Καλλιτεχνικός Σύλλογος Δημοτικής Μουσικής Δόμνα Σαμίου

I heard the shouting and the cries, they filled the Cyprus straits.
I thought they must be slaughtering bulls or taming some wild beasts;
I thought the Turks were making war upon the Frankish foe,
but they weren’t slaughtering any bulls, nor taming some wild beasts,
nor were the Turks engaged in war against the Frankish foe.
A sailor-lad lay at death’s door up in the ship’s sharp bow.
He has no mother weeping there, nor father pitying him,
nor brother nor a sister who would chant a dirge for him.
The nights and dawns did weep for him.

Good ship, ahoy! Good ship, ahoy! Where are you coasting to?
If its for Diaphani¹, then, hold fast! I’ll come aboard.

The nights and dawns did weep for him and every crewman, too.
Good sailor-lad, get up! We know and praise your skills.
You take our bearings, watch the wind, and make it into port.
I tell you, I’m not able to, but you tell me ‘Get up!’.
Go, fetch my chart and bring it here and my dividers, too.
I’ll take our bearings, watch the wind, we’ll make it into port.
Give me a hand while I get up and hold me lest I fall.
D’you see that lofty mountain there, the tallest of them all,
the one with fog about its peak and mist about its waist?
No man on foot or on a horse attempts to pass that way.
Go, drop your anchor over there where there’s safe anchorage.
The deck hands are to water ship, the cooks to gather wood,
and the young sailor lads to land and there prepare a grave.
You’re not to dig it on high ground, but close to the sea’s edge,
where sea waves reach the shore and so will break above my head,
and on the right-hand side of it a window you shall leave
to let the dawn breeze enter in, the sunshine in the day.
I’ll have the slab for mother-in-law, the dark earth for a wife,
the pebbles strewn about the beach for brothers and close kin.

Translated by John Leatham

¹Diaphani: The harbour of Olympos, Karpathos Island