Nikos Stratakis / Νίκος Στρατάκης

Remember, my mandarin
and my red apple
how I told you I love you
and I trembled like a leaf

Remember, red apple
the years that passed
when they sang for us
the nightingales of passionate love

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Θυμάσαι μήλο κόκκινο
τα περασμένα χρόνια
που κελαηδούσανε για μας
του έρωτα τ’ αηδόνια.

You ask gods and sprites,
fairies and angels,
why joy has been denied you
and the beginning of the end has come.

You got mixed up in your mistakes,
and you keep apologizing,
but few are those who care anymore
what you do and who you are.

You look high up into the sky
and you sing by yourself:
Damn you, love
damn you, mistake.

Whoever has fallen into his passions
will live in his loneliness
and every dawn he will walk the tightrope
of the circle of death…….

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Όποιος στα πάθη του έπεσε,
θα ζει στη μοναξιά του
και κάθε αυγή θα ακροβατεί
στο γύρο του θανάτου…

A fine young man of twenty years
they gave him the weapons for the war.

Not finding the war, he turned back;
halfway home he thirsted for water.

He bent down to drink some water at Giul Baxe*
and there a bullet found him.

He had a friend who wept for him,
Don’t cry for me, my friend, don’t cry for me.

Go tell my mother, the old lady,
and tell my sister, the nun.

If she wants to, let her wear black; if she wants to, let her marry
me they killed at Giul Baxe.

(translation: Eva Johanos
*Γκιουλ Μπαξέ, “Beautiful Garden,” the second public garden of Rethymnon)

Θέλει ας βάλει μαύρα θέλει ας παντρευτεί,
μένα με σκοτώσανε στο Γκιουλ Μπαξέ.