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We’ve told so many lies, a truth now let us tell,
we loaded forty pumpkins on a mouse’s tail.

The pumpkins full of water,
and the water full of frogs,
when the frogs croaked,
the mouse kicked up his clogs.

He shed his load, ran off, and was never seen again,
his mother burrowed in the hold
and started to complain:

– Where’ve you been, Zafiris child,
where’ve you been?
– Sailing Citywards for armour,
and to the West for clothes all clean.

Translated by Michael Eleftheriou

Είπαμε πολλά ψέματα

Είπαμε πολλά ψέματα, ας πούμε και μια αλήθεια,
φορτώσαμ’ ένα ποντικό σαράντα κολοκύθια.

Τα κολοκύθια είχαν νερό και το νερό βατράχια
και τα βατράχια λάλαγαν κι ο ποντικός εσκιάχτη
και το φορτίο το ’ριξε, πιλάλετος1 κι εχάθη
και μέσ’ στ’ αμπάρια τρύπωσε κι η μάνα του του λέει:

− Πού ’σουν παιδάκι πόντικα, πού ’σουν καλέ Ζαφείρη;
− Πάω στην Πόλη γι’ άρματα και στη Φραγκιά για ρούχα.

1πιλάλετος: τρεχάλα

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Notes

Intimately linked to all of Man’s activities, part of his environment and a subject of his observation, animals are enrolled through a carefully-considered equation in the gallery of grotesques on which popular satirical verse drew its subject-matter. With the actions, thoughts, words, feelings, weaknesses and faults of everyday folk attributed to them, animals wild and domesticated, two- and four-legged, bugs and rodents all feature in the jocular songs of the Greek folk tradition. (See also songs Down on the Barbary plane and Where to, master ant?). Miranda Tezopoulou (2007)

Recording information

Studio recording, 2005.

Domna Samiou taped the song in Athens, sung by Thalia Spanou, who originates from Fournoi, Ikaria, in '80s.

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