Yiannis Ritsos / Γιάννης Ρίτσος

Ritsos, the poet of “The Greek Spirit” (Romiosini), was born in 1909 in Monemvasia, in the south east coast of the Peloponnese. He took part in the National Resistance Movement and went into exile. In 1956 he was honoured with the first national poetry prize for his work “Moonlight Sonata” and again in 1977 with the Lenin Peace Prize. He died in 1990 and was buried in his native land.

[Video from "bluesky tv" 15-2-2009]

And I, my brothers dream
of a song for our state-
A song that will be like a house for the homeless
that will be like bread for the hungry
like justice for those who have been wronged-
A song like a table that has been spread
where you can set down
the bread and your glass
your fist, your elbows
your foreheads, your hope,
where you can set down
a vase of cold water with five red roses.
A song that will give birth to songs,
joy and trust,
a song that will be the child of our state,
a song that will hold our state under its arm…
A song that will help you
my brothers, to build happiness
a song that will make the world
more just more beautiful more strong
a song that will make the world free.”

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Κι εγώ, αδέρφια μου ονειρεύομαι
ένα τραγούδι για την πολιτεία μας –
Ένα τραγούδι να ‘ναι σα σπίτι για τους άστεγους
να ‘ναι σαν το ψωμί για τους πεινασμένους
σαν το δίκιο για τους αδικημένους –
Ένα τραγούδι σα στρωμένο τραπέζι
όπου μπορείτε ν’ ακουμπήσετε
το ψωμί και το ποτήρι σας
τη γροθιά σας, τους αγκώνες σας
τα μέτωπά σας, την ελπίδα σας,
όπου μπορείτε ν’ ακουμπήσετε
ένα κανάτι κρύο νερό με πέντε κόκκινα τριαντάφυλλα.
Ένα τραγούδι να γεννάει τραγούδια,
χαρά κι εμπιστοσύνη,
ένα τραγούδι να ‘ναι το παιδί της πολιτείας μας
ένα τραγούδι να κρατά την πολιτεία απ’ τη μασκάλη….
Ένα τραγούδι που να σας βοηθάει
αδέρφια μου, στο χτίσιμο της ευτυχίας
ένα τραγούδι που να κάνει τον κόσμο
πιο δίκαιο πιο όμορφο πιο δυνατό
ένα τραγούδι που να κάνει ελεύθερο τον κόσμο.

The year of my birth possibly 903 B.C.- also possibly 903 A.D. I studied history of the past and the future
in the contemporary School of the Struggle. My profession:
words and words,- what could I do? A packrat they called me. And in fact.
I collected a bunch of ostrich feathers from the ha-at of the underground Kore,
buttons from tepid soldiers, a helmet, two beat-up sandals,
I also gathered two matchboxes and the tobacco-pouch
of the Big Blindman. At the recording office, in the last years, they gave me
the by now unbelievable date of my birth: 1909.
That felt comfortable to me, and I remain. Finally,
in 3909 I sat on my stool to smoke a cigarette. Then
they overtook me, the flatterers; they paid homage to me; they put on my fingers
shiny rings. The idiots did not know
that I had made them myself from their empty cartridges which had been left behind on the hills.
For that reason exactly, for their beautiful ignorance, I rewarded them richly
with real pebbles/precious stones and double compliments. At any rate
the only sure thing: the place of my birth: Outer Minos.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Xρονολογία της γέννησής μου πιθανόν το 903 π.X. – εξίσου πιθανόν
το 903 μ.X. Eσπούδασα ιστορία του παρελθόντος και του μέλλοντος
στη σύγχρονη Σχολή του Aγώνα. Eπάγγελμά μου:
λόγια και λόγια, – τι νά ‘κανα; Pακοσυλλέκτη με είπαν. Kαι τώντι.
Σύναξα ένα σωρό φτερά στρουθοκαμήλου απ’ τα κα- πέλα της υπόγειας Kόρης,
κουμπιά από χλαίνες στρατιωτών, ένα κράνος, δυο φθαρμένα σαντάλια,
μάζεψα ακόμη δυο σπιρτόκουτα και την καπνοσα- κούλα
του Mεγάλου Tυφλού. Στο Ληξιαρχείο, τα τελευταία χρόνια, μού δωσαν
την πλέον απίθανη χρονολογία της γέννησής μου: 1909.
Bολεύτηκα μ’ αυτήν, και μένω. Tέλος,
το 3909 κάθισα στο σκαμνί μου να καπνίσω ένα τσι- γάρο. Tότε
κατάφτασαν οι κόλακες· με προσκυνούσαν· μου περ- νούσαν στα δάχτυλα
λαμπρά δαχτυλίδια. Oι ανίδεοι δεν ξέραν
πως τά ‘χα φτιάξει εγώ με τ’ άδεια τους φυσίγγια πού ‘χαν μείνει στους λόφους.
Γι’ αυτό ακριβώς, για την ωραία τους άγνοια, τους αντάμειψα πλούσια
με αληθινά πετράδια και διπλάσιες κολακείες. Πάντως
το μόνο σίγουρο: τόπος της γέννησής μου: η Άκρα Mινώα.

A spring evening. A large room in an old house. A woman of a certain age, dressed in black, is speaking to a young man. They have not turned on the lights. Through both windows the moonlight shines relentlessly. I forgot to mention that the Woman in Black has published two or three interesting volume of poetry with a religious flavour. So, the Woman in Black is speaking to the Young Man:

Let me come with you. What a moon there is tonight!
The moon is kind – it won’t show
that my hair turned white. The moon
will turn my hair to gold again. You wouldn’t understand.
Let me come with you …
When there’s a moon the shadows in the house grow larger,
invisible hands draw the curtains,
a ghostly finger writes forgotten words in the dust
on the piano – I don’t want to hear them. Hush.

Let me come with you
a little farther down, as far as the brickyard wall,
to the point where the road turns and the city appears
concrete and airy, whitewashed with moonlight,
so indifferent and insubstantial
so positive, like metaphysics,
that finally you can believe you exist and do not exist,
that you never existed, that time with its destruction never existed.
Let me come with you …

We’ll sit for a little on the low wall, up on the hill,
and as the spring breeze blows around us
perhaps we’ll even imagine that we are flying,
because, often, and now especially, I hear the sound of my own dress
like the sound of two powerful wings opening and closing,
and when you enclose yourself within the sound of that flight
you feel the tight mesh of your throat, your ribs, your flesh,
and thus constricted amid the muscles of the azure air,
amid the strong nerves of the heavens,
it makes no difference whether you go or return
and it makes no difference that my hair has turned white
(that is not my sorrow – my sorrow is
that my heart too does not turn white).
Let me come with you …

I know that each one of us travels to love alone,
alone to faith and to death.
I know it. I’ve tried it. It doesn’t help.
Let me come with you …

This house is haunted, it preys on me –
what I mean is, it has aged a great deal, the nails are working loose,
the portraits drop as though plunging into the void,
the plaster falls without a sound
as the dead man’s hat falls from the peg in the dark hallway
as the worn woolen glove falls from the knee of silence
or as moonbeam falls on the old, gutted armchair.

Once it too was new – not the photograph that you are starting at so dubiously –
I mean the armchair, very comfortable, you could sit in it for hours
with your eyes closed and dream whatever came into your head
>– a sandy beach, smooth, wet, shining in the moonlight,
shining more than my old patent leather shoes that I send each month to the shoeshine shop on the corner,
or a fishing boat’s sail that sinks to the bottom rocked by its own breathing,
a three-cornered sail like a handkerchief folded slantwise in half only
as though it had nothing to shut up or hold fast
no reason to flutter open in farewell. I have always has a passion for handkerchiefs,
not to keep anything tied in them,
no flower seeds or camomile gathered in the fields at sunset,
nor to tie them with four knots like the caps the workers wear on the construction site across the street,
nor to dab my eyes – I’ve kept my eyesight good;
I’ve never worn glasses. A harmless idiosyncracy, handkerchiefs.

Now I fold them in quarters, in eighths, in sixteenths
to keep my fingers occupied. And now I remember
that this is how I counted the music when I went to the Odeion
with a blue pinafore and a white collar, with two blond braids
– 8, 16, 32, 64 –
hand in hand with a small friend of mine, peachy, all light and picked flowers,
(forgive me such digressions – a bad habit) – 32, 64 – and my family rested
great hopes on my musical talent. But I was telling you about the armchair –
gutted – the rusted springs are showing, the stuffing –
I thought of sending it next door to the furniture shop,
but where’s the time and the money and the inclination – what to fix first? –
I thought of throwing a sheet over it – I was afraid
of a white sheet in so much moonlight. People sat here
who dreamed great dreams, as you do and I too,
and now they rest under earth untroubled by rain or the moon.
Let me come with you …

We’ll pause for a little at the top of St. Nicholas’ marble steps,
and afterward you’ll descend and I will turn back,
having on my left side the warmth from a casual touch of your jacket
and some squares of light, too, from small neighbourhood windows
and this pure white mist from the moon, like a great procession of silver swans –
and I do not fear this manifestation, for at another time
on many spring evenings I talked with God who appeared to me
clothed in the haze and glory of such a moonlight –
and many young men, more handsome even than you, I sacrificed to him –
I dissolved, so white, so unapproachable, amid my white flame, in the whiteness of moonlight,
burnt up by men’s voracious eyes and the tentative rapture of youths,
besieged by splendid bronzed bodies,
strong limbs exercising at the pool, with oars, on the track, at soccer (I pretended not to see them),
foreheads, lips and throats, knees, fingers and eyes,
chests and arms and thighs (and truly I did not see them)
– you know, sometimes, when you’re entranced, you forget what entranced you, the entrancement alone is enough –
my God, what star-bright eyes, and I was lifted up to an apotheosis of disavowed stars
because, besieged thus from without and from within,
no other road was left me save only the way up or the way down. – No, it is not enough.
Let me come with you …

Θα σταθούμε λιγάκι στην κορφή της μαρμάρινης σκάλας του Αϊ-Νικόλα,
ύστερα εσύ θα κατηφορίσεις κι εγώ θα γυρίσω πίσω
έχοντας στ’ αριστερό πλευρό μου τη ζέστα απ’ το τυχαίο άγγιγμα του σακακιού σου
κι ακόμη μερικά τετράγωνα φώτα από μικρά συνοικιακά παράθυρα
κι αυτή την πάλλευκη άχνα απ’ το φεγγάρι που ‘ναι σα μια μεγάλη συνοδεία
ασημένιων κύκνων –
και δε φοβάμαι αυτή την έκφραση, γιατί εγώ
πολλές ανοιξιάτικες νύχτες συνομίλησα άλλοτε με το Θεό που μου εμφανίστηκε
ντυμένος την αχλύ και την δόξα ενός τέτοιου σεληνόφωτος,
και πολλούς νέους, πιο ωραίους κι από σένα ακόμη, του εθυσίασα,
έτσι λευκή κι απρόσιτη ν’ ατμίζομαι μες στη λευκή μου φλόγα, στη λευκότητα του σεληνόφωτος,
πυρπολημένη απ’ τ’ αδηφάγα μάτια των αντρών κι απ’ τη δισταχτικήν έκσταση των εφήβων,
πολιορκημένη από εξαίσια, ηλιοκαμένα σώματα, άλκιμα μέλη γυμνασμένα στο κολύμπι, στο κουπί, στο στίβο, στο ποδόσφαιρο
(που έκανα πως δεν τα ‘βλεπα)
– ξέρεις, καμιά φορά, θαυμάζοντας, ξεχνάς, ό, τι θαυμάζεις,
σου φτάνει ο θαυμασμός σου, –
θε μου, τι μάτια πάναστρα, κι ανυψωνόμουν σε μιαν αποθέωση αρνημένων άστρων
γιατί, έτσι πολιορκημένη απ’ έξω κι από μέσα,
άλλος δρόμος δε μου ‘μενε παρά μονάχα προς τα πάνω ή προς τα κάτω.
– Όχι, δε φτάνει.
Άφησε με να έρθω μαζί σου …

This house can’t bear me anymore.
I cannot endure to bear it on my back.
You must always be careful, be careful,
to hold up the wall with the large buffet
to hold up the table with the chairs
to hold up the chairs with your hands
to place your shoulder under the hanging beam.
And the piano, like a closed black coffin. You do not dare to open it.
You have to be so careful, so careful, lest they fall, lest you fall. I cannot bear it.
Let me come with you …

This house, despite all its dead, has no intention of dying.
It insists on living with its dead
on living off its dead
on living off the certainty of its death
and on still keeping house for its dead, the rotting beds and shelves.
Let me come with you …

Here, however quietly I walk through the mist of evening,
whether in slippers or barefoot,
there will be some sound: a pane of glass cracks or a mirror,
some steps are heard – not my own.
Outside, in the street, perhaps these steps are not heard –
repentance, they say, wears wooden shoes –
and if you look into this or that other mirror,
behind the dust and the cracks,
you discern – darkened and more fragmented – your face,
your face, which all your life you sought only to keep clean and whole.
The lip of the glass gleams in the moonlight
like a round razor – how can I lift it to my lips?
however much I thirst – how can I lift it – Do you see?
I am already in a mood for similes – this at least is left me,
reassuring me still that my wits are not failing.
Let me come with you …

At times, when evening descends, I have the feeling
that outside the window the bear-keeper is going by with his old heavy she-bear,
her fur full of burrs and thorns,
stirring dust in the neighborhood street
a desolate cloud of dust that censes the dusk,
and the children have gone home for supper and aren’t allowed outdoors again,
even though behind the walls they divine the old bear’s passing –
and the tired bear passes in the wisdom of her solitude, not knowing wherefore and why –
she’s grown heavy, can no longer dance on her hind legs,
can’t wear her lace cap to amuse the children, the idlers, the importunate,
and all she wants is to lie down on the ground
letting them trample on her belly, playing thus her final game,
showing her dreadful power for resignation,
her indifference to the interest of others, to the rings in her lips, the compulsion of her teeth,
her indifference to pain and to life
with the sure complicity of death – even a slow death –
her final indifference to death with the continuity and knowledge of life
which transcends her enslavement with knowledge and with action.

But who can play this game to the end?
And the bear gets up again and moves on
obedient to her leash, her rings, her teeth,
smiling with torn lips at the pennies the beautiful and unsuspecting children toss
(beautiful precisely because unsuspecting)
and saying thank you. Because bears that have grown old
can say only one thing: thank you; thank you.
Let me come with you …

This house stifles me. The kitchen especially
is like the depths of the sea. The hanging coffee pots gleam
like round, huge eyes of improbable fish,
the plates undulate slowly like medusas,
seaweed and shells catch in my hair – later I can’t pull them loose –
I can’t get back to the surface –
the tray falls silently from my hands – I sink down
and I see the bubbles from my breath rising, rising
and I try to divert myself watching them
and I wonder what someone would say who happened to be above and saw these bubbles,
perhaps that someone was drowning or a diver exploring the depths?

And in fact more than a few times I’ve discovered there, in the depths of drowning,
coral and pearls and treasures of shipwrecked vessels,
unexpected encounters, past, present, and yet to come,
a confirmation almost of eternity,
a certain respite, a certain smile of immortality, as they say,
a happiness, an intoxication, inspiration even,
coral and pearls and sapphires;
only I don’t know how to give them – no, I do give them;
only I don’t know if they can take them – but still, I give them.
Let me come with you …

One moment while I get my jacket.
The way this weather’s so changeable, I must be careful.
It’s damp in the evening, and doesn’t the moon
seem to you, honestly, as if it intensifies the cold?

Μια στιγμή, να πάρω τη ζακέτα μου.
Τούτο τον άστατο καιρό, όσο να ‘ναι, πρέπει να φυλαγόμαστε.
Έχει υγρασία τα βράδια, και το φεγγάρι
δε σου φαίνεται, αλήθεια, πως επιτείνει την ψύχρα;

Deep, deep the fall,
deep, deep the ascent,
the airy statue enmeshed in its open wings,
deep, deep the inexorable benevolence of the silence –
trembling lights on the opposite shore, so that you sway in your own wave,
the breathing of the ocean. Beautiful, ethereal
this giddiness – be careful, you’ll fall. Don’t look at me,
for me my place is this wavering – this splendid vertigo. And so every evening
I have little headache, some dizzy spells.

Often I slip out to the pharmacy across the street for a few aspirin,
but at times I’m too tired and I stay here with my headache
and listen to the hollow sound the pipes make in the walls,
or drink some coffee, and, absentminded as usual,
I forget and make two – who’ll drink the other?
It’s really funny, I leave it on the windowsill to cool
or sometimes drink them both, looking out the window at the bright green globe of the pharmacy
that’s like the green light of a silent train coming to take me away
with my handkerchiefs, my run-down shoes, my black purse, my verses,
but no suitcases – what would one do with them?
Let my come with you …

Oh, are you going? Goodnight. No, I won’t come. Goodnight.
I’ll be going myself in a little. Thank you. Because, in the end, I must
get out of this broken-down house.
I must see a bit of the city – no, not the moon –
the city with its calloused hands, the city of daily work,
the city that swears by bread and by its fist,
the city that bears all of us on its back
with our pettiness, sins, and hatreds,
our ambitions, our ignorance and our senility.
I need to hear the great footsteps of the city,
and no longer to hear your footsteps
or God’s, or my own. Goodnight.

The room grows dark. It looks as though a cloud may have covered the moon. All at once, as if someone had turned up the radio in the nearby bar, a very familiar musical phrase can be heard. Then I realize that “The Moonlight Sonata”, just the first movement, has been playing very softly through this entire scene. The Young Man will go down the hill now with an ironic and perhaps sympathetic smile on his finely chiselled lips and with a feeling of release. Just as he reaches St. Nicolas, before he goes down the marble steps, he will laugh – a loud, uncontrollable laugh. His laughter will not sound at all unseemly beneath the moon. Perhaps the only unseemly thing will be that nothing is unseemly. Soon the Young Man will fall silent, become serious, and say: “The decline of an era.” So, thoroughly calm once more, he will unbutton his shirt again and go on his way. As for the woman in black, I don’t know whether she finally did get out of the house. The moon is shining again. And in the corners of the room the shadows intensify with an intolerable regret, almost fury, not so much for the life, as for the useless confession. Can you hear? The radio plays on:

(Το δωμάτιο σκοτεινιάζει. Φαίνεται πως κάποιο σύννεφο θα έκρυψε το φεγγάρι. Μονομιάς, σαν κάποιο χέρι να δυνάμωσε το ραδιόφωνο του γειτονικού μπαρ, ακούστηκε μια πολύ γνωστή μουσική φράση. Και τότε κατάλαβα πως όλη τούτη τη σκηνή τη συνόδευε χαμηλόφωνα η “Σονάτα του Σεληνόφωτος,” μόνο το πρώτο μέρος. Ο νέος θα κατηφορίζει τώρα μ’ ένα ειρωνικό κι ίσως συμπονετικό χαμόγελο στα καλογραμμένα χείλη του και μ’ ένα συναίσθημα απαιλευθέρωσης. Όταν θα φτάσει ακριβώς στον Αη-Νικόλα, πριν κατέβει τη μαρμάρινη σκάλα, θα γελάσει, – ένα γέλιο δυνατό, ασυγκράτητο. Το γέλιο του δε θ’ ακουστεί καθόλου ανάρμοστα κάτω απ’ το φεγγάρι. Ίσως το μόνο ανάρμοστο να είναι το ότι δεν είναι καθόλου ανάρμοστο. Σε λίγο ο Νέος θα σωπάσει, θα σοβαρευτεί και θα πει: “Η παρακμή μιάς εποχής.” Έτσι, ολότελα ήσυχος πια, θα ξεκουμπώσει πάλι το πουκάμισό του και θα τραβήξει το δρόμο του. Όσο για τη γυναίκα με τα μαύρα, δεν ξέρω αν βγήκε τελικά απ το σπίτι. Το φεγγαρόφωτο λάμπει ξανά. Και στις γωνίες του δωματίου οι σκιές σφίγγονται από μιαν αβάσταχτη μετάνοια, σχεδόν οργή, όχι τόσο για τη ζωή, όσο για την άχρηστη εξομολόγηση. Ακούτε; Το ραδιόφωνο συνεχίζει.) …

The dreams of a child are peace
The dreams of a mother are peace
The words of love under the trees are peace

The father who returns at dusk with a wide smile in his eyes
with a basket in hands full of fruit
and the drops of sweat on his brow
are like drops on a jug as it cools its water on the windowsill,
are peace

When wounds heal on the world’s face
and it the pits dug by shellfire we have planted trees
and in hearts scorched by conflagration hope sprouts its first buds
and the dead can turn over ion their side and sleep without complaining
knowing their blood was not spilled in vain,
this is peace.

Peace is the odour of food at evening
When an automobile stopping in the street does not mean fear
When a knock on the door means a friend
And the opening of a window every hour means sky
Feasting our eyes with the distant bells of its colours,
this is peace.

Peace is a glass of warm milk and a book before the awakening child
When wheat stalks lean toward one another saying: the light, the light
And the horizon’s wreath overbrims with light,
This is peace.

When death takes up but little room in the heart
And chimneys point with firm fingers at happiness
When the large carnation of sunset
can be smelled equally be poet and proletariat,
this is peace.

Peace is the clenched fist of men
it is warm bread on the world’s table
it’s a mother’s smile.
Only this.
Peace is nothing else
And that ploughs that cut deep furrows in all earth
Write one name only:
Peace. Nothing else. Peace.

On the backbone of my verses
The train advancing toward the future
Laden with wheat and roses
Is peace.

My brothers
all the world with all its dreams
breathes deeply in peace.
Give us your hands, brothers,
This is peace.

[from the collection Agrypnia (Sleeplessness), 1941-1953]

[Από τη συλλογή Αγρύπνια, 1941-1953]

[COMPOSER'S FOREWORD
One thousand thirty eight. Ritsos is finishing the vernal symphony.
The vernal symphony is socio-erotic poem, full of all the colors of the rainbow.
The poet sends a global message against
the upcoming war, opposing it to the beauty of life.
"Open the windows to let the universe enter emerged with all the poppies
of our blood", some phrases. And.......]

We stretch our arms to the sun-to the sun
and sing and sing.
The light is whistling, yea whistling
in the veins of the grass and stone.
It was worthy that we existed to meet.

We love the earth, the human beings and animals.
The reptiles, the sky and insects.
We are, we are, us too all together.
Along the sky and earth.

We stretch our arms to the sun-to the sun
and sing and sing.
The sun is calling me, the sun is calling me.
Joy, joy. We don’t care about the mark that
our kiss shall leave in the song and in time.

Here the birds are silent
they are silent, the church bells,
he, too, is silent, the bitter Greek
together with his dead

And on the stone of silence
he sharpens his nails
alone and without help
the one whose vow is freedom
Don’t cry for Greece
there where she goes to bend down
with the penknife in the bone
and the strap on her neck

There she is, she throws herself into new flight
and she becomes bold and shoots up
to slay the wild beast
with the harpoon of the sun

(translation: Eva Johanos)

My son, flesh of my flesh
sweet heart of my heart
little bird of the poor courtyard
flower of my desert.

Where did my boy fly
Where did he go, that he leaves me.
Without a bird the cage,
Without water the fountain.

How did your sweet eyes close
and you can’t see how I cry
and you don’t move, you don’t jump up
at the bitter things I say to you.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

[This poem is a part of "Epitafios" (Lament) written by Yiannis Ritsos in 1936, during the Military Dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas. It is a unique poetic folk requiem based on a tragically true event - a young man shot and killed by the security police - and the moving picture of his mother lamenting over him in the middle of the street.
Mikis Theodorakis set the poem to music in Paris in 1958.

Images from the film "The Trojan Women" (Τρωάδες) based on the tragedy by Euripides, directed by Michael Cacoyannis, with Vanessa Redgrave and Katharine Hepburn.]