Pantelis Thalassinos / Παντελής Θαλασσινός

Beautiful and strange country
poetry: Odysseas Elytis
music: 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

I want to change clothes and air
to see the world from another perspective
to be a cloud that leaves away
and the dew’s droplet

I want to change places and words
to start from the beginning
to become morning and a dream’s flame
that the dawn envies

I want to change the color of my eyes
so you don’t recognise me and refuse me
like a sun ray to love me
and like before to give yourself to me

I also want to change my heart
so that it doesn’t misjudge again
your arms to be an altar
and me, sacrifice and offering

You are the one I was looking for
the one I yearned after for years
In your arms I wish
I could live for forever

Blind hopes flooded me
- from the moment you saw me -
that we might be together
I abandoned myself to the way you looked at me
I believed your words
I fell into the fire

How impulsively I behaved before you
I hurried to spread wide
all the secrets of my heart

Blind hopes flooded me
- from the moment you saw me -
that we might be together
I abandoned myself to the way you looked at me
I believed your words
I fell into the fire

Με πλημμύρισαν τυφλές ελπίδες
από κείνη τη στιγμή που μ’ είδες
πως θα είμαστε μαζί
Παραδόθηκα στο κοίταγμά σου
πίστεψα στα λόγια τα δικά σου
έπεσα μες στη φωτιά

Tonight once again I love you and I have forgotten
all that I have lost in half of my life
Tonight once again I seek you, but I have gone through
so much in the world, even if I don’t know why.

Only the nights light up for me the longing
scattered cigarettes and popular songs
my whole life is not worth ten cents
since I don’t know your precious secrets.

And leave the years alone, they will pass again
as long as we extinguish ourselves on the same journey.
My whole life is a road which will lead to
a place where I am still waiting in the silence.

Only the nights light up for me the longing
scattered cigarettes and popular songs
my whole life is not worth ten cents
since I don’t know your precious secrets.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

I wish I was the perfume
you put on your hair
so that with each breath
I would come into your heart

The perfume of my love
does not come from a flower
and when she shakes out her hair
it reaches the whole world.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

And here we are and the journeys
have remained no more than dreams
And here we are and the voices
and the songs have fallen silent

And here we are and life
is flowing faster now
And here we are and the children
and the games are lost

It’s not my fault that I grow older
time hits you in the back
It’s not my fault if I grow older
it’s life’s fault for being so short

The moons have cracked
the ones that spring had brought
The light has withered
in the last nightfall

Erotic face-paint
for tomorrow to wear
on the squares of the rain
for sale on Saturday

Φτιασίδι ερωτικό
που θα φοράει το αύριο
Στις πιάτσες της βροχής
που θα πουλιέται Σάββατο

You cannot, in the moon
find a single flaw
because he scatters beauty
over creation every evening

I envy the moon
as he wanders everywhere
because he sees the one I love
as she goes in the night

As you go through her door
My moon, stop
greet her for me, and then
continue on your road
greet her for me, and then
continue on your road

My sun, I ask of you
to set quickly
that the moon not see the dawn
because you will envy him

My moon, the road of the sky
lower a bit
to shine, so my love
can arrive at her house

As you pass through her door,
my moon, remember
so many nights we spent
she and I, with you
so many nights we spent
she and I, with you

As you pass through her door,
my moon, remember
so many nights we spent
she and I, with you
so many nights we spent
she and I, with you

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Σαν θα περνάς την πόρτα τζη
φεγγάρι μου θυμήσου
πόσες βραδιές περάσαμε
αυτή κι εγώ μαζί σου
πόσες βραδιές περάσαμε
αυτή κι εγώ μαζί σου.

The wild birds I tame,
all for you I speak to them and charm them.

The wild birds I tame,
with my broken wings I keep them company.

But still, what a shame that I was not able to charm you
what a shame that I could not touch the wild animal of your craziness
and love became, love was left in shards,
a scar that was carved into my deepest memory.

The wild birds ask the night,
with what song can bitterness be banished.

The wild birds, in their flying,
sigh within their warbling.

But still, what a shame that I was not able to charm you
what a shame that I could not touch the wild animal of your craziness
and love became, love was left in shards,
a scar that was carved into my deepest memory.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Όμως τι κρίμα, που δε μάγεψα κι εσένα,
τι κρίμα που δεν άγγιξα της τρέλας σου το αγρίμι,
κι έγινε η αγάπη, η αγάπη, ένα συντρίμμι,
σημάδι που χαράχτηκε στην πιο βαθιά μου μνήμη.

A dream which leaves is life,
inside my dream you also exist.

You come always at night
melancholic
like the last train in winter,
my heart the snowy barren steppe
watches and waits for your sorrow.

You come and you are not silent,
in the ashes
you search for a fire and you are always leaving
you wander about in the night
pale ghost of my waiting
blackbird of the wasteland.

A dream which leaves is life,
inside my dream you also exist.

And as you come you leave
so unexpectedly you love
you hate you forget delusions you gather
and my heart the snowy
barren steppe lies waiting
and watching always for your sorrow.

A dream which leaves is life,
inside my dream you also exist.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Όνειρο που φεύγει είν’ η ζωή,
μέσα στ’ όνειρό μου είσαι κι εσύ.