excerpt
…enchanted by the smoothness of the blue water and by the cloudless
sky and by the benevolent and happy glances of the kids and adults
looking at them.
He sat on a bench thinking of the island he came from, his
home, his place of birth: the island with its rugged mountains, its
warm western seas, its ancient solitude. So strange, so tormented,
yet so enchanting was this island, so large and narrow with steeply
cut seashores, with its beautiful beaches, the proud insubordinate
mountains, the rolling valleys and vineyards. The place of his birth,
his roots, which travelled for many eons back to the Minoans, yes,
these were his roots, and he felt strongly about this.
A familiar old verse came back to him, and he quietly murmured,
When on this island,
take it one stepping-stone at a time
and with each footstep, bear in mind
the number of battles,
equals the number of stones.
As the origins of such verses were untraceable in the timeless
villages like the one Hermes came from, he couldn’t date when it
entered him to remain imprinted there forever. Innumerable such
four liners were so popular people sand them in christenings and
in weddings and in every holiday or gathering whether religious or
societal these local four liners, the mantinades, as they called them
enriched their days and filled their celebratory time with smiles
and joy, just like Hermes’s smile a satisfactory smile on his face, a
smile of pride, of joy, a certain glow that became even brighter under
the sun rays of midday. He was truly proud of where he came from,
where people were noble and hospitable, where there was something
in them so difficult to describe, the Cretan Glance. The epic element
has always been strong here, so that these people were very different
from the other Hellenes of the mainland, and their souls have always
been manly and cannot ever be suppressed.
Libros Libertad 