Theseus
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In one of two wonderful and moving sonnets, which SBE referred to in Discussing anything under the sun, Lambros Porphyras writes:
Πήραν στρατί στρατί το μονοπάτι
βασιλοπούλες και καλοκυράδες...
How would I translate either term in the title? I know that in the depths of the countryside in Greece there is a firm belief in "the Good People"; I have myself come across it once or twice and many Greek islanders can tell of people who have seen them.
The author of a book printed by the Cambridge University Press in 1910, viz. J C Lawson, writes in detail of this belief and on p. 131 writes: "I myself once had a Nereid pointed out to me by my guide and there was certainly the resemblance of a female figure, draped in white and tall beyond human stature, flitting in the dusk between the gnarled and twisted boles of an old olive-yard. What that apparition was I had no leisure to investigate..."
An old man in Glencoe, in Scotland, who believed in such things, said to me many years back said that we still believed in such apparitions but whereas he would say "there is a spirit in that cave", now we say "that cave spooks me out, that cave is haunted".
Be that as it may, in the sonnet referred to an English translator calls the καλοκυράδες "mermaids". I understand why but could I translate it as "fairy queens", which keeps the mythic overtones and goes well with "princesses"?
Πήραν στρατί στρατί το μονοπάτι
βασιλοπούλες και καλοκυράδες...
How would I translate either term in the title? I know that in the depths of the countryside in Greece there is a firm belief in "the Good People"; I have myself come across it once or twice and many Greek islanders can tell of people who have seen them.
The author of a book printed by the Cambridge University Press in 1910, viz. J C Lawson, writes in detail of this belief and on p. 131 writes: "I myself once had a Nereid pointed out to me by my guide and there was certainly the resemblance of a female figure, draped in white and tall beyond human stature, flitting in the dusk between the gnarled and twisted boles of an old olive-yard. What that apparition was I had no leisure to investigate..."
An old man in Glencoe, in Scotland, who believed in such things, said to me many years back said that we still believed in such apparitions but whereas he would say "there is a spirit in that cave", now we say "that cave spooks me out, that cave is haunted".
Be that as it may, in the sonnet referred to an English translator calls the καλοκυράδες "mermaids". I understand why but could I translate it as "fairy queens", which keeps the mythic overtones and goes well with "princesses"?
