Mary Thery (Marča Terča)

Mary Thery (Marča Terča)

There was a king, once upon a time,

Charles IV was his royal name.

He had three daughters and but one son

who died in childhood, so there was none

male heir left, just three princesses.

Such ordeal real unfortunate is.

 

The oldest daughter was Maria,

her second name was Theresia.

But some nobles who yearned for the throne

didn’t want her to receive the crown.

Therefore, her father took an action

and issued the Pragmatic Sanction.

 

The greedy aristocrats were tricked

since according to this new edict

after Charles’s death would Mary

become the queen of all Hungary

and other Habsburg dominions

and the nobles’d be her minions.

 

But some years before she came to reign

she fell in love with Francis Lorraine.

When they married, Mary was nineteen.

Later she bore him children sixteen.

Eleven girls and five princely boys

brought the parents many fears and joys.

 

Two of them grew up to become kings.

Half of the others suffered bad things

which caused Mary many days gruesome.

But all that was only yet to come

when, twenty-three, she was crowned a queen

the kingdom had never before seen.

 

The striking coronation took place

in the town of Pressburg, that’s today’s

Bratislava in Slovakia.

At that time freshly queened Maria

couldn’t have known what life had in store.

The first test of her rule was a war

 

with Frederick of Prussia over

Silesia, who wished to make her

give the land up. She was unwilling,

opting for seven years of battling.

Sadly, she lost it. But still she won

her subjects’ allegiance from thence on.

 

She fostered enlightenment by all means.

Codex Theresianus, the queen’s

set of laws revised land ownership

and unified court rules and judgeship.

She reformed health care and army, too.

In agriculture she proposed to

 

plant new crops like corn and potatoes.

She was the first to use money notes

in Europe to pay for goods in trade

and little children she by law bade

to attend school, get educated.

She made it a right of every kid

 

that they could learn some instead of, say, 

working hard in the fields the whole day.

Mary outlived six of her children

and husband, too. That’s why till the end

of her own life she wore mourning black.

She missed terribly her beloved Franck.

 

Probably a smallpox aftermath

led to Mary’s eventual death

at the age of sixty-three, ending

thus her forty-year rule as a queen.

She was succeeded by her son Joe,

Joseph II who became known

 

for the Patent of Tolerance and

celebrated as the peasants’ friend

for the abolition of serfdom

in the whole Hungarian kingdom.

Be sure this is no fairy-story,

there once really lived this queen Mary!

 

(Slovak Version)

 

Kde bolo, tam bolo,

tam bol raz jeden kráľ,

čo sa volal Karol

a štyri deti mal.

 

Keď mu jediný syn umrel,

s kráľovnou ho oplakali,

lebo stratil následníka,

len princezné mu zostali.

 

Najstaršia bola Mária,

Terézia ju volali,

avšak kráľovskú korunu

jej šľachtici dať nechceli.

 

Tak jej kráľovský otecko

vymyslel hneď taký zákon,

by Mária po ňom v Uhorsku

mohla raz zasadnúť na trón.

 

Tento zákon sa menoval

že Pragmatická sankcia.

Podľa nej celé kráľovstvo

tak zdedila Terézia.

 

Vo veku devätnásť rokov

sa za Františka vydala

a z veľkej lásky mu potom

šestnásť detí porodila.

 

Jedenásť diev, päť princiatok,

bolo potomkov kráľovských.

Vladármi sa neskôr stali,

na radosť matky, dvaja z nich.

 

Dvadsaťtriročnú ju v Blave

slávnostne korunovali.

Vtedy ešte netušila,

aké veci ju čakali.

 

S Fridrichom z Pruska o Sliezsko

mnoho vojen bojovala,

čím si u svojich poddaných

veľkú dôveru získala.

 

Terézia osvietenectvo

všemožne podporovala.

Armádu a zdravotníctvo

aj súdy zreformovala.

 

Práva a tiež povinnosti

zemepánov upravila

Tereziánskym urbárom.

Školský zákon stanovila:

 

Vraj každé dieťa v kráľovstve

má právo chodiť do školy,

namiesto aby celé dni

len pracovalo na poli.

 

Ako prvá v Európe

zaviedla v platbe bankovky

a ľudu kázala sadiť

kukuricu a zemiaky.

 

Že jej láska bola silná,

po náhlej smrti manžela

po zvyšok svojho života

len čierny odev nosila.

 

Za štyridsať rokov vlády

šesť svojich detí prežila.

Napokon na rozdutie pľúc

v šesťdesiatich troch zomrela.

 

Známy koncom nevoľníctva

a tolerančným patentom,

najstarší syn Jožko sa stal

mamičkiným nástupníkom.

 

Kde bolo, tam bolo,

nie je to rozprávka!

Kedysi fakt žila

tá slávna Marika.

Original Poetry