# Hogy egyesüljünk



## cisarro

Hi:

I'm not sure how to translate *hogy egyesüljünk* in this sentence: _

Ha, leányka, te vagy a pokol: (hogy egyesüljünk) én elkárhozom_.
_Girl, if you are the hell: (?) I condemn myself._

I guess *egyesül *could be _to combine_ or _to unite__, _and *egyesüljünk *should be _to combine us_, right?
Then could *hogy *be translated as _so that_ in this case? _so that to combine us_?

Köszönöm


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## Olivier0

_egyesül_ = (several things/people) merge, unite, join -> _hogy egyesüljünk_ = so that we join
_elkárhozom_ = I (will) incur damnation, be damned: even hell is a place where he would go to be with her!
-- Olivier


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## Encolpius

hogy egyesüljünk = so that we make love


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## Olivier0

Encolpius said:


> hogy egyesüljünk = so that we make love


A meaning a bit too modern for Petőfi 
And to answer better the grammatical part of the original question:
_-jünk_ is the (1st person plural) imperative/subjunctive mood, _hogy_ is a conjunction introducing a dependent clause (Spanish _que_), together they have the meaning of a purpose: "so that ..."
-- Olivier


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## Encolpius

Petőfi was 23-year old when he wrote that verse.....now a 23-year old young man would use a different word.... egyesül is a poetic and popular expression for making love...who the hell is Egon F. Kunz, I do not like his translation at all. Take a look at the Russian translation of Pasternak (we all know who he was), he translated the word egyesüljünk as "cогрешу" [to sin]....and I like his translation very much, really nice and he understood the atmosphere of the verse....


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## Olivier0

_Egyesül _basically means "become one" (_egyes_ "of number one", _egy_ "one/a") and a frequent meaning nowadays is indeed "have sex", but other meanings still exist and were probably predominant in Petőfi's time: (organisations) "merge" or "unite" (forces, against a common enemy), (souls) "get very close" (like by marriage and not exclusively sex).
Anyway, what would that mean ""if you are hell I will get to hell in order to have sex with you", what kind of hell is a hell where people have sex? there is more logic in "if you are hell I will get to hell so that we can be together", because the pain of hell is smaller than not being with you.
-- Olivier


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## Encolpius

yes, egyesül now means "become one, unite" 
I haven't known nowdays they use it for "having sex". 
What was predominant in Petőfi's time I have no idea. 
_Czuczor Gergely, Fogarasi János: A magyar nyelv szótára (1862)
egyesűl: 
1) Egy egészszé alakúl, öszvekapcsolódik, egygyé lesz. 
2) Erkölcsi ért. egy véleményre megy által másokkal. 
3) Párosodik, nemileg közösűl. 

Magyar értelmező kéziszótár, Akadémia Kiadó
egyesül 
5. irod Szerelmesével közösül, Szoros testi s lelki közelségbe kerül valakivel 

_*What Petőfi meant (bodily or spiritual uniting) I have no idea...*_
_


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## Zsanna

Yes, even in a _modern_ dictionary it is recognised that _in literature_ the word can be used in the sense of _making love_ even though this term in English is more down to earth and precise, meanwhile the Hungarian is _elevated_ (and probably euphemistic, too, certainly more vague in the details), so "making sex with" is totally out of the question (mainly) for stylistic reasons.

So I'd translate it like this:
So, little girl, if you are hell, in order to be with you, I'll go to hell/I'll choose damnation. (Remark how faint the conditional is! He is really determined.)

Given that at that period (early-mid 19thC) everybody's aim was "to behave" in order to go to heaven, there is an accent on defying all that, stating (OK indirectly) that the given girl is _better than heaven_ because she is worth even giving it up for! No wonder that this (most accentuated) bit closes the poem.


But more to the point: hogy (in order to) is a conjunction introducing aim and the verb after that is in imperative to express the same. (Like in French que+subjonctive and I suppose in Spanish it must be similar - as Olivier has already referred to it.) I couldn't say much for "hogy - so that" (even if the meaning seems to be OK) because I am not sure how it could be put in the sentence in English. ("So as to" maybe?)


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## cisarro

Hey! thank you very much, this thread gone more interesting than I expected 
I agree with Zsanna and others, "making love" doesn't sound too poetic according the original text:

....
_Ha, leányka, te vagy a pokol: (hogy
egyesüljünk) én elkárhozom._


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## Encolpius

egyesülni in that context means to make love and since I am not a native English speaker  nor a professional poetry translator I haven't got the slightest idea how to translate it into English...better to ask Shakespeare...the whole poem sounds rustic so I am not sure if it would be possible to make it sound likr that in English...the Russian language can manage it...


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## francisgranada

_Hogy lényink egyesüljenek _is more than _hogy testeink egyesüljenek.  _I think this poem is not abot making love, but rather about an "örök egyesülés" in all the senses (inclusive making love, of course).  Perhaps, "_to become one_" could be the English equivalent for _egyesülni_ in this context. 


> ...the whole poem sounds rustic


 ?


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