Hatzidakis/Gatsos

What are you looking for, Immortality, in front of my balcony
You don’t pay any attention to me, how can my heart bear it
They loved you in the world, kings and poets
And you never gave them even a small sprig of fresh mint

You are cruel, like the blow of Death
But times came which believed deeply in you
Every generation wants you for their own
Beautiful one, whom no one has ever won

What are you looking for, Immortality, in front of my balcony
What strange sacrifice does Life owe to you?
They came, thirsty Croeses [multi-millionaires], humbly seeking your favors
and from the spring of your garden you never gave them water

You are cruel, like the blow of Death
But times came which believed deeply in you
Every generation wants you for their own
Beautiful one, whom no one has ever won

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Είσαι σκληρή σαν του θανάτου τη γροθιά
μα ήρθαν καιροί που σε πιστέψανε βαθιά
Κάθε γενιά δική της θέλει να γενείς
Ομορφονιά, που δεν σε κέρδισε κανείς

Arthur Rimbaud
Tonight I will go into
your black drunken ship
far away to sail on the open seas
in a horrific circle
which the world is not able to understand

Jasmine flowers of an angel
you scattered in the filth
inheritance
for us
and you eternally
in dark crossroads
do battle with Satan

Arthur Rimbaud
the evening is turbid
and the door of paradise closed
a curse and a rage
divide the earth
and hand in hand go the damned

Arthur Rimbaud
I will go into your drunken ship
Arthur Rimbaud
to see which spark was saved and will light

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Αρθούρε Ρεμπώ
θα μπω στο μεθυσμένο σου καράβι
Αρθούρε Ρεμπώ
να δω ποια σπίθα σώθηκε κι ανάβει

Hark to the story of Kemal
a young prince of the East
descendant of Sinbad the Sailor
who thought he could change the world.
But bitter is the will of Allah
and dark the souls of men.

In the lands of the East once upon a time
the purse was empty and the water stale.
In Mosul* and Bushehr* on the old coconut tree
the children of the desert now cry bitter tears.

And a young man of an old and royal line
hears the lament and grows near.
the Bedouins** look at him sadly
and he gives them an oath in Allah’s name, that times will change.

When the lords heard of the lad’s fearlessness
they set out with wolf’s teeth and lion’s skin
from Tigris*** to Euphrates***, from the earth to the heavens
they hunt for the deserter, to capture him alive.

The horde descends upon him like rabid dogs
and takes him to the Caliph to place the noose [on his neck]
black honey and black milk he drank that morning
before he breathed his last on the gallows.

The Prophet**** awaits before the Gates of Heaven
with two elderly camels and a red horse.
They now go hand in hand and it’s cloudy
but the star of Damascus kept them company.

In a month and a year they see Allah before them
and from his high throne he says to the simple Sinbad:
“my beaten smart-aleck, times do not change,
the world always moves on by fire and blades”

Goodnight Kemal, this world will never change.
Goodnight…

Καληνύχτα Κεμάλ, αυτός ο κόσμος δε θα αλλάξει ποτέ
Καληνύχτα…

The star of the north
will bring clear skies
but before its sail appears from out of the sea
I will become wave and fire
to embrace you foreign lands

And you my faraway lost homeland
you will become a caress and a wound
as if the day is dawning in another earth
Now I am flying for the carnival of life
Now I am flying for the celebration of my joy

My old moons
my new birds
chase the sun and the day from the mountain
so you can see me pass
like a flash of lightning in the sky

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Φεγγάρια μου παλιά
καινούρια μου πουλιά
διώχτε τον ήλιο και τη μέρα απ’ το βουνό
για να με δείτε να περνώ
σαν αστραπή στον ουρανό.

Sky, no, I’m not going to say yes
Sky, distant friend
how can I accept another embrace’s tenderness
how can I accept, my mother is the Earth
how can I forswear the golden light of life
ah Sky, distant heartache

Every dusk I look at the sky
of blue
an I hear a voice,
a celebratory bell
encouraging me

Every Sunday it tells me to go there
there, there
where strange birds
make their nest
on the sun’s stairway.

Sky, no, I’m not going to say yes
Sky, distant friend
how can I accept another embrace’s tenderness
how can I accept, my mother is the Earth
how can I forswear the golden light of life
ah Sky, distant heartache

Every dusk I look at the sky
of blue
and a crazy voice
like a caress and a threat
calls me to it

Every Sunday it tells me to go there
there, there
it promises me oceans
luminous comets
and everything the mind can imagine

Sky, no, I’m not going to say yes
Sky, distant friend
how can I accept another embrace’s tenderness
how can I accept, my mother is the Earth
how can I forswear the golden light of life
ah Sky, distant heartache

Ουρανέ, όχι δε θα πω το ναι
ουρανέ, φίλε μακρινέ
πώς να δεχτώ άλλης αγκαλιάς τη στοργή
πώς να δεχτώ, μάνα μου είναι η γη
πώς ν’ αρνηθώ της ζωής το φως το ξανθό
αχ ουρανέ πόνε μακρινέ

Peribanou the children called her, Peribanou
and she was fifteen years old
She wrote her name on the sky’s looking-glass
with the wing of a drowned seagull

But life’s passionate wave
swept boats and oars
and in the great, uncaring world
who is left to remember her?

Peribanou I called her too, Peribanou
never mind that no-one ever heard me
She looked like a seashell at the bottom of the morning star
before my heart turned to stone

But life’s passionate wave…

Μα της ζωής το κύμα…

Where are they taking the boy, swallow in a cage
Where are they taking the boy and no one has seen him
Where are they taking the brave young man every night in the moonlight
Where are they taking him, what are they saying to him
and his brothers are mourning him

In the mirror of my soul a shadow started to fall
it is the same, the fate which brings me and the fate which takes me

They watch me every dawn and their eyes are a wound
They watch me every dawn and their words are a cry
They watch me, they watch me and they are wearing their black clothes
and one stands over there and he is holding a thunderbolt

In the mirror of my soul a shadow started to fall
it is the same, the fate which brings me and the fate which takes me

Where are they taking the boy, swallow in a cage
Where are they taking the boy and no one has seen him

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Πού το πάνε το παιδί χελιδόνι σε κλουβί
πού το πάνε το παιδί και κανείς δεν το ‘χει δει

Forty palikaria* on the shore of the sea
gambled at dice, gambled for little Rallou
East and west, of the world and everyone in it
they are asking who will win the beauty.

Short is the summer, vast is time,
however nobody does know
who will be the lucky one.
Forty palikaria on the shore of the sea
gambled at dice, gambled for little Rallou

Forty lion-hearted palikari
threw the dice one crazy night.
The jealous moon sends from the mountains
the dread horseman who rules us all.

And Charon (Death), like a snake, snatched the girl off
on a journey without return, to the sunless cave.
Forty palikaria on the shore of the sea
lost at dice, they lost little Rallou

(*palikaria- brave young men)

Κι ο χάροντας σαν φίδι τραβάει την κοπελιά
σ’ αγύριστο ταξίδι σ’ ανήλιαγη σπηλιά
σαράντα παλικάρια στην άκρη του γιαλού
εχάσανε στα ζάρια τη μικρή Ραλλού

During that time, the most thriving branch of Pelasgian oak*
was covering three house settlements about the mysterious rock of the Akropolis
however, after the dramatic events of Mesopotamia,
which led to the eviction of the first created ones from
the valley of the Tiger (Tigris river)
and caused confusion within the mental constitution of human beings,
the house-settlements of Athens began to increase unreasonably.
The existing result was the expansion of the city by leaps and bounds and
the creation of the so-called townsman, who according to the ancient-struck historians
achieved great things and was cloaked with the glamour of eternity.

Bishops and chieftains
conquerors and victorious army commanders
revolutionists and bourgeois
history’s customers.

However, the ancient Gods, in their solicitude for the rest of the Pelasgian tribes,
decided on the gradual collapse of Athens as head city
and the exoneration of Hellenism, as an ethnic whole, anymore,
from the danger of centralization. During the next
long aeons
adequate efforts were shot forth for the revival of the old city-folk,
nonetheless these turned out to be unproductive. Fortunately indeed, because during the latest and hardest ordeal of the nation,
the “de novo” sovereignty of Athens, would weaken
the
mountaintops and
the valleys of the Pelasgian earth,
which formed the final physiognomy of the tribe
and preceded
through an ever-shining light, the foggy horizons of
apprehensive humankind

At Souli* and at Alamana*
we generated light from calamity
will they remember us on the off chance, mother,
at times?

Futile hope. none of them remembered having lived eternally,
none of them comprehended within their real dimensions.
and Athens,
once it was established as the capital of a “newly-built” state,
they began to
prepare for the “de novo” absorption of the nation’s vitality.
Nevertheless, the ancestral heritage had not been entirely wasted and
the succeeding brothers of little Hormopoulos,
originating from the mountains of Epirus
and from all the narrow passes of the immortal homeland,
sailed across the
Aherousian* (lake) of their fate with the serenity of martyrdom and sacrifice.
And the barbaric nations wondered and particularly tittered –
exactly the same as did
Athens.

Strike wrath’s bell, prophets
at Kessariani
For Distomites* to come tonight
For the Kalavritini to come also
with tearing and despair
for their lost sacrifice.

Is it possibly true then, that their sacrifice ended up to have been in vain?
No one is able to declare with certainty and no one is able to
anticipate the future because the human (hi)story is
one
of continuous retrogression. However, with the constant voluminous
hypertrophy of
Attiki perspectives give the impression of darkness. The ancient
Gods do not
exist anymore so as to give the solution and thus, sooner or
later,
Athens will gather to her bosom and will
eliminate for ever
the Hellenic virtue, as Cronus in the farthermost
past
devoured his very own offsprings or, as Helios (the sun) in the farthermost
future will
gather in its embrace its planets and gulp them down!
So be it! and for ever and ever, amen.

When will these lands blossom?
When will new human beings come
to escort stupidity
to its resting place?

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Πότε θ’ ανθίσουνε τούτοι οι τόποι;
Πότε θα ‘ρθούνε κανούργιοι ανθρώποι
να συνοδεύσουνε την βλακεία
στην τελευταία της κατοικία;

John the murderer, son of a woman from Patras
and a man from Mesolongi
the day before yesterday, on Sunday, after being in prison
he came by the house

We brought out sweets for him, we brought out mint for him
but about the murder, we said nothing (x2)

Only Frosi, with a blue tear like the sea
in her great eyes
mutely kissed his costly hands
and went out of the room

No one could bear her pain
And not one of her relatives found a word to say (x2)

And John the murderer, at the edge of the corner
with the thorn of sorrow
remembered again faraway moons and the dream which had been lost

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Κι ο Γιάννης ο φονιάς στην άκρη της γωνιάς
με του καημού τ’ αγκάθι
Θυμήθηκε ξανά φεγγάρια μακρινά και τ’ όνειρο που εχάθη

Πού είσαι Πέτρο; Πού είσαι Γιάννη;
Στου κάτω κόσμου το σιντριβάνι.
Νεράκι πίνω να λησμονήσω.
Γύρισε πίσω! Γύρισε πίσω!

Whatever happens
whatever fortune brings
cundu luna vini
the Vlachs* sing.
Friends in peace
companions in battle
cundu luna vini
the Vlachs sing.

Cundu luna vini
and let happen what will.

The Bedouins cry
the fellahis** sigh
and in Palestine
they burn alone.
Shattered pieces, the moon
on the great ridge
cundu luna vini
the Vlachs sing.

Light and kindness
my son, it doesn’t exist
they throw into the oven
even the patriarch.
The lilies have blackened
the stones have broken
cundu luna vini
the Vlachs sing.

Cundu luna vini
and let happen what will.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Κούντου λούνα βίνι
κι ό,τι θέλει ας γίνει.

Μικραίνει το φεγγάρι
σα ζωντανό σφουγγάρι
μέσα του κλείνει
ό,τι έχει μείνει απ’ την αγάπη μας.

Τ΄ άλογο τ΄ άλογο Ομέρ Βρυώνη
τούτο το σύννεφο μ΄ εξαγριώνει
και το κορίτσι μου προσμένει πάντα
μ΄ ένα θερμόμετρο που λέει σαράντα.

Κάπου… υπάρχει Θεός.