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Το μοιρολόι της Παναγιάς (Pεΐς Ντερέ)
…
– O holy John, forerunner and baptizer of my son,
where is my much beloved son, your own beloved teacher?
– My lips won’t frame the words for you, tongue-tied I cannot speak,
nor could my heart contain itself, if what I know I told you.
…
Translated by John Leatham
...
– Άι-άι μου Γιάννη Πρόδρομε και βαφτιστή του γιου μου,
πού εί- πού είναι ’με ο γιούκας μου και ’σέ ο δάσκαλός σου.
– Δεν έ- δεν έχω στόμα να στα πω, γλώσσα να στα μιλήσω
κι ούτ’ η- κι ούτ’ η καρδιά μου τα βαστά να σου τα μολοήσω.
...
The Moirolóϊ or Lament of the Virgin, very widely known throughout Creek lamb, is a long medieval rhyming poem of literary origin, but impressively familiar to broad sections of the populace. Influenced by relevant passages in the Gospels and by Church hymnography, it is an anthropocentric narrative lament for the sufferings of Christ on the way to his crucifixion and death, as observed through the eyes and felt by his tragic mother. Chanted by women around Christ’s tomb in the manner and style of the mundane dirges they know so well, it expresses their compassion and identification with the maternal, human nature of the Virgin. Nonetheless, the. way in which it is ritually performed lays bare the custom’s pre-Christian origins.
While there are local differences in some features of the song or in its melodic treatment, the structure and form of the moirolóϊ as well as its performance bear impressive .similarities to those sung in lands as far apart as Lower Italy, Pontus, and Cyprus. The continuity of its narrative flow is clearly evinced in the sequence we have dared to select here of passages occurring in versions of varied provenance. Miranda Terzopoulou (1998)
Domna Samiou’s collection in Agios Dimitrios, Lemnos, in 1973.
Singers
