Dimitris Lagios

A beautiful and strange country
like the one that luck gave me, I ‘ve never seen

He throws the net to catch fish. he catches birds,
he sets a boat on the ground, a garden in the water,
he cries, kisses the dirt, goes to live abroad,
lives on the five roads, he becomes a man

A beautiful and strange country
like the one that luck gave me, I ‘ve never seen

He goes to take a stone, he throws it away
he goes to carve it, he makes miracles
he takes a little boat, he reaches the oceans
he seeks uprising, he seeks tyrants

A beautiful and strange country
like the one that luck gave me, I ‘ve never seen

Όμορφη και παράξενη πατρίδα
ω σαν αυτή που μου ‘λαχε δεν είδα

A decorated ship goes out in the mountains
And begins its maneuvering “hoist! haul!”
It drops anchor among the pinecones
And loads up with fresh air from both sides

It is made from black rock and from dreams
and it has an innocent boatswain and a crafty sailor
from the depths it reaches to the old times
it unloads hard times, sighs and difficulties

Come, Christ and Lord I say and feel doubt
such a mad ship, ship of madness
for years we have been traveling on it and we have not sunk
we have changed a thousand captains

We never took into account all the cataclysms
we engaged in everything and passed through it
and we have, on our mast, a great look-out
and always the Sun, the Great Sun

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Κατακλυσμούς ποτέ δε λογαριάσαμε
μπήκαμε μες στα όλα και περάσαμε
κι έχουμε στο κατάρτι μας βιγλάτορα
παντοτινό τον Ήλιο τον Ηλιάτορα

A human being does not need much
to be calm and without malice

a little food a little wine
Christmas and Easter

and where he makes his nest and stays
for no one to reach him there

But the things came differently
they wake him up at the break of dawn

they turn everything around on him
and they consume his little life

and the bite of food from his mouth
right at the sweetest moment

they even take that
that they may enjoy it, the strong ones!

May they enjoy it, the strong ones
for them there is never enough to satisfy them

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Χαρά στους που ‘ναι οι Δυνατοί
γι’ αυτούς δεν έχει χόρταση.

To dream and from the window to dream
to go inside of you to be destroyed and to die

My salvation is death and your body
to go inside of you to be destroyed and to die

To dream and from the window to dream
on a wide beach in the abandonment of the white winter

To dream and from the window to dream

Nakedness gleams with the white gleaming
it charms death with white
absence and everything is nothing, expense, nakedness…

To dream and from the window to dream
with eros around and death beneath the eyes

Expenditure continuously there are no masks
it is the dream which enchants

I open… it is dawning…

(second voice: first two verses)

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Ανοίγω…..ξημερώνει…..

To dream and from the window to dream
to go inside of you to be destroyed and to die
My salvation is death and your body
to go inside of you to be destroyed and to die

(translation: Eva Johanos)
(a rare performance, by Lagios himself. From his last record, “Erotic Rehearsal.”)

(Μία σπάνια εκτέλεση, με την ερμηνεία του ίδιου του Λάγιου. Από τον τελευταίο του δίσκο “Ερωτική Πρόβα”.)