Η Ναϊάς
Αλέξανδρος Ρίζος Ραγκαβής, 1879
A Greek naval adventure about a slave ship, an idealist clerk, and the rebellion of the men packed below deck. A lively, dark yarn from the nineteenth century.
Αλέξανδρος Ρίζος Ραγκαβής
1809–1892
Αλέξανδρος Ρίζος Ραγκαβής writes as a man of his century who never quite settles: a scholar and diplomat by trade, he lets myth, the sea and a moral grievance pull against each other on the page. Start with «Η Ναϊάς» if you want a story, a dark sea yarn about a slave ship and the men below deck; turn to «Ποιήματα» if you would rather hear the same restlessness in verse. Both share a plainspoken, slightly improvised energy, and both take seriously the question of who is free and who is not.
Feels like freedom, defiance and dread.
Start with Η Ναϊάς.
Rangavis was a celebrated poet and diplomat who later served as a professor of archaeology and was among the first to introduce the Greek public to the works of Goethe and Heine. He also wrote the first Greek science-fiction tale of a journey to the moon. He was born in Constantinople and served as Greek ambassador to several European courts.
A tool for carrying people, designed like a yoke for animals
Ἐν τῷ ἅμα οἱ ναῦται, ἐξάγοντες τῆς λέμβου μακρὰ ξύλα διαιρούμενα δίχα κατὰ τὸ μῆκός των, καὶ ἔχοντα τρύπας κατὰ ἕνα πόδα ἀπ’ ἀλλήλων ἀφισταμένας, ἐπέρων καὶ ἐνέκλειον εἰς τὰς τρύπας ἑκάστου τοὺς λαιμοὺς ὀκτὼ ἢ δέκα δυστυχῶν μαύρων· ἕκαστος δὲ ναύτης, λαμβάνων εἰς τὸν ὦμόν του τὴν ἄκραν ἑνὸς τῶν παραδόξων τούτων ζυγῶν, ἔσυρε κατόπιν του τὴν τοιαύτην τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἀγέλην. Books by Αλέξανδρος Ρίζος Ραγκαβής
Ποιήματα
Αλέξανδρος Ρίζος Ραγκαβής, 1850
A 19th-century Greek poet moves between sea-tossed myth, mountain freedom-song and graveyard reckoning — poetry that still sounds improvised and alive.
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