Culture and Society in Crete

Culture and Society

in Crete

Culture and Society

in Crete

From Kornaros to Kazantzakis

Edited by

Liana Giannakopoulou

and E. Kostas Skordyles

Culture and Society in Crete:

From Kornaros to Kazantzakis

Edited by Liana Giannakopoulou and E. Kostas Skordyles

This book first published 2017

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,

electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without

the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-5275-0287-2

ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-0287-1

Τοῖς ἀρετοστολισμένοις ἀναγνώσταις

Αγαπητοί συνάδελφοι, φίλοι και φιλενάδες,

δόκτορες και δοκτόρισσες, αφέντρες κι αφεντάδες,

σεις, τίμιες καθηγήτριες κι άξιοι καθηγητάδες –

δε βρίσκω άλλες κλητικές που καταλήγουν σ’-άδες!

Λοιπόν, τη ρίμα αφήνω την για τς άλλους στιχοπλόκους,

κι όσους συγγράφουν διατριβές στην τέχνη στιχουργίας,

κι ας μην ξεχνώ τα δίστιχα τα λένε μαντινάδες.

Όσοι μπορούν ας γράφουσι στίχους ριμαρισμένους.

Το μέτρον όμως το κρατώ, σαν συνηθίζω πάντα,

αλλ’ όχι το δεκαεπτασύλλαβο του Νίκου Καζαντζάκη,

οπού ᾽ναι βαρετός, πολιτικός και κάτι παραπάνω.

«Μηδέν άγαν» ελέγαν οι παλιοί οι Έλληνες φιλοσόφοι,

μα ο Νίκος παρανόησε, θαρρώ, σέρνει τα πάντα στ᾽ άκρα!

Ο γιαμβικός που προτιμώ περιέχει δεκαπέντε

καλά δεμένες συλλαβές, μ’ άφθονες συνιζήσεις

και με συχνούς διασκελισμούς, έτσι να μη μπορούμε

ν’ αναπαυτούμε φτάνοντας στο τέλος της αράδας

του στίχου. Βέβαια σας μιλώ για έναν ποιητή τση Κρήτης,

Βιτσέντζο τόνε λέσινε, της Στειάς το παλληκάρι,

του Ανδρέα μικρότερο αδερφό, κ’ εκ της γενιάς Κορνάρω.

Άλλος ποιητής παράμιλλος ο Γεώργιος εκ Ρεθύμνου,

επίσης άρτιος στιχουργός, τεχνίτης και του λόγου,

με φράσεις αλλεπάλληλες που φέρνουν ζαλισμάρα,

πολλές φορές δυσνόητος, – ναίσκε, είν’ ο Χορτάτσης –

θέση έχει στη συζήτηση που εκάμαμεν ομάδι

μ’ όλον οπού δεν ξεύρομεν πολλά για τη ζωή του,

πότε έγραψε τα έργα του, πόσ᾽ άλλα είναι χαμένα.

Η Κρήτη εγέννησε πολλούς, μικρούς τε και μεγάλους,

άξιους αθρώπους στ᾽ άρματα, στην πένα, στο τραγούδι,

παλληκαράδες θαυμαστούς, καθ᾽ όλους τους αιώνες.

Πού ᾽ν᾽ ὀμως οι γυναίκες τους, μητέρες κι αδερφάδες;

Εκείνες υπαγόρευαν, κ᾽ οι άντρες κατεγράφαν;

Μπορεί, μα δεν το ξεύρομε, δεν θέλομε το μάθει.

Στις μέρες μας όλα άλλαξαν: επά οι γυναίκες γράφουν,

και κάνουν όλες τσι δουλειές, εξίσου με τους άντρες.

Δε θέλω να πολυμιλώ, κ᾽ η ώρα δεν το δίδει.

Ευχαριστώ σας που ήρθετε στη Γέφυρα του Κάμη,

οπού ᾽ναι γνώσης ποταμός, τση μάθησης η βρώσις,

μάλιστα αντίθετο σκαμνί τς ακαδημιάς τς Οξφόρδης:

σαν τα οχυρά τα δίδυμα, Κορώνη και Μεθώνη,

τα δυο σκολειά φυλάγουνε τη βασιλειά της γνώσης.

Ευχαριστώ για την τιμή που δίδετε σ᾽ εμένα.

Κατέχω το, γνωρίζω το, άξος γι᾽ αυτή δεν είμαι,

μα ανταποδίδω τς ευγενειές και της φιλιάς τη χάρη

που εδείξετε με τς εμιλιές και με την παρουσιά σας.

Βλέπω μπουκάλια με κρασί, ποτήρια γεμισμένα,

σημάδια τση ξεφάντωσης ν᾽ αναγαλλιάσομ᾽ όλοι.

Απόψε θα γλεντήσομε, με λόγια και με πράξες,

και το ταχύ θ᾽ ακούσομε κι άλλες κουβέντες άξες.

Ευχαριστώ σας ολουνούς. Εβίβα! Zήτω η Κρήτη!

David Holton

ONTENTS

List of Illustrations ..................................................................................... ix

Acknowledgements .................................................................................... xi

Introduction ................................................................................................. 1

Liana Giannakopoulou and Kostas Skordyles

ART

ENAISSANCE

ITERATURE

UTHORSHIP AND

OETICS

Petrarchism and Anti-Petrarchism: The Manneristic Response of the

Cypriot Canzoniere and Chortatsis’s Panoria........................................... 13

Marina Rodosthenous-Balafa

Dangerous Dreams and Dubious Visions in Kornaros’ Erotokritos.......... 33

Nikolas Kakkoufa

The Evolution of Authorial Self-Consciousness in Cretan and Heptanesian

Literature ................................................................................................... 67

Michael Paschalis

ART

II:

IKOS

AZANTZAKIS

–

ANDERLUST

England in the Writings of Nikos Kazantzakis ..................................................77

Afroditi Athanasopoulou

Kazantzakis’ Odyssey as a Cretan and Modernist Masterpiece............... 103

Helena González-Vaquerizo

ART

III:

RETE AS A

OPOS AND A

IEU DE

ÉMOIRE

Blurring Boundaries? Negotiating Identity in Maro Douka’s

The Innocent and the Guilty .................................................................... 123

Kristina Gedgaudaitė

Exploring the Locality of Crete in Two Novels by Rea Galanaki ........... 137

Georgia Pateridou

Contents

viii

ART

IV:

OCIAL AND

INGUISTIC

SPECTS IN

ISTORICAL

ERSPECTIVE

Graphematic Evidence for Cretan Phonology from the 16th to the 20th

Century .................................................................................................... 151

Io Manolessou

Illegitimate Children and Inheritance: Practices of Property Transmission

in 16th-Century Testaments from Sitia, Crete ......................................... 171

Maria Mondelou

The Crete of R. M. Dawkins.................................................................... 183

Peter Mackridge

The Cretan Society Facing Total War and Occupation (1941–45).......... 201

Yannis Skalidakis

ART

RETE AND

…

EYOND

Crete in Venice: The Presence of the Great Island in Venetian

Architecture, Visual Arts, Music, and Literature..................................... 217

Caterina Carpinato

To Solomos through Browning: A New Look at “The Cretan” .............. 241

David Ricks

Intermedial Translation: Erofili, Erotokritos and The Sacrifice

of Abraham in the Greek Classics Illustrated.......................................... 259

Lilia Diamantopoulou

“Βάρδα από γράμματα!” Some Cretan Inflections of the Literary

Denigration of Letters and Literati, and the Exaltation of Orality,

from Kornaros to Kazantzakis................................................................. 285

Stathis Gauntlett

Contributors............................................................................................. 299

Index........................................................................................................ 305

IST OF

LLUSTRATIONS

Fig. 1: Eros dismembering two maidens. HP 1499, folio B4r (M. Ariani

and M. Gabriele, eds. Francesco Colonna: Hypnerotomachia

Poliphili. Vol. 1. Milano 1998)............................................................ 46

Fig. 2: Potentissimus Affectus Amor, Andrea Alciato, Livret des

emblemes (1536), fol. B4v, SM23B, Special Collections,

University of Glasgow ......................................................................... 49

Fig. 3: Photo of Dawkins taken at the Βασιλικόν Φωτογραφείον

Γ. Μαραγιάννη, Herakleion, probably during this first visit

to Crete, when he would have been 31 years old ............................... 184

Fig. 4: Dawkins outside the chapel at the top of Mt Stroumboulas

to the west of Herakleion ................................................................... 184

Fig. 5: Trying to control an unruly mule outside Toplou monastery

in 1910, accompanied by Nikolaos Athanasakis................................ 185

Fig. 6: Porta San Zorzi, Candia ............................................................... 189

Fig. 7: Porta San Zorzi (entrance showing medallion of St George

now in the Historical Museum, Herakleio) ........................................ 189

Fig. 8: Agios Georgios, Gerakari............................................................. 190

Fig. 9: Oxford Mail, 15 November 1944 ................................................. 194

Fig. 10: Priuli fountain, Candia, in Dawkins’s time ................................ 195

Fig. 11: Priuli fountain, Herakleio, today ................................................ 195

Fig. 12: The main door of Angarathos Monastery................................... 196

Fig. 13: Floor plan of Angarathos monastery .......................................... 197

Fig. 14: Santa Maria del Giglio ............................................................... 224

Fig. 15: Topographical relief showing the fortifications of Candia

on the façade of Santa Maria del Giglio............................................. 225

Fig. 16: Detail from the relief on the façade of Santa Maria del Giglio .. 225

Fig. 17: Loggetta di San Marco ............................................................... 226

Fig. 18: The Allegory of Crete on the façade of the Loggetta di San Mar-

co ....................................................................................................... 227

Fig. 19: Aretousa in Ερωτόκριτος (Κλασσικά Εικονογραφημένα

1120: 8).............................................................................................. 271

Fig. 20: Marika Kotopouli as Aretousa, BAH.0005, Ε.Λ.Ι.Α. (Detail) ... 271

Fig. 21: The figure of the narrator in Η θυσία του Αβραάμ (Κλασσικά

Εικονογραφημένα 1220: 5)................................................................. 277

Fig. 22: The two servants in Η θυσία του Αβραάμ (Κλασσικά Εικονογρα-

φημένα, 1220: 37) .............................................................................. 277

List of Illustrations

Fig. 23: The king and Erofili in Ερωφίλη (Κλασσικά Εικονογραφημένα

275: 20).............................................................................................. 279

Fig. 24: Same scene in the performance directed by Alexis Solomos

in 1961 (Photographer: Elite, Digital Archive of National Theatre).. 279

Fig. 25: Caricature by Bost [Mentis Bostantzoglou]: “Δραματική σκηνή

από την «Εροφίλην»” (Ελευθερία 26 August 1961, Digital Archive

of the National Theatre) ..................................................................... 280

CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This volume comprises a selection of papers presented at the conference in

honour of Prof. David Holton organized by Liana Giannakopoulou and

Kostas Skordyles at Selwyn College, Cambridge, on 30 June and 1 July

2014. We are grateful for the generous support we received from the Fac-

ulty of Classics, University of Cambridge, the Kostas and Eleni Ouranis

Foundation, the A. G. Leventis Foundation, and the Hellenic Foundation.

We warmly thank all the participants for making this conference such a

success through their contributions, lively discussions and keen interest in

the subject.

Special thanks are also due to Nan Taplin at the Faculty of Medieval

and Modern Languages, University of Cambridge, for orchestrating every-

thing and everybody in relation to this conference; without her uncondi-

tional support, constant vigilance and unlimited enthusiasm nothing would

have worked out. Last but not least, at Selwyn College, we would like to

thank Sheila Scarlett and Sue Donelan for the precious help they provided.

NTRODUCTION

IANA

IANNAKOPOULOU

OSTAS

KORDYLES

The present volume contains a selection from the papers delivered at the

international conference held in Selwyn College, Cambridge in honour of

Professor David Holton, a scholar who has dedicated an important part of

his work to researching and promoting the literature and culture of Crete,

especially during the Renaissance period.

Crete, or η Μεγαλόνησος (the Great Island) as it is also called in

Greek, has always attracted the interest of scholars in modern times not

only because of the archaeological discoveries of Sir Arthur Evans that

shed light on a rich pre-classical civilization, but also because of its rich

history and the particular cultural traits and traditions resulting from the

fact that the island has been at the crossroads of Orthodoxy, Catholicism

and Islam.

The most distinctive element of Crete is, of course, its geographical

features. It is the largest island of Greece and the second largest in the

eastern Mediterranean, almost equidistant from Asia Minor, mainland

Greece and northern Africa, occupying a strategic geopolitical position.

Moreover, the particularities of the island’s landscape have been crucial to

its socio-political development. The mountains, especially the White

Mountains and Mount Ida, played, and continue to play, a decisive role in

its history, society and literary imagination (as M. Rodosthenous-Balafa,

N. Kakkoufa and G. Pateridou discuss in their papers) as they stand for the

timeless values and mores of the place, encourage “hit-and-run” tactics

and serve as a safe-haven for rebels and outlaws alike. Naturally, as a big

island, Crete has many important ports, especially on the northern coast,

such as the port of Herakleion (Candia), while Souda Bay is still consid-

ered to be the safest natural harbour in the Mediterranean (currently serv-

ing as a NATO military base) (Levitt 1971–2, 165; Pinar 2011, 62ff.).

It is precisely this geopolitical location that made the island the bone of

contention for competing powers in the region. In the longue durée, the

history of Crete is characterized by a succession of conquests and occupa-

Introduction

tions—Roman, Arab, Venetian, Ottoman, German—that triggered a series

of recurrent, but usually unsuccessful, rebellions and insurrections by the

local inhabitants who, exploiting the geography of the island, were able to

mount resistance to the occupiers for long periods of time.

As a consequence, the island of Crete acquired in popular imagination

a mythical dimension as a land of heroes and bravery, eliciting a discourse

which seems to expand beyond the local to the national and in some cases

international level. The beginnings of this discourse are rooted in the folk

songs of Crete and particularly so in the large number of narrative poems

focusing on historical events such as revolts and heroic deeds by Cretans

in their attempts to acquire their independence from the Venetians and

later the Ottomans (Constantinides 2011, 409) and achieve ἕνωσις (union)

with Greece. William James Stillman, the well-known photographer of the

Acropolis who had also been a US consul in Crete, in his book-length ac-

count of the Cretan insurrection against the Ottomans of 1866–9 shows

early indications of this kind of idealization, when he starts in the follow-

ing way:

A student of classical ethnology, curious to restore the antique man, can do

no better, so far as the Greek variety is concerned, than to go to Crete and

study its people. The Cretan of to-day preserves probably the character of

antiquity, and holds to his ancient ways of feeling and believing, and, with-

in the new conditions, as far as possible of acting, more nearly than would

be believed possible, and affords a better field of investigation into the na-

ture of the classical man than any existing records. (Stillman 1874, 13)

The Greek poet Lorentzos Mavilis (1860–1912) is another early architect

of this perception. He dedicated three sonnets to Crete: “Κρήτη” (“Crete”),

“Πλήρωμα Χρόνου” (“Fullness of Time”) and “Excelsior!” (Mavilis 1990,

76, 81, 88) which were all inspired by his first-hand experience of the is-

land during the same insurrection of 1866–9 (Tomadakis 1939). They give

poetic expression to people’s perceptions of the island in relation to its

famed pride and heroic tradition, its fabled and uncompromising love of

freedom and its incomparable natural beauty. In “Excelsior!” the idealiza-

tion of the Cretans reaches quasi-mythical dimensions: their bodies be-

come statues-come-to-life and they belong to a nobler branch of humanity:

“εὐγενικιὰ ἀνθρωπότη / Θὰ τοὺς φιλέψῃ” (2–3); “Κορμιὰ ἀπὸ τὴν πλήθια

χάρη ἀλαφρημένα” (4); “Ἀγάλματα θεῶν ζωντανεμένα” (5). And the

Greek poet was not alone in sustaining such a myth.

The sonnet “Κρήτη,” however, is the one that altogether lifts the island

outside historical time and into the sphere of myth. Here Mavilis creates a

Liana Giannakopoulou and Kostas Skordyles

vivid image of the lure that the island exerts on its people and the values

that contribute to its unique character:

Σειρῆνα πρασινόχρυση, μὲ μάτι

Σὰν τῆς Ἀγάπης, μὲ λαχτάρας χείλια,

Ἀχτιδομάλλα, ὀρθοβύζα, μὲ χίλια

Μύρια καμάρια καὶ λέπια γεμάτη,

Τραγοῦδι τραγουδᾷς μὲς τὴ ροδάτη

Κατάχνια τοῦ πελάου, καὶ ’ς τὴν προσήλια

Τοῦ ἀγέρος πλατωσιὰ καὶ ’ς τὰ βασίλεια

Τῆς γῆς πνοὴ τὸ σέρνει μυρωδάτη.

«Σὰν τὸ γάλα τῆς αἶγας Ἀμαλθείας

Θρέφει θεοὺς καὶ τὸ φιλί μου ἐμένα!

Ἐλᾶτε νὰ χαρῆτε μὲς ’ς τῆς θείας

Ἀγκαλιᾶς μου τὸ σφίξιμο ἑνωμένα,

Πρόσφυγες τῆς Ζωῆς, δῶρ’ ἅγια τρία:

Θάνατο, Ἀθανασιὰ κ’ Ἐλευτερία.»

The island is visualized as a siren or a mermaid whose song invites travel-

lers to taste her embrace and partake of the timeless gifts she has to offer:

Love, Death, Immortality and Freedom. But the Homeric myth is discon-

nected from its threatening side. Those who let the song ensnare their

mind and senses are not the foolish or the weak but the brave. Linking the

island’s mythical roots (“τὸ γάλα τῆς αἶγας Ἀμαλθείας,” “the milk of the

goat Amalthea”) to enduring values, the poem makes of Crete the nurse of

new heroes who, having left human life behind (“πρόσφυγες τῆς Ζωῆς,”

“Life’s refugees”), brave Death in order to gain Freedom and ultimately

embrace Immortality.

It is most interesting that this perception of the island and its people

continues unabated in the 20th century, reinforced by the heroic struggle

of the Cretans during the Battle of Crete (1941) and their resistance to the

German occupation (see Y. Skalidakis’s paper). Kazantzakis’s literary rep-

resentations of the Cretans has done much to sustain such attitudes, which

have also been immortalized in the narratives of Patrick Leigh Fermor,

George Psychoundakis, Pantelis Prevelakis and others.

This kind of “mythologization” of a place is not specific to Crete, of

course. Many geographical spaces become topoi as they acquire a distinc-

tive identity through human intervention in and interaction with that space:

social practices, foundational narratives, historical experience, “the recip-

rocal interdependence of literature and place” (Leontis 1995, 9). But the

Introduction

process of imparting mythical qualities to the Cretan land and people has

been especially powerful, and, as we have seen, has cut across the physical

boundaries of the Great Island and the time-limits of a particular period.

Indeed, speaking of Crete in history, Theodore Ziolkowski (2008, 3)

compares its course to the flight of Icarus “who launched himself from the

heavens—only to fall ignominiously, the prey of his own pride, into the

dark seas below.” He speaks of the “thalassocracy of Minos” specifically,

but considered outside that particular period, nothing could be further from

the truth and poles apart from Mavilis’s sonnet, above. Mavilis’s mythical

metaphor better reflects our case: a siren that travels in time carrying a

narrative that becomes realized in history every time the circumstances al-

low it. The myths of the Minoan civilization, as Ziolkowski himself shows

in his fascinating book, have emerged anew at the beginning of the 20th

century interweaving themselves with the discourse of modernism (as E.

González-Vaquerizo shows with reference to Kazantzakis’s Odyssey), and

the creative imagination and poetics of Surrealism in literature and the

visual arts (De Chirico and Picasso are characteristic examples).

Michael Herzfeld’s much quoted observations on the matter of Crete’s

idiosyncrasies are concise and accurate: “Crete certainly occupies a posi-

tion at once eccentric within the wider framework of Greek society, yet

one that is also central to its self-image. Its people are often despised and

feared outside the island, yet its role in the defence of the modern Greek

nation-state is widely acknowledged” (Herzfeld 1985, 9). Such insularity

has been the source of great pride associated as it is with “qualities that

have made Crete the birthplace of many national leaders in politics, war

and the arts” (Herzfeld 1985, 6; Levitt 1971–2, 167) and which have been

collectively described by Kazantzakis as “the Cretan Glance.” But the pa-

pers of K. Gedgaudaitė and G. Pateridou reveal a more complex, and at

times darker, side of the local.

Another characteristic element of Cretan culture is its language, the

Cretan dialect. Its distinctiveness does not rest solely on its phonological

and morphosyntactical particularities (typical of any dialect—some of

which are discussed by Io Manolessou in this volume) but on its careful

chiselling and refinement as a language of high literature in the master-

pieces of the Cretan Renaissance: Erofili, Erotokritos, Panoria and others.

It is also a language whose richness of vocabulary, imagery and distinctive

versification has influenced, inspired and shaped the work of major au-

thors of 20th-century Greek literature: Solomos, Palamas, Sikelianos, Ka-

zantzakis and Seferis to mention but the best known ones (and David

Ricks’ paper delves into one such case, Solomos’s “The Cretan”). Levitt’s

observation about Kazantzakis is telling: “The sophisticated freedom of

Liana Giannakopoulou and Kostas Skordyles

Kazantzakis’s language clearly derives from the inventiveness of the Cre-

tan dialect” (Levitt 1971–2, 171).

Indeed, the Renaissance period as a whole is one in which Crete

reached another “Golden Age” during which not only literary production

but also other forms of artistic output such as painting, music and architec-

ture as well as scholarly works proliferated. As David Holton (1999, 20)

has argued, the encounter of East and West that took place in Crete during

the period of Venetian domination set off a process of cultural cross-

fertilization of immeasurable importance for the development of modern

Greek art and literature. And not just for modern Greece. It seems that the

Cretan case acquires increasing relevance and importance for historians in

the field of colonial studies. As Sally McKee has pointed out quoting Pope

Urban V, Crete has been subjected to an “uncommon dominion” and oc-

cupies a paradigmatic position in the study of pre-modern colonization

where “the symbiotic relationship between ethnicity and colonization, has

yet to be explored” (McKee 2010, 5). The significance of this period is re-

flected in the number of contributions which, in this volume, are dedicated

to its cultural production and social practices: M. Rodostenous-Balafa, N.

Kakkoufa and M. Paschalis in Part I, as well as M. Mondelou in Part IV

and C. Carpinato in Part V, all explore aspects of the literature and society

of Renaissance Crete and the presence of the Great Island in Venice.

The fifteen papers that follow have been grouped in broadly thematic sec-

tions which give new insights into already established fields, explore

original aspects of the Cretan cultural and historical tradition, and under-

line from the vantage point of their own particular field the repercussions

and influence of its distinctive character.

Part I groups together the papers which focus on Cretan Renaissance

literature in context. Starting from the fact that both Crete and Cyprus

were under Venetian rule in the first seventy years of the 16th century, M.

Rodosthenous-Balafa explores the creative adoption of Italian models

(“manneristic response”) in the Greek-speaking world, focusing on the

works of the Cypriot Canzoniere and Chortatsis’s Panoria. She discusses

their use of Petrarchistic themes, images and motifs in order to show how,

through their differences in particular, two versions of Greek neo-

Petrarchism come to the fore: more serious and refined in the case of the

Cypriot Canzoniere (becoming an example of Petrarchism) and rather

subversive and ironic in the case of the tragicomic genre of Panoria

(which becomes thus an example of counter- or anti-Petrarchism).

N. Kakkoufa explores the world of dreams and its significance in Ero-

tokritos with reference to the two love stories of the poem, that of Cha-

Introduction

ridimos and his beloved on the one hand, and that of Aretousa and Erotok-

ritos on the other. He focuses on the comparative reading of the dreams

dreamt by Charidimos and Aretousa in order to assesses the many differ-

ent ways in which they are embedded within Erotokritos: they function as

transformation rituals for the development of the characters; as narrative

devices, they become key elements in the unfolding of the plot reflecting

the couples’ initiation to love; finally, they reveal Kornaros’s original re-

working of the poem’s sources such as Ovid’s Cephalus and Procris.

Kakkoufa explains that the use of the dream supports the construction of

male and female subjectivity as well as the psychological world of the

heroine, Aretousa.

By examining the paratexts of the Cretan Renaissance works, M. Pas-

chalis proposes an evolutionary pattern in the manifestation of authorial

consciousness from Chortatsis to Marinos Tzanes Bounialis. Paschalis ob-

serves the initial timelessness of the Cretan works (Erofili or Panoria for

example) and notes that authorial self-consciousness begins to appear as a

result of changes in historical circumstances, that is, with the beginning of

the Cretan War. The invasion of history into the world of literature will

bring the notion of homeland to the foreground, will draw attention to the

author and his work and encourage pride in the Cretan dialect and in the

Cretan literary activity.

Part II contains two papers that discuss the work of Nikos Kazantzakis

and his real and imaginary travels.

A. Athanasopoulou explores in some detail Kazantzakis’s perceptions

of Britain before and after World War II and highlights the notable differ-

ence in tone and mood between the two visits of the famous Cretan. The

first trip is dominated by his admiration of what Kazantzakis saw as Brit-

ish virtues, principles and traditions: the education provided by Oxford

and Cambridge and the ideals and values that go with it, the image of the

gentleman and Britain’s colonial power (for which Athanasopoulou pro-

vides an ideological and a psychological explanation). The 1946 trip, on

the other hand, is marked by the conflicts, tensions and disappointments

inherent in war and post-war periods.

In her paper on Kazantzakis’s Odyssey, E. González-Vaquerizo’s aim

is to read this ambitious work in the context and poetics of Modernism,

questioning the dominant attitudes that consider it old-fashioned and obso-

lete. For her, this modern Odyssey contains the seeds of Kazantzakis’ sub-

sequent Modernism as witnessed in his internationally renowned novels.

She identifies these seeds in a number of techniques, ideas and motifs: the

poem’s ideological debt to Nietzsche and Bergson; its formal features,

which include elements of modernist formal experimentation; above all

Liana Giannakopoulou and Kostas Skordyles

the use of myth, and of Cretan myths at that. Considering the central posi-

tion of Cretan myth in 20th-century literature and art, Kazantzakis man-

ages to put his work on an international stage while keeping it rooted to his

own homeland, culture and (to some extent) traditions. The Cretan dimen-

sion allows for this dynamic relationship between the local and the global.

Part III explores Crete in 20th-century Greek literature as it stages the

tensions that emerge from the island’s rich and multi-cultural historical

past, the powerful traits of the Cretan character and identity, as well as the

rigid social norms that governed it until very recent years. In this respect,

the island becomes a topos and a lieu de mémoire.

K. Gedgaudaitė discusses the novel The Innocent and the Guilty by

Maro Douka, a Cretan female author who turned to her native city of Cha-

nia in order to explore the tensions, frictions and negotiations that emerge

between a constructed national identity and an individual identity laden

with inherited multi-cultural traits. The choice is a fitting one: the city of

Chania has been the stage of many conflicts as the Cretans have negotiated

their space with Venice, the Ottomans and, in much more recent times, a

large number of migrants and refugees. Two of these periods, the Ottoman

and the contemporary, come to life in the novel through Douka’s charac-

ters, who are haunted by a past that lays claims on the present just as the

present struggles to come to terms with the past.

Gedgaudaitė shows how Chania turns into an arena of conflict and ne-

gotiation of identity as it becomes exposed to complex historical circum-

stances that challenge the univocal and homogenous tendencies of modern

Greece.

G. Pateridou delves further into the particular nature of locality and its

distinctive features in relation to Cretan society but also the Greek political

sphere. She discusses in some detail two novels by another famous Cretan

writer, Rhea Galanaki, Deep Silent Waters: The Abduction of Tassoula and

Bonfires of Judah, Ashes of Oedipus, and through them explores the par-

ticularities of Cretan society as they become exposed to the changes of

20th- and 21st-century Greece. In her discussion, we become aware of the

power but also of the limits and dangers of locality; we see how codes of

pride and prejudice are but two sides of the same coin; as the novels en-

gage with issues of gender, xenophobia and religious prejudice, we are in-

troduced to the dark side of locality, since “the persistence of local laws

and local logic […] has allowed the nurturing of illegal actions and hypoc-

risy.”

Part IV groups together papers on language, society and history from

the 16th to the 20th century.

Introduction

Io Manolessou, as a collaborator in the project of the Grammar of Me-

dieval Greek of the University of Cambridge directed by David Holton,

has access to a much more extensive and diverse corpus of written evi-

dence, stretching from the works of Renaissance literary and non-literary

texts to 18th- and 19th-century manuscripts. In her paper she discusses the

different types of evidence available in examining the phonology of the

Cretan dialect, concentrating mostly on two typical features, namely velar

fronting and rhotacism.

M. Mondelou’s paper, based on the notarial archive of Sitia housed in

the State Archive of Venice, sheds light on family life in Crete during the

Venetian rule, notably on the position of the large number of illegitimate

children that existed at the time in urban and rural communities. The

documents reveal that illegitimate children were normally not excluded

from the family property. The paper discusses the ways in which illegiti-

mate children received bequests, and identifies differences between male

and female testators, between the childless ones and those with children,

and between illegitimate and legitimate children.

P. Mackridge discusses R. M. Dawkins’s project of writing a book

based on the information he gathered while travelling extensively on the

island of Crete. Dawkins, a renowned archaeologist and linguist attached

for several years to the British School at Athens, was commissioned in

1916 as lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and sent to Crete

to collect intelligence. He stayed in Crete until 1919 gathering information

about the island’s landscape, flora, roads and buildings as well as tradi-

tions and superstitions. The book was never completed but he left behind a

draft of its chapters which, together with Dawkins’s correspondence with

his friend F. W. Hasluck, constitute the basis for this paper.

Y. Skalidakis discusses Crete in World Word II, focusing on the en-

counter of Cretan society, where pre-modern socio-economic conditions

by and large still prevailed, with the occupying forces that tried to

strengthen their military position. The occupiers put a heavy burden on the

island’s agricultural economy, forcing peasants to provide a labour force

for the Germans and, at the same time, continue their agricultural activi-

ties. This situation completely disrupted the traditional way of life, the

people’s perception of seasonal work and sense of self-employment and

self-determination. Thus, a broader reaction to the occupation emerged, of

which the organized Resistance constitutes only one aspect.

Finally, Part V looks at the presence of Crete and the influence of its

culture outside the Great Island. C. Carpinato reverses the predominant

outlook of the traditional line of research (such as Gerola, for example)

which focuses on the Venetian influences in Cretan culture. Moving her

Liana Giannakopoulou and Kostas Skordyles

lens away from the colony and back to the metropolis, she takes the reader

on a historical and cultural tour and, taking inspiration from architecture

and other vestiges of visual art, draws our attention to the immanent pres-

ence and importance of Crete for the Serenissima, referred to by the Vene-

tians themselves as “our city’s eye and right hand” (quoted in McKee

2010, 19).

D. Ricks’s paper gives new, original insights into a masterpiece of

modern Greek literature, Solomos’s poem “The Cretan.” Through a com-

parative discussion with Robert Browning’s “The Italian in England”

(1848) and an emphasis on “the affinities between the two poems in their

historical setting, their plot, and their dramatis personae,” Ricks not only

shows that “The Cretan” is a dramatic monologue and indeed the founding

example in the modern Greek language. His contrastive outlook also puts

into greater relief the distinctive qualities of Solomos’s treatment of na-

tional and religious elements. The powerful hold of Crete as a homeland

that is now irrevocably lost and the sense of alienation the narrator experi-

ences even though he is on Greek soil reveals the importance of the Great

Island on a metaphysical, mystical level deeply ingrained in the speaker’s

soul.

After a detailed introduction to the beginnings, reception and particu-

larities of the Classics Illustrated in Greece, L. Diamantopoulou discusses

the insights the modern researcher may get into this publishing industry

through the adaptations of three specific works of Renaissance Crete: Ero-

tokritos, the Sacrifice of Abraham and Erofili. What can we learn about the

criteria that affect the choice of text, or particular stylistic or illustration

decisions? How do social, ideological or political issues affect the process

of adaptation and its popularity? What is the relationship that develops be-

tween these “comics” and their contemporary theatrical productions? Such

questions are explored in detail as Diamantopoulou analyses the Renais-

sance style of the illustrations, the intended readership of these texts, the

decision to emphasise or underplay particular episodes and the reasons

why some works, especially Erotokritos, have been much more appealing

and popular than Erofili.

Finally, Stathis Gauntlett’s contribution skilfully explores in a light

vein and with fine humour the tradition of the literary defamation of letters

and teachers/intellectuals in modern Greek literature, with particular em-

phasis on the Cretan representations from Kornaros via Kondylakis and

Prevelakis to Kazantzakis. It is intended as a tribute to Gauntlett’s δάσκα-

λος, David Holton, of course, but it is also a testament to the procession of

major authors that Crete has contributed to Greek literature, their refresh-

ingly subversive self-reflections, and their ironic take on tradition.

Introduction

To conclude, the papers presented in this volume offer readers the op-

portunity to familiarize themselves with different aspects of Crete’s his-

tory, literature, society and language without the constraints that a the-

matic or chronological criterion would impose. They come to add to and

extend existing discussions which bring to the fore the significance of the

island as a paradigm for several strands of inquiry in areas as varied as the

Renaissance, Modernism, linguistic variation, intersemiotic translation,

and occupation and resistance practices.

References

Constantinides, Elizabeth. 2011. “Ο Νίκος Καζαντζάκης και ο κρητικός

ήρωας.” In Εισαγωγή στο έργο του Καζαντζάκη, edited by Roderick

Beaton. Herakleion: Πανεπιστημιακές Εκδόσεις Κρήτης.

Herzfeld, Michael. 1985. The Poetics of Manhood: Contest and Identity in

a Cretan Mountain Village. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Holton, David. 1991. Literature and Society in Renaissance Crete. Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press.

Leontis, Artemis. 1995. Topographies of Hellenism: Mapping the Home-

land. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Levitt, Morton P. 1971–2. “The Cretan Glance: The World of Art of Nikos

Kazantzakis.” Journal of Modern Literature 2 (2): 163–88.

Mavilis, Lorentzos. 1990. Τα Ποιήματα, edited by G. G. Alisandratos.

Athens: Ίδρυμα Κώστα και Ελένης Ουράνη.

McKee, Sally. 2000. Uncommon Dominion: Venetian Crete and the Myth

of Ethnic Purity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Pinar, Şenişik. 2011. The Transformation of Ottoman Crete. London and

New York: I. B. Tauris.

Stillman, William James. 1874. The Cretan Insurrection of 1866-7-8. New

York: Henry Holt and Company.

Tomadakis, N. B. 1939. “Ο Λαυρέντιος Μαβίλης και η Κρήτη.” Νέα Ε-

στία 25: 859–62.

Ziolkowski, Theodore. 2009. Minos and the Moderns: Cretan Myth in

Twentieth Century Literature and Art. Oxford and New York: Oxford

University Press.

ART

ENAISSANCE

ITERATURE

UTHORSHIP AND

OETICS

ETRARCHISM AND

NTI

-P

ETRARCHISM

ANNERISTIC

ESPONSE

OF THE

YPRIOT

ANZONIERE

AND

HORTATSIS

’

ANORIA

ARINA

ODOSTHENOUS

-B

ALAFA

Abstract

During the first seventy years of the 16th century the two Greek islands,

Cyprus and Crete, had more or less the same opportunities to become ac-

quainted with Italian culture and assimilate the ideas and artistic trends of

the time. For this reason, David Holton suggests that a comparative study

between the Cypriot lyric poems and the Cretan texts of the Renaissance

period would reveal that, despite their indirect relationship, they display

many similarities in the use of certain motifs and images. This paper at-

tempts to investigate and highlight the common themes of two different lit-

erary genres, the Cypriot Petrarchistic lyric poetry and the Cretan pas-

toral drama by Georgios Chortatsis Panoria, which—in accordance with

the tragicomic genre to which it belongs—uses several Petrarchistic ele-

ments in a subversive and ironic manner. It seeks to detect, in other words,

two different versions of the mannerist trend of Petrarchism in the Greek

speaking world of the 16th century.

During the first seventy years of the 16th century, Cyprus and Crete were

both under Venetian rule. As a result, the inhabitants of the two Greek is-

lands shared many cultural similarities and connections, since they had

common opportunities to become acquainted with Italian education and

civilization, assimilate the ideas and artistic trends of the time and incorpo-

rate them into their native culture, creating thus a significant blend of

I am grateful to Prof. David Holton and Dr Bancroft-Marcus for reading a version

of my paper and kindly making very useful comments on it.

Petrarchism and Anti-Petrarchism

Greek and western European elements (Holton 1992, 515, 530).

For this

reason, Holton (2006–7, 45) believes that comparisons between the Cyp-

riot lyric poems and the Cretan texts of the 16th and 17th centuries would

reveal many affinities in the use of certain motifs and images.

Lassithio-

takis (1996a, 153–75) was, as far as I know, the first scholar to perform a

systematic examination of parallels between Cretan and Cypriot Renais-

sance literature and clearly showed that both literatures share many the-

matic resemblances. Although he did not set out to prove direct influence

between the two literatures, he argued that comparative studies of this kind

might contribute valuable insights into the history of 16th-century Greek

lyric poetry (Lassithiotakis 1996a, 174).

This paper will highlight common themes between two Greek works,

but it will focus at the same time on their dissimilar elaboration, the result

of the different literary genres to which they belong: the anonymous Cyp-

riot Petrarchistic lyrical poetry (probably collected around the third quarter

of the 16th century) and the pastoral drama Panoria by Georgios Chor-

tatsis (composed towards the end of the same century). While the Cypriot

collection largely preserves a serious, refined tone, reflecting that of its

Petrarchan model, the tragicomic genre of Panoria predicates a subver-

sive, ironic (Puchner 1991, 349–61), parodic (Markomihelaki 1995, 82–5)

and often humorous (Bancroft-Marcus 1980, 136–7) exploitation of the

normative tradition. In this way, the particular variations of the model en-

able us to detect and discuss two different versions of the manneristic

trend of Petrarchism in the Greek-speaking world of the 16th century.

Before embarking on my analysis, I shall briefly define the three basic

literary terms with which this paper deals (Petrarchism, anti-Petrarchism,

Mannerism) and indicate the perspective from which I employ them in my

analysis. To begin with, Petrarchism is a trend that started while Petrarch

(1304–74), the author of the Italian Canzoniere, Rerum Vulgarium Frag-

menta, was alive (e.g. Boccaccio, Chaucer); it reached considerable pro-

portions in the last half of the 15th century (e.g. Poliziano, Sannazaro, Bo-

iardo) and became the predominant mode of poetic expression in the 16th

century throughout most of western Europe (Hardison, Fucilla & Klein-

For preliminary information on the historical, social, and cultural background of

the two islands during the Venetian rule (Crete 1211–1669 and Cyprus 1489–

1571), see the collective volumes: Panagiotakis 1988, Papadopoulos 1996, Malte-

zou 2002, and Holton 2006.

David Ricks (1988, 241) with the Cretan romance as point of reference argued

that “erotic topoi and their treatment in the abundant speeches of Erotokritos”

show many affinities with the Cypriot sonnets.

Marina Rodosthenous-Balafa

henz 1993, 903).

According to this trend, poets try to imitate the “mas-

ter’s maniera” (Scaglione 1971, 126–7), the conceits he uses, several ox-

ymora, the imagery and also his style, either through purity of language,

elegance and refinement that is “the Bembist approach to Petrarchism”

(Mirollo 1984, 69) or through a more sophisticated form of satire, irony

(Hoggan 1979, 806–19), parodic juxtaposition, distortion and reversal of a

thematic or stylistic feature of the norm, which is the “counter-

Petrarchism” (Mirollo 1984, 69) or “anti-Petrarchism” (Forster 2010, 56–

7).

The meaning of these two trends (Petrarchism and anti-Petrarchism)

has shifted among critics: an anti-Petrarchist author for some would be a

Petrarchist one for others (Steadman 1990, 75). In any case, both trends

comprise two different outcomes of the same literary mode (Mirollo 1984,

68), Mannerism, which according to some researchers bears witness to the

sophistication of the Renaissance style rather than reaction against the Re-

naissance (Steadman 1990, 91).

Burke (1997, 50–1) finds it “difficult”

and “less fruitful” to decide which author was a mannerist and which was

not or to identify mannerist works, particularly outside Italy. Likewise,

Mirollo (1984, 68) considers it “unwieldy” and “frustratingly vague” to

use notions such as “universal mannerism,” “an age of mannerism” or

even “mannerist authors.” The working assumption he prefers for literary

mannerism presupposes that

there is a particular artistic sensibility that expresses itself in certain formal

and stylistic ways, on occasion, and is therefore best sought in individual

literary works as a modal variety of Renaissance literary style rather than a

separate, autonomous phenomenon. As such, it may dominate a part of or a

For a very recent and fresh depiction of Petrarchism and Bembo’s role in its

widespread dissemination in the 16th century, see Shemek 2014, 182–8. See also

Brand and Pertile 2004, 253–4.

Steadman (1990, 13) also remarks that: “Many of the salient features that we now

associate with late Renaissance (or post Renaissance) styles like mannerism and

baroque have their roots in the culture of the High Renaissance, or earlier, and it

would be misleading to regard them as symptoms of a new sensibility or differen-

tiae of a new age,” Burke (1997, 53) agrees with this perspective and notes: “Man-

nerism is sometimes characterized as ‘anti-Renaissance’ or ‘counter-Renaissance’,

but it might be better to describe it as a late phase of the Renaissance […] the hu-

manists of the time, the scholars and the men of letters, we find that they were con-

cerned not to break with the Renaissance past but rather to elaborate some aspects

of it at the expense of others.” For more French and Italian bibliography on Man-

nerism in literature, see Luciani 2006, 192. See also Luciani’s monograph on Cre-

tan Mannerism 2005.

Petrarchism and Anti-Petrarchism

whole work and even appear in a series of poems or plays […]. Mannerism

is likely to be found whenever and wherever the Renaissance artist con-

fronts the obligation to imitate both nature and art, and in the case of art, to

contend with, to quote but not ape a predecessor whose achievement in a

particular genre or form has been declared supreme or unsurpassable, or

simply the norm (Mirollo 1984, 68).

From this perspective, the term “manneristic response” is used in this pa-

per to refer to the particular and individual elaboration of certain aspects

that the Greek-speaking author/s of the Cypriot collection and Chortatsis

in Panoria attempted in relation to their predecessors, Petrarch and the

Petrarchan poets. It would be useful to briefly give a description of the two

works, before their comparison.

Panoria is set on Mount Ida in Crete and since it follows the conven-

tions of the pastoral mode, it relates to two young shepherds, Gyparis and

Alexis, who are hopelessly in love with two reluctant shepherdesses, Pano-

ria and Athousa. Besides the two pairs of young people, there is also a

third, aging couple: Panoria’s father Giannoulis, a widower, and Panoria’s

confidante (nurse in her infancy), Frosyni. Both long for their youth’s sex-

ual adventures and they still desire sexual intercourse, but when Gian-

noulis proposes to Frosyni she refuses. Frosyni, however is willing to help

the two shepherds to win the girls as legitimate wives by suggesting they

appeal in prayer to Aphrodite, the goddess of Love. Aphrodite responds to

their invocation and sends her son Cupid to shoot Panoria and Athousa

with his bow and arrows. The shepherdesses fall instantly in love with the

shepherds and the play ends with a double-wedding celebration.

The anonymous Cypriot Canzoniere (Song-book) is a sequence of 156

poems in various metrical forms. In recent years, researchers have come to

believe that the Cypriot collection had not one, but multiple authors, main-

ly on account of the different styles of the poems.

The majority deal with

the unrequited love of the poet and his anguish over the unfulfilled and

unattainable desire, which comes from the Petrarchan topos of the ideal-

ized gaze and beauty of the ethereal beloved (Lassithiotakis 1996c, 146–

8). Below we quote a poem from the Cypriot collection which is a transla-

Noteworthy is the observation by Shemek (2014, 188) that the first-ever multi-

authored lyric anthology was printed in 1545 by the trendsetting Venetian pub-

lisher Gabriel Giolito, opening thus a new chapter of literary history. For two re-

cent views on the multiple authorship of the Cypriot collection, see Mathiopoulou-

Tornaritou 2007, 63–77 and Pieris 2012, 363–4; on the single authorship, see Car-

bonaro 2012, 13–6.

Marina Rodosthenous-Balafa

tion from Sannazaro (Siapkaras-Pitsilldès 1975, 272–3)

and clearly ex-

presses the Renaissance beauty canon through rhetoric questions:

Τούτα ’ν εκείνα τα μαλλιά ξανθά τα χρουσαφένα

που μ’ έδησεν ο Έρωτας που δεν <ε ο>κνός για μένα;

Τούτα ’ν τα μμάτια τα γλυκιά στα ποια κρατεί το βλέμμα

που πήρεν αντάμ με ’δασιν τέλεια ’που μεν το πνεύμα;

Τούτο ’ν το χιόνι τ’ άσπρον κρυόν και καθαρόν ρουπίνιν

απού μ’ έβαλεν στο λαμπρόν κι αξάφτω στο καμίνιν;

Τούτα ’ν τα χέρια τα ’μορφα που σύραν το ξουφάριν

που στην καρδιάμ μου βάφτηκεν κ’ είναι με τόσην χάρην;

Τούτα ’ν τα πόδια της τιμής απ’ όπου να πατήσουν

έχουν συνήθιν μυρωδιάς τραντάφυλλον να αθθίσουν;

(C.C., 114 1–10)

[Are these the blond golden tresses/ to which I was bound by Cupid, who

has not been indolent on my behalf?/ Are these the sweet eyes which own

the glance/ that took my spirit away, when they beheld me?/ Is that the

cold white snow and clear ruby/ that plunged me into the fire and I am all

ablaze in the furnace?/ Are these the beautiful hands, that threw the dart/

which was dyed in my heart, and yet are so charming?/ Are these the feet

of honour, which whenever they pass by,/ always make the scented roses

bloom?]

Not surprisingly, Chortatsis’s heroine, Panoria, whose name means “all-

beautiful,” is also described with standardized metaphors and metonymies,

following the Petrarchistic poetic tradition but also various Renaissance

dialogues on the decorum of women’s beauty (Rodosthenous 2007, 182–

As for the Sannazaran influence in the Cypriot collection, Pecoraio (1976, 121)

observes: “La presenza così rilevante di spunti direttamente petrarcheschi e di un

poeta così classicamente atteggiantesi nel quadro del petrarchismo cinquecentesco

come appunto il Sannazaro è senz’altro molto significativa, e sarà certamente da

valutare ai fini di una definizione del carattere complessivo del nostro Canzoniere.”

All the citations of the Cypriot Canzoniere, abbreviated here to C.C., are from the

Greek-French bilingual edition of Siapkaras-Pitsillidès 1975. For more examples

of the beloved’s appearance, see: C.C. 7, 8, 41.

The English translations of the Cypriot poems are by me especially for the pur-

poses of this paper. They aim to assist the non-Greek-speaking reader to follow the

thematic comparisons of the two texts. Therefore, I have tried to give a literal ren-

dering of the poems, without any aspiration to reflect the linguistic, stylistic and

metrical artistry of the Cypriot poet/s. I owe many thanks to Prof. David Holton for

reading and refining my translations.

Petrarchism and Anti-Petrarchism

3): she has “tresses of gold”

(χρουσά μαλλιά) (Ι. 82), “pretty eyes” (μά-

τια πλουμιστά) (ΙΙ. 387), “silver countenance” (αργυρό πρόσωπο) (ΙΙ.

388), “snow-white forehead” (χιονάτο κούτελο) (I. 79), “arms of marble”

(χέρια μαρμαρένια) (I. 80) etc. Furthermore, the Cretan dramatist, like

Sannazaro, uses the ancient topos, which Petrarch also invokes, that of

“the lady’s generative footsteps” making nature flourish wherever she

passes by (Mirollo 1984, 127): “The fields came out in flower, the grasses

bloomed,/ The verdure flourished, and the fruit-trees ripened” (I. 321–2).

Further to their common outlooks and the fruitful impact they have on

nature, all three beautiful ladies (the beloved in the Canzoniere and the

two shepherdesses in the pastoral, Panoria and Athousa), following the

Petrarchan ethos, refuse love in order to protect their honour and chastity:

Το πεθυμάς αξ αύτου μου δύσκολον ένι […]

Για την τιμήμ μου απόμεινε μεν εν χαμένη

κι ανίσως και δεν δύνεσαι τόσον ν’ αργήσης

παίρνοντας αχ την κρυότημ μου μπορείς να ποίσης

η βράστη να ’ν εις αύτου σου συγκερασμένη.

(C.C., 74. 1, 5–8)

[What you desire from me is hard/ […]/ Be patient so that my virtue will

not be discarded/ and if you cannot wait that long/ by taking some of my

coldness,/ you will temper your burning heat].

Panoria: κι εμένα κόρη ευγενική ήθελαν μ’ ονομάζει,

γιατί δεν έκαμα ποτέ πράμα εισέ ντροπή μου,

μηδέ κανένα άφηκα να πάρει την τιμή μου.

(ΙΙΙ. 12–4)

[While I should have been termed a modest maiden,/ Because I’ve never

done a shameful deed,/Nor let a man deprive me of my virtue!]

However, the way Panoria refuses Gyparis’s love and marriage is com-

pletely anti-Petrarchan, since she is not presented as the classic Petrarchan

For the English translation of Panoria, I use the bilingual Greek-English edition

of Bancroft-Marcus 2013. For the Greek text and all the references to the work, see

the edition by Kriaras as revised by Pidonia 2007.

In poems C.C. 69 v. 1–8 and 120 the poet steps backwards, when he comes

across the honour and nobility of the lady, because he does not want to disgrace

her. For Frosyni’s attack on the Petrarchistic myth that women inspire love without

feeling it, see Bancroft-Marcus 1983, 28.