XXIV
Here end the works of the sea, the works of love.
Those who will some day live here where we end—
should the blood happen to blacken in their memory and overflow—
let them not forget us, the weak souls among the asphodels,
let them turn towards Erebus the heads of the victims:
We who had nothing will teach them peace.
—George Seferis, from Mythistorema
(My translation)
(Music by Ilias Andriopoulos, sung by the late, great Nikos Xylouris)
Fantastic—poetry, music, translation ... all. Thanks, Vassilis!
ReplyDeleteVassilis,
ReplyDeleteWonderful, altogether.
The wise Don Wentworth picks out this line:
"let them not forget us, the weak souls among the asphodels ..."
And a beautiful line that is, the fragile little souls (animula blandula vagula), in amongst the asphodels... of this or perhaps another world.
This, of course, is the last poem comprising Seferis' "Myth+History"--it's also the epilogos to a hefty collection of poems I've been amassing over the past thirty years--recognition of a debt I owe to a great poet.
ReplyDeleteYou've repaid that debt several times over.
ReplyDeleteThink of it another way: what keeps the work alive over the years but the fealty of those who revive, return to, re-vision it?
Let there be no end to it. This restless work of the sea.
(WV == "latemold")