The Fateful
(1922)
In the cellar of the tavern
surrounded by smoke and swearing
(the music barrel screeching upstairs)
our whole crew was drinking yesterday.
Yesterday, like every night,
so the poison could be swallowed.
One grabbed the other
and once in a while, spat on the floor.
O! What great suffering
the suffering of life!
No matter how hard the mind tries
it cannot remember a happy day.
Sun and blue sea,
and depth of the wayward sky!
O! egg yolk-painted gauze of dawn
carnations of the evening,
you shine, you go dark far from us,
without entering our hearts!
One's father, paralyzed
for ten years, a specter,
the other's wife, short-lived
is wasting away from tuberculosis at home
Mazes' son in Palamidi
and Yiavis daughter in Gazi.
- It's our crooked destiny's fault!
- It's God's fault, for he hates us!
- It's our own heads' fault!
- It's, first of all, the fault of wine!
Whose fault is it? Whose fault is it?
No mouth has found it
or said it yet.
So in the dark tavern
we always drink with our backs bent
like worms, and every heel
squashes us where it finds us.
Cowardly, fateful, lacking a will besides,
we expect, perhaps, a miracle!
Music: Mikis Theodorakis
Voice: Grigoris Bithikotsis
No comments:
Post a Comment