LOVE & GREEK POETRY

Agaph

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love,
I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal...
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it
does not boast, it is not proud. It is not self seeking,
it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs...
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.......
(Corinthians 13:1,4)

Love!--

you wrench the minds of the righteous into outrage,
swerve them to their ruin –you have ignited this,
this kindred strife, father and son at war
and Love alone the victor-

warm, glance of the bride triumphant, burning with desire!

Throned in power, side by side with the mighty laws!
Irresistible Aphrodite, never conquered-
Love, you mock us for your sport.

From ANTIGONE, Chorus
Sophocles 496-406 B.C., Translated by Robert Fagles

KLEIS

I have a small daughter who is beautiful
like a gold flower. I would not trade
my darling Kleis for all Lydia or even
for lovely Lesvos.

Sappho 610-580 B.C.
translated by Willis Barnstone

My small daughter .....My gold flower
Christiana, London 1984

Observe how Eros works his magic spells,
And how all love-sick mortals he compels.
He quickens their desire and gives it might,
And teaches them to wrestle in the night.
He cheapens gold, to blemish he gives charm.
And to the weakling lends a warrior’s arm;
He makes the coward dare, the sluggard race,
The awkward he endows with every grace.
Love made Rotokritos to hold his ground
And to defy the ten who gathered round.

From EROTOCRITOS (lines543-552)
Vizentzos Cornaros (16th-17th Century)

NIGHTS I STAY AWAKE WITHOUT HOPE...
Rebetiko by Yannis Papaioannou
Translated by Gail Holst

Nights I stay awake without hope
Lonely I walk the streets.
In front of the bars of your window
I spend my sad hours.

How I long to meet you again,
To find our old joy once more,
To give you my kisses again
So my black saddness will leave me

But there where you are in a strange place,
Who knows where you wander now?
I wonder if you still think of me
Or suffer for someone else.

DESIRES
Like beautiful bodies of the dead who have not grown old
and they shut them, with tears, in a magnificent mausoleum,
with roses at the head and jasmine at the feet-
that is how desires look that have passed
without fulfillment; without one of them having achieved
a night of sensual delight, or a moonlit morning.

Constantine P. Kavafy (1863-1933), translated by Rae Dalven

THE BLOOD of love has robed me in purple
And joys never seen before have covered me in shade.
I've become corroded in the south wind of humankind
Mother far away, my Everlasting Rose.

On the open sea they lay in wait for me,
With triple-masted men-of-war they bombarded me,
My sin that I too had a love of my own
Mother far away, my Everlasting Rose.

Once in July her large eyes
Half-opened, deep down my entrails, to light up
The virgin life for a single moment
Mother far away, my Everlasting Rose.

And since that day the wrath of ages
Has turned on me, shouting out the curse:
"He who saw you, let him live in blood and stone"
Mother far away, my Everlasting Rose.

Once again I took the shape of my native country,
I grew and flowered among the stones.
And the blood of killers I redeem with light
Mother far away, my Everlasting Rose.

From THE AXION ESTI, by Odysseus Elytis (1911-1996)
Translated by Edmund Keeley and George Savidis

kenthma Thrakhs

GREEK the language they gave me; poor the house on Homer's shores.
My only care my language on Homer's shores...
From THE AXION ESTI, by Odysseus Elytis; translated by Edmund Keeley and George Savidis

This ...virtual scrap-book on love poetry
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Anna