Nikos Xylouris / Νίκος Ξυλούρης

- My wild animals and little ones,
my tamed deer,
tell me, where are your lands
and where your winter quarters?

- Cliffs are our lands,
leskes* are our winter quarters,
the little caves of the mountain
are our parents.

[translator's notes:
* leskes (sing. leska) = an old Cretan type of small house, which consists of a single room where the fireplace, the wine - press, the fire trivet. Leskes where used by wanderers, such as shepherds, but mostly by mountain partisans during the Ottoman rule.
The song, sung by Cretans during the period of Turkish domination, refers to the partisans that used to live in the mountains and fight for the freedom of their land.

Γκρεμνά'ναι εμάς οι τόποι μας,
λέσκες τα χειμαδιά μας,
τα σπηλιαράκια του βουνού
είναι τα γονικά μας.

On a high mountain,
on a great boulder
sits an eagle.

Wet, covered with snow
the poor guy, and he pleads.
He pleads with
the sun to rise.

Sun, rise; sun, rise.

Sun, shine and give [your warmth]
to melt
the snows from my wings
and the icicles
from my talons.

Sun, rise; sun, rise.

(translation: Eva Johanos
The beloved late great singer Nikos Xylouris singing a “rizitiko”,’a form of traditional vocal music native to the mountain ranges of western Crete’: a very deep kind of lament, with strength, courage in the face of adversity, the name is evocative of roots and fate.)

[Nikos Xilouris, a great singer from Crete who left us too early, back in 1980... we are fortunate to have some wonderful recordings, still... here he is singing "Erotokritos", a Cretan story of love between two young people in some ways similar to the Romeo and Juliet story, who in Crete are represented by Erotokritos and Aretousa... themes of love, honor, friendship, bravery, and courage; one of the most important works of Cretan literature, which has passed into the folk tradition and remains a classic work in the popular culture due to the music and melodies which have been set to it.]

Ως τ’ άκουσεν η Αρετή ώρα λιγάκι εστάθη
αμίλητη και ο πόνος της την έκαμε και εχάθη

…he was a boy of seventeen
who has now flown away.
Who will bring you, my love,
the letter I have promised?

…ήταν παιδί στα δεκαεφτά
που τώρα έχει πετάξει
ποιος θα σου φέρει αγάπη μου
το γράμμα που ‘χα τάξει

We smile inwardly.
That smile, we hide now.
Outlaw smile,
as now the sun has been outlawed,
outlawed, also, the truth.
We hide the smile, the way we hide in our pocket,
the photograph of our beloved,
as we hide the idea of freedom,
between the two leaves of our heart.
Everyone here has a sky and the same smile.

Tomorrow maybe they will kill us.
Tomorrow maybe they will kill us.
This smile, and this sky, they cannot take from us.
This smile,
This smile,
This smile, and this sky, they cannot take from us.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

For how long, brave young men, shall we live in the narrows,
isolated like lions, in the rocks and mountain spaces?
Better it is to live for one hour in freedom
than forty years, in slavery and prison.

Caves shall we inhabit, and branches regard,
to leave the world, for bitter slavery?
Better it is to live for one hour in freedom
than forty years, in slavery and prison.

Shall we lose brothers and sisters, our homeland, our parents,
our friends, our children, and all our relatives?
Better it is to live for one hour in freedom
than forty years, in slavery and prison.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Να χάνωμεν αδέλφια, πατρίδα και γονείς,
τους φίλους, τα παιδιά μας, κι όλους τους συγγενείς;
Κάλλιο είναι μιας ώρας ελεύθερη ζωή,
παρά σαράντα χρόνους, σκλαβιά και φυλακή.

There are no daffodils, violets, nor hyacinths-
how can you speak to the dead.
The dead know only the language of the flowers-
for that reason they are silent
they travel and are silent, they are patient and keep silence
from the dreams of the public, from the dreams of the public.

The first thing God created is love
afterwards comes blood
and the thirst for blood
which stings it
the seed of the body as the salt.
The first thing that God created is the long journey-
that house waits
with a light blue smoke
and a dog who has grown old
waiting to release his soul on the return.

[from the poem:
"Stratis Thalassinos among the agapanthus flowers"
Transvaal, 14 January 1942]

(translation: Eva Johanos)

[Άπο το ποίημα
"Ο Στράτης Θαλασσινός ανάμεσα στους αγάπανθους"
Τράνσβααλ, 14 Γενάρη '42]

A hundred thousand waves / Aïvali* far away
Days salt as the sea / and the sun always there (always there)
with the Makedonian birds / and the little ships
that lost their course / and missed the coast of Barbary

Ever lurking in ambush, the shark,
the black fish / coming and going
his circles tightening

A hundred thousand waves / Aïvali far away

Our beards grew long / our soul changed
the dog, mad with anger,tears his voice barking
help, my dear,don’t let us devour each other

A hundred thousand waves / Aïvali far away

Hours after hour we brought him under the spell with the strings of the lyre
tied up with his hands behind his back to the main mast
the man from Chios / the blind singer / the hoarse prophet
chewing his mastic / he is singing the praise of Helen
and elsewhere Tzavelaina / is leading the dance

A hundred thousand waves / Aïvali far away

[*Aïvali: a city in Asia Minor formerly inhabited by many Greeks]

Χίλια μύρια κύματα μακριά τ’ Αϊβαλί

I revered your image,
but did not hold the flame.
The good picture
I will bring you one morning at dawn.

Colors, colors,
leave the deeds alone.
Colors, colors,
colors and fragrances.

I revered your image,
and held onto it;
I will join my two hands together
before I will give it up for begging.

Colors, colors,
colors and fragrances.
Colors, colors,
leave the deeds alone.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Χρώματα, χρώματα,
χρώματα κι αρώματα.
Χρώματα, χρώματα,
άσε τα καμώματα..

I was born on the lash of the lightning bolt
I am extinguished rolling in the water.
I rose up to the peak of the cloudbank
jumping on the ropes
of incense,
I took the road of sowing.

I slept on the pillow
of the sword,
I had the sleep of the hare.
From afar I perceive the conflagration
of the piled sheaves
unspeaking in the hour of the harvest,
I took up the sack of begging.

I met the death of the stone wall
the horse at the threshing floor in the throes of death
I took up the sack of begging.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Αντάμωσα τον χάρο της ξερολιθιάς,
το άλογο στ’ αλώνι να ψυχομαχεί,
πήρα ταγάρι ζητιανιάς.

My country was rock and
earth, sun and black
wine. I harvested instruments and
with Homer I sang of you,
my people. On the waves
whole nights I dreamt of you.

My houses were white
carnations and the girls were shy.
They had salt on their lips in their
eyes they burned the universe
and my children with a
harmonica they turned their heads

My country was like the smile,
an everyday dream. Someone
sold it, someone ruined it
as if it were borrowed merchandise.
Now my boys play
death in the trenches.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Ήταν ο τόπος μου σαν το χαμόγελο,
όνειρο καθημερνό. Κάποιος τον
πούλησε, κάποιος τον ρήμαξε
σαν δανεισμένη πραμάτεια.
Τώρα τ’ αγόρια μου παίζουν
το θάνατο στα χαρακώματα.

The words and the years, the lost years
and the sorrows that were covered by smoke
the foreign lands found they had become like brothers
And the sudden joys that came for me
were black lightning in a forest
and the reflections I was able to have about you

And I speak to you in courtyards and on balconies
and in lost gardens of God
and I keep imagining that the swallows are coming
with the lost words and the years
there where first you were everywhere
and now in the cold and in the snows

Fate and time had decreed it
Friday night at nine o’clock
and the night turning back a thousand years
At the end of the celebration to sing
the Friday night of the murder
and to knock on the door of the people
and to knock on the door of the people
and to knock on the door of the people

It was not a stopped clock
in a ruined and empty house
the roads which took me and I await
The words which I don’t know I bind for you
with the people who saw a murder
and have it embroidered on their names

He who sows tears and departures
threshes the dawn; I came to see it
black birds show him the way
And he has a hidden mark near his shoulder,
a secret sign of evil
that he has slipped away from people and from the whole. . .

Fate and time had decreed it
Friday night at nine o’clock
and the night turning back a thousand years
At the end of the celebration to sing
the Friday night of the murder
and to knock on the door of the people
and to knock on the door of the people
and to knock on the door of the people

(translation: Eva Johanos)

God placed a mark
brave young man at Sfakia
and the father in Hades
heard a rifle shot.

King of my generation,
don’t go down the stairs.
Drink the water of eternal life
that you may be victorious over this time.

God placed a mark
brave young man at Sfakia
and the mother in Hades
drew a line.

King of my heart
with the sun in your hair,
don’t go over the line;
life is sweeter.

(translation: Eva Johanos)

You are my soul…The girl who is extinguished
in one stroke, by some bitter love affair,
who was forgotten regarding
the past and thus shall remain…

all alone on the edge like this
they abandon you, people and time…
You would be one more dead person
if the dead were not peaceful…

Kostas Karyotakis

(translation: Eva Johanos)

Κ. Καρυωτάκης