A present for our new friend Theseus
When we got back home towards two in the afternoon, first, thorough washing —hair and everything, so as not to dirty the sheets. Next, some good solid food. Whatever there was in the house, beans, chickpeas, broad beans, pasta, dried salt cod, the daily fare. Then, naptime! I was just a kid and I’d be deadbeat. I’d fall on my bed and be out for the count till late afternoon, four or five. Later, we used to get up and go to the kafeneion but I didn’t go there so much. I used to go to other places and find pals my own age. Some of them worked in the shipyards and others in the glass works, all kinds of places. We’d sit and chew the fat, talk about girlfriends, this that and the other. It was round this time, when I was working in the coal, that I began to get all lovey-dovey with the girl who became my first wife. I had her on my mind.
In Tabouria I used to turn up pretty often at the house of a cousin of mine, Koula Rigoutsou. The girl I was in love with used to sit in the same courtyard. She was Orthodox, from the Peloponnese and she was called Zingoala. I went there a lot, just to see this tigress I wanted to marry later on. We tried hard to keep it secret, so her folks wouldn’t see us. I wasn’t worried about my family. They knew I was talking to her. Zingoala was always on the look out for a chance to talk to me on the sly. She’d go out to shop at the food store and I’d be waiting for her at the gate. Sometimes I’d meet her in the street and we’d have a chat. We said all the sweet nothings, ‘Give us a kiss’, ‘I’ll marry you, you’ll be my wife’, and ‘When shall we tie the knot?’ Maybe it’s a true saying, ‘Whoever loves you makes you cry’. We hadn’t got to know each other more than ten days before Zingoala called me ‘Frankish Dog!’
But still, for all the ‘Frankish Dog’, the love was pretty much like a thunderbolt. From the very first days it took hold of us and a year passed without the flame dying down. One day I grabbed her and we ran away. We stole off, ten o’clock at night, and later I took her home. She was a pretty, spirited girl, dark, lovely eyes and a beauty.
I Married Young
Fool that I was I married young
A sultry babe with a saucy tongue.
The wedding had just every sort
Of swank, like waiting in a court
To hear the sentence, ‘Married man,
Carry the load and carry the can’.
I took my wife, I paid the bill,
We took our stuff, went home to chill.
Woke next morning sweet and dozy,
Billing and cooing, very cosy.
She didn’t let me leave our home.
Chained by the nose I couldn’t roam.
I broke a cudgel on her nut
And I’m still running from that hut.
Μικρός αρραβωνιάστηκα
Μικρός αρραβωνιάστηκα
κορόιδο που πιάστηκα
και πήρα μια μπεμπέκα
μαγκιόρα για γυναίκα.
Στο γάμο μάγκα να ’σουνα
να δεις καλαμπαλίκι
σαν να ’μουνα υπόδικος
και περιμένω δίκη.
Και βγήκε η απόφαση
πως είμαι παντρεμένος
να κουβαλώ καθημερνώς
σαν γάιδαρος στρωμένος
Επήρα τη γυναίκα μου
παίρνω το μπουγιουρντί μου
τα σέα μου τα μέα μου
και βουρ για το τσαρδί μου.
Την άλλη μέρα ξύπνησα
τότε να δεις μεράκια
αφού δεν είχαμε ψιλή
αυτή ’θελε χαδάκια.
Να φύγω και να κουνηθώ
δε μ’ άφηνε απ’ το σπίτι
κι ένα χαλκά από σίδερο
μου κόλλησε στη μύτη.
Παίρνω ένα ξύλο από οξυά
κι απάνω της το σπάω,
της ρίχνω ξύλο αλύπητο
φεύγω κι ακόμα πάω.
.......................................................................................
Time flew by when we were stoned and we’d all get home late at night even with work the next morning. When I got home late all stoned on hashish I used to creep in very quietly so as not to wake my father. I was ashamed and I didn’t want to look him in the eye where I’d see all the pain he felt for me. He had the both of us on his hands too, me and my wife! He was eaten up with grief at my plunge into low life, and my mother, poor soul, who always wanted what was good for me, did a whole lot of complaining. I didn’t listen at all. She was in trouble with my father. They had rows about me and whose fault it was. The two younger brothers followed my example. One, Leonardhos, went nuts at the age of seventeen from hashish. He lived on as a total head case and died of hunger in the war. The other, Frangiskos, drank wine and turned into a scary guy who pulled knives. He ended up murdering somebody and went to prison.
So, like I said, after I’d been swept off course into this seedy life, I began to go through the bad experiences that went with it. One day they caught me in Sotirakis’ tekes along with five others. They put the arghile, the straws and the hashish into my hands and brought me in handcuffs with the others, along the quayside of Piraeus and Zea to the police station in Retsina Street. Beatings, kickings and the next day off to the magistrates’ court. Then two or three days in the clink and as many times as they caught us it was the same again. For me this adventure marked a turning point, the first night in a cell, fingerprints, magistrates’ court and all that.
Fix it Stavros
Κάν’ τονε Σταύρο
Fix it, Stavros, fix it up
Light the flame and cook it up.
Κάν’ τονε, Σταύρο, κάν’ τονε
Βάλ’ τον φωτιά και κάφ’ τονε.
Pass to Nikos crazy guy
Make the carpenter fly high.
Δώσε του Νίκου του τρελού
του μάστορα του ξυλουργού.
Smoke it, Yannis, make it hiss,
You’re the manghes’ teketzis.
Τράβα βρε Γιάννη αραμπατζή,
Που ’σαι μαγκιόρος τεκετζής.
There to Nikolakis give some
So he’ll stop us all being glum.
Δώσε του Νικολάκη μας
να βγάλει το μεράκι μας.
Let our Batis take a drag
our hellraiser, our old lag.
Τζούρα δώσε του Μπάτη μας,
του μόρτη, του μπερμπάντη μας.
....................................................................................
It wasn’t just that the bouzouki was the only thing that had the power to sweeten my miserable life but also I was remembering that time when the bouzouki was being hounded. I told you they were chasing us in the tekedhes. They were giving us a hard time and they didn’t want to hear about the bouzouki in any shape or form. But from that time onwards it was unstoppable. It had such power it went all over the place, even to the place where it’s at today. The other song was Osoi Echoune Polla Lefta, (recorded in 1936):
Those Monied Guys
Those monied guys I wish I knew
What the hell it is they do
With their money when they die.
Are they still loaded, —hey aman aman,
When up they fly?
The small change in my pocket,
I never put it by.
And all my sorrows melt away, —hey aman aman,
Only when I’m stoned and high.
In the other place
You cannot spend or show it.
Here on earth it saves your face—hey aman aman,
But what they don’t know’s how to blow it.
Όσοι έχουνε πολλά λεφτά
Όσοι έχουνε πολλά λεφτά
να ’ξερα τι τα κάνουν
άραγε σαν πεθάνουνε—βρ’ αμάν αμάν,
μαζί τους θα τα πάρουν.
Εγώ ψιλή στην τσέπη μου
ποτές δεν αποτάζω
κι όλα τα ντέρτια μου περνούν—βρ’ αμάν αμάν
μόνο σαν μαστουριάζω.
Αφού στον άλλο το ντουνιά
λεφτά δε θα περνάνε
τα ’χουν και τα θυμιάζουνε—βρ’ αμάν αμάν,
δεν ξέρουν να τα φάνε.
Markos Vamvakaris: the man and the bouzouki: autobiography. Εdited and translated by Noonie Minogue, Greek text complied by Angeliki Vellou-Keil. London Greeklines, 2015.
