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Το μοιρολόι της Παναγιάς (Μυτιλήνη)
…
Obediently returning home, she laid the supper table
and patiently sat down to wait until her son should come back.
Saint Good passed by and called on her and wished her a good evening:
– How, with a son upon the cross, his mother sits at table?
– So much for you, Saint Good, I say, and may you be accursed:
no priest to say a mass for you, no chanting by a deacon,
and may the sea-waves pound you hard upon the shore’s wild margin.
Their discourse had not ended yet, when lo! the heavens opened:
she saw her son approaching home, bright as a lighted taper.
Translated by John Leatham
...
Πηγαίνει στο σπιτάκι της και στρώνει το τραπέζι
κι έκατσε και περίμενε τον ερχομό του γιου της.
Πέρασε και η αγιά Καλή και την καλησπερίζει.
– Ποιος είδε γιο εις το σταυρό και μάνα στο τραπέζι.
– Άντε και συ αγιά Καλή, να ’σαι καταραμένη,
παπάς να μη σε λειτουργά, διάκος να μη σε ψέλνει,
μόνο στην άκρη του γιαλού το κύμα να σε δέρνει.
Το λόγο δεν τελείωσε κι ανοίξαν τα ουράνια,
βλέπει το γιο της κι έρχεται σα φως και σα λαμπάδα.
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)
Studio recording, 1978.
