Maria Polydouri
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Maria Polydouri (Greek: Μαρία Πολυδούρη) (1 April 1902–1930) was a Greek poet.
Polydouri was born in Kalamata. She was a contemporary of Kostas Karyotakis, with whom she had a desperate but incomplete love affair. Although she wrote poetry from at an early age, her most important poems were written during the last four years of her life, when, suffering from consumption, she was secluded in an Athens sanatorium.
Unintentionally she became a literary legend in early 20th century Athens, and a link between the pre-war poetry of Karyotakis and the post-war poetry of Yiannis Ritsos and Angelos Sikelianos. Her poetry is full of sadness and sincere feelings. Love seems to be the strongest motive for Polydouri whose poems are lyric and spontaneous. Her language seems to be part of an oral conversation with her love interest. K. Sergiopoulos said: Maria Polydouri used to write her poems as if she was writing her personal diary. The transmutation happened automatically and effortlessly. To Polydouri, expression meant straight transcribing from the facts happenning in her emotional world to the poetic language with all the idealizations and exaggerations her romantic nature dictated to her.
Polydouri died in Athens in 1930.
[edit] In Her Own Words
Maria Polydouri describes her feelings and the motive of her art in many of her poems. For example:
Από το ποίημα της Εμένα τα τραγουδια μου ήταν μόνο για Κείνον
Λοιπόν γιατί να δέχομαι το κάλεσμα της Μούσας;
Σαρκάζει η πίστη μου μέσα μου των θείων και των γηίνων
Μια ανόσια λύρα των παθών σε μενα δεν ταιριάζει.
Εμένα τα τραγούδια μου ήταν μόνο για Κείνον.
From her poem My songs are just for Him (free translation)
So why should I accept the call of the Muse?
My religion for gods and mortals is taunting inside of me
A godless lyre of passion isn't suitable for me.
My songs were just for Him.
Το ποίημά της Μόνο γιατί μ'αγάπησες
Δεν τραγουδώ παρά γιατί μ'αγάπησες
στα περασμένα χρόνια.
Και σε ήλιο, σε καλοκαιριού προμάντεμα
και σε βροχή, σε χιόνια,
δεν τραγουδώ παρά γιατί μ'αγάπησες.
Μόνο γιατί με κράτησες στα χέρια σου
μια νύχτα και με φίλησες στο στόμα
μόνο γι'αυτό είμαι ωραία σαν κρίνο ολάνοιχτο
κι έχω ένα ρίγος στην ψυχή μου ακόμα,
μόνο γιατί με κράτησες στα χέρια σου.
Μόνο γιατί τα μάτια σου με κύτταξαν
με την ψυχή στο βλέμμα,
περήφανα στολίστηκα το υπέρτατο
της ύπαρξής μου στέμμα,
μόνο γιατί τα μάτια σου με κύτταξαν.
Μόνο γιατί μ'αγάπησες γεννήθηκα
γι'αυτό η ζωή μου εδόθη
στην άχαρη ζωή την ανεκπλήρωτη
μενα η ζωή πληρώθη
Μόνο γιατί μ'αγάπησες γεννήθηκα.
Μονάχα γιατί τόσο ωραία μ'αγάπησες
έζησα, να πληθαίνω
τα ονείρατά σου, ωραίε, που βασίλεψες
κι έτσι γλυκά πεθαίνω
μονάχα γιατί τόσο ωραία μ'αγάπησες.
Her poem Just because you loved me (free translation)
I sing, just because you loved me
in the past years
the same under the sun, under the prediction of the summer
the same under the rain, under the snow
I sing just because you loved me
Just because you held me in your arms
one night and kissed me on the lips
only because of this I'm pretty like a new blown lilly
and I still have a shiver in my soul
just because you held me in your arms
Just because your eyes gave me a look
with your soul in your gaze
I proudly bedecked myself with the supreme
crown of my existence
just because your eyes gave me a look
Just because you loved me I was born
that's why I was given life
in this graceless and incomplete lifetime
to me life has been fulfilled
Just because you loved me I was born
Only because you loved me this tender
I lived, to multiply
your dreams, you handsome king
and in such a sweet way I'm dying
only because you loved me this tender
Το ποίημα της Σ'ένα νέο που αυτοκτόνησε το οποίο λέγεται ότι είναι γραμμένο για τον Κώστα Καρυωτάκη
Αυτόν τον καταδίωκε ένα πνεύμα
στις σκοτεινές εκτάσεις της ζωής του.
Οι ασχολίες του, οι χαρές του, σ’ ένα νεύμα
προσχήματα γινόνταν της ορμής του.
Τα ωραία βιβλία, η σκέψη, ένα ορμητήριο
λίγες στιγμές· βίαιος στον έρωτά του.
Ύστερα γέμιζε η όψη του μυστήριο
και τίποτε δεν ταίριαζε κοντά του.
Ένας περίεργος ξένος επλανιόταν
αναμεσόμας, μ’ όψη αλλοιωμένη.
Την υποψία μας δε μας την αρνιόταν
πως κάτι φοβερό τον περιμένει.
Ήταν ωραίος παράξενα, σαν κείνους
που ο Θάνατος τούς έχει ξεχωρίσει.
Δινόταν στους φριχτότερους κινδύνους
σαν κάτι να τον είχε εξασφαλίσει.
Ένα πρωί, σε μια κάρυνη θήκη
τον βρήκαμε νεκρό μ’ ένα σημάδι
στον κρόταφο. Ήταν όλος σα μια νίκη,
σα φως που ρίχνει γύρω του σκοτάδι.
Είχε μια τέτοια απλότη και γαλήνη,
μια γελαστή μορφή ζωντανεμένη!
Όλος μια ευχαριστία σα νάχε γίνει.
Κ’ η αιτία του κακού σημαδεμένη.
Her poem To a young man who committed suicide which, according to rumors was written for Kostas Karyotakis
[translator unknown]
A spirit kept pursuing him
in the dark expanses of his life.
His occupations, his joys at a nod
became pretexts of his vital drive.
His lovely books, thought, a momentary haunt.
His love a violent sight.
Later his face filled with mystery
and nothing around him was right.
A curious stranger, he wandered among us
in altered mien and grim.
He did not gainsay our suspicion
that something frightful awaited him.
He was strangely handsome, like those
whom death had singled out.
He yielded to the direst dangers
as if something guarded him throughout.
One morning, in a walnut casket we
found him dead with a mark on the temple.
All of him was like a victory,
like light casting around him in the dark.
He had such simplicity and serenity,
a smiling form living again!
As if all of him had become a Eucharist
and the cause had marked him in vain.
Her poem To A Friend
I shall come upon the night, on the way that drags me along,
I shall come and find you there alone.
With indolent movements, eventide will spin her delicate shades,
drifting past your desolate window.
In the stillness of your room you shall have me in-
books scattered around, consigned to silence deep.
And we shall sit side by side, musing over moments past,
yet long before we lose them, still are dying and last.
For the bitterness of ungrateful life, the dreariness,
for having no yearning, no craving,
for decay and silence abiding
plunged in brooding stillness
our speech and ultimate thought shall fade away.
But the night will come to rest
right at your window’s nest.
Scents and glittering stars and fair breezes shall mingle
with the grand call that Nature delivers,
with your heart that even silence itself will not shelter.
Her poem Dream
I gathered roses for you
wandering about the mount;
a thousand thorns in my view,
my clasping hands in hurt abound.
I longed so much for you to pass
through the icy northern wind,
holding a gift for you –alas-
tight against my bosom’s tilt.
I kept on gazing afar,
full of yearning was my heart
and my eyes streaming tears.
In my craving I failed to see
the dead of night was drawing nigh;
and I cried and cried –whatever be-
me and my roses in the night.
[edit] Works
Collections:
- The trilles that faint (1928)
- Echo over chaos (1929)
