LAMENT FOR THE YOUTH STEFANOS MESSALAS
Hades was ploughing, ploughing the earth that fears Him,
His rows but gravesites, His seed only poison.
Hades was ploughing with His black ox
which blew hard at each stroke of the merciless goad.
Where the ploughshare passed, it felled the trees,
uprooted homes and wrecked the world,
and you, young lad, what sought you on His path?
In your mother’s embraces, in your father’s too,
you were raised with kisses, and concern looked after you.
Oh, youth, why do you not remain with us?
You thought to sleep inside the earth was sweet,
you did not know, oh child, a grave needs company,
that in it you are destitute, an orphan.
You will not find your father’s bones arrayed
where you’ll descend, but you’ll lie down in loneliness.
Oh, child, why do you want to leave?
But that young stripling heard us while a thousand
worlds and golden dreams around him seemed to shine.
He smiled back sweetly as if to say “the grave, my father
isn’t loneliness but rather life and love.”
Hades was ploughing, ploughing, and didn’t rest,
but day and night His ploughshare worked,
it took the sprouts and hid them in the soil
and soundlessly, alone, He passed and furrowed.
Oh, father and mother, he is gone, the grave is covered,
bid farewell to your child on his last voyage
with your last kiss and bitter tears.
He’ll sail as if he were a bird, and I
wish I were with him, to see my daughter in Hade’s abode.
Manolis Aligizakis 