Original Version:

 

Ξένοι, ανάμεσα σε ξένους

Τη γλώσσα μας πια ξεμάθαμε

Μα ούτε καταδεχόμαστε γλώσσα άλλων

Βουβοί στεκόμαστε απέναντι στον Χρόνο

Που κάθε μέρα μας ξεχνάει και μας πονάει πιο πολύ?

 

Translation:

 

Strangers amongst strangers

Our language now disgarded

We deign not accept another language

Silently we stand against time

That with every passing day forgets and wounds us all the more

Orgiginal Version:

 

As I walk through

your sacred grounds

Oh Parthenon!

I take a handful of broken,

cold and lifeless pieces of your marble,

 

I place them tightly on my chest,

and these remnants from your brilliant glory,

which are now spread here and there

on your holy ground,

become flames that warm my soul.

 

My heart is pounding as I hear

whispers of joy, happiness, pain, and grief

coming out of their lifeless guts 

as if they are alive inside the palm of my hand

and want to speak.

 

I close my eyes and hark at them.

I hear them “talk” with pride and joy

about the golden age of Pericles,

when the incomparable and unique sculptor, 

the great Fheidias sculpted you.

 

Along with the great architects Iktinus and Kallikratus 

took the pure but lifeless marble

of Pentelis Mountain gave it soul and vivified it! 

 

They erected you, oh magnificent Parthenon,

to illuminate the human race!

 

You became the Ark of the spirit

and the marbled Bible of the Arts!

You became the divine aureole of Greece,

the most glorious country of the ancient world,

the cradle and the shield of western civilization!

 

You became the Holy Temple of Pallas Athena,

the gray-eyed maiden, the Goddess of Wisdom,

protectress of the illustrious violet-crowned city of Athens,

the beacon of letters, arts, culture and knowledge!

You became the eternal shrine of beauty and “entity”!

 

But between the joyful and proud whispers

are mixed voices of pain and moaning 

because your pedestal of glory and honor

was covered by the dark-ages 

and their uncivilized people placed you in obscurity.

 

And the moans became grief and tears,

that burned the soul,

for after the Renaissance

the “civilized” nations, in their disgrace,

allowed you to be enslaved by the barbarians!

 

But worst of all, and what makes the heart bleed, is that

during the period of your slavery they mutilated you!

The barbarians with gun-powder,

and the “civilized barbarians”

with theft and illegal dealing in antiquities!

 

Even now at the present time

in a theoretically free and civilized society

your divine sculptures are imprisoned

far from your glorious sacred grounds,

the land they belong to, your native country, Greece.

 

Enough, People of the world stand up.

Thunder out your outcry to the desecrators.

Your marble’s fragments “talk” and “moan” 

for their stolen and captive sculptured brothers.

it is time for them to return to their sacred place. 

 

To heal the wounds

of your multi tormented land

from the deeds of these desecrators

that contaminated your honorable, bloodstained grounds,

The bastion of freedom and civilization. 

 

Oh, Parthenon

through the ages the barbarians

envied your beauty, they mutilated you

and the blasphemous, the “civilized” impious

unceremoniously tried to dismantle you,

 

But your marble’s fragments “speak” 

Oh Parthenon!

You were, you are and you shall be

the golden, brilliant and gleaming sun

to illuminate with your splendor

the whole world throughout the ages!