Mimis Plessas / Μίμης Πλέσσας

I cried yesterday as I counted
the bitternesses of my soul
and you were not by my side
star of my life

I cried yesterday as I counted
the nights I am on my own
The nights during when I look for you
and pain stabs me

Έκλαψα χτες σαν μέτρησα
τις νύχτες που `μαι μόνος
τις νύχτες που σ’ αναζητώ
και με καρφώνει ο πόνος

Thousands of nights you will deny me
Thousands (of nights) you will look for me
And wherever you go and wherever you stand
As much as you want to deny me you will remember
The love we lived and you will long for me.

Thousands of nights you will deny me
Thousands (of nights) you will look for me.

Thousands of nights you will try
To erase the past
But when a night will come
When loneliness will enfold you, you will remember
And you will look for my company again.

Thousands of nights you will deny me
Thousands (of nights) you will look for me.

Χίλιες βραδιές θα μ’ αρνηθείς
χίλιες θα με ζητήσεις

For you to love me and I you
for you to look at me and I at you
where do your eyes go
where is joy
kiss me my love
another time

Wherever you go I will come to come in
your embrace to sleep
you will wake me I will wake you
and I will live my dream

For you to laugh at me and I at you
for you to speak to me and I to you
it is beautiful, life beside you
kiss me my love until the morning

(translation: Eva Johanos)

It was October, and you were kissing me
and the station was packed with fantarous**
and from the railroad car you were singing
“Fascism will not pass this way.”***

And storms came, and snows
And it kept being delayed, your return-
But you sent me messages with the swallows, saying
“Fascism will not pass this way.”

I cry in the evenings with the memory of you,
and the tears are a flood. . .
because you have paid with your life
and fascism has passed this way.

(translation: Eva Johanos
*censored during the dictatorship of the generals,
this performance at the “Peroquet” theater in a production entitled
“Our best years”
**fantaros~ singular, fantarous~plural: conscripts, young men serving their compulsory military service; still required in Greece
***a popular anti-fascist slogan in Greece)

Another day has passed while I waited for you
another Saturday night has gone by wasted
and grief got ahold of me by the shoulder
my eyes have gone dim from looking at the street

Should you see the moon
bid it not come out
not to see my tears
that have flooded the earth

The darkness stormed in through the window
your wine froze in the glass
out in the open sea flares appeared
an open sea is now my orphanhood

Should you see the moon
bid it not come out
not to see my tears
that have flooded the earth

Άμα δείτε το φεγγάρι
να του πείτε να μη βγει
να μη δει τα δάκρυά μου
που πλημμύρισαν τη γη

Last night at midnight I went down
to the little square where I met you

Some statue which saw me remembered me
and did not refuse to hear my pain

And I spoke to him about you and about me
and his eyes filled with tears and began to weep
I told him about your behavior, and the other things about you
about the unforgiven mistakes, your big ones

And after that, I was seized, my God, by some terrible sobbing
so that the first rays of dawn found me as torn up as an old rag
with the statue, to the street we advanced
he wiped my eyes and we parted

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Tonight I will drink up the moon,
and I will get drunk and I will say:
since you are hurting for someone else
throw me a knife, let me get cut.

And as the knife cuts into me,
repenting, you will say to me:
take the moon’s tear
and wash off the blood

And I, I will cut down the moon
to attach it in your hair,
and when we go to bed, I will be holding
heaven itself in my embrace.

And when we wake up
and go again to our old haunts,
think how beautiful you will be
with the moon in your hair

If I deny you my love,
may a great evil befall me.
May the sky forsake me,
may I see the sun black.

If I deny you my love,
may my friends deny me.
May I never be caressed,
may I never kiss lips.

If i deny you, I cross my heart
and make a great vow before you,
if I deny you my love,
may I drop dead.

May I drop dead.

[The great Greek/Rom singer and songwriter, Kostas Hatzis, so young and sleek in this clip from the 1961 movie "Fat cats and poor kids."]

At the sweet hour of the late afternoon
Stathis with his broken legs
weighs anchor and voyages with his mind
to places exotic and dreamed-of.

And hobbling along, as the darkness falls,
he returns to his house and cries all by himself.
Ah, to hear once again truly some evening:
“Hoist the anchors and full speed ahead!”

He, too voyaged from the time he was a kid,
but once far out from Santiago
to save the life of the boatswain
he got his leg crushed by the tackle.

And hobbling along, as the darkness falls,
he returns to his house and cries all by himself.
Ah, to hear once again truly some evening:
“Hoist the anchors and full speed ahead!”
“Hoist the anchors and full speed ahead!”

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Και κούτσα-κούτσα, όταν πέφτει το σκοτάδι,
γυρνά στο σπίτι του και κλαίει μοναχός.
Αχ, να ξανάκουγε στ’ αλήθεια ένα βράδυ,
“Βίρα τις άγκυρες και πρόσω ολοταχώς,
βίρα τις άγκυρες και πρόσω ολοταχώς!”

At Υannina on the black lake, the waterlilies smell so sweet,
And in the night, to mistress Frosini, angels go and they kiss her.

At Yannina on the black lake, little birds weep without a word
Little birds weep, mistress Frosini, for your sweet lips that go unkissed.

Charos, you said, let him take me, best let the earth get the use of me!
and one palikari was heart-broken, but you were not there to see him.

At Yannina on the black lake, little birds weep without a word
Little birds weep, mistress Frosini, for your sweet lips that go unkissed.

Στα Γιάννενα στη μαύρη λίμνη πουλάκια κλαιν αμίλητα
πουλάκια κλαιν κυρά Φροσύνη τα χείλη σου τ’ αφίλητα