Gloomy Sunday (László Jávor)

I like to read poetry on weekends. Today I picked up a collection of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem published somewhere around 1860s. It is one of the collectible books I inherited from my father. Many are Armenian and French books, but some are Arabic, Farsi and from the Ottoman Empire days. I can read all of them except the ones in Farsi, although I enjoy holding them as one would hold a past with fear and wonder.

Here is the book. Not sure the exact date of print but somewhere around 1861. Alfred Tennyson was a British poet. He was the Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victoria's reign.

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So, “I am part of all that I have met”. That surely includes people, places, and even events. From the poems of Lamartine, to the Sufi hopefulness of Hafiz and Rumi, I met this gentleman yesterday walking his dog who told me that “there are no bad dogs, just bad dog owners.”

… A line stood out as I was leafing through the age-delicate pages of Tennyson’s book:

           “Sweet is true love that is given in vain, and sweet is death that takes away pain”

I stopped. I had heard these words before. At least the feeling of this sentence was not new. Yes, it was in the poem written by László Jávor, a Hungarian poet who wrote the poem that was the basis for a historic song composed by Rezső Seress in the 1930s. This song, titled “Gloomy Sunday” is also known as the Hungarian Suicide Song, at is blamed for being connected to more suicides than any other song in history. In fact the BBC banned airing the song for 66 years, and resumed in 2002.

The lyrics and melody of "Gloomy Sunday" made it a jazz standard, and Billie Holiday recorded it for posterity.

I have listened to this song hundreds of times. In Hungarian, English and even in Japanese. It has a way of dominating your inner space. And I assume when the times were difficult, like in the 1930s in Hungary under Nazi dominance, that inner space looks for disappearance. So, a suicide song perhaps, but mainly when placed within a morose and desperate environment.

The last time I heard this song was by Lucia Jiménez for the Kovak Box (2010) movie. Strangely, I found her interpretation more romantic then morbid. Perhaps because I am now old and I have passed thru a few gloomy Sundays already….

And, seeing and hearing Jiménez on Youtube brought together poetry, history and mythology to my mind. I could not resist thinking about Sylphs as they were named by the Rosicrucian's and Cabalists. The sylph (or sylphide) is an aerial female spirit, invisible yet almost identifiable whose voices could be heard in the wind and fill the souls predisposed to hearing them.

… “I am part of all that I have met”. I am hopeful as gloomy Sundays have come and gone. I have learned to let lonely sylphides fill my soul with every shallow breath I have taken to not clip the wings of these sylphs; and the sweetness of true love when given in vain is something I have volunteered to let happen.

Eventually, I am not only “part” of all that I have met, but I AM what and who I have met. I am the people, the places, the gloomy Sundays and love poems I read.

In other words, I am very lucky.

February 10, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019