Listen
– Today, Despo, ’tis Easter Day, today’s a day of gladness,
the married girls have joined the dance, young girls are promenading,
and you, Despo, don’t appear among the living people.
Despo, it’s your child that cries, it cries and will not settle.
– Remember, mother, when it cries, there stands beside the cottage,
outside your door, an apple tree, a quince tree in the vineyard.
Go fetch an apple from the tree and give it some to calm it,
and if it doesn’t settle then, just dig a hole and bury it,
work with your nails as pick-axes, your palms as sturdy shovels.
Translated by John Leatham
Σήμερα Δέσπω μ’ Πασχαλιά
– Σήμερα Δέσπω μ’ Πασχαλιά,
σήμερα Δέσπω μ’ Πασχαλιά, σήμερα ’ν’ άσπρη μέρα,
βγήκαν οι νύφες στο χορό, κοράσια στο σεργιάν’
και συ Δέσπω μ’ δε φαίνεσαι μες στον απάνω κόσμο.
Δέσπω μου κλαίγειν το παιδί, κλαίγειν και δε μερώνει.
– Μάνα μ’ σαν κλαίγειν το παιδί, έχεις μηλιά στην πόρτα σου
έχεις μηλιά στην πόρτα σου και κυδωνιά στ’ αμπέλι
κόψε μήλο ’πό τη μηλιά και δώσ’ το να μερώσει
κι αν δε μερώσειν κι απ’ αυτό, σκάψε παράχωσέ το,
φκιάσε τα νύχια σου τσαπί, κι τσ’ απαλάμες φτυάρι.
‘Despo’, one of the better known and indispensable Easter dance-songs, with an enigmatic and apotropaic content, is often the first song to be sung. It illustrates how deeply rooted is the element of worship of the dead, as well as the social significance of the feast of Easter. In their symbolic utterances -not only in this song, but in a whole series of others- the celebrants of the sacred dance turn their attention to individual dead persons, to familiar infernal demons calling upon them to rise up and in doing so magically to have all Nature follow them. At the same time they express the fervent wish of the community that without exception all its members, both near and distant, both living and dead, may participate in this greatest of all festivals. Miranda Tezopoulou (1998)
Translated by John Leatham
Recorded in April 1996 at Sarakina, Grevena.
