On Homer's beaches

XIII

On Homer's beaches was a bliss, a grandeur, which reached our days untouched. The soles of our feet, digging the same sand feel it. We walk thousands of years, the wind continually bends the canebrakes and we continually raise our faces. Whither? Until when? Who are in charge?

We need a body of laws that develops form like our own skins as we grow up. Something both youthful and strong, like the “therein were overflowing waters”¹ or the “shedding a copious tear”². So that what man gives birth to may surpass man without suppressing him. 

 1.Odisseia 13.109: ἐν δ᾽ ὕδατ᾽ ἀενάοντα.

2. Ilíada 6.9: θαλερὸν κατὰ δάκρυ χέουσα.

Odysséas Elytis, The Collected Poems, Nikos Sarris e Jeffrey Carson (trad.), The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.