Know Thyself

Know Thyself. This Greek aphorism - whether coined by Socrates, Pythagoras or a myriad other possible sources - was inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. To understand oneself is to understand the rest of humankind. I wonder how many of us understand ourselves even partially?

Denial

This early love poem by Giorgos Seferis became, under the Greek Colonels' régime, an anthem of liberation:

Denial

On the secret seashore
white like a pigeon
we thirsted at noon;
but the water was brackish.

On the golden sand
we wrote her name;
but the sea-breeze blew
and the writing vanished.

With what spirit, what heart,
what desire and passion
we lived our life! a mistake!
so we changed our life...

Travels In Greece

One of my favourite travel writers is Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915- ). I revel in the descriptive fireworks of his 2 best known books, A Time Of Gifts (1977) and its sequel Between the Woods and the Water (1986) - accounts of a youthful journey he made from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. Among other travel writings he's published The Traveller's Tree (1950) about the Caribbean - and 2 books on Greece, Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese (1958) and Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece (1966). In these books he explores very remote regions by mule and on foot. Leigh Fermor is passionate about Greece, its people and traditions, its myths and its landscape. He lives there and speaks fluent Greek. During WWII he fought in Greece and Crete, and helped organize the Cretan Resistance as an SOE officer. Disguised as a shepherd, he planned and achieved the capture of the German General Heinrich Kreipe in 1944, a daring operation which was later immortalised in the film Ill Met by Moonlight (1957) starring Dirk Bogarde.

Wounded

Giorgos Seferis, the Greek poet, wrote: Wherever I go Greece wounds me. Wounded by beauty? Wounded by love? Wounded by death? All 3, I think...

Greek Tragedy

Something is burning, baby, are you aware?
Something is the matter, baby, there's smoke in your hair
BOB DYLAN Something's Burning, Baby from Empire Burlesque

The fires in southern Greece have raged for almost a fortnight. Much of the devastation is centred on the western Peloponnese, that beautiful, mountainous peninsula separated from the northern mainland by the Corinth Canal, which links the Aegean and Ionian seas. Around 500,000 acres of farmland and forest have been ravaged, 6000 homes are believed to have been destroyed and at least 65 people have died. An Athenian schoolteacher was found dead in her car with her 4 children. She had tried but failed to outrace the flames. These have been the most extensive wildfires in Europe's history - much more serious than the ones which engulfed the northern Peloponnese in 2000. It's the biggest environmental disaster Greece has ever known. Helena Smith wrote this in the Guardian: In the Peloponnese, the peninsula worst hit by the fires, the signs of death are everywhere: in the stumps of still smouldering olive trees; the silver ash that carpets the land; the charred remains of carcasses putrefying in the summer heat; the trees tinged orange as if they are wearing wigs; and the thousands of others turned charcoal black, their baldness too awful to contemplate for those whose families have lived in these parts for centuries.