Nikiforos Vrettakos was born in 1912 in Krokees, a
village near Sparta. He was a sensitive, humanitarian and visionary poet and
one of the leading representatives of Modern Greek literature. He connected his
life and work with the intellectual, political and social pursuits of the Greek
people during the 20th century. He focused on the human existence,
writing about emotion and the senses, the concept of beauty within Nature, the
power of Memory, the Greek heritage through language, the essence of
civilization. He was an active member of the Greek Resistance. During the
dictatorship in Greece (1967-1974) he lived as a self-exiled in Switzerland. He
engaged himself with prose, criticism and journalism. He won a lot of prizes
for his work and he was a member of the Academy of Athens and honorary Doctor
of Literature in the University of Athens.
Αν δε μου ’δινες την ποίηση, Κύριε
Αν δε μου ’δινες την ποίηση, Κύριε,
δε θα ’χα τίποτα για να ζήσω.
Αυτά τα χωράφια δε θα ’ταν δικά μου.
Eνώ τώρα ευτύχησα να ’χω μηλιές,
να πετάξουνε κλώνους οι πέτρες μου,
να γιομίσουν οι φούχτες μου ήλιο,
η έρημός μου λαό,
τα περιβόλια μου αηδόνια.
Λοιπόν πώς σου φαίνονται; Είδες
τα στάχυα μου, Κύριε; Είδες τ’ αμπέλια μου;
Είδες τι όμορφα που πέφτει το φως
στις γαλήνιες κοιλάδες μου;
Κι έχω ακόμη καιρό!
Δεν ξεχέρσωσα όλο το χώρο μου, Κύριε.
Μ’ ανασκάφτει ο πόνος μου κι ο κλήρος μου μεγαλώνει.
Ασωτεύω το γέλιο μου σαν ψωμί που μοιράζεται.
Ωστόσο,
δεν ξοδεύω τον ήλιο σου άδικα.
Δεν πετώ ούτε ψίχουλο απ’ ό,τι μου δίνεις.
Γιατί σκέφτομαι την ερμιά και τις κατεβασιές του χειμώνα.
Γιατί θa ’ρθει το βράδυ μου. Γιατί φτάνει
όπου να ’ναι
το βράδυ μου, Κύριε, και πρέπει να ’χω κάμει πριν φύγω
την καλύβα μου εκκλησιά
για τους τσοπάνηδες της αγάπης.
Νικηφόρος Βρεττάκος
If you hadn’t given me poetry, oh Lord
If you
hadn’t given me poetry, oh Lord,
I would
have nothing to live on.
These
fields wouldn’t be mine.
But now I
am blessed with apple trees,
with
branches sprouting from my stones,
to have my
palms filled with sun,
my desert
with people
my gardens
with nightingales.
Well, what
do you think of them? Have you seen
my fields
of wheat, Lord? Have you seen my vineyards?
Have you
seen how beautifully the light falls
upon my
peaceful valleys?
And I still
have time!
I haven’t
cleared all of my land, Lord.
My pain
digs into me and my holding grows.
I exhaust
my laughter like bread shared.
Still,
I don’t
waste your sun in vain.
I don’t
throw away even a crumb of what you’ve given me.
Because I
am thinking of the solitude and the torrents of winter.
Because my
twilight will come. Because any time now
my twilight
will be here, Lord, and before I go
I must have turned my hut into a church
for the
shepherds of love.
Nikiphoros
Vrettakos
Translation: Katerina Manoussaki, Tasos
Botzekides
