tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6561249004966522983.post7352897641482253003..comments2024-03-28T14:38:09.470+00:00Comments on Patrick Comerford: At 90, Theodorakis continues to write soulful and challenging musicPatrick Comerfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00558394038241172440noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6561249004966522983.post-79194738941085811132021-10-27T11:33:45.790+01:002021-10-27T11:33:45.790+01:00Elytis AXION ESTI is the greatest poem ever writte...Elytis AXION ESTI is the greatest poem ever written, I think<br />AXION ESTI means WORTHY IS... It probably comes from Greek Orthodox Liturgy, though Anglicans would have known it from the hymn: Come let us voice our joyful song with angels round the throne...<br />This continues:<br />"Worthy the Lamb that died", they cry - "to be exalted thus" and a somewhat backhanded comment: "Worthy the Lamb" (our hearts reply) "for he was slain for us" [!].<br />Elytis may well have been looking to Revelation - not "RevelationS" - the last book of the New Testament, which I would have called the "Apocalypse of John". <br />This John seemed to have no connexion at all with the main author of the Gospel of John, who needless to say was not the Son of Zebedee. I might even say, dogmatically/mulishly, that apart from most of the Letters of Paul, no book in the New Testament was written by any person named in its title, in its text or elsewhere in the New Testament. <br />As for the author of Revelation/Apocalypse, he probably lived in eastern Turkey - if the Letters to the Seven Churches were always part of the whole work and not an interpolation. The whole Book was well known to whoever it was wrote an account of a Christian martyrdom in Lyon, probably in the early 180s. This account was put into the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius of Caesarea, probably at the end of the third century, from which it could be removed without trace. <br />The letter refers to Revelation/Apocalypse more times than it does to any other New. Testament book, more times than to all those other books put together, and certainly more times than any other New Testament book - of which not one refers to R/A ever! I guess there could be a link from Lugdunum via Massilia [Marseilles], which was a Greek city, back-and-forth to the Roman province of Asia. It could have been here where the Letter's writer lived, in a province where Christians were becoming more numerous and more unpopular, as the growing economic, political and epidemiological crises [which people could not understand] were put down to the anger of the gods against cities which tolerated vociferous minorities who refused to give the gods due honour. The result was persecution - reflected in the part of Revelation/Apocalypse which is a katabatic narrative, i.e. an account of a journey of someone like Orpheus or Odysseus or Er [at the end of Plato's "Republic"], someone who goes to see what Life after Death is like and return to tell the tale.<br />Phew! All of this started as a comment on that song "Marina" by Odysseas Elytis. A comment I was writing while taking a break from finishing something on Theodorakis:<br />THEODORAKIS ZEI MES' STHN KARDIA MAS<br />THEODORAKIS ZEI KI' EINAI KONTA MAS<br />POU ZITOUME ENA KOSMO PIO IRINIKO!<br />[Put that in Symbol Font!]<br />HLV<br />DavidDAVIDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02167632434601166719noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6561249004966522983.post-898019855275343642021-10-27T10:38:46.069+01:002021-10-27T10:38:46.069+01:00Elytis Axion Esti is the best poem ever written, I...Elytis Axion Esti is the best poem ever written, I think!<br />DavidDAVIDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02167632434601166719noreply@blogger.com