The Sea (Η ΘΑΛΑΣΣΑ), a Greek Poem by Dinos Christianopoulos, 1984; Ντίνος Χριστιανόπουλος

From Nisos, Mousiki kai Poiisi 3, Athens, June 1984:

The poem is dated 1962 online.

Η ΘΑΛΑΣΣΑ

Ἡ θάλασσα εἶναι σὰν τὸν ἔρωτα:

μπαίνεις καὶ δὲν ξέρεις ἂν θὰ βγεῖς.

Πόσοι δὲν ἔφαγαν τὰ νιάτα τους –

μοιραῖες βουτιές, θανατερὲς καταδύσεις,

γράμπες, πηγάδια, βράχια ἀθέατα,

ρουφῆχτρες, καρχαρίες, μέδουσες.

Ἀλίμονο ἂν κόψουμε τὰ μπάνια

Μόνο καὶ μόνο γιατί πνίγηκαν πεντέξι.

Ἀλίμονο ἂν προδώσουμε τὴ θάλασσα

Γιατὶ ἔχει τρόπους νὰ μᾶς καταπίνει.

Ἡ θάλασσα εἶναι σὰν τὸν ἔρωτα:

χίλιοι τὴ χαίρονται – ἕνας τὴν πληρώνει.

(1962)

 A first attempt at a very free translation:

The Sea 

The sea is like love, like Eros:

You wade right in,

You never know if you’ll come out.

How many youths have squandered lives

Through fateful plunges or deadly dives,

Risked cramps or currents, rips or rocks,

Sharks or whirlpools,

Medusas or men o’ war?

Woe betide us if we should give up swimming

Because half a dozen people drowned!

Woe betide us if we reject the sea,

For fear that she will swallow us.

The sea's like love, like Eros:

A thousand people take pleasure in it,

But one of us will pay the price.

Dinos Christianopoulos' first poem (not the poem above) was published in The Record, an annual bilingual publication of the British Institute, Salonica. It served as the chronicle of the Salonica Institute and of the British Council in Thessaloniki, as mentioned in the book The British Council and Anglo-Greek Literary Interactions, 1945-1955

Note also Chapter 8, The magazine The Record (1947-1955), by Dinos Christianopoulos.


About the poet

More poems


Christianopoulos on Rebetika (from my library):

An article by Christianopoulos

Some Sea Photographs (and a Painting):

The Sea (Greece and Dorset, UK): The Pleasures and Dangers

.