Lamentations of Mary
Hungarian poem
The Old Hungarian Lamentations of Mary (Hungarian: Ómagyar Mária-siralom) is the oldest existing Hungarian poem. It was copied in c. 1300 into a Latin codex, similar to the first coherent Hungarian text, the Halotti beszéd (Funeral Oration), which was written between 1192 and 1195. Its text is a translation or adaptation of a version of the poem, or rather "sequence", that begins Planctus ante nescia and that was very widespread in medieval Europe. The speaker of the poem is Mary, mother of Jesus as she laments the crucifixion of her son, Jesus Christ, while at the side of his cross on Calvary. As such the poem constitutes an element of Roman Catholic religious poetry. Its interpretation has been much discussed in Hungarian philology, and the meaning of some words and phrases remains disputed. Pais Dezső's interpretation is given herein, but it also relies on earlier relevant results.
The text of the poem
References
External links
The text of the Lamentations of Mary in its original orthographic form and its version normalized according to the Modern Hungarian spelling are available in the Old Hungarian Corpus.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Lamentations of Mary” as hungarian poem. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as hungarian poem. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q777400. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1300, 1192 and 1195.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Lamentations of Mary” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.