Miriji sets up a scheme to have Kurawa impersonate Balaga

Mirígy’s deception turns Csongor’s trust in Balga into a trap: she orders Kurrah to take Balga’s place, guide Csongor to a garden at noon, and put him to sleep with a magic powder. The plan’s force lies in its precise staging. Kurrah need not overpower Csongor; he only has to look like the person Csongor expects to find beside him, and then offer rest at the moment Csongor longs for Tünde.

The Scheme and Its Aim

Mirígy gives Kurrah his instructions after he asks what more he must do. She tells him to become Balga’s servant and to confine the real Balga, then dress in Balga’s clothes. The disguise is meant to prevent Csongor from suspecting that anything around him has changed. The substitution therefore depends on an absence of visible disruption: Csongor should encounter what seems to be the familiar companion, not discover a stranger in Balga’s place.

Mirígy’s plan also specifies where and when the deception will culminate. She predicts that Csongor will take Kurrah, in Balga’s guise, to a garden at the height of midday. There Kurrah is to sprinkle him with the powder Mirígy provides. Its effect is unusually powerful: Csongor will fall asleep even if every minute he spends sleeping would seem to last half a world. The garden’s midday light and the drug’s spell thus become parts of a calculated ambush, not incidental surroundings.

The Substitution

The plot is carried out through concealment and impersonation. Kurrah first appears as a traveler with a donkey, and, while attention is elsewhere, Balga is dragged into a stable with the animal. Csongor later comes out and speaks of needing to find Tünde at noon. When Kurrah emerges dressed as Balga, he presents himself as though he were the companion Csongor has been waiting for. The stage direction makes the fraud legible to the audience even as it is designed to pass unnoticed by Csongor.

The difference between what Csongor knows and what the audience sees drives the scene’s dramatic irony. Balga has been removed, yet Csongor continues to act on the assumption that his companion is available to accompany and assist him. Mirígy’s instruction that the change must not be suspected is fulfilled not by a complicated explanation but by a familiar appearance and a familiar role. Kurrah’s disguise converts an imposed absence into an apparently unchanged relationship.

The Garden and the Enchanted Sleep

At the garden, Kurrah adopts the part of a helpful companion. He points Csongor toward a grassy bed, describing its cool, fragrant shelter beneath the leafy canopy, and urges him to rest there. The invitation answers Csongor’s exhaustion and desire for Tünde with an appealing pause. Csongor wishes that ill fortune would leave him alone while he sleeps, then falls asleep, asking Balga to wake him if his beloved arrives.

That request exposes the trap’s emotional cost. Csongor is not choosing to abandon his meeting with Tünde; he believes that his trusted companion will protect the opportunity while he rests. But the man he has addressed as Balga is Kurrah, the very agent who has arranged to make him sleep. Tünde and Ilma arrive after Csongor has fallen asleep. Mirígy’s deception therefore turns a brief, apparently safe rest into the means by which Csongor misses the encounter he most wants.

Consequence and Narrative Function

The scheme coordinates three forms of concealment: Balga is physically shut away, Kurrah’s clothing masks his identity, and the sleeping powder removes Csongor from the approaching meeting. Each step makes the next possible. Without the real Balga’s confinement, the disguise risks discovery; without the disguise, Csongor might resist Kurrah’s guidance; without the induced sleep, the substitution would not keep Csongor from Tünde’s arrival.

The episode makes trust itself part of Mirígy’s weapon. Csongor’s confidence in Balga allows Kurrah to direct him without open force, and the tender image of a sheltered resting place conceals an adversarial purpose. The plan’s success at its immediate objective is explicit: Csongor falls asleep before Tünde and Ilma come. Its dramatic irony rests on the distance between the scene Csongor believes he inhabits—a companion keeping watch while he rests—and the scene the audience sees, in which a disguised enemy has engineered his absence.