Loudoviko of Anoyeion

What is the color of love-
who will tell me it?

If it is red like the sun
it will burn like fire.
Yellow like the moon
it will suffer from loneliness.

If it is the color of the sky
it will be far away.
If it is black like the night
it will be crafty.

What is the color of love-
who will tell me it?

If it is a white cloud
It leaves and passes.
If it is a white jasmine flower
the blossom spoils
If it is a white jasmine flower
the blossom spoils

If it is the rainbow
which cannot be grasped
It always seems that I am arriving there
and it always disappears
It always seems that I am arriving there
and it always disappears

What is the color of love-
who will tell me it?

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Ποιο το χρώμα της αγάπης
ποιός θα μου το βρεί;

The bullet hit him in the back
and he took three steps and stood
and he took three steps and stood

The white shirt bleeds
a red rose speeads
a red rose spreads

Drops its rose petals leave behind
the bloody rose of Cha’i’ni

He bent his knees and fell
and dragged himself on the mirror of rainwater

And he saw, in his face, Eleni
dressed in black, waiting for him

A sheet of vapor the night prepares
the light of the moon and covers him
the light of the moon and covers him

Since he had no mother to weep for him
and sing beautiful mourning songs for him

(translation: Eva Johanos)
*(The Cha’i’nis is the rebel in the mountains, the outlaw. Chainides were Cretans who went out into the mountains during the Tourkokratia (Turkish occupation of Greece)

(*Χαϊνης είναι ο αντάρτης στα βουνά, ο φυγόδικος. Χαϊνηδες ήταν κρητικοί που βγήκαν στα βουνά κατά την τουρκοκρατία)

In the beginning it was very small and invisible, without anything else,
but the small over time became big.

And slowly, gently, the desire came into my depths,
and made roots and branches, shoots and leaves and blossoms.

A somehow small desire aroused my mind
and two wings made in my thought:
So let this desire fly, into the great expanse of the sky
and as long as there is a sign of fire, let it burn out its excitement there.
And for that reason I threw myself from a precipice, since I don’t have wings,
because I lived in the lowlands and chased after the high places,
and still this desire does not want to leave me,
so for this reason I make other wings, and again fly to the heights,
and again I find the fire, and again it pricks me
and from the heights where I find myself it throws me down low again.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Μια κάποια λίγη πεθυμιά ξεσήκωσε το νου μου
και δυο φτερούγες ήκαμε μέσα του λογισμού μου:
Τούτες την πεθυμιά πετού, στον ουρανό την πάσι
κι όσο σημώνου τση φωτιάς, τσι καίγει εκείν’ η βράση.
Και πάραυτας γκρεμνίζομαι, απείς φτερά δεν έχω,
γιατί ήφηκα τα χαμηκά και τα ψηλά ξετρέχω,
και πάλι εκείνη η πεθυμιά δε θέλει να μου λείψη,
πάραυτας κάνω άλλα φτερά, πάλι πετώ στα ύψη,
και πάλι βρίσκω τη φωτιά, πάλι ξανακεντά με
κι απ’ τα ψηλά που βρίσκομαι με ξαναρίχνει χάμαι.