Achilles

Anna Griva is a Greek poet, novelist and translator and a good friend of mine. She is considered one of the most promising emerging voices in contemporary Greek poetry.

Over the past fifteen years, her poetry has evolved significantly transitioning from personal themes and introspections to more symbolic and reflective ones.

I have here chosen to translate the first poem of her pamphlet (or chapbook) titled Dark thread tied tight. The title is a variation of the fist verse of a traditional stanza used by the folk storytellers to begin their narrations. The original verse, Red thread tied tight, has been altered to signify th collection’s mythical and underworldly themes: most of the poems revolve around ancient Greek myths retold from the perspective of the deceased heros and heroines.

This particular poem is about Achilles, the idomitable Greek warrior from the Iliad who speaks to us in the first person from Hades.

Laurel Lodged, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I weep at night
And the children mock me.
With their darkness
They scratch my back,
And they shame me with their laughter.

When men chase me 
They spit on the nothingness that I have become 
They sneer at my weapons 
They, who have never fought a battle.

Where you’ve ended up, they shout at me,
Thetis will not hear you
You run to the waters in vain.
You pray to her in vain. 
From the waves of Styx
Only nightmares emerge.
And in its depths, you see oars
Of sunken time.

But I seek nothing,
My prayers have dried up,
I have forgotten my mother
And the world above alike.
I only stare at the water.
And ripple it with my tears
Hoping to crack a rift
That I can dive in

Maybe in the mud of the riverbed 
Time starts afresh
And the souls turn to
Babies that surrender 
To the buoyancy of the sun.