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Το μοιρολόι της Παναγιάς (Φούρνοι Ικαρίας)
…
– Be off with you, you gypsy scum, and may your hearth grow cold,
and may you lack a second shirt to clothe your wretched back.
They took the path, they took the path, the path that is a footpath,
and so the path led them in time right to the thief ’s own doorway.
– Swing open, door of shameless thief and door of Pontius Pilate;
the door swung open struck with fear, the latch no hand had lifted.
She cast around to right and left, she knew none of those people,
she looked again more to the right, there stood Saint John the Baptist.
…
Translated by John Leatham
...
– Άντε μωρέ ατσίγγανε, στάχτη να μη ποτάξεις
μηδέ διπλό πουκάμισο στη ράχη σου μη βάλεις.
Επήραν το στρατί-στρατί, στρατί το μονοπάτι
και το στρατί τους έβγαλε μες στου ληστού την πόρτα.
– Άνοιξε πόρτα του ληστού και πόρτα του Πιλάτου.
Κι η πόρτα από το φόβο της ανοίγει μοναχή της.
Τηρά δεξιά, τηρά ζερβά, κανένα δε γνωρίζει,
τηρά και δεξιότερα, βλέπει τον Αϊ-Γιάννη.
...
The Moirolόϊ or Lament of the Virgin, very widely known throughout Greek lands, 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 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 moirolόϊ 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.
