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Αλέξαντρος κι βασιλιάς
Alexander, bré amán amán, Alexander and the king,
Alexander brave and strong and little Constantine.
They ate together, bré amán amán, they ate and drank together,
Alexander brave and strong, and feasted and revelled together.
And as they ate and as they drank and as they revelled
they heard a voice from God,
a voice come down from heaven:
– The Turk will take our bread, he’ll enter Constantinople.
– When the fish leap out of the pan,
and the rooster from the pot.
Only then will the Turk take our bread
and enter in the City.
But the fish did leap out of the pan, the rooster from the pot,
and the Turk did take our bread, he did enter in our City.
Translated by Michael Eleftheriou
Αλέξαντρος, μπρ’ αμάν αμάν, Αλέξαντρος κι ο βασιλιάς
Αλέξης αντρειωμένος – κι ο μικρο-Κωσταντίνος
μαζ’ έτρουγαν, μαζί έπιναν, μαζί χαροκοπιούνταν1.
Κει πότρουγαν κει πόπιναν και κει π’ χαροκοπιούνταν
λαλιά τ’ς ήρθι ’πού του Θιό, λαλιά ’πού τα ουράνια.
− Θα πάρει Τούρκος το ψωμί, θα σέβ’2 και μες στην Πόλη.
− ’Ντα3 βγουν τα ψάρια ’π’ του νταβά
κι ο πέτ’νος ’πού το ντέντζιρ’
θα πάρει ο Τούρκος το ψωμί, θα σέβ’ και μες στην Πόλη.
Βγήκαν τα ψάρια ’π’ του νταβά
κι ο πέτ’νος ’πού το ντέντζιρ’
πήρε κι ο Τούρκος το ψωμί, σέβηκι μες στην Πόλη.
1χαροκοπιούνταν: γλένταγαν
2θα σέβ’: θα μπει
3'ντα: όταν
The song narrates in poetic form one of the best-known legends of the Fall of Constantinople: the legend of the old woman who sets a condition for accepting the inconceivable news that the City had indeed fallen to the Turks: that the half-fried fish leap out of her pan and return to the water. Well, the fish did leap out of the pan and, according to popular tradition, swim still in the holy water of Istanbul’s Baluklu church, the ‘church of the Fish’.
It was here that king Alexandros and Constantine, the prime symbolic figures of antiquity and of Byzantine splendour, receive news of the inconceivable catastrophe that has befallen their nation. Miranda Terzopoulou (2007)
Studio recording, 2005.
Domna Samiou taped the song in Karoti, Didymoteicho, Evros sung by babo-Vagia Grammenidou, in 1976.
Watch the song by babo-Vagia Grammenidou
Singers
Gaida (bagpipe)
Constantinopolitan lyra
Goblet drum
Informant (source of the song)
