two sisters were briefly fostered in the countryside,
in such poor conditions they returned to their mother. She died in
1919. Three years later, and still at school, József published
his first book of poems. Rejected by the University of Szeged because
of a provocative poem he had written, he furthered his education
in Vienna and Paris from 1925 to 1927. Returning to Hungary he briefly
joined the Communist Party, and scraped a living from his writing,
publishing seven volumes of poetry in his short life. He died aged
32, killed by a train.
Teaching ideas
Reading
'Lullaby' is a translation of the poem 'Altató' written by
the Hungarian poet Attila József in 1935. It was published
in Attila Jószef: Sixty Poems (2001).
Pronouncing 'Balázs':
a is like o in hot
à is like a in father
zs is like s in pleasure
- What is inside the child's house?
- What is outside his house?
- What kind of place – city, town, village, countryside – do
you think he lives in?
- What is 'the far-off' he'll reach in verse 6?
- What might he dream about?
- Who do you think is speaking the poem?
- Which rhymes can you find in the poem?
- Which lines in each verse rhyme?
- Which words rhyme with 'Balázs'? (And which words almost
rhyme with 'Balázs'?)
Comparisons
Find other translations of József's
'Lullaby'.
- Which version sounds most like a lullaby?
- Do any of the translations miss out something that is in the
Edwin Morgan translation?
- Do any of the translations add something that is not in the Edwin
Morgan translation?
Writing
Sleepsongs
Write a lullaby for a baby or a young child.
- Like this one, end each verse with the same line, including the
name of a child.
- To begin, make a list of some things inside your house.
- Then make a list of things outside your house, perhaps that
you can see from your window.
- Imagine some things that a baby or young child might dream
about – perhaps things it would like to do, but isn't
normally able, or allowed, to do.
- Choose the name of a child to use in your lullaby.
- Or you could use a more general, like 'baby' or 'sweetheart'.
- Make up a line – a refrain – to end each verse with,
which includes the name of the child.
Write a lullaby of three verses.
- In the first verse, imagine some of the things inside the house
falling asleep.
- In the second verse, imagine some of the things outside the house
falling asleep.
- In the third verse, imagine what the baby or young child might
dream about.
- Remember to end each verse with your refrain.
- Add some rhymes to your lullaby.
- Make the words at the end of the first and third lines rhyme.
- Make the word at the end of the second rhyme (or nearly rhyme)
with the name at the end of the fourth line.
- But don't let the rhymes get in the way of what you mean.
Read the poem aloud. Does it sound gentle enough for a lullaby?
- If it doesn't, think about which words you could change.
- Even if you have words that mean the right thing, if they don't
sound right as well, they won't work as a lullaby!
Health and wellbeing
'Lullaby' touches on themes of parenting and caring for young children;
the child's relationship to its immediate environment, both inside
and outwith the home; and the importance of rest and sleep.
Within the Curriculum for Excellence, the suggested activities
can help pupils:
- to develop an understanding of the physical, social and emotional
factors that influence their health and wellbeing
- to make informed choices and live a healthy, fulfilled life
- to develop an understanding of how their actions and decisions
are affected by and affect others
- to help younger children
- to take responsibility for their own health and fitness
Sleep
Useful questions from Building the Curriculum 1: Health & Wellbeing.
- Do you like going to sleep at night?
- Do you like getting up in the morning?
- Why do we need to sleep?
- How long to we need to sleep for?
- What happens to our brains when we sleep?
- What happens if we don't get enough sleep?
- What happens if we sleep too much?
Discuss with pupils how long people of different ages need to sleep
for – for example, babies, children at nursery school, teenagers,
parents, grandparents.
- They might be able to use as examples younger or older siblings,
or other family members.
Make a list of words for sleep – doze, nap, snooze, and so
on.
- Make a list of related words – dream, snore, pyjamas, and
so on.
A place to sleep
- Design a bedroom.
- Think about what makes a room good to sleep in.
- Consider colours, furniture, lights, windows, fabrics, and so
on.
- Think about things not to have in a bedroom.
Lullabies
- Why do lullabies help young children go to sleep?
- Do the pupils know any lullabies?
- These could be in English, or another language spoken in
the home.
- Ask the pupils to write down the lullabies they know.
- Pupils could illustrate their own, or another pupil's, lullaby.
- Make a class display of the pupils' lullabies.
- Learn some of the lullabies as a whole class.
- Sing these at a school assembly.
- Make sound recordings of pupils singing or speaking the lullabies,
individually or as a group.
- Make a class CD of lullabies.
- Ask pupils to design a cover for the CD, and to write notes
about the lullabies – who brought them to the class,
where they come from, if they are in another language a brief
description of what they are about.
- Offer copies for sale at a parents' evening, or school fair,
or similar event.
Further reading
Morgan began making translations of Attila József in the
1950s, and published some in the 1960s in magazines in Scotland,
New York and Budapest, though none appeared in his first collection
of translations Rites of Passage (1976). Further translations
appeared in magazines between 1985 and 1997, with more appearing
in 2001 in The Dark Horse – a magazine edited by Gerry
Cambridge, who also typeset Morgan's Attila Jószef: Sixty
Poems (2001) for Mariscat Press. This book was favourably reviewed
in The Scotsman and The Hungarian Quarterly.
Jozsef, Attila. Fragments. Trans. Edwin Morgan.
Morning Star Publications, 1992.
Jozsef, Attila. Sixty Poems. Trans. Edwin Morgan.
Glasgow: Mariscat Press, 2001.
Attila József's work has been widely translated into English.
As well as Edwin Morgan's book, there are also
- Winter Night: Selected Poems of Attila József, translated
by John Batki (1997)
- Perched on Nothing's Branch, translated by Peter Hargitai
(1999)
- The Iron-Blue Vault: Selected Poems, translated by Zsuzsanna
Ozsvath and Frederick Turner (2000) (does not include 'Lullaby')
- Attila József: Poems and Fragments, edited by
Thomas Kadebo (c.2000).
Related links
Resource written by Ken Cockburn, April 2009
Level
P4-P7
Curriculum
Languages (English), Health and wellbeing, Expressive arts (Music).
Keywords
2000s, parenting, caring, togetherness, sleep, Attila József,
Hungarian, translation, 1930s
Published
by the Scottish
Poetry Library. A registered charity (No. SCO23311)