I
I gazed, and still far distant was the shore.
Blest thunderbolt, give light, I pray, once more!
Three thunderbolts fell, one behind the other,
close by the girl, and made a fearful din.
From sea and sky the lightning struck an echo,
mountains and shores gave tongue with many voices.
II
What I shall tell, believe me, is pure truth.
I swear this by my bodys many wounds,
by those who fought with me and fell in Crete,
by her who grieved me sore, this world forsaking.
(Sound, Trumpet; shaking off the shroud, I forge
a path among the pallid resurrected,
cry: Who has seen the one whose beauty hallows
the Vale? Speak now and see all that is good.
No shred remains of earth; and heavens made new.
I love her still and with her will be judged.
On high we saw her first, her garland trembling
at Heavens gate where singing she came forth.
Her voice was joy and sang the Resurrection,
all eagerness to live again as flesh;
the whole of Heaven heard and was amazed;
the conflagration of the world was lulled;
she was but now before us, making haste;
this way and that she looks and someone seeks.)
III
On rolled the thunder
And then the sea, that raged like boiling broth,
was quieted, all calm and polished clean,
a fragrant garden, filled with all the stars;
Nature, by some deep mystery constrained,
shone forth in beauty and forgot her wrath.
No breath of wind touched sea or sky, not even
such as a passing bee makes on a flower,
but close by the girl, who gladly clung to me,
the full moon quivered limpid on the water;
something at once unraveled there and lo,
before me was a woman clothed in moonlight.
IV
The cool light trembled in her godlike visage,
in her deep jet-black eyes and golden hair.
She gazed upon the stars, and they exulted,
and shed their beams and did not dim the sight,
and from the unruffled surface of the sea,
a cypress-tree, ethereal, she rose,
reached out a lovers arms, but humbly too,
all radiant with beauty and with goodness.
Then noonday brilliance washed away the night,
creation, filled with light, became a temple.
At last, to me, who faced her in the currents,
the way a lodestone turns towards the North,
to me, not to the girl, she bent her head;
wretched, I gazed at her, and she at me.
I thought: I could have seen her long ago,
painted in church with awesome splendour,
or had my lovesick mind created her,
or dreamed her, even, with my mothers milk?
Sweet memory of old, and long forgotten,
it came before me then in all its power,
as when from mountain depths a spring bursts forth
and all at once is gilded by the sun!
A spring then did my eyes become; for long
that godlike face was hidden from my sight,
while deep within me I could feel her gaze
that made me tremble so, I could not speak.
But these are gods, that look from whence they dwell
down into the abyss where is the heart
of man: I felt her read my mind more clearly
than ever could my tongue have told my grief:
My brothers in their prime the Turks snatched from me,
defiled my sister, slew her in hot blood,
at nightfall burnt to death my aged father
and next day threw my mother in the well.
In Crete
two fistfuls of her earth I brought away.
O Goddess, help, keep safe this tender shoot,
my only hold against the precipice.
V
Sweetly she smiled upon my spirits pain,
tears filled her eyes, and they were like my girls.
Alas, she vanished, but I felt her teardrop
touch my uplifted hand that reached towards her.
From then till now this hand has not been mine,
that once was quick to draw upon the infidel.
It takes no joy in war: a beggars hand,
for bread it reaches out to tearful strangers.
And when, a night, my eye from so much grief
Grows weary, harsh dreams drag me back again,
and thunder crashes once more on the sea,
whose waves once more seek out my girl and drown her,
I wake near frantic and my mind gives way,
until the touch of this same hand brings calm.
With this I cleft the waves, that smelled so sweet,
and knew a strength I had not known before,
not even when we fought with naked swords,
a handful of brave men against so many
or when I struck down Yusuf and two more
close by the Labyrinth where we were pressed.
So strong my stroke, the louder beat my heart
because it beat against my loved ones side.
But then my stroke grew weary, when a sound,
sweetest of sounds, came forth across the waters.
This was no young girls voice in budding woods
(hour of the evening star when waters darken)
who to the wellhead sings her secret love,
to trees and flowers that, opening, bend to hear.
This was no song of Creten nightingale,
whose voice pours from its nest on high, wild crags
and sweetly strikes an echo all night long
from seas far distant and the distant plains,
until the stars dissolve before Dawn
who, hearing, drops the roses from her fingers.
This was no shepherds pipe on Psiloritis
such as I used to hear, alone and grieving,
when high in heaven blazed the noonday sun
and mountains, seas and plains in light exulted,
and, seized by hope of liberty, aloud
Id cry: My hallowed country bathed in blood!
and weeping then, would lay my hands with pride
upon her blackened stones and shrivelled weeds.
Pipe, bird, voice: none of these could match that sound,
whose like perhaps has vanished from the earth:
not words, but sound so light
too soft to echo even from close by.
Whether close by or distant I knew not,
like the scent of May there wafted on the air
the sweetest, inexplicable
Such power as this have Love and Death alone.
The sound seized all my soul and quite shut out
the sky, the sea, the shore, even the girl;
it seized my soul and often made me yearn
to leave behind my body and to follow.
It ceased, drained nature empty and my soul
that sighed and at once filled with my beloved.
And now at last the shore: I laid her head
upon the strand with joy, but she was dead.
(greek bands, mixed lyrics)
