A rare recording of Kostis Palamas reciting the Hymn of the Centuries himself.
Rare photos courtesy of the Kostis Palamas Foundation
Hymn of the Ages
Our long-suffering mother, oh immortal,
the Parthenon is not your only ornament•
of your wreckage the swords became
your talismans and wreaths for the ages.
And the stones you set in your soil
the victorious hand of Pomeios,
& the cross-vaulted church from Byzantium,
on the site of the ancient multi-style temple,
And this castle that roars inside
of Venice still the lion,
and the minaret that stands, of all-black
and a remnant of bitter slavery,
And of the Slav read it against the counter
οf' name that comes to our mouth
-with the milk of the manna that we suckled-
like a foreign flower in the native soil,
All a bridal dress they weave for you,
befitting you, O queen, like a crown,
on your beauty beauty, they are impressed
&; it's like guts from your own blood.
O fair talismans, ornaments mismatched,
o passable, of you fashioned' eternal,
a world of old-world debris,
the new country Homeland the panharmony!
Rare photos courtesy of the Kostis Palamas Foundation
The poem beautifully describes the last 20 centuries of Greek history, in his view, although a Nationalist, Palamas angered the fanatics by accepting Slavic admixture.
To this day, many fanatics assume that the Ezerites, Miligians, Sagoudatians, and the rest of the Slovenes or Slavonians who settled peacefully in Greece simply disappeared).
Palamas had the courage to see the truth, what are we afraid of?
This does not change who we are because the "pureblood" nations exist in genetics labs, science fiction, and history books because they disappeared (purebred nations tend to die out, like Indians).
Our long-suffering mother, oh immortal,
the Parthenon is not your only ornament•
of your wreckage the swords became
your talismans and wreaths for the ages.
And the stones you set in your soil
the victorious hand of Pomeios,
& the cross-vaulted church from Byzantium,
on the site of the ancient multi-style temple,
And this castle that roars inside
of Venice still the lion,
and the minaret that stands, of all-black
and a remnant of bitter slavery,
And of the Slav read it against the counter
οf' name that comes to our mouth
-with the milk of the manna that we suckled-
like a foreign flower in the native soil,
All a bridal dress they weave for you,
befitting you, O queen, like a crown,
on your beauty beauty, they are impressed
&; it's like guts from your own blood.
O fair talismans, ornaments mismatched,
o passable, of you fashioned' eternal,
a world of old-world debris,
the new country Homeland the panharmony!
