Seferis on Hellenism’s unfinished task; and more from The Free Besieged

'Greece lives, to the extent that she is able to give birth to great poets… I believe that if she has not managed to provide suitable soil for the tree that [once] burgeoned upon her land… in years to come she will be able not only to give birth, but also to suckle and to nurture the Poet, the Messiah, who will seize [back] from the hands of the barbarians the beauty, the gold-flaming torch, they have stolen from us.' (Giorgios Seferis)

Giorgios Seferis, along with Ion Dragoumis, is the greatest theorist of Hellenism in the 20th century and above is the conclusion of a lecture Seferis gave in Paris in March 1921, when he was just 21, on the Franco-Greek poet Jean Moreas (Ioannis Papadiamantopoulos). There's a lot to consider here; but just a couple of points: Seferis' optimism is surely based on the new Greek civilisation he hoped would emerge following the liberation of Asia Minor, an enterprise that failed and left Greece at the mercy of all sorts of barbarians, where, nearly 100 years later, it still remains. ‘Seizing back from the hands of the barbarians the beauty, the gold-flaming torch, they have stolen from us’ is Hellenism’s unfinished task.

■ Also, in my post for 25 March on Yiannis Markopoulos' musical interpretation of Dionysios Solomos' The Free Besieged; I omitted to make available the most beautiful and moving song on the album: Στα μάτια και στο πρόσωπο/In their eyes and on their face, sung by Nikos Xylouris. I've now put the song in Radio Akritas, and below are the lyrics.

Στα μάτια και στο πρόσωπο
Στα μάτια και στο πρόσωπο φαίνοντ' οι στοχασμοί τους.
Τους λέει μεγάλα και πολλά η τρίσβαθη ψυχή τους,
Αγάπη κι έρωτας καλού τα σπλάχνα τους τινάζουν.
Τα σπλάχνα τους κι η θάλασσα ποτέ δεν ησυχάζουν.
Γλυκιά κι ελεύθερ' η ψυχή σα να 'τανε βγαλμένη
κι υψώναν με χαμόγελο την όψη τη φθαρμένη.

In their eyes and on their face
In their eyes and on their face their thoughts are showing;
A host of major things they learn from the depths of their souls.
Their guts are violently stirred by love and desire for good;
Their guts and the sea alone are never still;
Sweet and free the soul as if it had broken loose,
And they raised with a smile their exhausted visage.

Markopoulos/Solomos: ‘The Free Besieged’

I’ve made available before some songs from Yiannis Markopoulos’ musical interpretation of Dionysios Solomos’ poem The Free Besieged (Ελεύθεροι Πολιορκημένοι), which, as mentioned in my previous post, is about the siege and exodus from Messolonghi and, more broadly, the rebirth of Greece. Now, above, is the entire work, which is brilliant, Markopoulos’ masterpiece, as good as Theodorakis’ version of Elytis’ Axion Esti. Irene Papas narrates, while Nikos Xylouris, Lakis Halkias and Ilias Klonaridis sing. If you want to download the mp3 – and you should – just copy the youtube address of the video (http://youtu.be/qlOyuFgb0XA), then go to keepvid.com and follow the instructions to download an mp3.

Exodus: with swords to cut their path
And I see in the distance the children and the brave women
About the flame they have lit and have painfully fuelled
With well-loved articles and modest marriage-beds,
Not moving, not lamenting, not even shedding a tear;
And a spark touches their hair and their worn-clothes;
Come quickly, ashes, so they can fill their hands.

They are ready in the relentless flood of weapons
With swords to cut their path, and in freedom to stay,
On that side with the comrades, on this with death.

Like the sun that suddenly cuts through dense and sombre clouds,
It strikes the mountains on its slopes and there! houses in the verdure.

And from where the sun rises
To where it goes down,

I did not set eyes on a place more glorious than this small threshing-floor.

With swords to cut their path, and in freedom to stay

In Radio Akritas, I’ve made available three songs by Yiannis Markopoulos from The Free Besieged, taken from the poem by Dionysios Solomos. Irene Pappas, Nikos Xylouris, Lakis Halkias and Ilias Klonaridis perform the songs.


‘The events that formed the starting point of [Dionysios Solomos’] The Free Besieged were the protracted siege and capture of Missolonghi by a Turkish army, later joined by Egyptian reinforcements. Missolonghi had been a centre of the Greek insurrection from the beginning of the war of independence… and had already successfully withstood an earlier Turkish siege in 1822 – an event that Solomos had already celebrated in his Hymn to Liberty in 1823. The second siege lasted from April 1825 to April 1826. When all food supplies had run out and there was no hope of relief, the besieged Greeks decided that some of the menfolk of fighting age should burst out of the gates and attempt to lead the women and children to safety… while the rest would remain to defend the town to the death. Realising that freedom could not be attained in life, they opted for freedom in death; like Kazantzakis’ hero Kapetan Michalis in his novel Freedom and Death, the besieged of Missolonghi abandoned the watchword of the Greek War of Independence, namely Freedom or Death, opting instead for Freedom and Death.’ (Mackridge, Peter: Introduction to The Free Besieged and Other Poems).


Absolute silence of the tomb
Absolute silence of the tomb prevails on the plain;
Singing bird plucks a seed, and the mother envies it.
Hunger has darkened their eyes, on them the mother swears.
The brave Soulioti stands to one side and weeps:
‘Poor sombre rifle, why do I have you in my hand?
How burdensome you’ve become and the infidel knows it.’

Mother, magnanimous
Upon these ashes they conjure you…
The word, the work, the meaning…

Mother, magnanimous both in suffering and in glory,
Even if in the secret mystery your children ever live
In contemplation and in vision, how privileged my eyes,
These eyes of mine, to glimpse you in the deserted forest,
Which all of a sudden enveloped your immortal feet
(Look) with leaves of the Resurrection, with leaves of the Palm!
The divine footfall of yours I did not hear, I did not see,
Serene as the sky with all the fair attributes it has,
Of which so many sides are revealed and so many hidden;
But, Goddess, I cannot hear your voice,
And am I to offer it straight away to the Hellenic World?
Glory be to its black stone and to its dry grass too.

Exodus: with swords to cut their path
And I see in the distance the children and the brave women
About the flame they have lit and have painfully fuelled
With well-loved articles and modest marriage-beds,
Not moving, not lamenting, not even shedding a tear;
And a spark touches their hair and their worn-clothes;
Come quickly, ashes, so they can fill their hands.

They are ready in the relentless flood of weapons
With swords to cut their path, and in freedom to stay,
On that side with the comrades, on this with death.

Like the sun that suddenly cuts through dense and sombre clouds,
It strikes the mountains on its slopes and there! houses in the verdure.

And from where the sun rises
To where it goes down,

I did not set eyes on a place more glorious than this small threshing-floor.

The Return of the Exile

Below is Giorgios Seferis’ great poem, The Return of the Exile, about the perennial Greek theme of nostalgia and what awaits the nostos – Odysseus, Agamemnon, Orestes, the Greek refugee, immigrant, etc, etc – when he returns to his homeland after years in a foreign country. The poem has been set to music by Yiannis Markopoulos and I’ve made the song available in Radio Akritas. The singers are Ioanna Kiourtsoglou and Lakis Halkias.



The return of the exile
‘My old friend, what are you looking for?
After years abroad you’ve come back
with images you’ve nourished
under foreign skies
far from you own country.’

‘I’m looking for my old garden;
the trees come to my waist
and the hills resemble terraces
yet as a child
I used to play on the grass
under great shadows
and I would run for hours
breathless over the slopes.’

‘My old friend, rest,
you’ll get used to it little by little;
together we will climb
the paths you once knew,
we will sit together
under the plane trees’ dome.
They’ll come back to you little by little,
your garden and your slopes.’

‘I’m looking for my old house,
the tall windows
darkened by ivy;
I’m looking for the ancient column
known to sailors.
How can I get into this coop?
The roof comes to my shoulders
and however far I look
I see men on their knees
as though saying their prayers.’

‘My old friend, don’t you hear me?
You’ll get used to it little by little.
Your house is the one you see
and soon friends and relatives
will come knocking at the door
to welcome you back tenderly.’

‘Why is your voice so distant?
Raise your head a little
so that I understand you.
As you speak you grow
gradually smaller
as though you’re sinking into the ground.’

‘My old friend, stop a moment and think:
you’ll get used to it little by little.
Your nostalgia has created
a non-existent country, with laws
alien to earth and man.’

‘Now I can’t hear a sound.
My last friend has sunk.
Strange how from time to time
they level everything down.
Here a thousand scythe-bearing chariots go past
and mow everything down.’

Ο γυρισμός του ξενιτεμένου
‘Παλιέ μου φίλε τι γυρεύεις;
χρόνια ξενιτεμένος ήρθες 

με εικόνες που έχεις αναθρέψει

κάτω από ξένους ουρανούς 

μακριά απ' τον τόπο το δικό σου’.

‘Γυρεύω τον παλιό μου κήπο 

τα δέντρα μου έρχουνται ως τη μέση 

κι' οι λόφοι μοιάζουν με πεζούλια


κι όμως σαν είμουνα παιδί

έπαιζα πάνω στο χορτάρι 

κάτω από τους μεγάλους ίσκιους 

κι έτρεχα πάνω σε πλαγιές

ώρα πολλή λαχανιασμένος’.



‘Παλιέ μου φίλε ξεκουράσου 

σιγά σιγά θα συνηθίσεις 

θ' ανηφορίσουμε μαζί 

στα γνώριμά σου μονοπάτια 

θα ξαποστάσουμε μαζί

κάτω απ' το θόλο των πλατάνων

σιγά σιγά θα 'ρθούν κοντά σου 

το περιβόλι κι οι πλαγιές σου’.



‘Γυρεύω το παλιό μου σπίτι 

με τ' αψηλά τα παραθύρια

σκοτεινιασμένα απ' τον κισσό 

γυρεύω την αρχαία κολόνα 

που κοίταζε ο θαλασσινός.


Πως θες να μπώ σ' αυτή τη στάνη;

οι στέγες μου έρχουνται ως τους ώμους 

κι όσο μακριά και να κοιτάξω

βλέπω γονατιστούς ανθρώπους 

λες κάνουνε την προσευχή τους’.



‘Παλιέ μου φίλε δε μ' ακούς; 

σιγά σιγά θα συνηθίσεις 

το σπίτι σου είναι αυτό που βλέπεις

κι αυτή την πόρτα θα κτυπήσουν 

σε λίγο οι φίλοι κι οι δικοί σου

γλυκά να σε καλωσορίσουν’. 



‘Γιατί είναι απόμακρη η φωνή σου; 

σήκωσε λίγο το κεφάλι 

να καταλάβω τι μου λες 

όσο μιλάς τ' ανάστημά σου

ολοένα πάει και λιγοστεύει 

λες και βυθίζεσαι στο χώμα’.



‘Παλιέ μου φίλε συλλογίσου 

σιγά σιγά θα συνηθίσεις

η νοσταλγία σου έχει πλάσει

μια χώρα ανύπαρχτη με νόμους

έξω απ' τη γής κι απ' τους ανθρώπους’.



‘Πια δεν ακούω τσιμουδιά

βούλιαξε κι ο στερνός μου φίλος 

παράξενο πως χαμηλώνουν 

όλα τριγύρω κάθε τόσο 

εδώ διαβαίνουν και θερίζουν 

χιλιάδες άρματα δρεπανηφόρα’.