Φύλλα
Αχιλλέας Παράσχος (1838–1895), 1876
A Greek poet of the 1870s on exile, prison and inconsolable grief — poems on this list under a title that promises only leaves, written in a rhyming demotic that still lands hard. Rhyming demotic from the 1870s that moves fast and dramatic, carrying grief and anger at full volume without much quiet in between.
About power, freedom and society.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you read Greek poetry for its public voice — satire, exile, defiance — and don't mind rhyme doing heavy lifting. The demotic is 1870s and sometimes archaic, and the grief poems stay bleak for long stretches.
Why read it
A reminder that poetry can be a public weapon: these poems take on prison, exile and loss with a directness that hasn't dulled.
Pages from the book
What the traitor's kiss does to a man who is already in his grave.
Ὅμως τὸ ἄπιστο φιλὶ νεκρὸ ἀνασηκόνεικαὶ ζωντανεύει τὸ κορμὶ ποὺ χῶμα τὸ πλακόνει.Ἀκούει μέσ’ στὸν ὕπνο του τὸν πρῶτο βυθισμένοςτῆς νύφης του τὸ φίλημα ὁ νειός ὁ πεθαμμένος·τὸν ὄρκο του θυμήθηκε κι’ ὁ τάφος του ἀνοίγει·σὲ μαῦρο ἀπάνω βρέθηκε, λάκκους σταυροὺς πηδάει,τὸν βλέπουν τ’ ἄστρα τρέμουνε, ἡ γῆ ζητεῖ νὰ φύγῃκαὶ χαλινάρι δὲν κρατεῖ· ὁ Μαῦρος ὁδηγάει·φεὺγει, πετᾷ· τὰ πέταλλα σπίθαις, φωτιαὶς σκορπᾶνεκαὶ φέγγουνε τὸ δρόμο τους· ἀλλοίμονο, ποῦ πᾶνε! The glory of the old days, felt most keenly at a seaside table with an unpaid bill.
Ὤ! εἶναι ἀριστούργημα νὰ τρῷς εἰς τ’ ἀκρογιάλικαὶ τὴν δροσιὰ τῆς θάλασσας τὸ στῆθος σου νὰ πέρνῃ,νὰ χώνῃς μὲς στὸ πιάτο σου καὶ χέρια καὶ κεφάλι,κι’ ἀδιάκοπα ὁ μάγειρος πορτσιόναις νὰ σοῦ φέρνῃ.Ὤ! εἶναι ἀριστούργημα νὰ τρῷς καὶ νὰ φουσκώνῃς,μὰ ὑπεραριστούργημα λεπτὸ νὰ μὴν πληρώνῃς.Τί κρῖμα, τί κακούργημα στὰ τωρινά μας χρόνιανὰ μὴν ἰδοῦμε πόλεμο καπνοῦ καὶ σκόνης νέφη...Ἔ! ξενοδόχε, φέρε μου καὶ μία μακαρόνια...δὲν ξέρω πῶς ὁ πόλεμος μοῦ φέρνει τόσο κέφι.Ὦ θάλασσαις καὶ κύματα κι’ ἀστέρια καὶ φεγγάρια,ἕναν καιρὸ μᾶς βλέπατε μεγάλα παλληκάρια. No one at all dies easily in prison — not again, not quickly.
Ἄχ! εὔκολα στὴ φυλακὴ κανένας δὲν θὰ πεθαίνει·ἄν δὲν σαπίσῃ τὸ κορμί, ψυχὴ ἐκεῖ δὲν βγαίνει.Καὶ ξεψυχᾷς μέσα σ’ αὐτὴ καιρούς,, ἡμέρας, χρόνια,καὶ πότε εἶσαι στὴ φωτιά, καὶ πότε μέσ’ στὰ χιόνια,καὶ στὴ στιγμὴ τὴν ὕστερη, ποῦ σβεῖς σὰν νεκροκέρι,δὲν βρίσκεται νὰ σοῦ κρατῇ τὸ μέτωπο ἕνα χέρι! Αχιλλέας Παράσχος.A satirist and lyric poet who attacked the politicians of his day so fiercely that his newspaper, Asmodaios, was repeatedly seized. He died on the island of Corfu in 1895.
Books that feel like this
More by Αχιλλέας Παράσχος
Παραμονή Χριστουγέννων
Αχιλλέας Παράσχος, 1878
On Christmas Eve, Christ and Peter walk the waking world, looking for the one door that will still open. A late-Romantic Greek Christmas vision, tender and sly.
Εν περιπάτω
Αχιλλέας Παράσχος, 1875
A nineteenth-century Greek poet walks through London and Paris and sees only decline. Rage, wit and nostalgia in the same breath.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is Φύλλα for me?
- You may like it if you read Greek poetry for its public voice — satire, exile, defiance — and don't mind rhyme doing heavy lifting. The demotic is 1870s and sometimes archaic, and the grief poems stay bleak for long stretches.
- What is Φύλλα like?
- Rhyming demotic from the 1870s that moves fast and dramatic, carrying grief and anger at full volume without much quiet in between. About power, freedom and society.
- What should I read after Φύλλα?
- If you liked Φύλλα, try The Tempest (William Shakespeare), Memoirs of a Revolutionist (Peter Kropotkin) and Riders of the Purple Sage (Zane Grey).
A taste of the feed
Some dreams are worth crying over when they end.
Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me, that, when I waked, I cried to dream again.
The Tempest · William Shakespeare
The cost, in someone else's bread, of a life of the mind.
But what right had I to these highest joys, when all around me was nothing but misery and struggle for a mouldy bit of bread; when whatsoever I should spend to enable me to live in that world of higher emotions must needs be taken from the very mouths of those who grew the wheat and had not bread enough for their children? From somebody’s mouth it must be taken, because the aggregate production of mankind remains still so low.
Memoirs of a Revolutionist · Peter Kropotkin
A wind that carries every love story ever told.
Always it brought softly to him strange, sweet tidings of far-off things. It blew from a place that was old and whispered of youth. It blew down the grooves of time. It brought a story of the passing hours. It breathed low of fighting men and praying women. It sang clearly the song of love. That ever was the burden of its tidings—youth in the shady woods, waders through the wet meadows, boy and girl at the hedgerow stile, bathers in the booming surf, sweet, idle hours on grassy, windy hills, long strolls down moonlit lanes—everywhere in far-off lands, fingers locked and bursting hearts and longing lips—from all the world tidings of unquenchable love.
Riders of the Purple Sage · Zane Grey
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