LA CANZONE CRETESE ΠΟΤΕ ΘΑ ΚΑΜΕΙ ΞΑΣΤΕΡΙΑ

Abstract

The author, after providing the reader with a very brief introductory note on the Cretan political climate in the nineteenth century, transcribes and translates the lyrics of a famous Cretan patriotic song, that was sung at that time by Greeks patriots and is still recognized and sung by all the Greek people as one of the founding hymn of the country freedom and independence. The source of the transcription is the recording of the performance of the text made in the eighties of the last century before the death of the interpreter, the famous Greek musician and popular music singer Nikos Xylouris. The examination of the text leads to recognize in it a reworking of an older song, born on the occasion of a feud that arose in Crete at the end of the sixteenth century. The author then carries out a linguistic examination of the song, focusing on the formation and interpretation of lemmas of particular interest either of rare or even unique occurrence, or because they are used only in the Cretan dialect and therefore are incomprehensible to a user with normal linguistic knowledge.