Odysseas Elytis

Lyrics: Odysseas Elytis
Music: Mikis Theodorakis
vocals: Andreas Kouloumpis

Temples in the shape of the sky
and beautiful girls
with the grape in their teeth, you were right for us!
Birds on high lifting the heaviness of our heart
the deep azure that we loved!
They are gone, they are gone.
July with the bright shirt
and stony August with its small uneven steps

Temples in the shape of the sky
and beautiful girls
with the grape in their teeth, you were right for us!
Birds on high lifting the heaviness of our heart
the deep azure that we loved!
They are gone, they are gone.
The Maestro with his pointy sandal and the thoughtless
Greek with his slanting red banners.
They are gone, they are gone
and deep beneath the earth clouds gathered, throwing up black gravel
and thunder, the rage of the dead
and slowly moaning in the wind
they came back with their chests thrust out
fearsome statues of rock.

Ναοί στο σχήμα τ’ ουρανού
και κορίτσια ωραία με το σταφύλι στα δόντια που μας πρέπατε!
Πουλιά το βάρος της καρδίας μας ψηλά μηδενίζοντας και πολύ γαλάζιο που αγαπήσαμε!
Φύγανε φύγανε
ο Μαΐστρος με το μυτερό του σάνταλο και ο Γραίγος ο ασυλλόγιστος με τα λοξά του κόκκινα πανιά.
Φύγανε και βαθιά κάτω απ’ το χώμα συννέφιασε ανεβάζοντας
χαλίκι μαύρο και βροντές, η οργή των νεκρών
και αργά στον άνεμο τρίζοντας εγυρίσανε πάλι με το στήθος μπροστά
φοβερά, των βράχων τ’ αγάλματα!

She will turn elsewhere the lines
Of the palm, Fate, like a turnkey
One moment Time will consent”
…………………………………..
Odysseas Elytis
(translation: Eva Johanos)

Θά γυρίσει αλλού τίς χαρακιές
Τής παλάμης,η Μοίρα,σάν κλειδούχος
Μιά στιγμή θά συγκατατεθεί ο Καιρός
…………………………………
O. Eλύτης

Οδυσσέας Ελύτης

You have a taste of tempest on your lips—But where did you wander
All day long in the hard reverie of stone and sea?
An eagle-bearing wind stripped the hills
Stripped your longing to the bone
And the pupils of your eyes received the message of chimera
Spotting memory with foam!
Where is the familiar slope of short September
On the red earth where you played, looking down
At the broad rows of the other girls
The corners where your friends left armfuls of rosemary.

But where did you wander
All night long in the hard reverie of stone and sea?
I told you to count in the naked water its luminous days
On your back to rejoice in the dawn of things
Or again to wander on yellow plains
With a clover of light on you breast, iambic heroine.

You have a taste of tempest on your lips
And a dress red as blood
Deep in the gold of summer
And the perfume of hyacinths—But where did you wander
Descending toward the shores, the pebbled bays?

There was cold salty seaweed there
But deeper a human feeling that bled
And you opened your arms in astonishment naming it
Climbing lightly to the clearness of the depths
Where your own starfish shone.

Listen. Speech is the prudence of the aged
And time is a passionate sculptor of men
And the sun stands over it, a beast of hope
And you, closer to it, embrace a love
With a bitter taste of tempest on your lips.

It is not for you, blue to the bone, to think of another summer,
For the rivers to change their bed
And take you back to their mother
For you to kiss other cherry trees
Or ride on the northwest wind.

Propped on the rocks, without yesterday or tomorrow,
Facing the dangers of the rocks with a hurricane hairstyle
You will say farewell to the riddle that is yours.

Στυλωμένη στους βράχους δίχως χτες και αύριο,
Στους κινδύνους των βράχων με τη χτενισιά της θύελλας
Θ’ αποχαιρετήσεις το αίνιγμά σου.

We walked in the fields all day
With the women, the suns, our dogs
We played we sang we drank water
Fresh as it leapt out from the centuries
In the late afternoon for one moment we sat
And we looked each other deeply in the eyes.
A butterfly flew from our breasts
It was whiter
Than the small white branch of the edge of our dreams
We knew that it was never to be extinguished
How it had no memory of what worms it pulled

In the evening we lit a fire
And we sang around and around:

Fire beautiful fire don’t pity the logs
Fire beautiful fire don’t reach to the ash
Fire beautiful fire burn for us
tell us life.

We call her life, we grab her by the hand
We look at her eyes which look back at us
And if what intoxicates us is a magnet, we recognize it
And if that which hurts us is bad, we have felt it
We call her life, we go forward
And we bid farewell to the birds which are migrating.

We are of a good generation.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

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