The Greeks have a word for it: 60, Αύριο (Avrio), Tomorrow

Looking forward to tomorrow … sunset at the Sunset Taverna, below the slopes of the Fortezza in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

There is an old joke in Crete that tells of how a tourist, eager to learn a few phrases of Greek, asks whether there is a word in Greek that is equivalent to the Spanish mañana.

‘Yes’ says his Greek friend. But he stops, ponders a little, and then, after a few moments of deep thought, he draws a deep breath, and adds hesitantly: ‘Yes, but, but it doesn’t convey the same sense of urgency.’

It is no accident that the Greek word αύριο (avrio, tomorrow) lacks the sense of urgency conveyed in mañana.

Although the word avrio means ‘tomorrow’ or ‘not today’, it often carries a cultural connotation of a relaxed approach to time, meaning ‘when life allows’, not just the next calendar day. It is an integral part of an approach to life that values living in the present without giving in to the deadlines set by others.

The literal meaning of avrio is the day after today. It comes from the Classical Greek word αὔριον (aúrion), a derivative from ἀήρ, meaning a breeze or the morning air. The word is used, for example, by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey, Sophocles (Oedipus Tyrannus, Ichneutae and Trachiniae), Euripides (Alcestis and Hippolytus) and Xenophon (Economics). It is found too throughout the New Testament, for example in two verses in the Gospel reading next Sunday (8 February 2026):

εἰ δὲ τὸν χόρτον τοῦ ἀγροῦ σήμερον ὄντα καὶ αὔριον εἰς κλίβανον βαλλόμενον ὁ θεὸς οὕτως ἀμφιέννυσιν, οὐ πολλῷ μᾶλλον ὑμᾶς, ὀλιγόπιστοι;

But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith? (Matthew 6: 30).

μὴ οὖν μεριμνήσητε εἰς τὴν αὔριον, ἡ γὰρ αὔριον μεριμνήσει ἑαυτῆς· ἀρκετὸν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἡ κακία αὐτῆς.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6: 34).

However, in its Greek cultural context today, the word is imbued with concepts of living without rigid deadlines, embracing a slower pace of life, and understanding that things happen when they are meant to.

In everyday conversation in Greek, the word is frequently used to say ‘not today’, ‘later’, or ‘not now’.

Many popular Greek songs have the word avrio in their title or as their theme, including songs by Stelios Kazantzidis, Ίσως αύριο (Isos Avrio, ‘Maybe Tomorrow’), a classic Zeibekiko song, and in traditional songs like those by Aspasia Stratigou, or in songs such as Σήμερα και Αύριο (Símero ke Avrio, ‘Today and Tomorrow’), a common theme, often with lyrics about love lasting forever.


Ίσως αύριο (Isos Avrio, Maybe Tomorrow) by Stelios Kazantzidis, a classic zeibekiko

Ίσως αύριο (Isos Avrio, Maybe Tomorrow) by Stelios Kazantzidis

Όλοι με ρωτούν πώς έχω καταντήσει
κι εγώ με απορία τους κοιτώ
κλάψε καρδιά μου σήμερα
τη μαύρη σου τη μοίρα
κλάψε για τον κατήφορο
που στη ζωή μου πήρα

Ίσως αύριο χτυπήσει πικραμένα
του θανάτου η καμπάνα και για μένα

Έχω απ’ τη ζωή παράπονο μεγάλο
δεν ένιωσε τον πόνο μου κανείς
μη με κατηγορήσετε
αφού κανείς δεν ξέρει
πριν πέσω τόσο χαμηλά
τι έχω υποφέρει

Ίσως αύριο χτυπήσει πικραμένα
του θανάτου η καμπάνα και για μένα

What will again happen tomorrow,
For years I’ve asked,
New troubles, new sorrows
Await me, the poor soul.

May tomorrow never dawn,
For new misfortunes
And pain it will bring me.

Everyone awaits tomorrow
With hope in their hearts,
But for me, no hope remains
In this world, no hope at all.

May tomorrow never dawn,
For new misfortunes
And pain it will bring me.

If only you knew, my dear mother, how much I suffer in life,
In this unjust and deceitful world
You’d never have brought a child into it.

May tomorrow never dawn, For new misfortunes the wicked will give me.

Waiting for tomorrow … sunset behind the Fortezza and the harbour in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Αύριο πάλι (Avrio páli, ‘Tomorrow Again’) is a poem by the Greek poet, translator and lyricist Nikos Gatsos (1911-1992) that has been set to music and recorded by singers such as Maria Farantouri, as well as Grigoris Bithikotsis, Manolis Mitsias, Yannis Parios, Dimitra Galani and Dimitris Mitropanos.

Nikos Gatsos had a profound influence on the post-war generation of Greek poets. His blend of surrealism, symbolism and folk song was widely admired and made him one of the great 20th century Greek poets, alongside his friends the Nobel laureates Odysseas Elytis and George Seferis.

Nikos Gatsos (Νίκος Γκάτσος) was born on 8 December in 1911 in Asea in Arcadia in the Peloponnese, where he finished primary school. He attended secondary school (gymnasio) in Tripoli, and then moved to Athens, where he studied literature, philosophy and history at the University of Athens for two years.

By then, he was familiar with the poetry of Kostis Palamas and Dionysios Solomos, Greek folk songs, and trends in European poetry. In Athens, he became part of the literary circles of the day becoming a lifelong friends of Odysseus Elytis and published some of his poems in the magazines Nea Estia (1931-1932) and Rythmos (1933). He also published literary criticism in Μακεδονικές Ημέρες (Makedonikes Imeres), Ρυθμός (Rythmos), and Νέα Γράμματα (Nea Grammata). He met Odysseus Elytis in 1936, and became his literary ‘brother’ in poetry.

In 1943, Aetos published his long poem ‘Amorgos’, a major contribution to modern Greek poetry and praised combining surrealism and traditional Greek folk poetry motifs. He went on to publish three more poems: ‘Elegeio’ (1946) in Filologika Chronika, ‘The Knight and Death; (Ο ιππότης κι ο θάνατος) (1947), and ‘Song of Old Times’ (Τραγούδι του παλιού καιρού) (1963), dedicated to Seferis, in the magazine Tachydromos.

After World War II, he worked as a translator with the Greek-British Review and as a radio director with Ellinikí Radiofonía. He also began writing lyrics for Manos Hatzidakis, and collaborated with Mikis Theodorakis and other Greek composers. He translated various plays, and his magnum opus was his translation into Greek of the Spanish tragedy Blood Wedding by Federico Garcia Lorca.

He was close to the composer Manos Hadjidakis and the singer Nana Mouskouri, and his friends included Philip Sherrard, Peter Levi, Peter Jay and the Limerick-born poet Desmond O’Grady (1935-2014), who translated the poetry of CP Cavafy. He died in Athens on 12 May 1992 at the age of 80.

Αύριο πάλι: Νίκος Γκάτσος

Αύριο πάλι, αύριο πάλι θα 'ρθω να σε βρω
Κρίμα που δεν με πιστεύεις
Κρίμα που μ' αφήνεις μόνο μου να ζω

Αύριο πάλι, αύριο πάλι θα 'ρθω να σου πω
Κρίμα που δεν με πιστεύεις
Κρίμα που δεν ξέρεις πόσο σ' αγαπώ.

Αύριο πάλι, αύριο πάλι θα 'ρθω να σε βρω
Κρίμα που δεν με πιστεύεις
Κρίμα που μ' αφήνεις μόνο μου να ζω

Αύριο πάλι, αύριο πάλι θα 'ρθω να σου πω
Κρίμα που δεν με πιστεύεις
Κρίμα που δεν ξέρεις πόσο σ' αγαπώ

Tomorrow again (translated by Marina Boronina)

Tomorrow again, tomorrow again I will come to find you
It’s a pity that you don’t trust me
It’s a pity that you leave me alone to live

Tomorrow again, tomorrow again I will come to tell you
It’s a pity that you don’t trust me
It’s a pity that you don’t know how I love you.



Yesterday was χθες (chthés); the day before yesterday was προχθές (prochthés); today is σήμερα (simera); tomorrow is αύριο (avrio); the day after tomorrow is μεθαύριο (methávrio).

Yes, of course, αύριο can mean tomorrow. But waiting for tomorrow can sometimes feel like waiting for ever. Relax, sit back, and enjoy it … until tomorrow.

Αύριο.

Tomorrow’s woes … a sign in a taverna in Tsesmes, near Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Previous words in this series:

1, Neologism, Νεολογισμός.

2, Welcoming the stranger, Φιλοξενία.

3, Bread, Ψωμί.

4, Wine, Οίνος and Κρασί.

5, Yogurt, Γιαούρτι.

6, Orthodoxy, Ορθοδοξία.

7, Sea, Θᾰ́λᾰσσᾰ.

8,Theology, Θεολογία.

9, Icon, Εἰκών.

10, Philosophy, Φιλοσοφία.

11, Chaos, Χάος.

12, Liturgy, Λειτουργία.

13, Greeks, Ἕλληνες or Ρωμαίοι.

14, Mañana, Αύριο.

15, Europe, Εὐρώπη.

16, Architecture, Αρχιτεκτονική.

17, The missing words.

18, Theatre, θέατρον, and Drama, Δρᾶμα.

19, Pharmacy, Φᾰρμᾰκείᾱ.

20, Rhapsody, Ραψῳδός.

21, Holocaust, Ολοκαύτωμα.

22, Hygiene, Υγιεινή.

23, Laconic, Λακωνικός.

24, Telephone, Τηλέφωνο.

25, Asthma, Ασθμα.

26, Synagogue, Συναγωγή.

27, Diaspora, Διασπορά.

28, School, Σχολείο.

29, Muse, Μούσα.

30, Monastery, Μοναστήρι.

31, Olympian, Ολύμπιος.

32, Hypocrite, Υποκριτής.

33, Genocide, Γενοκτονία.

34, Cinema, Κινημα.

35, autopsy and biopsy

36, Exodus, ἔξοδος

37, Bishop, ἐπίσκοπος

38, Socratic, Σωκρατικὸς

39, Odyssey, Ὀδύσσεια

40, Practice, πρᾶξις

41, Idiotic, Ιδιωτικός

42, Pentecost, Πεντηκοστή

43, Apostrophe, ἀποστροφή

44, catastrophe, καταστροφή

45, democracy, δημοκρατία

46, ‘Αρχή, beginning, Τέλος, end

47, ‘Αποκάλυψις, Apocalypse

48, ‘Απόκρυφα, Apocrypha

49, Ἠλεκτρον (Elektron), electric

50, Metamorphosis, Μεταμόρφωσις

51, Bimah, βῆμα

52, ἰχθύς (ichthýs) and ψάρι (psari), fish.

53, Τὰ Βιβλία (Ta Biblia), The Bible

54, Φῐλοξενῐ́ᾱ (Philoxenia), true hospitality

55, εκκλησία (ekklesia), the Church

56, ναός (naos) and ἱερός (ieros), a church

57, Χριστούγεννα (Christougenna), Christmas

58, ἐπιφάνεια (epipháneia), θεοφάνεια, (theopháneia), Epiphany and Theophany

59, Ζέφυρος (Zéphuros), the West Wind

60, Αύριο (Avrio), Tomorrow.

61, καλημέρα (κaliméra), ‘Good Morning’, and καλαμάρι, κalamári, ‘squid’.

Series to be continued

Open tomorrow … a sign in a shop in Platanias, near Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Marking the 100th birthday of Manos Hatzidakis, composer of and ‘Never on Sunday’, and his family links with Rethymnon

The composer Manos Hatzidakis was born 100 years ago on 23 October 1925

Patrick Comerford

The Greek composer Manos Hatzidakis (1925-1994), who is often associated with the title song of the film ‘Never on Sunday’, was born 100 years ago today, on 23 October 1925, into a family with strong connection with Rethymnon and the island of Greece.

Hadtzidakis is widely considered as one of the greatest Greek composers, and he was one of the main proponents of the ‘Éntekhno’ form of music, along with Mikis Theodorakis.

When my sons were small children, to help them endure long car journeys, I would put on tapes of music composed by Hatzidakis and compiled by my friend Manolis Chrysakis from Iraklion and Piskopiano in Crete.

Manos Hatzidakis (also spelled Hadjidakis) was born Μάνος Χατζιδάκις on 23 October 1925 in Xanthi in north-east Greece. His father Georgios Hatzidakis was a lawyer from the village of Myrthios, 20 km south of Rethymno, near Plakias on the south coast of Crete; his mother Aliki Arvanitidou was from Adrianoupolis.

The Hatzidakis family was from Myrthios, 20 km south of Rethymno, near Plakias on the south coast of Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Hatzidakis family took part in the many Cretan revolts against the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. Another member of the family was the philologist Georgios Nicolaou Chatzidakis (1848-1941). He is celebrated as the father of linguistics in Greece, and his statue stands outside the town hall in Rethymnon.

The family of Manos Hatzidakis prospered from sales of tobacco grown locally. But the boy’s father Georgios Hatzidakis died in 1931 and his mother took Manos from Xanthi to Athens, where they lived in comparative poverty.

Hatzidakis studied music theory with Menelaos Pallandios, in the period 1940-1943. At the same time, he studied philosophy at the University of Athens. However, he never completed this course.

He met and connected with other musicians, writers, and intellectuals, including George Seferis, Odysseas Elytis, Angelos Sikelianos, Yannis Tsarouchis and especially the poet Nikos Gatsos, who became a close friend.

During the last stages of the Axis occupation of Greece, Hatzidakis was active in the Greek Resistance through the United Panhellenic Organisation of Youth (EPON), the youth branch of the major resistance organisation EAM. There he met the composer Mikis Theodorakis and the two soon developed a strong friendship.

Hatzidakis’s first composition was the tune for the song ‘Paper Moon’ (Χάρτινο το Φεγγαράκι) in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, staged by Karolos Koun’s Art Theatre of Athens. His first piano piece, ‘For a Little White Seashell’ (Για μια Μικρή Λευκή Αχιβάδα), came out in 1947, and in 1948 he set a collection of poetry by Nikos Gatsos to music, ‘Blood Wedding’.

Hatzidakis co-founded the Greek Dance Theatre Company with the choreographer Rallou Manou in 1949.

That year, he shook the musical establishment in Greece with an influential lecture on rebetika, the urban folk songs that flourished in Greek cities, mainly Piraeus, after the influx of refugees from Asia Minor in 1922. He focused on the economy of expression, the deep traditional roots and the genuine emotions displayed in rebetika, and by composers such as Markos Vamvakaris and Vassilis Tsitsanis.

Hatzidakis put theory to practice and adapted classic rebetika in his 1951 piano work, ‘Six Popular Pictures’ (Έξι Λαϊκές Ζωγραφιές), later also presented as a folk ballet.

At this point, he began writing immensely popular songs and film soundtracks alongside more serious works, such as ‘The CNS Cycle’ (O Kyklos tou CNS), a song cycle for piano and voice in 1954. He wrote the score for Michael Cacoyannis’s film Stella (1955) with Melina Mercouri singing the film’s best-known song ‘Love that became a double-edged knife’ (Αγάπη που 'γινες δίκοπο μαχαίρι). A year later, he composed the score for the film Laterna (Λατέρνα, φτώχεια και φιλότιμο) in 1955.

Hatzidakis met Nana Mouskouri in 1958, and described her as his first ‘ideal interpreter’.

Manos Hatzidakis refused to collect his Academy Award in 1961

Hatzidakis achieved international fame and success in 1960 with his song ‘Never on Sunday’, or ‘The Children of Piraeus’ (Τα παιδιά του Πειραιά), sung by Melina Mercouri in Jules Dassin’s film Never on Sunday (Ποτέ την Κυριακή).

The song won Hatzidakis an Academy Award for Best Original Song and became a worldwide hit. But he did not attend the Academy Award ceremony in 1961, and refused to collect his award, saying the film with a prostitute as its protagonist reflected negatively on Athens and misrepresented the city.

Hatzidakis founded a music competition to encourage Greek composers in 1962, with the first award going to Iannis Xenakis in 1963. At this time, he produced the musical Street of Dreams (Οδός Ονείρων) and completed his score for Aristophanes’ Birds (Όρνιθες), an Art Theatre production that caused an uproar over Koun’s revolutionary direction. The score was later used by Maurice Béjart’s Ballet of the 20th Century.

Hatzidakis wrote the music for ‘All Alone Am I’, for which Arthur Altman added the English lyrics and then gave to Brenda Lee. His album 15 Vespers (Δεκαπέντε Εσπερινοί), including the song ‘Mr Antonis’ (‘Ο Κυρ Αντώνης’), was released in 1964. His album Gioconda’s Smile (Το Χαμόγελο της Τζιοκόντας) was released 60 years ago in 1965.

Hatzidakis went to New York in 1966 for the premiere of Illya Darling, a Broadway musical based on Never on Sunday and starring Melina Mercouri. He then lived in the US from 1966 to 1972, when he completed several more major compositions and compilations, including Rhythmology, Gioconda’s Smile and the song cycle Magnus Eroticus (Megalos Erotikos), in which he drew on classical works by Sappho and Euripides, mediaeval folk songs, George Hortatzis’s romance ‘Erophile’, works by modern poets, including Dionysios Solomos, Constantine Cavafy, Odysseus Elytis and Nikos Gatsos, as well as the Biblical ‘Song of Songs’.

His album Reflections was a collaboration with the New York Rock and Roll Ensemble.



Despite his opposition to the colonels’ regime, Hatzidakis returned to Greece in 1972 and recorded Magnus Eroticus with Fleury Dantonaki and Dimitris Psarianos.

After the junta collapsed in 1974, he became active in public life and assumed a number of leadership positions in the Athens State Orchestra (KOA), the Greek National Opera (ELS/GNO), and the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT). In 1989, he founded and directed the Orchestra of Colours, an ensemble performing lesser-known works and the music of Greek composers.

Hatzidakis influenced a broad swathe of Greek culture through his writings and radio broadcasts. In his later years, he explained that his work was meant not to entertain but to reveal and he disclaimed part of his work, written for the Greek cinema and theatre, saying it was unrepresentative.

Manos Hatzidakis died in Athens 31 years ago from a heart attack on 15 June 1994 at the age of 68. He was buried in Paiania.

‘Never on Sunday’: Manos Hatzidakis, the composer and his links with Rethymnon

The composer Manos Hatzidakis was born into a family from the village of Myrthios, 20 km south of Rethymno in Crete

Patrick Comerford

I was writing yesterday about the philologist Georgios Nicolaou Chatzidakis (1848-1941), who is celebrated as the father of linguistics in Greece, and his statue outside the town hall in Rethymnon. He was born in the small mountain village of Myrthios, 20 km south of Rethymnon, and his family took part in the many Cretan revolts against the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century.

But another member of the Chatzidakis family from Myrthios near Rethymnon – and one who is better known in Northern Europe – is the Greek composer Manos Hatzidakis (1925-1994).

He is often associated with the title song of the film ‘Never on Sunday’ … so, perhaps, his story is appropriate to tell on a Sunday afternoon. He is widely considered one of the greatest Greek composers, and was one of the main proponents of the ‘Éntekhno’ form of music, along with Mikis Theodorakis.

Manos Hatzidakis (also spelled Hadjidakis) was born Μάνος Χατζιδάκις on 23 October 1925 in Xanthi, Greece. His father Georgios Hatzidakis was a lawyer from the village of Myrthios, 20 km south of Rethymno in Crete; his mother Aliki Arvanitidou came from Adrianoupolis.

The family prospered from sales of tobacco grown locally, but Georgios Hatzidakis died in 1931 and the boy’s mother took Manos to live in Athens, where they lived in comparative poverty.

Hatzidakis studied music theory with Menelaos Pallandios, in the period 1940-1943. At the same time, he studied philosophy at the University of Athens. However, he never completed this course.

He met and connected with other musicians, writers, and intellectuals including George Seferis, Odysseas Elytis, Angelos Sikelianos, Yannis Tsarouchis and especially the poet Nikos Gatsos, who became a close friend.

During the last stages of the Axis occupation of Greece, Hatzidakis was active in the Greek Resistance through the United Panhellenic Organisation of Youth (EPON), the youth branch of the major resistance organisation EAM. There he met the composer Mikis Theodorakis and the two soon developed a strong friendship.

Hatzidakis’s first composition was the tune for the song ‘Paper Moon’ (Χάρτινο το Φεγγαράκι) in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire staged by Karolos Koun’s Art Theatre of Athens. His first piano piece, ‘For a Little White Seashell’ (Για μια Μικρή Λευκή Αχιβάδα), came out in 1947, and in 1948 he set a collection of poetry by Nikos Gatsos to music, ‘Blood Wedding’.

Hatzidakis co-founded the Greek Dance Theatre Company with the choreographer Rallou Manou in 1949.

That year, he shook the musical establishment in Greece with an influential lecture on rembetika, the urban folk songs that flourished in Greek cities, mainly Piraeus, after the influx of refugees from Asia Minor in 1922. He focused on the economy of expression, the deep traditional roots and the genuine emotions displayed in rembetika, and by composers such as Markos Vamvakaris and Vassilis Tsitsanis.

Hatzidakis put theory to practice and adapted classic rembetika in his 1951 piano work, ‘Six Popular Pictures’ (Έξι Λαϊκές Ζωγραφιές), later also presented as a folk ballet.

At this point, he began writing immensely popular songs and film soundtracks alongside more serious works, such as ‘The CNS Cycle’ (O Kyklos tou CNS), a song cycle for piano and voice in 1954. He wrote the score for Michael Cacoyannis’s film Stella (1955) with Melina Mercouri singing the film’s best-known song ‘Love that became a double-edged knife’ (Αγάπη που 'γινες δίκοπο μαχαίρι). A year later, he composed the score for the film Laterna (Λατέρνα, φτώχεια και φιλότιμο) in 1955.

Hatzidakis met Nana Mouskouri in 1958, and described her as his first ‘ideal interpreter’.

Manos Hatzidakis refused to collect his Academy Award in 1961

Hatzidakis achieved international fame and success in 1960 with his song ‘Never on Sunday’, or ‘The Children of Piraeus’ (Τα παιδιά του Πειραιά), sung by Melina Mercouri in Jules Dassin’s film Never on Sunday (Ποτέ την Κυριακή).

The song won Hatzidakis an Academy Award for Best Original Song and became a worldwide hit. But he did not attend the Academy Award ceremony in 1961, and refused to collect his award, saying the film with a prostitute as its protagonist reflected negatively on Athens and misrepresented Athens.

Hatzidakis founded a music competition to encourage Greek composers in 1962, with the first award going to Iannis Xenakis in 1963. At this time, he produced the musical Street of Dreams (Οδός Ονείρων) and completed his score for Aristophanes’ Birds (Όρνιθες), an Art Theatre production that caused an uproar over Koun’s revolutionary direction. The score was later used by Maurice Béjart’s Ballet of the 20th Century.

Hatzidakis wrote the music for ‘All Alone Am I’, for which Arthur Altman added the English lyrics and then gave to Brenda Lee. His album 15 Vespers (Δεκαπέντε Εσπερινοί), including the song ‘Mr Antonis’ (‘Ο Κυρ Αντώνης’), was released in 1964. His album Gioconda’s Smile (Το Χαμόγελο της Τζιοκόντας) was released in 1965.

Hatzidakis went to New York in 1966 for the premiere of Illya Darling, a Broadway musical based on Never on Sunday and starring Melina Mercouri. He then lived in the US from 1966 to 1972, when he completed several more major compositions and compilations, including Rhythmology, Gioconda’s Smile and the song cycle Magnus Eroticus (Megalos Erotikos), in which he drew on classical works by Sappho and Euripides, mediaeval folk songs, George Hortatzis’s romance ‘Erophile’, works by modern poets, including Dionysios Solomos, Constantine Cavafy, Odysseus Elytis and Nikos Gatsos, as well as the Biblical ‘Song of Songs’.

His album Reflections was a collaboration with the New York Rock and Roll Ensemble.

Despite his opposition to the colonels’ regime, Hatzidakis returned to Greece in 1972 and recorded Magnus Eroticus with Fleury Dantonaki and Dimitris Psarianos.

After the junta collapsed in 1974, he became active in public life and assumed a number of leadership positions in the Athens State Orchestra (KOA), the Greek National Opera (ELS/GNO), and the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT). In 1989, he founded and directed the Orchestra of Colours, an ensemble performing lesser-known works and the music of Greek composers.

Hatzidakis influenced a broad swathe of Greek culture through his writings and radio broadcasts. In his later years, he explained that his work was meant not to entertain but to reveal and disclaimed part of his work, written for the Greek cinema and theatre, as unrepresentative.

Manos Hatzidakis died in Athens 30 years ago from a heart attack on 15 June 1994 at the age of 68. He was buried in Paiania.

An anthem confined to home

By Patrick Comerford

Yannis Ritsos, the great poet of the Greek left, was born on May Day 1909. And Epitaphios, the epic that became the stirring anthem of the Greek left, was written 60 years ago, in May 1936.

Some 60 years later, despite being set to music by Greece's two leading composers, Hadzidakis and Theodorakis, and performed throughout Europe in the 1960s and 1970s, Epitaphios still waits to be translated into English and is largely unknown outside the Hellenic world. Yet it has its own mystique and stirs the hearts of every Greek who hears it read or sung.

In May 1936, the northern town of Thessaloniki was paralysed by a widespread strike against wage controls. When workers in a tobacco factory took to the streets, the police were called in and opened fire on the unarmed strikers. Within minutes, 30 people were dead and 300 were wounded.

The next day, the Communist daily, Ritzospastis, published a front-page photograph of a mother dressed in black and weeping as she knelt over the body of her slain son in the street.

Moved by the photograph, Ritsos locked himself up in his attic and set to work immediately. In two days and two nights of intense creativity, his greatest poem, Epitaphios, was produced.

The Epitaphios Thrinos is the lament chanted in Greek Orthodox churches on the evening of Good Friday. But Ritsos's poem moves at the end from crucifixion to Resurrection, and an abiding hope that grave injustices can be conquered.

At first the bereft mother, like Mary with her crucified son, grieves inconsolably. She extols her son’s virtues and recalls his gifts. She cannot understand why he died, nor can she understand his political convictions. But she gradually changes and begins to apply his local struggle to the universal struggle for social justice. Her grief is sustained as she how her son pointed her to the beauties of nature and of all creation, she challenges the values of a society that can claim to be Christian, while killing those struggling for justice.

But darkness turns to light as the realisation unfolds that her son lives on in the lives of his comrades as they continue his struggles. At the end, her vision is of a future in which all shall be united in love, and in a stirring finale she vows to take up her, son's struggle and to join his company.

The poem first appeared as a work of 44 verses in Ritzosoastis: on May 12th, 1936, with a dedication to the workers of Thessaloniki. Soon after, a fuller version of 224 verses appeared in an edition: of 10,000 copies. Ritsos later told the newspaper To Vima that by the time he had sold 9,750 copies of Epitaphios, Kostis Palamas, the patriarch of Greek poetry, was selling only 300 copies of his works.

The strike in Thessaloniki was part of the unrest that led to the Metaxas dictatorship seizing power in the weeks that followed the publication of Epitaphios. The regime banned the poem and publicly burned the last 250 copies in front of the Temple of the Olympian Zeus in Athens.

Epitaphios was not seen again in print until the 1950s. In the intervening years, Greece suffered under German occupation and went through two civil wars, and Ritsos was held for four years in concentration camps and forced into internal exile.

The final, text was published in a second edition in 1956 and runs to 324 verses divided into 20 parts or cantos, each with 16 verses in eight couplets, except for the last two, which run to 15 verses in nine couplets.

Robert Frost has said a true poem memorises itself, and so it could be said a true lyric sings itself and harks after a melody. Epitaphios is lyrical and Ritsos achieved its lyricism by grafting his earlier elegiac mode and his political fervour on to the root stock of Greek folk song, the demotikti traghotidi. He 15 syllable lines and, rhymed couplets, reaching back into the racial; and mythical past of a people continually invaded, cheated and raped.

In 1958, Ritsos sent Epitaphios to the composer Theodorakis in Paris. Theodorakis set the epic to music, employing the quintessential instrument of the people, the bouzouki, and using rhythms drawn from the klephtic ballads, the songs of Epiros, the dirges of Mani, the songs and dances of the islands, and the rizitikas of Crete. At the time, the bouzouki was out of fashion among middle-class Greeks, who associated it with brothels and hashish dens.

Ritsos was apprehensive when he heard that Epitaphios, with its sacred allegories expressing ta Aghia ton Aghion (“The Holy of Holies”), was going to enter the music halls and night clubs of Greece. “I thought it would be a sacrilege … I was wrong.”

But the seeing by Theodorakis also, stirred intense debate in all sections of Greek society. Set to music, and recorded by artists such as Grigoris Bithikotsis and Yiannis Thomopoulos, the poem quickly acquired apolitical career of its own, becoming the anthem of the Greek left.

* * *

In 1963, once again in May, and once again in Thessaloniki, the young left wing deputy Grigorios Lambrakis lay dying in hospital after a murderous assault that provided Costa-Gavras with the drama for his movie Z. Hundreds of people kept vigil on the streets, and they were joined by Ritsos and Theodorakis as they sang Epitaphios in their martyr’s honour, vowing to ensure his struggle would live on. After the funeral in Athens, the dirge was sung once again by the crowds in the streets, and graffiti began appearing on the walls “Lambrakis Lives”.

When the colonels seized power in 1967, Ritsos was quickly arrested and sent into exile on Samos. The poetry of Ritsos and the music of Theodorakis were banned once again, but Epitaphios was soon being presented at readings and concerts throughout Europe as a rallying poem and anthem of opposition to the junta. The political force of Epitaphios had acquired a new dimension directly from its lyricism.

Surprisingly, Epitaphios has never been translated into English, although shorter poems by Ritsos have been translated by Nikos Stangos, Nikos Germanacos, Peter Bien, Kimon Friar, Kostas Myrsiades and Edmund Keeley. Last year, a bilingual (Greek English) commentary on the poem was published privately in Cambridge by Dr Nicholas Voliotis. But the fact that Epitaphios has still not been translated into English almost six years after the death of Ritsos leaves a major gap in the vast oeuvre of a major figure of the 20th century, Greek literary renaissance.

This feature was first published in the Arts pages of The Irish Times on 18 June 1996