Ήταν ωραίο εκείνο το απόγευμα με την ατέλειωτη συζήτηση στο πεζοδρόμιο. Τα πουλιά κελαηδούσαν, οι άνθρωποι πέρναγαν, τ’ αυτοκίνητα τρέχανε. Στο απέναντι παράθυρο το ράδιο έπαιζε ρεμπέτικα και το κορίτσι του διπλανού μας τραγούδαγε το ντέρτι του. Φυλλορροούσε η ακακία κι ευώδιαζε το γιασεμί και μες στην τάπια τα παιδιά παίζαν κρυφτούλι και τα κορίτσια γύρναγαν σκοινί — παίζαν στην τάπια και δεν ξέραν από θάνατο παίζαν στην τάπια και δεν ξέραν από τύψη, κι εγώ τους αγάπησα πολύ τους ανθρώπους εκείνο το απόγευμα, δεν ξέρω γιατί, πολύ τους αγάπησα, σαν ένας μελλοθάνατος.
Afternoon
It a fine afternoon with endless discussion on the sidewalk. The birds chanted, the people passed by, the cars rushed. In the opposite window the radio was playing rebetika and the girl next door sang out her longing. The acacia bloomed and the jasmine gave its fragrance and on the bastions the kids were playing hide and seek and the girls skipped rope – they played on the ramparts and they never knew death they played on the ramparts and they didn’t know about remorse, and I really loved the people that afternoon, I don’t know why I loved them so much, like someone about to die.
New poet. Dinos Christianopoulos was born in Thessaloniki, in 1931. He is a poet, scholar and literary critic, and also a mentor for a younger generation of poets.
The sea is like love: you go in and cannot know if you will come out. For how many did it not consume their youth – fatal dives, deadly dives, cramps, holes, unnoticed rocks, whirlpools, sharks, jellyfish. Damned if we will cut down on the swims just because some five, six drown. Damned if we will betray the sea because there are ways that it will engulf us. The sea is like love: a thousand ways to rejoice – and one to pay it.
In the world of Leivaditis, where soft cries are heard in a stairwell, a tired traveller reaches the end of the day, drunken shouts are heard from the street. This unpromising setting still delivers some very powerful poetry. If you don’t know him, take a peek.
Αὐτὸς ποὺ σωπαίνει
Τὸ σούρουπο ἔχει πάντα τὴ θλίψη
ἑνὸς ἀτέλειωτου χωρισμοῦ
Κι ἐγὼ ἔζησα σὲ νοικιασμένα δωμάτια
μὲ τὶς σκοτεινὲς σκάλες τους
ποὺ ὁδηγοῦνε
ἄγνωστο ποῦ…
Μὲ τὶς μεσόκοπες σπιτονοικοκυρὲς
ποὺ ἀρνοῦνται
κλαῖνε λίγο
κι ὕστερα ἐνδίδουν
καὶ τ᾿ ἄλλο πρωί,
ἀερίζουν τὸ σπίτι
ἀπ᾿ τοὺς μεγάλους στεναγμούς…
Στὰ παλαιικὰ κρεβάτια
μὲ τὰ πόμολα στὶς τέσσερις ἄκρες
πλάγιασαν κι ὀνειρεύτηκαν
πολλοὶ περαστικοὶ αὐτοῦ τοῦ κόσμου
κι ὕστερα ἀποκοιμήθηκαν
γλυκεῖς κι ἀπληροφόρητοι
σὰν τοὺς νεκροὺς στὰ παλιὰ κοιμητήρια
Ὅμως ἐσὺ σωπαίνεις…
Γιατί δὲ μιλᾷς;
Πές μου!
Γιατί ἤρθαμε ἐδῶ;
Ἀπὸ ποῦ ἤρθαμε;
Κι αὐτὰ τὰ ἱερογλυφικὰ τῆς βροχῆς πάνω στὸ χῶμα;
Τί θέλουν νὰ ποῦν;
The dusk carries always the sorrow
of a final separation
And I have been living in rented rooms
with their murky stairs
that lead
who knows where …
With the landladies of a certain age
who refuse
cry a little
and then give in
and the next morning,
air out from the house
the big sighs …
In the ancient beds
with knobs in the four corners
they laughed and dreamt
the many passers-by of that world
and then they went to sleep
sweet and unaware
like the dead in the old cemeteries
But you are silent …
Why do you not speak?
Tell me!
Why did we come here?
From where did we come?
And those patterns the rain makes on the earth?
What do they want to say?
Oh, if you could read them!!!
Everything would change…
Finally, after years I came back …
I could not find it despite the same deserted roads,
the same cigarette shop at the corner …
And filled with all that is unknown
in the hour when evening comes…
The Greece that interested Ekelöf wasn’t classical Greece, nor the present. His heart was in the struggling Greece, from the dying day of the Byzantine empire to the life of the farmers and families making ends meet under Turkish rule or hastily created independence.
Grekland
O vitlimmade kapell
med sönderkyssta ikoner!
Din dörr är stängd
blott med en spik och en tåt av ull
sådan man tar den bland tistlarna
och tvinnar runt fingret
Oljeflasken står där till buds
och den flottiga lampan, och fatet
för den som har leptas
för den som har tändstickor
Gamla och unga ikoner
givna av mödrar
– tillfällen har inte fattats –
för den som blev kvar i passet
för den som blev rövad till janitschar
för den vars ögonhålor blev tomma
för den som blev borta med Markos –
fattiga tryck under glas
Stort som ett fårskjul:
Dina klockor är fårens skällor
klämtande någonstans uppe i bergen
kapell vars lås är av ull.
Greece
Oh, white-limed chapel
with icons kissed to pieces!
Your door is closed
just with a nail and a tuft of wool
as you would pick among the thistles
and twine around your finger
The oil flask stands there to use
And the greasy lamp, and the plate
for those who have leptas
for those who have matches
Old and young icons
given by mothers
– no lack of opportunities –
for he who was left at the pass
for he who was taken to janissary
for he who’s eyeholes were left empty
for he who was lost with Markos –
poor prints under glass
The size of a sheep’ shed: Your bells are the sheep’s bells chiming somewhere up in the mountains chapel whose lock is of wool.
A final poem before I take a summer break. A relationship as a jungle….
There might be an occasional translation in the coming weeks, but don’t hold your breath. Enjoy your summers (or winters if you’re antipodean)!
Ζούγκλα
Πρωί κι όλα του κόσμου στημένα στην ιδεώδη απόσταση μιας μονομαχίας. Τα όπλα έχουν διαλεχτεί τα ίδια πάντα, οι ανάγκες σου, οι ανάγκες μου. Αυτός που θα μέτραγε ένα δύο τρία πυρ καθυστερούσε, κι ώσπου να ‘ρθει καθίσαμε στην ίδια καλημέρα και χαζεύαμε τη φύση.
Η εξοχή βρισκόταν στην ήβη και το πράσινο ασελγούσε. Κραυγές τροπαιοφόρου θηριωδίας έσερνε ο Ιούνιος της υπαίθρου. Πιανόταν και πηδούσε από κλαδί δέντρων και αισθήσεων, σε κλαδί δέντρων και αισθήσεων, Ταρζάν ταινίας μικρού μήκους που κυνηγάει αθέατα θηρία στη μικρή ζούγκλα μιας ιστορίας. Το δάσος υποσχότανε πουλιά και φίδια. Δηλητηριώδης αφθονία αντιθέτων. Το φως έπεφτε καταπέλτης, σ’ ό, τι δεν ήταν φως, κι η ερωτομανής λαμπρότης παράφορα φιλούσε κι ό, τι δεν ήταν έρωτας, μέχρι και τη δική σου συνοφρύωση.
Στη μικρή εκκλησία άλλος κανείς εκτός από το πολύ όνομά της, ΄Ελευθερώτρια. Ένας Χριστός περίφροντις μέτραγε με το πάθος του φιλάργυρου το βιος του: καρφιά κι αγκάθια. Επόμενο ήταν να μην έχει ακούσει τους πυροβολισμούς.
Jungle
It’s morning and all the world is poised at the ideal distance for a duel. The weapons have been chosen always the same, your needs, my needs. The one that will count one-two-three fire Is being delayed, and until he may arrive we sat with the same Good Morning and idly looked at the nature.
The landscape was going through puberty and the green was molesting it. A rural June dragged screaming a monstrous trophy. Catching and leaping from tree branches and sensations, to tree branches and sensations A Tarzan short where he hunts invisible beasts in the little jungle of a story. The forest promised birds and snakes. Poisonous abundance of opposites. The light dropped as if slung down, into what was not light, and its impassioned splendour kissed madly what was not love, even your own frown.
In the little church is no one except her pretentious name, Liberatrix. A despondent Christ counted his life with the passion of the miser: nails and thorns. No wonder he didn’t hear the shots.
Leonard Cohen re-imagined this poem as Alexandra Leaving. The original was written based on Plutarch’s Life of Anthony. Both are pinnacles of their craft.
“During this night, it is said, about the middle of it, while the city was quiet and depressed through fear and expectation of what was coming, suddenly certain harmonious sounds from all sorts of instruments were heard, and the shouting of a throng, accompanied by cries of Bacchic revelry and satyric leapings, as if a troop of revellers, making a great tumult, were going forth from the city; and their course seemed to lie about through the middle of the city toward the outer gate which faced the enemy, at which point the tumult became loudest and then dashed out. Those who sought the meaning of the sign were of the opinion that the god to whom Antony always most likened and attached himself was now deserting him. “
From this Cohen extracted the sense of loss when your lover leaves you. These are two sublime poems/songs. Enjoy.
Απολείπειν ο Θεός Αντώνιον
Σαν έξαφνα, ώρα μεσάνυχτ’, ακουσθεί αόρατος θίασος να περνά με μουσικές εξαίσιες, με φωνές— την τύχη σου που ενδίδει πια, τα έργα σου που απέτυχαν, τα σχέδια της ζωής σου που βγήκαν όλα πλάνες, μη ανωφέλετα θρηνήσεις. Σαν έτοιμος από καιρό, σα θαρραλέος, αποχαιρέτα την, την Aλεξάνδρεια που φεύγει. Προ πάντων να μη γελασθείς, μην πεις πως ήταν ένα όνειρο, πως απατήθηκεν η ακοή σου· μάταιες ελπίδες τέτοιες μην καταδεχθείς. Σαν έτοιμος από καιρό, σα θαρραλέος, σαν που ταιριάζει σε που αξιώθηκες μια τέτοια πόλι, πλησίασε σταθερά προς το παράθυρο, κι άκουσε με συγκίνησιν, αλλ’ όχι με των δειλών τα παρακάλια και παράπονα, ως τελευταία απόλαυσι τους ήχους, τα εξαίσια όργανα του μυστικού θιάσου, κι αποχαιρέτα την, την Aλεξάνδρεια που χάνεις.
The God Abandons Antony
Suddenly, at midnight, was heard an invisible procession pass on with exquisite music, with voices- No futile laments for your fate that will yield no more, for your works that failed, for the plans of your life which came out all wrong. As if long prepared, with courage, bid farewell to her, the Alexandria that leaves. Above all do not be fooled, do not say it was a dream, that your ears deceived you; don’t stoop to such vain hopes. As if long prepared, with courage, as befits one worthy of such a city, come steadily closer towards the window, and listen with emotion, but not to the entreaties and complaints of the cowards, as you enjoy the sounds a final time, the exquisite instruments of the secret procession, and bid farewell to her, the Alexandria you are losing.
Here is an unusual prospect. Kavafis as a holidaymaker, enjoying the idea of a summer home. It does not fit with the image of the world-weary flaneur, which could be the reason it is among Kavafis’ “hidden poems”. I find it absolutely delghtful.
Σπίτι με κήπον
Ήθελα να ’χω ένα σπίτι εξοχικό μ’ έναν πολύ μεγάλο κήπο— όχι τόσο για τα λουλούδια, για τα δένδρα, και τες πρασινάδες (βέβαια να βρίσκονται κι αυτά· είν’ ευμορφότατα) αλλά για να ’χω ζώα. A να ’χω ζώα! Τουλάχιστον επτά γάτες— οι δυο κατάμαυρες, και δυο σαν χιόνι κάτασπρες, για την αντίθεσι. Έναν σπουδαίο παπαγάλο, να τον αγρικώ να λέγει πράγματα μ’ έμφασι και πεποίθησιν. Aπό σκυλιά, πιστεύω τρία θα μ’ έφθαναν. Θα ’θελα και δυο άλογα (καλά είναι τ’ αλογάκια). Κι εξ άπαντος τρία, τέσσαρα απ’ τ’ αξιόλογα, τα συμπαθητικά εκείνα ζώα, τα γαϊδούρια, να κάθονται οκνά, να χαίροντ’ οι κεφάλες των.
House with a Garden
I want to have a country house with a very large garden – not so much for the flowers, the trees, and the greenery (of course they will also be found there; they are too beautiful) but to keep animals. Oh, I will have animals! At least seven cats – two of them pitch-black, and two as white as snow, as a contrast. An imposing parrot, I may be afraid that he will say things I have argued and confessed. Of dogs, I think I would get three. I would also want two horses (riding is great). And by all means three, four of those remarkable, those sympathetic animals, the asses, to laze around with, to delight in their heads.
