The Primal Paradise
I don't know at all, anything about "Primal Sins",
and other Western inventions.
Nevertheless, so far away, so long ago,
back in the frost of our first days,
even before the time of our Mother's Hut
it felt so nice, at the time!
The white garments of the angels I remember
closed-up in front but left unbuttoned
exactly like those girls in uniforms,
girls working at the hairdressers.
-a miracle! and all the geraniums
in a long pavement, all-white in the lime
turned to the wind, you could see them grinding
ceaselessly the white pith of the Sun...
Sitting cross-legged
in the beach where the wind shivered
full of golden spark from the sneezers
I could see them galloping
girls of the South-East Wind
girls with cool buttocks...
The angels were teasing me,
gathered around me, asking:
"What is Pain?" and "What is sickness?"
and I didn't know at all.
I didn't know, I hadn't even heard of 'the Tree'
through which death came into the world.
Well? Death, was it true? Not this death, but the other one
-which will come with the first tear of the newly-born?
Was Injustice true? Was the rage of the nations true?
Was the Work-toil real, all day and all-night-long, too?
And the Archangels, all of them,
Michael, Gabriel, Ouriel, Rafael,
Gaboudelon, Akir, Arphoughiton,
Belouchos, Zabouleon, were laughing,
shaking their golden heads like corn-plants in the wind
knowing that the only death, the only one
was the death manufactured by the minds of men
and their biggest Lie, the Tree, never (even) existed !
translated by George A. Stathis
'' Adolescence of day ''
Adolescence of day first lily of joy
The ancient myrtle flutters its flag
The breast of skylarks shall open to the light
And a song shall hover in mid-air
Sowing the golden barley of fire
To the five winds
Setting free a terrestial beaty
| Οδυσσέας Ελύτης | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| "Λακωνικό" |
| O καημός του θανάτου τόσο με πυρπόλησε, που η λάμψη μου επέστρεψε στον ήλιο. Kείνος με πέμπει τώρα μέσα στην τέλεια σύνταξη της πέτρας και του αιθέρος, Λοιπόν, αυτός που γύρευα, ε ί μ α ι. Ω λινό καλοκαίρι, συνετό φθινόπωρο, Xειμώνα ελάχιστε, H ζωή καταβάλλει τον οβολό του φύλλου της ελιάς Kαι στη νύχτα μέσα των αφρόνων μ' ένα μικρό τριζόνι κατακυρώνει πάλι το νόμιμο του Aνέλπιστου. |
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| (από το Έξη και μία τύψεις για τον ουρανό, Ίκαρος 1960) |
Odysseas Elytis poetry "Calendar of an Invisible April"
"The wind was wistling continuously, it was
getting darker, and that distant voice was
incessantly reaching my ears : "an entire life"...
"an entire life"...
On the opposite wall, the shadows of the
trees were playing cinema"
"It seems that somewhere people are celebrating;
although there are no houses or human beings
I can listen to guitars and other laughters which
are not nearby
Maybe far away, within the ashes of heavens
Andromeda, the Bear, or the Virgin...
I wonder; is loneliness the same, all over the
worlds ? "
"Almond-shaped, elongated eyes, lips; perfumes stemming
from a premature sky of great feminine delicacy
and fatal drunkeness.
I leant on my side -almost fell- onto the
hymns to the Virgin and the cold of spacious
gardens. Prepared for the worst." "FRIDAY, 10c LATE MIDNIGHT my room is moving in the neighborhood shining like an emerald. Someone searches it, but truth eludes him constantly. How to imagine that it is placed lower Much lower That death too, has its own Red sea." Translation from Greek: Marios Dikaiakos
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Elytis poetry DRINKING THE SUN OF CORINTH... Drinking the sun of Corinth Reading the marble ruins Striding across vineyards and seas Sighting along the harpoon A votive fish that slips away I found the leaves that the sun’s psalm memorizes The living land that passion joys in opening. I drink water, cut fruit, Thrust my hand into the wind’s foliage The lemon trees water the summer pollen The green birds tear my dreams I leave with a glance A wide glance in which the world is recreated Beautiful from the beginning to the dimensions of the heart! Translation: Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard From: Sun the first |
Odysseas Elytis poetry
I know that all this is worthless and that the language I speak doesn't have an alphabet Since the sun and the waves are a syllabic script which can be deciphered only in the years of sorrow and exile And the motherland a fresco with successive overlays frankish or slavic which, should you try to restore, you are immediately sent to prison and held responsible To a crowd of foreign Powers always through the intervention of your own As it happens for the disasters But let's imagine that in an old days' threshing-floor which might be in an apartment-complex children are playing and whoever loses Should, according to the rules, tell the others and give them a truth Then everyone ends up holding in his hand a small Gift, silver poem.
(from "The Tree of Light and The Fourteenth Beauty")
(Translated by: Marios Dikaiakos)
