PERIPLUS | Deambulações luso-gregas (Crónica)

PERIPLUS | Deambulações luso-gregas (Crónica)

Amélia Muge | Michales Loukovikas

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ ΠΕΡΙΠΛΟΥΣ | Ελληνοπορτογαλικές περιηγήσεις (Χρονικό)
/ENGLISH/ PERIPLUS | Luso-Hellenic Wanderings (Chronicle)

O Periplus não é um cruzeiro. É uma tentativa de construção de
pontes interculturais e de pesquisar o passado a bem do futuro.
A viagem continua… (Michales Loukovikas)

A. DAS AUSÊNCIAS
1. Uma pena que me coube
2. Όσο βαρούν τα σίδερα | Pesado como ferro

Periplus, edição portuguesa

Periplus levanta âncora da “Terra das Ausências” com (quem sabe) a “Menina Lisboa” cantando uma composição de Amélia Muge dedicada à Grécia, um país julgado in absentia que quanto mais se contacta mais falta nos faz. São “Penas de Ausência”, semelhantes às da viúva de “Pesado como ferro”. Musicalmente, a viagem começa com o acompanhamento “característico” das canções portuguesas – quando um “estranho” som emerge: o clarino (clarinete tradicional) tocado por Manos Achalinotópoulos com a técnica peculiar, tradicional, usada pelos músicos dos Balcãs e da Ásia Menor, combinado com a guitarra portuguesa de Ricardo Parreira. ● Manos, que gravou em Atenas, fez dois improvisos que editei usando ambas as gravações.

As “Deambulações luso-gregas” tornam-se mais evidentes na segunda canção de origem cretense marcada por uma forte influência da Ásia Menor. No nosso período de pesquisa, enquanto trocávamos materais relacionados com as nossas músicas tradicionais, enviei esta canção como um exemplo excelente da canção cretense urbana. O que aconteceu a seguir foi qualquer coisa de extraordinário: Amélia respondeu com um… mp3, interpretando esta canção da forma como “se apropriou dela”, adaptando a letra para português e a música como se fosse um tema medieval, ocidental. Fiquei espantado! Era como se me tivesse ouvido a cantar a canção nalguma corte medieval e depois, ao regressar a casa, tentasse recriá-la; mas de facto, o que fez foi expressá-la à sua maneira, criando uma variação. Foi praticamente deste modo que a música se desenvolveu durante milénios, até começarem a ser usadas as partituras e os registos fonográficos. E foi esta a razão porque fiz o arranjo da canção mantendo estas duas variações.

1. Amélia Muge | Arranjo: F. Raposo
2. Tradicional, versão de Creta | Adaptação para português e para música antiga ocidental: A. Muge; arranjo: M. Loukovikas

B. DOS CAMINHOS
3. Caminhos de seda
4. Caminhos pentatónicos africanos
5. Caminhos pentatónicos epiróticos

Quando Amélia compôs esta espécie de morna desafiou-me: “Agora continua até à Grécia a partir de Cabo Verde!” A minha resposta deu-me a chave para continuar: “Como é que eu vou daqui até à Grécia? Temos a África pelo meio!” Só aí pensei na escala pentatónica que caracteriza alguma da música africana e da região do Épiro, na Grécia. Os dados estavam lançados! Harris Lambrakis deu-me depois “uma mãozinha” com a sua “flauta mágica” (ney)…

Parafraseando, como ponto de partida, algumas das frases quer da melodia quer da lírica do tema de Amélia, o meu trabalho nos “Caminhos pentatónicos” foi mais racional que o resultado da inspiração, baseado num ritmo de 10 tempos, coros e linhas melódicas cíclicas que funcionaram muito bem.

Chegados à Grécia, escolhi combinar esta paisagem sonora com uma canção de emigração do Épiro, “Ξενιτεμένο μου πουλί (Meu pássaro emigrante)”, baseada num ritmo de 4 tempos. Como acrescento pedi a Manos Achalinotópoulos, que não é apenas um excelente tocador de clarino mas também um cantor maravilhoso, para interpretar a canção, dotando-a do seu refinado “toque vocal” tradicional.

3. Amélia Muge | Arranjo: F. Raposo
4. Amélia Muge | Michales Loukovikas | Arranjo: M. Loukovikas e A. Muge
5. Tradicional, versão do Épiro | Arranjo: M. Loukovikas

C. DOS CANTOS
6. Φαίνου | Deixa brilhar (Ἐπιτάφιος | Epitáfio)
7. Canto em periplus

Amélia é amiga de longa data de Hélia Correia, compondo para poemas seus desde os anos 90 – de que é um excelente exemplo “A tentação”. Quando me encontrei pela primeira vez com Hélia estávamos no processo de construção do nosso Periplus. Depois de uma conversa sobre a antiga Hélade, como ela é uma helenista e filelena, ao falarmos do nosso trabalho disse-lhe: “Sabes, Hélia, também vamos ter no Periplus o Epitáfio de Seikilos”. A sua completamente inesperada resposta deixou-me de boca aberta. Sem qualquer comentário, começou a cantar em Grego antigo: “Ὅσον ζῇς φαίνου | μηδὲν ὅλως σὺ λυποῦ· | πρὸς ὀλίγον ἔστι τὸ ζῆν· | τὸ τέλος ὁ χρόνος ἀπαιτεῖ.” (Deixa brilhar a tua vida enquanto dura; não te entregues de nenhum modo à tristeza; a vida é curta e o tempo cobra o que lhe é devido). Foi uma reacção que eu só esperaria vir de um entre mil músicos gregos: os outros não conheceriam esta canção (!) a mais antiga encontrada completa, datada ca. séc. I (algures entre 200 AEC e um pouco depois de 200 EC). Mais tarde, disse à Amélia: “O Seikilos tem de ser cantado pela Hélia!” E de facto ela cantou-o maravilhosamente!

A Amélia encontrou-me na Net em 2009 graças ao meu trabalho baseado na poesia de Ares Alexandrou, Το Χρυσάφι τ’ Ουρανού, editado em Portugal em livro-cd O Ouro do Céu / Ares Alexandrou por Michales Loukovikas. Desapontado com a desatenção e não valorização com que o meu trabalho foi recebido na Grécia, tinha decidido não compor mais nada. A Amélia esforçou-se bastante para me convencer do contrário. Depois de repetidos falhanços teve uma ideia brilhante: fez um poema e compôs uma primeira parte pedindo-me para lhe dar seguimento. Não podia continuar dizer não; seria ingrato da minha parte. ● Quando ouvi o que ela compôs fiquei impressionado pela semelhança com o Epitáfio de Seikilos, que a Amélia, é claro, desconhecia. Assim, quando fiz o arranjo do “Canto em Periplus”, utilizei a composição do Seikilos como introdução (“Deixa brilhar”), bem como uma citação dentro do canto, adaptada para português por Hélia Correia: Ó mortal, deixa brilhar, | a luz da vida no teu rosto; | que a morte vai cobrar imposto | e a todos abate, sem dó por igual.

6. Seikilos | Adaptação para português: H. Correia; arranjo: M. Loukovikas
7. Amélia Muge | Amélia Muge e Michales Loukovikas | Arranjo: M. Loukovikas

D. DAS ILHAS
8. Παράνομο σημείωμα | Nota ilegal
9. Calma / Ἰθάκη | Ítaca

Ares Alexandrou, Constantine Cavafy, Fernando Pessoa

O Ouro do Céu, nosso ponto de encontro, está em destaque no Periplus com três temas arranjados desta vez por Filipe Raposo, para que houvesse um outro tipo de abordagem às minhas composições. Recordo-me como se fosse ontem como fiquei deliciado quando ouvi pela primeira vez a Nota ilegal, adaptada e cantada para português pela Amélia. “Compus um fado!”, fantasiei sorrindo, enquanto assobiava a minha composição com as ornamentações vocais feitas por ela…

Se “Nota ilegal” é uma ilha-pesadelo de exílio, “Calma”, de Fernando Pessoa, composta por Amélia, é uma ilha de sonho, onde inserimos um excerto do poema “Ítaca” de Constantine Cavafy. Há uma probabilidade dos dois grandes poetas se terem encontrado num barco que se dirigia para Londres e que continuaria depois para os Estados Unidos, mesmo antes da Grande Depressão de 1929.

8. Ares Alexandrou | Michales Loukovikas | Adaptação para português: A. Muge; arranjo: F. Raposo
9. Fernando Pessoa e Constantine Cavafy | Amélia Muge | Arranjo: F. Raposo

E. DAS VOZES
10. Cântico do país emerso
11. Palavra dada

Esta composição de Amélia para o poema (excerto) de Natália Correia, estava para ser, quando fiz o seu arranjo, a primeira do Periplus (mais tarde escolhemos “Uma pena que me coube” para uma abertura mais “calma”). Optei por começar com um tributo à colaboração entre Carlos Paredes e Charlie Haden, propondo uma improvisação entre o contrabaixo de Kostas Theodorou e a guitarra portuguesa de Ricardo Parreira com o piano de Filipe Raposo. Além disso, quando Amélia me mostrou a melodia num teclado, encontrei semelhanças com o primeiro Hino délfico feito provavelmente por Ateneu em 138 AEC. Assim, entre os versos de Natália, juntei três Interlúdios, adaptando este hino (no I e III) e a canção “Não sou daqui” de Amélia (no II), do seu álbum homónimo (que considero a sua obra-prima). A utilização deste tema surgiu porque as palavras do seu título são iguais às primeiras palavras do excerto do Cântico de Natália.

“Palavra dada”, a mais complicada em termos de arranjo e edição de todo o Periplus, começa pelo fascínio e interacção da Amélia com um Syrtós cretense. A origem desta dança levou-me a um músico heleno da antiguidade, Mesomedes de Creta (séc. II) e ao seu Ὕμνος εἰς Νέμεσιν (Hino a Némesis), a deusa que exerce represálias contra os que são arrogantes (húbris [ὕβρις]: arrogância perante os deuses). Começando com o ritmo original de 15 tempos, muda-se a meio para os 4 tempos do Syrtos, adoptando a versão adaptada por Ross Daly, combinando-a com as Pragas algarvias. À medida que a música cresce, com o violino de Kyriakos Gouventas, passamos para a tradicional portuguesa Cantiga de rega; quando regressamos a Creta, o finale é apimentado com mais pragas ditas por Teresa Muge (irmã de Amélia) e Margarida Guerreiro.

10. Natália Correia | Amélia Muge | Arranjo: M. Loukovikas > Ateneu (Interlúdios I e III); Amélia Muge (Interlúdio II)
11. Mesomedes (Némesis); Tradicional de Creta (Syrtós, adaptação: R. Daly); Tradicional portuguesa e Amélia Muge (Cantiga de rega); Amélia Muge (Pragas) | Arranjo: M. Loukovikas e A. Muge

F. DOS EMBALOS
12. Νανούρισμα | Canção de embalar
13. Dorme, dorme

Noite estrelada, de Vincent Van Gogh

Outra canção no Periplus com poesia de Ares Alexandrou é a “Canção de embalar”, adaptada para português por Amélia. Na sua forma original (O Ouro do Céu), está dividida em seis partes, à semelhança de um sonho. Na versão do Periplus ouvimos a primeira parte da canção antecedida por excertos de canções tradicionais de embalar e lenga-lengas.

Em ligação com o tema anterior está uma tocante canção de embalar composta por Amélia e arranjada por José Martins e Filipe Raposo. Este “embalo” é cantado a uma menina e não a um menino, como é usual nas canções de embalar tradicionais.

12. Ares Alexandrou | Michales Loukovikas | Αdaptação para português: A. Muge; arranjo: F. Raposo (introdução: A. Muge e M. Loukovikas)
13. Amélia Muge | Arranjo: J. Martins e F. Raposo

G. DOS AMORES
14. Της τριανταφυλλιάς τα φύλλα | A folha da rosa
15. Da folhinha de uma rosa

Uma rosa em Mi sustenido, de Ernie Benton

Quando lhe enviei esta tradicional canção de amor da Ásia Menor e Esmirna, a Amélia reconheceu, espantada, que o poema era idêntico ao de uma canção tradicional galega que tinha gravado anteriormente com o ensemble de Vigo, Camerata Meiga. Não podemos ter a certeza se alguns gregos e iberos tiveram a mesma ideia (“vou vestir-me com a folha [pétala] de uma rosa”), ou se foi uma ideia que viajou de um lugar para o outro. Em Periplus, convidei Ziad Rajab, um músico amigo Sírio-Palestiniano, para tocar o oud. Cantei a primeira parte do tema em grego, enquanto o resto foi adaptado e cantado por Amélia em português.

Aqui a canção da Ásia Menor ecoa na Galiza através de uma “ponte” em Guimarães. Esta “ponte” é uma versão simplificada da canção grega (o ritmo de 9 tempos de uma dança de pares – antikrystós – passa para um ritmo de 4 tempos) adaptada por Amélia para o Outra Voz, um coro local com quem tivemos uma intensa e especial colaboração. Ainda lembro a minha enorme emoção quando os ouvi pela primeira vez cantando esta adaptação, que o grupo acabou por adoptar como parte do seu repertório. Quando se entra na canção galega, juntam-se outras vozes convidadas e a canção termina num improviso onde no fim se entrecruzam novamente os dois temas tradicionais do Ocidente e do Oriente.

14. Tradicional, versão da Asia Menor e de Esmirna | Adaptação para português: A. Muge; arranjo: M. Loukovikas
15. Tradicional grega e galaico-portuguesa | Adaptação musical e poética em português: A. Muge; arranjo: F. Raposo

H. DA ALMA | DE PROFUNDIS
16. Se o lamento apenas fosse
17. Τα ἔνδον ῥήματα | Os meus ditames

Um emocionante e pungente lamento composto por Amélia começando no Épiro, com uma dupla improvisão à moda tradicional feita ao clarino por Manos Achalinotópoulos. Criou-se sobre esta sonoridade a atmosfera da tragédia grega, com o coro da Outra Voz (arranjo de José Martins e Filipe Raposo), usando basicamente o ritmo de um solene zeibékiko. É de facto incrível ela conseguir compor para este peculiar ritmo de 9 tempos logo que se familiarizou com ele, pela sua proximidade à cultura helénica.

“Sejas amigo ou inimigo não o reveles em parte alguma. | Aqui me encontro prisioneiro obedecendo aos meus próprios ditames.” Ares Alexandrou usou este couplet como nota de rodapé (este é o seu título original) ou como post scriptum no seu último livro de poesia, parafraseando Simónides, que compôs para os espartanos caídos na batalha das Termópilas o famoso epitáfio-epigrama: “Ó, estrangeiro, vai dizer aos Lacedemónios que nós aqui | jazemos em obediência aos seus ditames”. No Periplus, a nota de rodapé de Ares tem, musicalmente, um ostinato menor que no meu original (O Ouro do Céu), mas Amélia cria o contraste com as suas vocalizações soando como as das Erínias, estendendo o trágico elemento do “Lamento” a “Os Meus ditames” que adapta e recita em português.

16. Amélia Muge | Arranjo: J. Martins e F. Raposo
17. Ares Alexandrou | Michales Loukovikas | Adaptação para português: A. Muge; arranjo: F. Raposo

I. DAS TASCAS E TAVERNAS
18. Um qualquer quê
19. Abertura da taverna
20. Τα μαγκάκια τής ταβέρνας | Os mangas da taverna

O Fado, de José Malhoa (1910)

Esta sequência acontece como se fosse uma gravação ao vivo da transformação do ambiente de uma tasca de fado no de uma taverna de rebético. É a realização de uma nossa ideia fixa para uma cena fantástica algures numa taverna de um porto durante um tempestuoso mau tempo, e onde as tripulações dos navios imobilizados se reúnem cantando cada uma delas as suas canções até que acontece começarem a cantar em conjunto. Tentámos dar vida a esta cena começando com uma canção de amor da Amélia evocando o fado. Segue-se depois uma necessária “ponte” com um instrumental de cortar a respiração ligando um improviso de fado e rebético com Ricardo Parreira (guitarra portuguesa) e Dimitris Mystakidis (bouzouki), que nos leva ao rebético finale.

Panaiotes Tountas, que se afirma como compositor deste rebético, chamou-lhe “Menor da taverna (Vlamáquia)” (diminutivo de vlames, um sinónimo de mangas). Indirectamente, Tountas refere-se claramente ao instrumental “Menor do tekke” que Iohannes Chalkiás (ou Jack Gregory) gravou nos EUA com um longo e fantástico taqsim (improvisação) no começo. Por isso a melodia parece ser tradicional. Existem várias teorias sobre a etimologia de vlames e mangas. Escolhemos como título “Os mangas da taverna” porque a palavra pode ter vindo do ibérico manga, lembrando que os antigos manges gregos costumavam vestir apenas uma manga do seu casaco. Uma boa combinação com a canção tradicional portuguesa “A mangar” cantada pelos manganões, parecidos com os manges gregos.

Panaiotes Tountas

A sessão de gravação em Lisboa da “Entrada na taverna” é algo que nunca esquecerei. Expliquei ao Ricardo e ao Pedro Pinhal (viola), que deviam tocar criando “ondas”, deixando espaços “abertos”, para o Dimitris, que gravaria mais tarde em Salónica. Por fim fi-los escutar o taqsim de Chalkiás, como fonte de inspiração. O resultado foi magia pura – um dos melhores solos de fado que alguma vez ouvi – ainda por cima em diálogo com um bouzouki! Quando regressei a Salónica, Dimitris juntou-se na perfeição ao duo português. Finalmente transferi o trio para… a taverna do porto de forma a pudermos ouvi-los tocar em conjunto! Esta é a magia chamada edição…

18. Amélia Muge | Arranjo: F. Raposo
19. Improviso instrumental de fado e de rebético por Ricardo Parreira e Dimitris Mystakidis | Arranjo: M. Loukovikas
20. Panaiotis Tountas | Rebético tradicional | Arranjo: M. Loukovikas

J. TÃO LONGE, TÃO PERTO
21. Dolor, ai dolor
22. Το βλέμμα σου πού να τελειώνει; | O teu olhar onde acaba? (Versão grega )
23. O teu olhar onde acaba? | Το βλέμμα σου πού να τελειώνει; (Versão portuguesa)
24. Zum zum

As primeiras três partes da sequência final são de facto uma única e longa canção. Na altura em que Amélia tentava em vão que eu voltasse a compor, mandou-me este poema. Passaram-se meses até que numa noite tive um sonho onde tinha rearranjado a sua canção “Arena” (Não sou daqui) como se fosse um rebético! Enfim, tive de passar horas ao piano para chegar à conclusão que o que se passa num sonho não quer necessariamente dizer que possa acontecer na vida real. No entanto o meu tempo não foi gasto em vão. Gradualmente fui deixando para trás a “Arena”, improvisando num outro aliciante modo musical! Felizmente, gravei este improviso e mandei-o para a Amélia, que por sua vez adaptou o seu poema à minha melodia e musicou a sua versão original (“Dolor, ai, Dolor”). Do meu lado, adaptei o seu poema para grego e convidei Eleni Tsaligopoulou para cantar a versão grega; convidei também Zoe Tiganouria para tocar acordeão. No fim da versão portuguesa Eleni e Amélia cantam “Dolor” em conjunto! Na opinião do compositor e pianista grego, Giorgos Andreou: “Um momento de excepção do ponto de vista emocional (e que considero ser o climax do CD) é a interpretação paralela da canção ‘O teu olhar onde acaba?’ por Eleni Tsaligopoulou em grego e Amélia Muge em português.”

Embora seja um tema composto por Amélia e a mim dedicado como prenda de aniversário, “Zum zum” é mais do que isso. Evoca “Run run se fué pa’l norte” de Violeta Parra, como uma espécie de tributo ao seu trabalho enraizado na canção tradicional chilena, exprimindo a vida e os problemas do seu povo. Zum zum significa em português uma espécie de rumor, passando de boca em boca, de uma pessoa para outra. Acorda, diz, porque “Todas as flores do campo / Todas as aves do céu / Todos os peixes do mar / Vieram à tua porta / P’ra te saudar / P’ra te cantar / Que há um zum zum / Que vem do sul”… É uma espécie de canção ibérico-latino-americana, que se liga com a melodia de “O teu olhar onde acaba?” – usada aqui como introdução. O ritmo de 9 tempos no fim da canção anuncia a chegada do Zum zum à Grécia – algo que também é validado pelas… cigarras!

Anel de prata com uma cigarra em latão, inspirado num antigo anel grego (séc. V AEC)

● Eu e Amélia estávamos em Escópelos, Grécia, de férias. Fomos um dia para uma praia cheia de gente e por isso sentámo-nos à sombra, debaixo de uma árvore, perto do bar da praia. Um altifante, instalado num ramo, tocava sobre as nossas cabeças. “Elas estão a tempo”, disse Amélia. Perante a minha perplexidade, explicou: “As cigarras ‘cantam’ a tempo, não saem do ritmo!” “Nem pensar!”, respondi. Mas rapidamente admiti que ela tinha razão! De facto elas seguiam muito facilmente o ritmo das canções pop. Tinham algum problema em acertar quando o ritmo mudava para alguma canção brasileira mas depressa se adaptavam… Eu estava fascinado! ● De volta a Lisboa tive uma ideia completamente louca enquanto trabalhava no “Zum zum”. Procurei sons de cigarra na net, mas o que encontrei foram “coros” de cigarras. Procurei então por cicadas, cigales, cigalas, mas continuava a não encontrar o que procurava – até que experimentei pela palavra grega τζιτζίκια: apareceu uma enorme abundância de sons e entre eles de cigarras solitárias (o que eu estava à procura), para que pudessem ser “amestradas” (através da “magia da edição”) para “‘cantar’ em conjunto” com o coro, mantendo os ritmos do “Zum zum”! Quando acabei, convidei a Amélia e o José Martins para escutarem o coro das minhas cigarras especialmente “amestradas”. O que nos rimos! É o significado da frase “amostras de cigarras gregas amestradas” mencionada no livrinho do Periplus em referência a mais esta minha contribuição para o trabalho. ● E as cigarras não apareceram apenas no CD: no fim dos nossos concertos do Periplus, a audiência saía dos teatros ouvindo as τζιτζίκια gregas!

21. Amélia Muge | Arranjo: M. Loukovikas
22. Amélia Muge | Michales Loukovikas | Adaptação para grego e arranjo: M. Loukovikas
23. Amélia Muge | Michales Loukovikas – e Amélia Muge (finale) | Adaptação para grego e arranjo: M. Loukovikas
24. Amélia Muge | Amélia Muge – e Michales Loukovikas (introdução) | Arranjo: J. Martins e M. Loukovikas

● Ver também: MARIA DO ROSÁRIO PESTANA sobre “PERIPLUS” | GIORGOS ANDREOU sobre “PERIPLUS”

Periplus, edição internacional

TROUPE MUSICAL do PERIPLUS: Amélia Muge: voz, guitarra braguesa, coros, fala, sons de ambiente. | Michales Loukovikas: voz, coros, fala, amostras de vozes e sons, estalos, percussão, acordeão, palmas.
António Quintino: contrabaixo. | Filipe Raposo: piano, teclados, acordeão. | Harris Lambrakis: ney (flauta oriental), flauta de bisel. | José Martins: percussão, kalimba, sintetizador, sons, palmas. | José Salgueiro: percussão, palmas. | Kyriakos Gouventas: violin, viola, bandolim. | Manos Achalinotopoulos: clarino (clarinete folk), voz, coros. | Ricardo Parreira: guitarra portuguesa.

CONVIDADOS ESPECIAIS: Hélia Correia, escritora: voz. | Eleni Tsaligopoulou, cantora: lengalengas, risos, coros, voz. | Outra Voz, coro dos cidadãos de Guimarães: sons de água, de vento, de mar, de ambiente, coros, lengalengas, respirações, falas.

OUTROS PARTICIPANTES: André Maia: fala. | Catarina Anacleto: violoncelo, coros. | Cristina Benedita: coros. | Dimitris Mystakidis: bouzouki, djurá, guitarra de rebético. | Eduardo Salgueiro: palmas. | Francisco e Sofia Van Epps: lengalengas, risos. | Irene Bakalopoulou: harpa. | José Barros: bandolim, cavaquinho, guitarra braguesa, coros. | José Manuel David: kalimba, voz, trompa, gaita, coros. | Kostas Theodorou: contrabaixo, percussão. | Mariana Abrunheiro: coros. | Margarida Guerreiro: pragas. | Pedro Pinhal: viola de fado. | Rui Vaz: fala, coros. | Teresa Muge: voz, pragas. | Ziad Rajab: oud. | Zoe Tiganouria: acordeão.

AUTORES: Amélia Muge | Ares Alexandrou (1922 – 1979) | Athenaeus (séc. II AEC) | Constantine Cavafy (1863 – 1933) | Fernando Pessoa (1888 – 1935) | Hélia Correia | Mesomedes (início do séc. II EC) | Michales Loukovikas | Natália Correia (1923 – 1993) | Panaiotis Tountas (1886 – 1942) | Seikilos (ca séc. I EC)

As damas do rebético, de A. Tassos (1970)

PERIPLUS | Luso-Hellenic Wanderings (Chronicle)

PERIPLUS | Luso-Hellenic Wanderings (Chronicle)

Amélia Muge | Michales Loukovikas

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ ΠΕΡΙΠΛΟΥΣ | Ελληνοπορτογαλικές περιηγήσεις (Χρονικό)
/PORTUGUÊS/ PERIPLUS | Deambulações luso-gregas (Crónica)

Periplus is not a cruise. It’s an effort to construct intercultural bridges
and explore the past for the future’s sake. The voyage goes on…

Michales Loukovikas

A. DAS AUSÊNCIAS (ON ABSENCES)
1. Uma pena que me coube (A Pain That Has Fallen to My Lot)
2. Όσο βαρούν τα σίδερα | Pesado como ferro (Heavy as Iron)

Periplus, the Portuguese edition

Periplus sails out from the “Land of Absences” with “Lady Lisbon” singing a composition by Amélia Muge, a Portuguese song dedicated to Greece, a country tried in absentia, a land that the more someone is linked to, the more he misses it. It’s a “Pain of Absences”, like that of a widow’s pain, which is “Heavy as Iron”. Musically, our voyage starts with a “normal” Portuguese accompaniment – though a “strange” sound emerges: the clarino (folk clarinet) played by Manos Achalinotopoulos with the peculiar, traditional technique used by folk musicians in the Balkans and Asia Minor, combined with Ricardo Parreira’s guitarra portuguesa. ● Manos, who recorded in Athens, improvised twice on the song and I finally chose to edit separately both “takes”.

The “Luso-Hellenic Wanderings” become far more obvious in the following Cretan song marked by strong Anatolian influence. In our period of research, when we exchanged traditional material, I sent it to Amélia as an excellent example of a Cretan urban song. What followed was quite extraordinary: she answered with… an mp3, interpreting this song the way she “understood” it, adapting both its music and lyrics into Portuguese as a medieval Occidental song. I was amazed! It was as if she listened to me singing the song in some medieval royal court, and then, back at home, tried to recreate it; but in fact, what she sang was her own impression of the song, creating a variation. That’s how music mostly developed for millennia until it started being published (with sheet music and phonograph records). That’s why I arranged the song keeping these two versions together.

1. Amélia Muge | Arranged by F. Raposo
2. Traditional, version of Crete | Adapted into Portuguese & as an old occidental song by A. Muge; arranged by M. Loukovikas

B. DOS CAMINHOS (ON ROUTES)
3. Caminhos de seda (Silk Routes)
4. Caminhos pentatónicos africanos (African Pentatonic Routes)
5. Caminhos pentatónicos epiróticos (Epirotic Pentatonic Routes)

After Amélia had composed this morna-like song, she challenged me: “Now take it from Cape Verde to Greece!” My answer gave me the key to continue: “But how can I take it to Greece? We have Africa in between!” And then, I thought of the pentatonic scale that mostly characterizes both the African and the Epirotic music. The die was cast! Besides, I had Harris Lambrakis to give me a hand – with his “magic flute” (ney) in hand…

Paraphrasing some of Amélia’s phrases, from either lyrics or music, as a starting point, my work on the “Pentatonic Routes” turned out to be more rational than inspirational, based on a 10-beat rhythm, vocals, and cycling melodic lines, which all worked well.

Entering Greece, I decided to combine this soundscape with the Epirotic migrant song “Ξενιτεμένο μου πουλί (My Migrant Bird)”, based on a 4-beat rhythm. And additionally, I asked Manos Achalinotópoulos, who is not only an excellent clarino player but also a wonderful singer, to interpret the song, endowing it with his fine traditional “touch”.

3. Amélia Muge | Arranged by F. Raposo
4. Amélia Muge | Michales Loukovikas | Arranged by M. Loukovikas & A. Muge
5. Traditional, version of Epirus | Arranged by M. Loukovikas

C. DOS CANTOS (ON SONGS)
6. Φαίνου | Deixa brilhar (Shine) / Ἐπιτάφιος | Epitáfio (Epitaph)
7. Canto em periplus (Song in Periplus)

Amélia is an old friend of Hélia Correia’s, setting lyrics of hers to music since the 90s – an excellent example is “A tentação (Temptation)”. When I first met Hélia, we were in the process of working on our Periplus. After a discussion about ancient Hellas, as she is a Hellenist and a philhellene, we started talking about our work and then I told her: “You know, Hélia, in Periplus we also have Seikilos Epitaph”. Her quite unexpected answer left me with my mouth open. She said nothing at all, but started singing in ancient Hellenic: “Ὅσον ζῇς φαίνου, | μηδὲν ὅλως σὺ λυποῦ· | πρὸς ὀλίγον ἔστι τὸ ζῆν· | τὸ τέλος ὁ χρόνος ἀπαιτεῖ.” (While you live, shine; | have no grief at all; | life exists only for a short while, | and time demands his due). That was an answer I would expect to hear from only one out of one thousand Greek musicians: the rest would know nothing (!) about the oldest extant complete song in the world, dating to ca 1st century (sometime between 200 BCE and a little after 200 CE). Later on, I told Amélia: “Seikilos must be sung by Hélia!” She did sing it wonderfully!

Amélia spotted me in the Net in 2009 thanks to my work based on Ares Alexandrou’s poetry, Το Χρυσάφι τ’ Ουρανού (The Gold in the Sky), issued in Portugal as O Ouro do Céu / Ares Alexandrou por Michales Loukovikas. Disappointed by the lack of feedback and appreciation in Greece, I had decided to compose no more. Amélia tried hard to convince me otherwise. After failing repeatedly, she had a bright idea: she wrote the lyrics and composed the first part of a song, asking me to finish it. I could resist no more; I would be ungrateful. ● When I listened to her part of the composition, I was struck by its resemblance to Seikilos Epitaph. Until then, of course, Amélia also knew nothing about it. So when I arranged our “Song in Periplus”, I used Seikilos’ composition as an intro (“Shine”), as well as a citation within the canto, adapted into Portuguese by Hélia Correia: “Ó mortal, deixa brilhar, | a luz da vida no teu rosto; | que a morte vai cobrar imposto | e a todos abate, sem dó por igual.” (Mortal man, you need to shine, | having the light of life on your face; | death shall levy heavy taxes | and all men will perish without leniency).

6. Seikilos | Adapted into Portuguese by H. Correia; arranged by M. Loukovikas
7. Amélia Muge | Amélia Muge & Michales Loukovikas | Arranged by M. Loukovikas

D. DAS ILHAS (ON ISLANDS)
8. Παράνομο σημείωμα | Nota ilegal (Illegal Note)
9. Calma (Calm) / Ἰθάκη | Ítaca (Ithaca)

Ares Alexandrou, Constantine Cavafy, Fernando Pessoa

Being our meeting point, Ares Alexandrou’s The Gold in the Sky is featured in Periplus with three songs, arranged by Filipe Raposo, for I wished to have some fresh approach to my compositions. I still remember quite vividly how delighted I was when I listened to Amélia for the first time singing her own adaptation into Portuguese: “I composed a fado!”, I fantasized smiling, while whistling my composition with her own ornaments…

If “Illegal Note” is a nightmarish isle of exile, Fernando Pessoa’s “Calm”, set to music by Amélia, is a dreamy island, where she inserted an excerpt from Constantine Cavafy’s “Ithaca”. There’s a chance that the two great poets met on a ship sailing to England and the USA, just before the Great Depression of 1929.

8. Ares Alexandrou | Michales Loukovikas | Adapted into Portuguese by A. Muge; arranged by F. Raposo
9. Fernando Pessoa & Constantine Cavafy | Amélia Muge | Arranged by F. Raposo

E. DAS VOZES (ON VOICES)
10. Cântico do país emerso (Ode to an Emersed Land)
11. Palavra dada (Word of Honour)

This poem (excerpt) of Natália Correia’s, set to music by Amélia, was meant to be the first track of Periplus when I arranged it (later we chose to have a “smoother” start with “A Pain That Has Fallen to My Lot”). I opted to start with a tribute to the collaboration of Carlos Paredes and Charlie Haden, with a free improvisation on Kostas Theodorou’s double bass and Ricardo Parreira’s guitarra portuguesa, adding Filipe Raposo’s piano. Besides, when Amélia played her melody for me on a keyboard, I found similarities with the first Delphic Hymn composed probably by Athenaeus ca 138 BCE. Thence, among Natália’s verses, I added three Interludes, adapting this hymn (in I and III), and Amélia’s song “Não sou daqui (I’m Not From Here”, in Interlude II), from her homonymous album (that I consider to be her masterpiece), because these are exactly the first words in the excerpt from Natália’s Cântico.

“Word of Honour”, the most complex track to arrange and edit in Periplus, began with Amélia’s fascination and experimentation with a Cretan Syrtos. The origin of this dance led me to an ancient Hellene musician, Mesomedes of Crete (2nd century CE), and his composition Ὕμνος εἰς Νέμεσιν (Hymn to Nemesis), the goddess enacting retribution against those who succumb to hubris (ὕβρις: arrogance before the gods). Starting off with the original 15-beat rhythm, we turn in the middle to the four beats of the Syrtos, adopting a version that was adapted by Ross Daly, and also combining it with Algarvian Pragas (Anathemas, Curses). As the music builds up, when Kyriakos Gouventas’ role with his violin is instrumental, we pass to a traditional Portuguese Cantiga de rega (Watering Song); and then we return to Crete for the finale that is peppered with more pragas by Amélia’s sister, Teresa Muge, and Margarida Guerreiro.

10. Natália Correia | Amélia Muge | Arranged by M. Loukovikas > Athenaeus (Interludes I & III); Amélia Muge (Interlude II)
11. Mesomedes (Nemesis); Cretan Traditional (Syrtos, adapted by R. Daly); Portuguese traditional & Amélia Muge (Watering Song); Amélia Muge (Pragas) | Arranged by M. Loukovikas & A. Muge

F. DOS EMBALOS (ON LULLABIES)
12. Νανούρισμα | Canção de embalar (Lullaby)
13. Dorme, dorme (Sleep, Sleep)

Starry Night, by Vincent Van Gogh

Another song on poetry by Ares Alexandrou in Periplus is “Lullaby”, adapted by Amélia into Portuguese. In its original form (The Gold in the Sky), it consisted of six parts, and resembled a dream. Here we listen to the first part of the song with additional lullabies and children’s songs in the beginning.

Connected with it is a lullaby composed by Amélia and arranged by José Martins and Filipe Raposo. The peculiar thing here is that the lullaby is sung to a girl (and not to a boy, as it is “normal” in traditional lullabies).

12. Ares Alexandrou | Michales Loukovikas | Adapted into Portuguese by A. Muge; arranged by F. Raposo (intro: A. Muge & M. Loukovikas)
13. Amélia Muge | Arranged by J. Martins & F. Raposo

G. DOS AMORES (ON LOVES)
14. Της τριανταφυλλιάς τα φύλλα | A folha da rosa (The Leaves of a Rose)
15. Da folhinha de uma rosa (The Foliage of a Rose)

A Rose in E Sharp, by Ernie Benton

When I sent this traditional love song from Asia Minor and Smyrma to Amélia, she was astonished since its lyrics are identical with a traditional Galician song she had recorded before with the local ensemble Camerata Meiga. We can’t be sure if some Greeks and Iberians had the same idea (“I’ll get dressed with the foliage of a rose”), or if it’s an idea that voyaged with sailors from one place to the other. In Periplus, I invited Ziad Rajab, my Syro-Palestinian friend, to play the oud, and sang half the Greek song, while Amélia adapted the rest into Portuguese.

In our case, the Anatolian song echoed in Galicia passing over a “bridge” in Guimarães, Portugal. This “bridge” is a simplified version of the Hellenic song (the 9-beat rhythm of the antikrystós couple dance becomes an easier 4-beat rhythm) adapted by Amélia for Outra Voz, a local choir we had a special and fruitful collaboration. I was overwhelmed with emotion, I remember, when I first listened to them singing this adaptation, which they eventually adopted as part of their repertoire. In the Galician part, guest singers join in chorus, while the Oriental and Occidental traditional themes intersect during the improvisation of the finale.

14. Traditional, version of Asia Minor & Smyrma | Adapted into Portuguese by A. Muge; arranged by M. Loukovikas
15. Traditional of Greece & Galicia | Adapted in music & lyrics by A. Muge; arranged by F. Raposo

H. DA ALMA | DE PROFUNDIS
16. Se o lamento apenas fosse (If the Lament Were Just That)
17. Τα ἔνδον ῥήματα | Os meus ditames (The Inner Dictates)

An enthralling and poignant lament composed by Amélia, starting off in Epirus, with a double traditional improvisation by Manos Achalinotópoulos on the clarino. Moreover, Amélia created the atmosphere of a Greek tragedy, accompanied by a chorus (arranged by José Martins and Filipe Raposo), using mainly the rhythm of a solemn zeibekiko. It is amazing, indeed, that she was able to compose on this peculiar 9-beat rhythm as soon as she was familiarized with it through her exposure to Hellenic culture.

“Be you a friend or an enemy, do not announce it anywhere. | I stand here as a prisoner induced by all my inner dictates.” Ares Alexandrou used this couplet as a footnote (this is its original title) or a post scriptum in his last poetry book, paraphrasing Simonides, who composed a famous epitaph–epigram for the fallen Spartans in the Battle of Thermopylae: “Oh, stranger, tell the Lacedaemonians that here | we lie obedient to their dictates.” In Periplus, Ares’ footnote is less ostinato than my original (The Gold in the Sky), but Amélia made a difference with her Erinyes-like vocalisms, extending the tragic element of the “Lament” to “The Inner Dictates”, which she adapted and recited in Portuguese.

16. Amélia Muge | Arranged by J. Martins & F. Raposo
17. Ares Alexandrou | Michales Loukovikas | Adapted into Portuguese by A. Muge; arranged by F. Raposo

I. DAS TASCAS E TAVERNAS (FADO & REBETIKO TAVERNS)
18. Um qualquer quê (Something Like That)
19. Abertura da taverna (The Entrance to the Tavern)
20. Τα μαγκάκια τής ταβέρνας (The Manges of the Tavern)

This sequence appears as a live recording of the transformation of a fado tasca into a rebetiko tavern. It’s due to our obsession by a fantastic scene in some harbour’s tavern during tempestuous weather, where the crews of stranded ships gather, each singing their own songs in turn, until eventually they all sing in chorus. We tried to revive this scene, beginning with an Amélia’s love song evocating fado. Then a necessary “bridge” followed, with a breathtaking instrumental fado and rebetiko improvisation by Ricardo Parreira (guitarra portuguesa) and Dimitris Mystakidis (bouzouki), introducing us to the rebetiko finale.

Panaiotes Tountas, who signed this rebetiko, entitled it “The Tavern Minor (Vlamákia)” (diminutive of vlames, a synonym of mangas). Indirectly but clearly, Tountas referred to the instrumental “Tekke Minor” that Iohannes Chalkiás (or Jack Gregory) recorded in the USA with a fantastic long taqsim (improvisation) in the beginning. So the tune seems to be traditional. There are several theories on the etymology of vlames and mangas. We have chosen “The Manges of the Tavern” as a title, because the word may come from the Iberian manga (sleeve; the old manges used to wear only one sleeve of their jacket), and it combines well with the traditional Portuguese song “A mangar” sung by the local manganões, who are similar to the Greek manges.

Panaiotes Tountas

The recording session in Lisbon for “The Entrance to the Tavern” has been engraved into my memory. I had explained to Ricardo and the viola (guitar) player, Pedro Pinhal, that they should play “in waves”, so as to leave “free” space for Dimitris, who would record later in Salonica. Then, in order to “charge” them, I obliged them to listen to the taqsim of Chalkiás as a source of inspiration. The result was pure magic: one of the best fado solos I’ve ever listened to – and moreover, in dialogue with a bouzouki! Back to Salonica, Dimitris added himself perfectly on the Portuguese duet. At last, I transferred the “trio” to the… harbour’s tavern, so that we could listen to them playing all together! This is the magic called editing…

18. Amélia Muge | Arranged by F. Raposo
19. Instrumental fado & rebetiko improvisation by Ricardo Parreira & Dimitris Mystakidis | Arranged by M. Loukovikas
20. Panaiotis Tountas | Traditional rebetiko | Arranged by M. Loukovikas

J. TÃO LONGE, TÃO PERTO (SO DISTANT, SO NEAR)
21. Dolor, ai dolor (Dolor, ah, Dolor)
22. Το βλέμμα σου πού να τελειώνει; | O teu olhar onde acaba?
(How Far Can Your Eyes Reach?) / Greek version
23. O teu olhar onde acaba? | Το βλέμμα σου πού να τελειώνει;
(How Far Can Your Eyes Reach?) / Portuguese version
24. Zum zum

The first three parts of the final sequence are in fact one long song. Amélia sent me the lyrics when she tried in vain to “reactivate” me as a composer. Months had passed, until I dreamed one night that I had rearranged her song “Arena” (from her wonderful album Não sou daqui) as a rebetiko! Alas, I had to spend hours on the piano before I realized that what happens in a dream doesn’t necessarily mean it can happen in real life. Yet, my time was not wasted. Gradually, I left “Arena” behind improvising in another mood that was so appealing! Luckily, I recorded it and sent it to Amélia, who in turn adapted the lyrics to my melody, and set to music her original version (“Dolor, ah, Dolor”). On my part, I adapted her lyrics into Greek, inviting Eleni Tsaligopoulou to sing the Greek version, and Zoe Tiganouria to play the accordion, while at the end of the Portuguese version, Eleni and Amélia sang “Dolor” together! According to the Greek composer and pianist, Giorgos Andreou: “A prime moment emotionally for me (which I consider to be the climax of the CD) is the parallel interpretation of the song ‘How Far Can Your Eyes Reach?’ by Eleni Tsaligopoulou in Greek and Amélia Muge in Portuguese.”

Although composed by Amélia as a gift for my birthday, “Zum zum” is more than that. It evokes Violeta Parra’s “Run run se fué pa’l norte”, as a tribute to her work, rooted in Chilean tradition and expressing the people’s lives and problems. Zum zum in Portuguese means a kind of rumour, passing from one person to another, by word of mouth. Wake up, it says, because “All the flowers in the fields | All the birds in the sky | All the fish in the sea | Are gathering at your door | To greet you and sing for you | That there is a zum zum | Coming from the South”… It is a kind of an Iberian-Latin American song, connected with “How Far Can Your Eyes Reach?” through its melody – adapted here as an intro. The conclusion of the song in a 9-beat rhythm announces the arrival of Zum zum in Greece – something that is also validated by the… cicadas!

Silver ring with a brass cicada, inspired by an ancient Greek ring from the 5th century BCE

● Amélia and I were on Skópelos, Greece, for vacation. One day we went to a crowded beach, so we sat under a tree in the shade, next to the beach bar. A loudspeaker played on a branch over our heads. “They are a tempo”, Amélia said. As she saw me puzzled, she explained: “The cicadas sound in time, keeping the rhythm!” “No way!”, I answered. But soon I admitted she was right! In fact, it was quite easy for them to follow rhythms of pop songs. They had a little problem when the stream of sound changed into some Brazilian song but they soon adapted… I was fascinated! ● Back to Lisbon, I had a crazy idea while working on “Zum zum”. I searched for cicada sounds in the Net, but what I found were cicadas in chorus. I then searched for cigarras, cigales, cigalas, but I could still not find what I was looking for – until I searched for Greek τζιτζίκια: there was a plethora of sounds, among them of lone cicadas (what I was looking for), so that they could be “trained” (through the “magic of editing”) to “sound in chorus” with the choir, keeping the rhythms of “Zum zum”! When I finished, I invited Amélia and José Martins to listen to my specially “trained” cicada choir! How we laughed! That’s the meaning of the phrase “samples of trained Greek cicadas”, mentioned in the Periplus booklet, with everything else I contributed to our work. ● And the cicadas sounded not only in the CD: at the end of our Periplus concerts, the audience left the theatre listening to Greek τζιτζίκια!

21. Amélia Muge | Arranged by M. Loukovikas
22. Amélia Muge | Michales Loukovikas | Adapted into Greek & arranged by M. Loukovikas
23. Amélia Muge | Michales Loukovikas – & Amélia Muge (finale) | Adapted into Greek & arranged by M. Loukovikas
24. Amélia Muge | Amélia Muge – & Michales Loukovikas (intro) | Arranged by J. Martins & M. Loukovikas

● See also: GIORGOS ANDREOU on “PERIPLUS” | MARIA DO ROSÁRIO PESTANA on “PERIPLUS”

Periplus, the international edition

PERIPLUS MUSICAL TROUPE: Amélia Muge: voice, vocals, talk, guitarra braguesa, sound-effects. | Michales Loukovikas: voice, vocals, drone, talk, accordion, finger-snaps, hand-claps, percussion, samples of voices and sounds.
Manos Achalinotopoulos: clarino (folk clarinet), voice, vocals. | Kyriakos Gouventas: violin, viola, mandolin. | Harris Lambrakis: ney (oriental flute), recorder. | José Martins: percussion, synthesizer, hand-claps, kalimba, sound-effects. | Ricardo Parreira: guitarra portuguesa. | António Quintino: double bass. | Filipe Raposo: piano, keyboards, accordion. | José Salgueiro: percussion, hand-claps.

SPECIAL GUESTS: Hélia Correia, writer: voice. | Eleni Tsaligopoulou, singer: voice, vocals, children’s songs, laughs. | Outra Voz, a Guimarães citizens’ choir: sounds of the sea, water, wind, space, vocals, children’s songs, respirations, talk.

OTHER PARTICIPANTS: Mariana Abrunheiro: vocals. | Catarina Anacleto: vocals, cello. | Irene Bakalopoulou: harp. | José Barros: vocals, mandolin, cavaquinho, guitarra braguesa. | Cristina Benedita: vocals. | José Manuel David: voice, vocals, drone, kalimba, bagpipe, horn. | Margarida Guerreiro: anathemas. | André Maia: talk. | Teresa Muge: voice, anathemas. | Dimitris Mystakidis: bouzouki, djura, rebetiko guitar. | Pedro Pinhal: fado viola (guitar). | Ziad Rajab: oud. | Eduardo Salgueiro: hand-claps. | Kostas Theodorou: percussion, double bass. | Zoe Tiganouria: accordion. | Francisco & Sofia Van Epps: children’s songs, laughs. | Rui Vaz: vocals, talk.

AUTHORS: Ares Alexandrou (1922 – 1979) | Athenaeus (2nd century BCE) | Constantine Cavafy (1863 – 1933) | Hélia Correia | Natália Correia (1923 – 1993) | Michales Loukovikas | Mesomedes (early 2nd century CE) | Amélia Muge | Fernando Pessoa (1888 – 1935) | Seikilos (ca 1st century CE) | Panaiotis Tountas (1886 – 1942)

The ladies of rebetiko, by A. Tassos (1970)

MARIA DO ROSÁRIO PESTANA sobre “PERIPLUS”

MARIA DO ROSÁRIO PESTANA sobre “PERIPLUS”

/ENGLISH/ MARIA DO ROSÁRIO PESTANA on PERIPLUS

Maria do Rosário Pestana: Este texto foi lido no Colóquio Internacional “Espaços Literários e Territórios Críticos. Para
uma abordagem do espaço literário: geopoética e geocrítica
na transposição das fronteiras do conhecimento”, realizado
na Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, entre 29
de junho e 1 de julho de 2017. Agradeço à Organização do Colóquio – Instituto de Literatura Comparada Margarida
Losa (ILCML) – o convite para participar no evento.

Música e interlocução

“Tão longe, tão perto:

PERIPLUS –

deambulações
luso-gregas”

de Amélia Muge e Michales Loukovikas

Maria do Rosário Pestana

Universidade de Aveiro

Instituto de Etnomusicologia

– Centro de Estudos
em Música e Dança

Periplus, edição portuguesa

O projeto musical Periplus / deambulações luso-gregas foi concebido por dois músicos do sul da Europa: Amélia Muge, cantora, compositora, instrumentista, e autora de inúmeras letras, uma referência da música portuguesa desde os anos 90 do século passado; e Michales Loukovikas músico, compositor, produtor de rádio e jornalista grego. Este trabalho artístico, materializado num belíssimo fonograma, foi apresentado ao público português em 2012, nos palcos da Culturgest, do Centro Cultural Vila Flor ou do Festival Músicas do Mundo.

Periplus é um projeto exemplar do papel das artes, e da música em particular, em 2012 e no século XXI: surge num contexto cultural pautado por “valores” neoliberais, valores esses que segundo Castoriadis orientam os seres humanos “dans un mode de socialisation où coopération et communauté ne sont considérées et n’existent que sous le point de vue instrumental et utilitaire” (Castoriadis 1979, 36);(*) e no ponto alto da crise económica e financeira que assolou e fraturou a Europa em norte e sul e relegou para a periferia dos assuntos a vida social e os indivíduos.

• (*) Castoriadis, Cornelius (1979), Transformation sociale et création culturelle. Sociologie et sociétés. 111: 33–48.

Proposta para um novo dracma com Castoriadis no centro (e Sócrates no fundo à esquerda )
– só se os políticos gregos os tivessem no seu lugar e não fossem eunucos…

O acolhimento que teve por parte do público – sendo agora um conteúdo introduzido pelos organizadores deste congresso sobre geopoética e geocrítica na transposição das fronteiras do conhecimento – ilustra a possibilidade do poder criador e de participação dos indivíduos músicos na construção de um Outro conhecimento, um conhecimento sensível aberto ao diálogo, à partilha, assente no valor da alteridade, na ética do respeito pelo outro.

Periplus faz-nos imergir numa história de circum-navegação, num espaço recortado pelos mares do Mediterrâneo, do Índico, do Atlântico, atravessando territórios de memórias de viagem e também de dominação. No contexto social e político que referi, este périplo introduz um novo assunto a propósito de Portugal e da Grécia – a partilha ancestral de músicas e de conhecimentos – e propõe um novo lugar de enunciação, dando visibilidade a outra geografia relacional: o Mediterrâneo. Na verdade, a costa e o mar Mediterrâneo estão no centro da música – nos navios que o atravessaram, que dele partiram e a ele regressaram – um perímetro de comunicação e de vida social que rompe com as fronteiras territoriais e étnicas que definem os estados-nação, revelando uma outra cartografia da coexistência, da conexão entre pessoas, do pertencimento e da identificação pela música. Aliás, este projeto documenta a sustentação do etnomusicólogo Bruno Nettl de que a música expressa e interpreta relações entre pessoas, entre culturas e entre sociedades, independentemente das barreiras que as separam.

Pausa, de C. Guedez

Os músicos Amélia Muge e Michales Loukovikas começaram o projeto nas redes da Internet num processo de descoberta mútua, o qual passou pela revelação e partilha de canções e poesias de um e outro lado da Europa. A constatação da proximidade e o compromisso intersubjetivo deu-se imediatamente nos primeiros contactos. Michales Loukovikas diz que começaram a trocar e a pesquisar canções e poesias das tradições lusitana e helénica, portuguesa e grega, do passado e do presente. No documentário que podemos ver e ouvir neste site, Amélia Muge referiu: “o que me impressionou muito foi o trabalho [O Ouro do Céu] baseado na poesia do grego Ares Alexandrou: uma poesia imediatamente ligada ao espaço e ao lugar, feita uma parte durante o fim da 2ª guerra mundial, nos campos de concentração da Líbia e uma segunda parte nas ilhas do exílio”. O espaço, a viagem, mas também o tempo, começaram a desenhar a visão de mundo que une estes dois indivíduos músicos e que culminaria em Periplus.

Periplus, edição internacional

Atrás referi que este projeto é exemplar. Defendo que é exemplar na medida em que proporciona uma experiência assente numa prática cognitiva de viagem, que abre uma possibilidade em rutura com o paradigma do mundo atual, desconstruindo criticamente tanto as visões unitárias da música local/nacional – a referência ao mundo – como as visões relativistas ‘pós-modernas’ que indiferenciam as produções musicais e culturais.

Periplus espelha bem a dimensão dialogante, interlocutória e transformadora da música. Por exemplo, em “Dos Caminhos”, percorrendo as rotas da escala pentatónica, os músicos seguem trilhos em África e desenham itinerários em Epiro, num discurso musical em constante transformação. Nessa cartografia as rotas dos caminheiros são densificadas pelo cruzamento com os caminhos do tempo: o longo passado de convivialidade entre grupos, de conexão entre pessoas, de partilha e tensão de conhecimentos e valores.

A cicládica “frigideira” usada
na capa do Periplus

A ideia de transformação autónoma e crítica aparece em inúmeras metáforas musicais e visuais ao longo deste projeto, desconstruindo as conceções unitárias da música e da cultura. Essa ideia é representada também visualmente no disco, com a imagem do fundo de uma frigideira de barro onde se fazia o pão (como metáfora de um neo-humanismo?), que faz parte de um acervo arqueológico. Os círculos concêntricos, trabalhados pela designer Cristiana Serejo transformam-se adquirindo outras formas, inclusive humanas.

Em “Palavra dada” os músicos encontraram na partilha de um mesmo ritmo um ponto de partida e também uma conexão entre duas línguas e diferentes conceitos de justiça e de usos da palavra seja para punir ou salvar, para fazer crescer ou honrar: pragas algarvias, a canção da rega, o hino a Némesis (deusa que personifica o destino e também a vingança divina), a dança cretense Syrtós. Os músicos entrelaçaram estas canções – tão divergentes nos conhecimentos de mundo que veiculam – de modo crítico e autónomo, realçando a conexão de um elemento comum: a palavra. Neste sentido, podemos dizer que a prática destes músicos – a música que fazem em Periplus – define uma geopoética, na acepção de Bertrand Westphal. Considero que este conceito é nuclear do projeto artístico Periplus e que se estende a outras dimensões, sempre críticas. No depoimento que ouvimos, Michales Loukovikas descreveu a surpresa que teve ao encontrar pontos de conexão, proximidades, entre uma canção cretense e uma canção portuguesa, tendo, a partir daí, construído uma história musical dessa canção da idade média aos nossos dias.

Epitáfio de Seikilos

A ideia de pontes, de conexão estende-se a domínios da música como o da chamada música culta – do primeiro documento escrito de música de que há memória, o epitáfio de Seikilos – da música folclórica, da música de intervenção com Zeca Afonso, etc. Esse princípio aplica-se ao tempo passado/presente: também o passado não é neste projeto musical uma determinação que priva estes indivíduos músicos da liberdade de construir o seu presente e pensar o seu futuro. As tradições, os documentos históricos que testemunham as viagens cantadas e tocadas neste disco, são assumidos de modo crítico e emancipado, enunciando passo a passo um Outro passado, aberto à partilha e conexão intersubjetiva, rompendo tanto com a atomização dos indivíduos nos seus egoísmos narcisistas, como com a sua redução a massas ou a coletivos estereotipados. O projeto musical Periplus oferece a cada um de nós essa visão crítica e comprometida através de uma experiência de conexão cultural e musical, nas relações históricas, na valorização da diferença, na horizontalidade das participações e aberta a quem se dispuser a ouvir e a deixar-se mobilizar.

● Ver também: GIORGOS ANDREOU sobre “PERIPLUS”

TROUPE MUSICAL do PERIPLUS: Amélia Muge: voz, guitarra braguesa, coros, fala, sons de ambiente. | Michales Loukovikas: voz, coros, fala, amostras de vozes e sons, estalos, percussão, acordeão, palmas.
António Quintino: contrabaixo. | Filipe Raposo: piano, teclados, acordeão. | Harris Lambrakis: ney (flauta oriental), flauta de bisel. | José Martins: percussão, kalimba, sintetizador, sons, palmas. | José Salgueiro: percussão, palmas. | Kyriakos Gouventas: violin, viola, bandolim. | Manos Achalinotopoulos: clarino (clarinete folk), voz, coros. | Ricardo Parreira: guitarra portuguesa.

CONVIDADOS ESPECIAIS: Eleni Tsaligopoulou, cantora: lengalengas, risos, coros, voz. | Hélia Correia, escritora: voz. | Outra Voz, coro dos cidadãos de Guimarães: sons de água, de vento, de mar, de ambiente, coros, lengalengas, respirações, falas.

OUTROS PARTICIPANTES: André Maia: fala. | Catarina Anacleto: violoncelo, coros. | Cristina Benedita: coros. | Dimitris Mystakidis: bouzouki, djurá, guitarra de rebético. | Eduardo Salgueiro: palmas. | Francisco e Sofia Van Epps: lengalengas, risos. | Irene Bakalopoulou: harpa. | José Barros: bandolim, cavaquinho, guitarra braguesa, coros. | José Manuel David: kalimba, voz, trompa, gaita, coros. | Kostas Theodorou: contrabaixo, percussão. | Mariana Abrunheiro: coros. | Margarida Guerreiro: pragas. | Pedro Pinhal: viola de fado. | Rui Vaz: fala, coros. | Teresa Muge: voz, pragas. | Ziad Rajab: oud. | Zoe Tiganouria: acordeão.

La Justice et la Vengeance divine poursuivant le Crime (A Justiça e a Vingança divina [Némesis] perseguindo o Crime, de Pierre Paul Prud’hon (1808)

MARIA DO ROSÁRIO PESTANA on “PERIPLUS”

MARIA DO ROSÁRIO PESTANA on “PERIPLUS”

/PORTUGUÊS/ MARIA DO ROSÁRIO PESTANA sobre PERIPLUS

Maria do Rosário Pestana: professor in the University of Aveiro, and researcher of the Institute of Ethnomusicology – Centre of Studies on Music and Dance. She developed ethnomusicological studies on musical associativism, processes of documentation of music of rural matrix and music of local expression. She coordinated the book SINGING IN ALENTEJO – the land, the past and the present (2017).

Music and Dialogue

“So Distant, so Near:

PERIPLUS

Luso-Hellenic Wanderings”

by Amélia Muge and Michales Loukovikas

Maria do Rosário Pestana

University of Aveiro

Institute of Ethnomusicology – Centre of Studies on Music and Dance

● Speech at the International Colloquium “Literary Spaces and Critical Territories. Towards an Approach to Literary Space: Geopoetics and Geocriticism on Broadening the Frontiers of Knowledge”, organized by the Institute of Comparative Literature Margarida Losa (ILCML) at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Porto (June 29 to July 1, 2017).

Periplus, the Portuguese edition

The musical project Periplus / Luso-Hellenic Wanderings was conceived by two musicians from southern Europe: Amélia Muge, singer, composer, instrumentalist and author of countless lyrics, a reference in Portuguese music since the 1990s; and Michales Loukovikas, musician, composer, radio producer and journalist in Greece. This artistic work, materialized in a most beautiful phonogram, was presented to the Portuguese public in 2012, on the stages of Culturgest (Lisbon), Centro Cultural Vila Flor (Guimarães), or Festival Músicas do Mundo (Sines).

Periplus is an exemplary project on the role of the arts, and music in particular, in 2012 and in the 21st century: it emerged in a cultural context ruled by neoliberal “values”, values that, according to Castoriadis, orient human beings “dans un mode de socialisation où coopération et communauté ne sont considérées et n’existent que sous le point de vue instrumental et utilitaire” (“in a mode of socialization where cooperation and community are considered and exist only from an instrumental and utilitarian point of view”; Castoriadis, 1979, 36);(*) and at the peak of the economic and financial crisis that devastated and fractured Europe into North and South and relegated social life and the individuals to the periphery of public affairs.

• (*) Castoriadis, Cornelius (1979), Transformation sociale et création culturelle. Sociologie et sociétés. 111: 33–48.

New Drachma proposal with Castoriadis in the centre (and Socrates in the background left)
– if only Hellas had politicians with guts and not eunuchs…

The public’s reception of Periplus – being now a subject-matter introduced by the organizers of this congress on geopoetics and geocriticism on broadening the frontiers of knowledge – illustrates the possibility of the creative power and participation of individual musicians in the construction of Another knowledge, a sensitive knowledge open to dialogue, to sharing, based on the value of alterity, on the ethics of respect for the other.

Periplus makes us immerse in a history of circumnavigation, in a space delineated by the Mediterranean Sea, the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, crossing territories of memories of voyages and also of domination. In the social and political context that I mentioned, this periplus introduces a new approach regarding Portugal and Greece – the ancestral sharing of music and knowledge – and proposes a new place of enunciation, giving visibility to another relational geography: the Mediterranean. In fact, the Mediterranean Coast and Sea are at the centre of music – on the ships that crossed her, departed and returned to her – a perimeter of communication and social life that breaks with the territorial and ethnic borders which define nation-states, revealing another cartography of coexistence, of connection among people, of belonging and identifying through music. Moreover, this project documents the ethnomusicologist Bruno Nettl’s argument that music expresses and interprets relationships among people, among cultures and among societies, regardless of the barriers that separate them.

An abstract musical painting by C. Guedez

The musicians Amélia Muge and Michales Loukovikas started the project on the Internet network in a process of mutual discovery, which involved the acquaintance and sharing of songs and poetry from both sides of Europe. The verification of proximity and the intersubjective commitment took place immediately in the first contacts. As Michales Loukovikas says, they started exchanging and exploring songs and poetry of the Lusitanic and Hellenic, the Portuguese and Greek traditions, past and present. In the documentary that we can watch and listen to in the web, Amélia Muge says: “what impressed me a lot was the work [The Gold in the Sky] based on the Greek poet Ares Alexandrou’s poetry: a poetry immediately linked to space and place, done in part at the end of World War II, in [British] concentration camps in Libya, and in another part on the [Greek] islands of exile”. Space, voyage, but also time, gradually shaped the worldview that these two musicians share, culminating in Periplus.

Periplus, the international edition

I already mentioned that this project is exemplary. I argue that it is exemplary in that it provides an experience based on a cognitive practice of voyage, which opens up a possibility in contrast with the paradigm of the current world, critically deconstructing both the unitary views of local/ national music – a reference to the world – as well as the ‘postmodern’ relativistic views that undifferentiate musical and cultural productions.

Periplus mirrors well the dialogical, interlocutory and transformative dimension of music. For example, in “On Routes”, wandering on the pentatonic scale routes, the musicians follow trails in Africa and plan itineraries in Epirus, in a musical discourse in constant transformation. In this cartography the wayfarers’ routes are densified crossing the routes of time: the long past of conviviality among groups, of connection among people, of sharing and tension of knowledge and values.

The Cycladic “frying pan” used for the Periplus cover

The idea of autonomous and critical transformation appears in countless musical and visual metaphors throughout this project, deconstructing the unitary conceptions of music and culture. This idea is also represented visually on the disc, with the image of the bottom of a clay frying pan where bread was made (as a metaphor for neo-humanism?), which is part of an archaeological collection. The concentric circles, worked by the designer Cristiana Serejo, are transformed acquiring other forms, including human ones.

In “Word of Honour”, sharing the same rhythm, the musicians found a starting point and also a connection between two languages and different concepts of justice and uses of the word, to either punish or save, to grow or honour: Algarvian Anathemas, the Watering Song, the Hymn to Nemesis (the goddess who personifies destiny and also divine revenge), the Cretan dance Syrtos. The musicians intertwined these songs – so divergent in the knowledge of the world they convey – in a critical and autonomous way, enhancing the connection of a common element: the word. In this sense, we can say that the practice of these musicians – the music they made in Periplus – defined a geopoetics, in Bertrand Westphal’s meaning. I believe that this concept is central in the artistic project Periplus and that it extends to other dimensions, always critical. In his testimony, Michales Loukovikas described his surprise when he found connection points, proximities, between a Cretan song and a Portuguese song, and thenceforth he constructed a musical history of that song from the Middle Ages to our days.

Seikilos Epitaph: engraved on a stele, it’s the oldest extant complete musical composition in the world.

The idea of bridges, of connection, extends to areas of music such as the so-called erudite music – of the first written document of music in memory, the Seikilos Epitaph – of folk music, of protest songs by Zeca Afonso, etc. This principle applies to the past/present time: the past in this musical project, as well, is not a determination that deprives these individual musicians of the freedom to construct their present and think about their future. Traditions, historical documents that testify to the voyages sung and played in this disc, are taken over in a critical and emancipated way, enunciating step by step Another past, open to sharing and intersubjective connection, breaking with both the atomization of individuals in their narcissistic egoisms, and with their reduction to masses or to stereotyped collectives. The musical project Periplus offers each one of us this critical and committed vision through an experience of cultural and musical connection, in historical relationships, in the appreciation of difference, in the horizontality of participations and open to anyone willing to listen and let oneself be mobilized.

● This text was read at the International Colloquium “Literary Spaces and Critical Territories. Towards an Approach to Literary Space: Geopoetics and Geocriticism on Broadening the Frontiers of Knowledge”, at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Porto between June 29 and July 1, 2017. I thank the Organization
of the Colloquium for the invitation to participate in the event.
(Maria do Rosário Pestana)

● See also: GIORGOS ANDREOU on “PERIPLUS”

PERIPLUS MUSICAL TROUPE: Amélia Muge: voice, vocals, guitarra braguesa, talk, sound-effects. | Michales Loukovikas: voice, vocals, accordion, finger-snaps, hand-claps, percussion, drone, talk, samples of voices and sounds.
Manos Achalinotopoulos: clarino (folk clarinet), voice, vocals. | Kyriakos Gouventas: violin, viola, mandolin. | Harris Lambrakis: ney (oriental flute), recorder. | José Martins: percussion, synthesizer, hand-claps, kalimba, sound-effects. | Ricardo Parreira: guitarra portuguesa. | António Quintino: double bass. | Filipe Raposo: piano, keyboards, accordion. | José Salgueiro: percussion, hand-claps.

SPECIAL GUESTS: Hélia Correia, writer: voice. | Eleni Tsaligopoulou, singer: voice, vocals, children’s songs, laughs. | Outra Voz, a Guimarães citizens’ choir: sounds of the sea, water, wind, space, vocals, children’s songs, respirations, talk.

OTHER PARTICIPANTS: Mariana Abrunheiro: vocals. | Catarina Anacleto: vocals, cello. | Irene Bakalopoulou: harp. | José Barros: vocals, mandolin, cavaquinho, guitarra braguesa. | Cristina Benedita: vocals. | José Manuel David: voice, vocals, drone, kalimba, bagpipe, horn. | Margarida Guerreiro: anathemas. | André Maia: talk. | Teresa Muge: voice, anathemas. | Dimitris Mystakidis: bouzouki, djura, rebetiko guitar. | Pedro Pinhal: fado viola (guitar). | Ziad Rajab: oud. | Eduardo Salgueiro: hand-claps. | Kostas Theodorou: percussion, double bass. | Zoe Tiganouria: accordion. | Francisco & Sofia Van Epps: children’s songs, laughs. | Rui Vaz: vocals, talk.

Justice and Divine Vengeance [Nemesis] Pursuing Crime, by Pierre Paul Prud’hon (1808)

Navegando para o Rio de Janeiro!

Navegando para o Rio de Janeiro!

/ENGLISH/ Sailing to Rio de Janeiro!
/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Πλώρη για Rio de Janeiro!

Museu Afro-Brasileiro

ΙΙΙ Festival

TÃO LONGE, TÃO PERTO

Música e Poesia em Língua Portuguesa

(Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Maio de 2013)*

Testemunho para debate de Michales Loukovikas

* O Festival Tão Longe Tão Perto foi organizado em colaboração com o grupo Música Surda: Andréia Pedroso, Antônio Jardim, Artur Gouvêa e Eduardo Gatto.
 
 

Quando Amélia Muge e eu começámos a trocar e pesquisar material relacionado com as nossas tradições, a lusitana-portuguesa e a helénica-grega, muitas pessoas ergueram as sobrancelhas com ironia e descrença:

“Ah, eles são loucos”, pensaram, outros até disseram: “Portugal e Grécia são tão distantes, é impossível encontrar uma base comum”…

Imaginem o que dirão estas pessoas de “sobrancelha erguida” agora que estamos falando num triângulo, não o das… Bermudas, mas de Portugal, Brasil e Grécia. Bom, Portugal e Brasil, tudo bem, a relação é evidente: antiga colónia e metrópole. Mas… a Grécia?!!

Flamenco (de Hyatt Moore):
uma arte ligando a Iberia e a India

Posso dizer que os resultados de nossa colaboração até a nós surpreenderam! Devo acrescentar que mesmo a alguém que como eu tem vindo a pesquisar neste campo há muitos anos, concluindo que civilização e cultura são o
resultado do dar e receber, de trocas. Também provei nos meus programas de rádio que lugares tão distantes como Índia e Ibéria por exemplo têm estado interconectados faz milhares de anos, desde os tempos antigos… Bem, quando nós, gregos, dizemos “antigos” significa AEC (antes da era comum) ou AC (antes de Cristo), se preferirem.

Todas essas ideias foram ainda mais reforçadas quando Amélia e eu começamos a trabalhar no Periplus. Claro que mesmo agora ainda há alguns “pontos obscuros”; questões que permanecem sem resposta. É por exemplo uma questão intrigante para mim: como pode a Amélia, uma portuguesa nascida em Moçambique, compor em estilo antigo? Isto porque todos os três temas gregos antigos que temos no Periplus (o Epitáfio de Seikilos, o Primeiro Hino Délfico dedicado a Apolo e o Hino a Némesis de Mesomedes) foram incluídos por causa das composições dela, que me lembraram as canções gregas antigas supra mencionadas. É muito estranho.

Pyxis (Píxis): uma pequena caixa cilíndrica andalusa, de marfim, para cosméticos ou joalharia (séc. X)

 

Mas fora esses “pontos obscuros”, que sempre nos irão desafiar a encontrar respostas satisfatórias, fomos capazes de organizar o resto do puzzle com algum conforto. E quando o nosso Periplus foi lançado, eu pude dizer:

“As conexões estão aí, esperando por nós para serem descobertas. Só é necessário pesquisar metodicamente, é claro, e com uma bússola adequada” – como vocês dizem, bússula, como nós dizemos.

• ^(a) Temos a mesma palavra vinda do grego (pyxos > pyxis-pyxida > buxis-buxida > box, boîte, e bussola), com o nome dado à planta pyxos (> buxo) como ponto de partida; é um arbusto de madeira muito dura, compacta e durável que tem sido usada desde a antiguidade para construir recipientes, tais como pyxides (pequenas caixas), e instrumentos musicais de corda e sopro. As suas sementes estão dentro de uma cápsula que também se chama pixídio. De facto, quem dentro dos não-especialistas poderia imaginar que a inglesa box (caixa) tinha tido uma origem grega?

●

Mecanismo de Anticítera

A península grega e o seu arquipélago não foram um começo da história da civilização. Os gregos receberam a sabedoria do Oriente (Ásia Menor, Egipto e Mesopotâmia) e transformaram-na em ciência;^(b) foi um grande feito! E deixaram uma literatura maravilhosa! A civilização helênica tornou-se por isso a base fundadora das culturas ocidentais.

• ^(b) Não pode existir uma grande civilização sem a tecnologia equivalente. Uma maravilha neste domínio é o Mecanismo de Anticítera, o mais antigo computador analógico, concebido para calcular as posições dos astros. Datado de 100 AC, foi recuperado em 1901 de um navio naufragado perto da Anticítera entre o Peloponeso e Creta, mas o seu significado e complexidade só foram compreendidos um século depois. Dispositivos de um nível correspondente reaparecerão na Europa no séc.14, com a construção dos relógios astronómicos. O professor Michael Edmunds da Universidade de Cardiff, que dirigiu em 2006 um estudo sobre este mecanismo, refere:
  “Este mecanismo é simplesmente extraordinário, único dentro deste género. O design é maravilhoso, a astronomia exacta. A forma como foi concebido deixa-nos de queixo caído… Em termos de valor histórico e raridade, sou obrigado a olhar para este mecanismo como sendo mais valioso que a Mona Lisa.”

Victória, a única nau da frota de F. Magalhães que completou o periplus ou circum-navegação à volta da terra (detalhe de um mapa de Ortelius, 1590)

Os periploi (plural de periplus) que chegaram até nós ocorreram no mar Mediterrânico e nos oceanos Índico e Atlântico. Heródoto também escreveu sobre um périplo por África feito pelos fenícios em nome de um faraó egípcio. Um grego de Alexandria (Egipto) descreveu as costas do Oceano Índico na África do leste e Índia. Píteas, da colónia grega de Massália (moderna Marselha, França) viajou pelo norte até às Ilhas Britânicas e Escandinávia e concluiu um periplus europeu navegando através dos rios da Europa do Báltico ao Mar Negro, voltando ao Mediterrâneo. Há também quem acredite que os minoicos cretenses, os gregos, os egípcios, os púnicos e outros povos da antiguidade navegaram até ás Américas antes dos vikings ou de Colombo – ou, é claro, de Fernão de Magalhães que tentou um periplus à volta da terra mas não teve a sorte de concluí-lo.

Mas essas viagens começaram na Idade do Bronze, muito antes dos registos históricos. Há muitos indícios de que os minóicos na época do seu domínio marítimo (talassocracia) viajaram até á Cornualha (Bretanha) à procura de estanho, ou obtinham-no no sul da Gália. O estanho é um componente necessário ao fabrico do bronze (10% de estanho com 90% de cobre). Havia naquela época muito cobre no Mediterrâneo. Chipre por exemplo estava cheio de cobre e o nome desta ilha tem origem nesta palavra. Mas estanho? Não havia muitos lugares no Mediterrâneo que o tivessem e os que o tinham era em pouca quantidade.

Andaluzia com Tartessos e Gadir-Gadeira-Gades-Cádis, uma colónia fenícia em três ilhas com nomes gregos: Erytheia, Kotinoussa e Antipolis, enquanto Melcarte, o deus tutelar, se assemelha a Héracles, o fundador da cidade segundo um mito grego…

Os minoicos e mais tarde os gregos e os fenícios, navegaram até á Ibéria que era rica em minerais. Muito provavelmente teriam sido os andaluzes a levar os cretenses até à Galiza, Bretanha e Cornualha: eles sabiam o caminho… Todos esses lugares, especialmente a Cornualha, possuíam grandes depósitos de estanho. Lá, perto da Galiza, ou talvez da Cornualha, estariam as chamadas Cassitérides Nesoi, as Ilhas de Estanho (cassiteros significa estanho em grego). Heródoto e outros historiadores escreveram também sobre as ligações dos gregos e fenícios com Tartessos na Andaluzia, na foz do Guadalquivir, e há quem nos dias de hoje correlacione Tartessos com a misteriosa Atlântida…

●

Uma das duas famosas estátuas gregas de tamanho inteiro de guerreiros barbudos despidos, as chamadas Bronzes de Riace, fundidas em cerca de 460-450 AC, redescobertas em 1972 e consideradas como um dos símbolos da Calábria

A minha investigação começou com algumas perguntas muito simples:

• Aonde é que a Idade do Bronze Mediterrânica encontrou estanho para produzir o bronze?

• Quem foram os comerciantes marítimos desse tempo a trazer este metal crucial para o Mediterrâneo e onde é que o encontraram?^(c)

• ^(c) Podem consultar detalhes desta saga no blogue de Periplus, na categoria Once Upon a… Wave, nas Crónicas de 1 a 10: tendo como ponto de partida um Périplo mediterrânico; deambula-se pela Creta minóica, pela Grécia micénica, pela Fenícia; desvenda-se o Enigma dos Povos do Mar; descobre-se o “El Dorado” na Ibéria; Revivendo um Périplo ibérico; e observa-se os esforços para Restringir a liberdade de pensamento, bem como a catástrofe de Tartesso e Cartago (“Carthago Delenda Est”), enquanto se vê a Ibéria com olhos imparciais, e se tiram conclusões a partir de um Waterloo arquelógico.

A conclusão é que certas necessidades levam as pessoas a viver em conjunto, a comunicar, a fazer trocas entre elas. Foi assim que a sociedade nasceu, as cidades foram criadas, apareceram as classes e a divisão social do trabalho, e a escrita foi inventada. A interacção embora ligada a necessidades materiais transformou os que trabalharam em conjunto também pela troca de ideias e ideais, processo que está na base do nascimento da civilização e da cultura.

Safo e Alcaeu, de Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Não é assim tão óbvio, mas temos também coisas como um “periplus” noutros empreendimentos humanos. A música nasceu em conjunto com a fala. Num estado mais avançado, na Grécia antiga, música significava quer o instrumental quer a canção. A poesia na Grécia clássica era inconcebível sem música. As duas artes acabaram… por divorciar-se mais tarde, no séc. 4 AC. Contudo, quer antes, quer depois, foi necessário (e ainda é) um “periplus” para combinar sons e palavras, e para expressar o significado das palavras através dos sons. Algo parecido acontece na tradução: neste caso, o “periplus” diz respeito a duas linguagens. É a viagem do texto, o seu sentido e estilo, conteúdo e forma, ao ser adaptado para que comece a respirar num outro ambiente linguístico…

●

A Odisseia é uma espécie de “periplus” poético. De acordo com os Lusitanos, as deambulações de Odisseu( Ulisses) foram também luso-gregas: ele fundou Lisboa e teve um filho de uma princesa Ibérica: Calipso. Homero descreveu a descida de Odisseu ao Hades, o mundo dos mortos, que estava para lá dos Pilares de Hércules, quer dizer, o Estreito de Gilbraltar. Os gregos localizaram na mesma área o Jardim das Hespérides e as Ilhas Afortunadas (Makaron Nesoi), as Ilhas Bem Aventuradas ou o Elísio, onde hoje se pensa ser a Macaronésia (Açores, Madeira, as Canárias e Cabo Verde).

Dante, no seu Inferno, cita outra versão da descida sem retorno de Odisseu ao mundo dos mortos. Segundo ele, o rei de Ítaca passou os Pilares de Hércules e velejando para sul, atravessou o Equador e continuou a viajar durante meses, até chegar a uma baía com uma grande montanha. Nessa altura, um tornado afundou o seu barco…

Não sei porquê, mas acho que essa baía com uma grande montanha é… o Rio de Janeiro! Eu gostaria de poder confirmá-lo…

Chronicle 15. SAILING TO RIO DE JANEIRO!

ii) INTERLUDE

Crossing the Atlantic

 

Chronicle 15. SAILING TO RIO DE JANEIRO!

● Periplus: (Luso-Hellenic Wanderings) ● An Atlantic Odyssey

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ ΠΛΩΡΗ ΓΙΑ RIO DE JANEIRO!
/PORTUGUÊS/ NAVEGANDO PARA O RIO DE JANEIRO!

Afro-Brazilian Museum

ΙΙΙ Festival

SO DISTANT
SO NEAR

Music and Poetry in the
Portuguese Language

Federal University of
Rio de Janeiro, May 2013

Tão Longe Tão Perto Organized in collaboration with the ensemble Música Surda: Andréia Pedroso, Antônio Jardim, Artur Gouvêa and Eduardo Gatto.

Michales Loukovikas

WHEN AMÉLIA MUGE AND I BEGAN researching and exchanging recorded material from our traditions, the Lusitanic–Portuguese and the Hellenic–Greek, several people raised ironically their brows:

“Oh, they are loucos”, they thought – some even said. “Portugal and Greece are so far apart. Impossible to find common ground”…⁽¹⁾

• ⁽¹⁾ Imagine what people with “raised brows”, just like them, will say now that we are talking about a triangle (not that of… Bermuda): Portugal, Brazil and Greece. Well, Portugal and Brazil, OK, the relation is too obvious: former metropolis and colony; but what about Greece?(!)

● This text was presented during the festival Tão longe, tão perto, in Rio de Janeiro.

I confess that our collaborative results astonished even us! Or even me, I should add, that I have been researching this field for years, arriving to the conclusion that civilization, culture, is the result of give and take, of exchange. I have also shown during my radio program (Mediterranean periplus, 9.58 fm, ERT3) that lands located so far apart, like, say, India and Iberia, have been interconnected for thousands of years, since ancient times…⁽²⁾

• ⁽²⁾ “Ancient” for the Hellenes means BCE (before the Common Era), or BC (before Christ), if you like.

Flamenco (by Hyatt Moore): an exciting art
interconnecting Iberia and India

All these ideas were further reinforced when Amélia and I started working on Periplus.⁽³⁾ For sure, there are some “dark spots” still now; questions that remain unanswered. A big question for me e.g. is: how can Amélia, a Portuguese born in Mozambique, compose in an ancient style? You see, all three themes of ancient Grecian music and poetry we have in Periplus (Seikilos’ Epitaph, the First Delphic Hymn to Apollo, probably by Athenaeus, and Mesomedes’ Hymn to Nemesis) were included after certain compositions of hers reminded me of these ancient Hellenic songs. It’s very strange, indeed.

• ⁽³⁾ It’s not so obvious but there is something like a “periplus” in different human endeavours, too. Music was born together with speech. In an advanced stage, in ancient Hellas, music was either instrumental or song. Poetry was inconceivable without music in classical Greece. The two arts got… divorce later, in the 4th century BCE. However, either before or after, a “periplus” was (and still is) needed to combine sounds with words, and express the meaning of the words through sounds. Something similar happens in a translation: then the “periplus” concerns two tongues. It is the voyage of a text, of its meaning and style, content and form, while it is adapted in order to start breathing in another language environment.

Andalusian ivory cylindrical pyxis,
i.e. a box to keep precious cosmetics
or jewelery (10th century)

However, apart from these “dark spots”, which will always challenge us to come up with some satisfactory answers, we were soon able to assemble the rest of the puzzle rather easily. And when our Periplus was released, I could say:

“You know, the links are there, waiting for us to bring them to light. One only needs to search, of course, methodically, with a proper compass – a bússula, as we say in Greek, or bússola, as you say in Portuguese”.⁽⁴⁾

• ⁽⁴⁾ We have the same word coming from Greek (pyxos > pyxis-pyxida > buxis-buxida > box, boîte, and bussola), with the plant pyxos (> boxwood) as a starting point; this hard, compact, durable wood has been used since ancient times to construct vessels, such as pyxides, and also musical (string and wind) instruments. Note that its seeds are kept in a capsule also called pyxis. Indeed, who among the non-specialists would ever imagine that the English box is of a Greek origin?

Anticythera Mechanism

The Mediterranean and the Oecumene beyond

THE GREEK PENINSULA AND ARCHIPELAGO was not a beginning in world history. The Hellenes received much wisdom from the Orient (Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Egypt) and turned it into science;⁽⁵⁾ it was a great feat! What they left behind was a marvelous literature – uma literatura maravilhosa, indeed! Thus the Hellenic civilization became the foundation of the Occidental cultures.

• ⁽⁵⁾ There can be no great civilization without equivalent technology. A marvel in this domain is the Anticythera mechanism, the earliest analogue computer designed to calculate astronomical positions. Dated to c. 100 BCE, it was recovered in 1901 from a wreck between the Peloponnese and Crete, but its significance and complexity were not understood until a century later. Devices of a comparable level would reappear in the 14th century CE in Europe, with the construction of astronomical clocks. Professor Michael Edmunds of Cardiff University, who led a 2006 study of the mechanism, said:

“This device is just extraordinary, the only thing of its kind. The design is beautiful, and the astronomy is exactly right. The way the mechanics are designed just makes your jaw drop. In terms of historic and scarcity value, I have to regard this mechanism as being more valuable than the Mona Lisa.”

Victoria, the sole ship of Magellan’s fleet to complete the world’s periplus (detail from a map of Ortelius, 1590)

The extant peripli took place on the Mediterranean, the Indian and the Atlantic Oceans. Herodotus wrote about a periplus of Africa by Phoenicians on behalf of an Egyptian pharaoh. Some Greek from Alexandria, Egypt, described the Indian Ocean coasts of eastern Africa and India. Pytheas, from the Hellenic colony of Massalia (modern Marseille, France), voyaged north to the British Isles and also Scandinavia, and concluded a periplus of Europe sailing via European rivers from the Baltic to the Black Sea and back to the Mediterranean. There are people who believe that the Minoan Cretans, the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Phoenicians and Punics, and other ancient peoples, such as the Chinese, sailed to the Americas long before the Vikings, Columbus – or, of course, Magellan, who attempted a periplus of the Earth but was not fortunate enough to conclude it.

Hence these voyages started long before recorded history, in the Bronze Age. There are historical clues that the Minoans, in the time of their Thalassocracy, travelled as far as Cornwall, Britain, in search of tin – or else, they obtained this important metal at harbours in southern Gaul. Tin is a necessary component of bronze (±90% copper plus ±10% tin). There were vast quantities of copper in the Mediterranean. Cyprus e.g. was full of copper and the name Cyprus comes from copper (and vice versa). But tin? There were very few places with tin in the Mediterranean and in limited quantities.

The Minoans, and later the Greeks and Phoenicians, sailed initially to Iberia that was rich in these minerals. The Andalusians probably led the Cretans to Galicia, Brittany and Cornwall: they knew the way… These places, especially Cornwall, had massive tin deposits. There, close to Galicia, or even Cornwall, were the so-called Cassiterides Nēsoe, the Tin Isles (tin is cassíteros in Greek). Herodotus and other historians wrote also about the links of the Hellenes and Phoenicians with Tartessos, at the mouth of the Guadalquivir, and several people now correlate the legendary Andalusian city with the elusive Atlantis.

Tartessos – identified here with Sanlúcar de Barrameda (?) – and Gadeira-Gadir-Gades-Cádiz, on three islets with Greek names (Erytheia, Kotinoussa and Antipolis), outside the Pillars of Heracles,
the Strait of Gibraltar, in the Sea of Darkness, the Atlantic

Critical questions as the starting point of the research

MY RESEARCH, in the first part we have already voyaged, aimed at that complacent Greek highbrow “hot air”, summed up in the phrase “our own Orient” (see Chronicle 6, footnote 1). So, I raised that vast “Indo-Iberian arc” to demarcate the Mediterranean historical and cultural space. The starting point in the second part was these simple questions that had to be answered:

● Where did the Bronze Age Mediterranean find tin to produce bronze?

● Who were the established maritime traders of the time to bring this most crucial metal to the Mediterranean, as tin was rare around the basin?

I attempt to give some answers in the 2nd part, Cassiterides Archipelago: sailing to Tartessos, following the 1st part, Mediterranean Periplus: in Search of Orpheus. (Hellenic) music is my focus in the 1st part; (Mediterranean) history in the 2nd.

One of the Riace Bronzes, two Greek full-size nude warriors (ca 460–450 BCE), recovered in 1972, considered as a symbol of Calabria.

Α. Mediterranean Periplus, in Search of Orpheus

Prologue. Before Sailing Off
1. The Universal Mediterranean
2. It All Started Here…
3. A Chronicle of the Humans
4. On Democracy
5. Iberia’s Odyssey
6. Indo-Iberian Arc (Jondo)
7. Indo-Iberian Arc (Duende)
8. A Hybrid’s Hybris…
9. The Celebrated Tríchordon
10. The… “Sun Language”
11. “Music Is Thracian and Asian”
12. “Do Not Maltreat Our Music!”
13. Professionals or Amateurs?
14. Music Made of Body and Soul

Β. Cassiterides Archipelago, Sailing to Tartessos

15. Sailing to Rio de Janeiro!
16. Mediterranean Periplus-Paraplus
17. Minoan Cretan Thalassocracy
18. Aegean: Knossos, Mycenae, Troy
19. Phoenicia’s Stroke of Fortune
20. The Enigmatic Sea Peoples
21. Iberian “El Dorado”
22. Iberian Periplus Revival
23. The Genocide of the Hellenes
24. The Triumph of Cretinism
25. “Carthago Delenda Est!”
26. Iberian Cross-Check
27. An Archaeologist’s Waterloo

Appendix: 28. The Making of the Mediterranean Periplus | 29. Biblio – Disco – Graphy | 30. Michales Loukovikas – bio.

A general conclusion is that certain needs motivated humans to live together, to communicate, to exchange. That’s how society was born, the cities were created, the classes and division of labour emerged, and writing was invented. People’s coordinated interaction concerned material needs but transformed at the same time all those who worked together, exchanging ideas or ideals; it was a process that led to the birth of culture, of civilization.

Homer’s Odyssey periplus

HOMER’S ODYSSEY IS A POETIC PERIPLUS. According to the Lusitanians, Odysseus’ wanderings were Luso-Hellenic, as well: he founded Lisbon and had a child with the princess of Iberia, Calypso. Homer described Odysseus’ descent into the Hades, the underworld, which was outside the Pillars of Heracles, that is, the Strait of Gibraltar. The Hellenes located in the same area the Garden of the Hesperides or the Makarōn Nēsoe, i.e. the Fortunate Isles, the Islands of the Blessed, or Elysium, what today is thought to be Macaronesia (the Azores and Madeira, the Canaries and Cape Verde).

Strabo and Solinus said that Odysseus, after the fall of Troy, navigated westward to Lusitania, founded Lisbon, and then desired to try his fortune on the Atlantic – where he disappeared, with no trace left behind. This is a version of Odysseus’ story mentioned also by Pere Antoni Beuter, a Valencian historian, who referred to Dante Alighieri, saying he shared this view. Indeed, in his Inferno, the Italian poet described Odysseus’ descent into the underworld with no return. The king of Ithaca, he wrote, went out of the Pillars of Hercules, sailed south, crossed the Equator, and then continued voyaging for months, until he reached a bay with a big mountain. Then, a tornado sank his boat; everybody drowned there.

I really don’t know why, but I feel this bay with the big mountain is… the River of January: Rio de Janeiro! I would really love to confirm that…

The siege of Lisbon, by Roque Gameiro (1917)

Appendix: An Atlantic Odyssey

● A modern Greek Homerist, Iohannis Kakridís, argues that the Odyssey is a work of poetry and not a travel log (i.e. a navigator’s periplus). According to W. B. Stanford, Cape Maleas and the nearby island of Cythera, where Odysseus met storms (see the Odyssey, book 9), are “the last clearly identifiable places in his wanderings. After this he leaves the sphere of Geography and enters Wonderland” – a wander in wonders!

Nevertheless, due to the great impact of the Homeric epics, the attempt to work out “a Geography of the Odyssey” started as early as Hesiod, a Homer’s contemporary most probably, and by the Hellenistic period, the literature on the subject had really thrived. There were even passionate debates among the scholars whether Odysseus’ wanderings were confined within the Mediterranean, or if they indeed expanded into the Atlantic – indicating that for them the ocean was not a “terra” (mare) incogita.

Sappho and Alcaeus, by Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Despite that, other scholars, turned against this euhemerism –⁽⁶⁾ or even against the great rhapsode. The mythographer-grammarian Apollodorus of Athens (2nd century BCE) wrote that Homer imagined the wanderings as having taken place in a kind of fairyland in the Atlantic. Strabo (1st centuries BCE-CE) thought that at least Ogygia and Scheria, the islands of Calypso and Nausicaa respectively, were “imagined in fantasy” as being in the Atlantic – so, they both mentioned the Atlantic! In addition, he insisted that any hypothesis at all, no matter how outrageous, is more plausible than saying “I do not know”… Yet, Eratosthenes (3rd – 2nd centuries BCE) remarked rather sarcastically: “You will find the scene of the wanderings of Odysseus when you find the cobbler who sewed up the bag of the winds.”

• ⁽⁶⁾ Euhemerism: from the mythographer of Sacred History, Euhemerus: a view that the gods have been deified humans and that the myths have a historical basis.

Plutarch (1st – 2nd centuries CE) was sure Ogygia was in the Atlantic, and specifically west of Britain. Additionally, he repeated what Plato had described as a continent on the other side of the Atlantic, claiming that from this continent Ogygia was about 900 kilometres distant. The German astronomer Kepler (1571 – 1630) estimated that this “great continent” was America and attempted to locate Calypso’s island.

Map of Rio de Janeiro (Dutch Atlas 1600)

● In her research entitled The Wine Dark Sea (1964), the American Henriette Mertz argued that Circe’s island was Madeira, Calypso’s island one of the Azores, while the intervening voyages recorded a discovery of North America: Scylla and Charybdis were in the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia, Canada, while Scheria, the Phaeacians’ land, was in the Caribbean, in the Gulf of Mexico, possibly in Florida. Such travels were done with the help of sea currents she studied. It was them, mainly the (Mexican) Gulf Stream, which took Odysseus to the Sirens (Haiti or Cuba, and to the Island of the Sun, of Helios (Nova Scotia or Newfoundland).

Enrico Mattievich, an Italian-Peruvian retired Professor of Physics from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (where our festival took place), “brought” Odysseus to South America, proposing that his journey to the Underworld actually took place there. The river Acheron is the Amazon, he argued in his Journey to the Mythological Inferno (1992). After a long voyage upstream, Odysseus met the spirits of the dead at the confluence of the rivers Marañon and Ucayali – i.e. at the starting point of the Amazon.

Another study connected to that of Mertz’s is Siegfried Petrides’ Odyssey – a Naval Epic of the Greeks in America (1994). Grecian literature is full of references about the geographical and astronomical knowledge of the Hellenes, which allowed them to use the constellations for directions. Petrides’ long experience as a sailor allowed him to confirm, or even clarify, Mertz’s conclusions, providing extra details on the wind directions, sea routes, islands, etc. A clarification is that ancient Greek sailors did not rely on mere chance to reach America but had fast and versatile vessels that could easily cross the Atlantic. They also knew perfectly well how to combine and take advantage of both the sails and the rows, thus covering very long distances.

Demetris Michalópoulos, of the Institute of Hellenic Maritime History, described a Peripeteia [Adventure] in the Atlantic: Ulysses’ voyages between Europe and America – referring also to Petrides. His anything but controversial starting point is the coast of Libya, the land of the Lotophagi. His next stop, the land of the Cyclopes, seems to be nearby: Sicily or somewhere in Magna Graecia, according to the prevailing opinion in late antiquity. All the same, there is no mention to Italy in the Homeric text. The only information given by Homer is that, in the past, the Cyclopes were neighbours of the Phaeacians in the “immense Hyperia”. Yet, the latter were compelled to migrate to Scheria, because the Cyclopes were anything but friendly… But where was Hyperia located? If we now accept what we have just rejected, i.e. the prevailing opinion in late antiquity, the Cyclopes lived in the Mediterranean near the Laestrygonians. In the Homeric text, there are some indications about the Laestrygonians’ land: “the outgoings of the nights and of the days are close together”… Michalópoulos supposes that the Laestrygonians lived in a region where, in summer, the days are very long and the nights very short, that is, in Scandinavia. He also refers to Tacitus, who wrote that Odysseus reached at least Germany. Hence Hyperia was somewhere there. Yet, there is a “little problem”: between the Cyclopes and the Laestrygonians, Odysseus voyaged to Aeolia that, although “floating”, is identified most possibly with Mallorca. But a return trip between Scandinavia and the Balearics is… a little too much!

Then we set sail to America. Circe’s Aeaea, the Underworld, the Hesperides and the Gorgons were all in the “remote West”, according to Hesiod. Ogygia, wrote Plutarch, was five days away from Britain. Arriving there, one must navigate through “a heavy sea, muddy and agitated by currents”. Such a place can be the Sargasso Sea, in the North Atlantic Ocean, where Bermuda may be the location of the isle of Calypso. The nymph instructed Odysseus to sail with the Ursa Major constellation on his left. After eighteen days, he reached Scheria, possibly in Iberia. Ithaca’s king and other Trojan War heroes had made their presence felt in the peninsula. According to Strabo, even a town therein was named after Odysseus. There is a tradition, as well, adopted by Camões, that the etymon of Lisbon is Ulysses, i.e. the Latin form of the name of our hero. Hence the “Homeric” river of the Phaeacians is the Tagus, whose bed was so rich in precious metals that it was described as “equivalent to the Pactolus”, the well-known gold river of Asia Minor (Silius Italicus).

Odysseus may not have been the first Greek (or European) to step on American soil: according to Mertz, some time before the Trojan War and the Odyssey, circa 1300 (or 1225) BCE,⁽⁷⁾ the Argonauts travelled across the Atlantic Ocean, thanks to the Gulf Stream, crossed the Sargasso Sea (Apollonius of Rhodes’ “floating islands”) and then touched at Puerto Rico. They sailed southwards by South America, past the mouth of the Amazon and Rio de Janeiro until the Río de la Plata of Argentina, and, following it upstream, reached the altiplano of Bolivia arriving at Colchis, or Tiwanaku, where the Golden Fleece was kept. Centuries later Tiwanaku became the cultural, religious, cosmological and commercial centre of a pre-Columbian Empire extending around Lake Titicaca in present-day western Bolivia, southern Peru and northern Chile from 300 to 1150 CE. But this area must have been inhabited as early as 1500 BCE.⁽⁸⁾

• ⁽⁷⁾ Michalópoulos (The Argonauts in the Black Sea) moves the expedition to a distant past in the first half of the 19th century BCE. In very ancient times, he says, “voyages were longer and more venturesome than those in late antiquity”, while “the Euxine had been a center of international trade”. The Argonauts were Minyans, the most prominent tribe of the Pelasgians. The latter are presented as ancestors of the Hellenes, colonizers of the Black Sea, and also of Italy, inventors of the alphabet – a civilizing people.

• ⁽⁸⁾ Both the expedition of the Argonauts and the Trojan War that followed aimed at the control of the Black Sea by the Hellenes. The legend of the Golden Fleece was based on a practice of the local tribes: they would place a lamb’s fleece at the bottom of a stream to entrap gold dust that was washed down from upstream. In some regions this practice is still now in use. The capital of Colchis, Aea (Kutaisi), is said to have been one of many cities that were founded in Eurasia by Egyptians. This account is combined with one by Herodotus, citing Egyptian priests. Their story was about the legendary pharaoh Sesostris, who once led an army north through the Levant and Asia Minor, all the way to Colchis. He settled colonists there, at the river Phasis (modern Rioni), and then he turned westward across southern Russia, and south through Romania and Bulgaria, until he reached eastern Hellas, from where he returned home. Herodotus cautioned that much of this account came second hand via Egyptian priests, but also noted that the Colchians were commonly known to be Egyptian colonists. According to Strabo and Diodorus Siculus, Sesostris conquered the whole world, from Ethiopia in the South, to Scythia in the North – or, who knows, even South America in the West!

● Some writers interpret the Homeric epics as “British ballads” or “Viking sagas”, and in this way pass off their North-to-South cultural-transmission theory. Such pseudo-theories are centuries older than German nationalism, and definitely inspire all the Northerners – who may figure out they are descendants of the “Hyper-Northerners”, the Hyperboreans!⁽⁹⁾ The idea that the inspiration for Plato’s Atlantis can be found in the Baltic was the… “grandfather” of all these books. In the “heroic” 17th century of Sweden, the foremost champion was the all-round Renaissance scholar (astronomer, physician, “archaeo-historian”, and even more) Olaus or Olof Rudbeck, who caused consternation with his mammoth, 2,500-page work, Atland eller Manheim, translated into Latin for scholarly use as Atlantica. He claimed there, among other things, that the oldest district of his home town, Uppsala, was the centre of “lost Atlantis”; thus – by the extravagant logic of cultural diffusion – Sweden was the cradle of western civilization going back to Adam and Eve! Despite ridicule from his local university colleagues (who also accused him of forgery), he was turned into a national icon – and not only: he was admired at the court of Louis “l’état c’est moi!”, proposed as a member of the Royal Society in London, celebrated in cafés, salons, and academies across the cosmopolitan “Respublica literaria”, and read avidly by Montesquieu and Leibniz, while Isaac Newton wrote to request… a personal copy of Atlantica! After his death, Swedish monarchs would be crowned over his grave! He had fanatic followers and became the subject of a satiric illustration, captioned: “The archaeologist Olof Rudbeck (1630-1702) reveals his ‘Predecessors’ – Hesiod, Plato, Aristotle, Apollodorus, Tacitus, Odysseus, Ptolemy, Plutarch and Orpheus – the ‘Truth’ about Atlantis”…

• ⁽⁹⁾ Along with Thule, the Hyperborean land was among several terrae incognitae to the ancients. The Hyperboreans were a race of giants, three metres high, enjoying lives of sheer happiness and living to the age of one thousand! The sun was supposed to rise and set there only once a year – hence living a thousand days would be the same as living a thousand years! This also, to modern ears, suggests a possible location within the Arctic Circle. They were the most blessed of peoples, living in a perfect land, located “beyond Boreas”, the North Wind. The coldness of the northern countries was due to the cold breath of this wind. Thus the land “beyond Boreas” was a warm and sunny land! Besides, the only one among the Olympians, who was venerated there, was Apollo: the Hellenes thought he spent his winter there. The giants reciprocated by sending their delegation and offerings to his sacred Aegean island, Delos! Pindar sang of “the marvellous road to the assembly of the Hyperboreans: Never the Muse is absent | from their ways: lyres clash and flutes cry | everywhere maiden choruses whirling. | Neither disease nor bitter old age is mixed | in their sacred blood; far from labour and battle they live.”

Arctic continent on the Gerardus Mercator map (1595)

● “Northerners and Hyper-Northerners”: I started with wordplay, but we ended up filled up with swastikas! Northerners, mainly Scandinavians, wishing to counter the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean culture, identified themselves with the Hyperboreans. This trend was very strong in the 17th century in Sweden, when it was a great power, where the champions of the ideology of Gothicism declared Scandinavia to be both the Hyperborean land and lost Atlantis! After all, the Arctic Circle is their land… Generally, European culture self-identified as Hyperborean. Inevitably, adaptations followed by the ethnologist Karl Penka (Origins of the Aryans, 1883), John Bennett (The Hyperborean Origin of the Indo-European Culture, 1963), and several others. According to some esotericists, the Hyperboreans were part of the Golden Race (where, of course, all these “thinkers” belong, for sure), and their land was the Golden Age polar centre of civilization and spirituality. Mankind, they claim, does not rise from the ape, but devolves progressively into an ape-like condition, as it strays physically and spiritually from its mystical otherworldly homeland in the Far North, succumbing to the South Pole’s daemonic energies… Some outright charlatans, like Robert Charroux, the alter ego of Erich von Däniken, relate the Hyperboreans to an ancient astronaut race of “very large, very white people”, who arrived here and selected “the least warm area on the earth because it corresponded more closely to their own climate on the planet from which they originated”…

● Except perhaps the last ones, who profit out of their… charlatanism, all the rest are racists and fascists. The Nazis e.g. considered Hyperborea as the cradle of the “Aryan race”, while their party was hatched within the “Thule Society”. Let’s remind them (pulling their legs) that Hyperborea, as a terra incognita, was located by ancient writers in the far North, of course, but all across Eurasia, from NW Europe to NE Asia. So, some “Chinks” claimed that the Hyperboreans were Chinese – a view that would be strongly disputed especially in Japan, but also in Mongolia and Siberia!

None of Rudbeck’s descendants ever achieved such a Triumph. Most unlucky was a Belgian lawyer, named Théophile Cailleux (Pays atlantiques décrits par Homère: Ibérie, Gaule, Bretagne, Archipels, Amériques; Théorie nouvelle. Atlantic lands described by Homer: Iberia, Gaul, Britain, Archipelagos, the Americas; New Theory. 1878). Troy, he claimed, was situated in East Anglia, on the heights outside Cambridge, known as the Gog Magog Hills (rather far from the sea); while Ithaca, he believed, should be sought in southern Andalusia, between Jerez and Cádiz, in the Delta of the Guadalete (where a Trojan War hero, Menestheus, allegedly settled: see Chronicle 22). Yet, some time after Cailleux’s book was published, Heinrich Schliemann triumphantly proved that Troy and Mycenae existed as powerful cities, at the right time and in the right place to have fought a Trojan War such as the epics describe. As a result, there was no thirst for geohistorical speculation then in the market…

Homère, L’Odyssée; lithographies by Marc Chagall

More than a century later, the Dutch Iman Wilkens presented the same idea again. His book, Where Troy Once Stood (1990), takes us to the same hills that Cailleux pinpointed, but with a scenario somewhat modified: the Trojan War was fought c. 1200 BCE between groups of Celts. Those living in Cambridgeshire were attacked by fellow Celts from the Continent to win access to the profitable tin mines in Cornwall. Wilkens further suggests that the Sea Peoples (see Chronicles 18, 19, 20) were Celts who settled in Greece and the Aegean as Achaeans and Pelasgians, bringing with them the oral poems that were translated and written down in Hellenic around 750 BCE, forming the basis of the Homeric epics. He locates Scylla and Charybdis at present day St. Michael’s Mount, at the tip of the Cornish peninsula, moves a bit Ithaca from the Guadalete to Cádiz, while the topography of the Laestrygonian capital, Telepylos (“Far-off port”), looks to him similar to that of Havana, Cuba. But he’s got an Achilles’ heel; he (too) is a nationalist:

“It appears that Homer’s Greek contains a large number of loan words from western European languages, more often from Dutch rather than English, French or German”, he thoughtlessly wrote, speaking of tongues that have not existed until at least 1000 years after Homer!⁽¹⁰⁾

• ⁽¹⁰⁾ If one takes Cailleux and Wilkens for granted, the Trojans left Britain after the war to settle in Italy. Anyway, three generations later they returned to found the “British nation”. Historia Regum Britanniae (The History of the Kings of Britain), written around 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth, begins with the Trojan Aeneas who, according to Roman legend, settled in Italy after the war. But his great-grandson Brutus was banished, started wandering and was finally directed by the goddess Diana (Artemis) to settle in the western ocean, on the island of Albion, which he named Britain after himself. He then defeated the giants who were the only inhabitants there, and on the banks of the Thames he established his capital, Troia Nova, renamed later as London.

A variation of this North-to-South cultural transmission is that early Grecian sailors might have come for long-distance trade in tin etc. and also took this wonderful epic tale back with them, transforming it into an “ethnic” epic when it was written down in verse. The northern peoples preferred not to write out their compositions, relying on prodigious feats of memory (as Caesar said of the Celtic bards). However, over time the original northern version could have been lost in wars and migrations. Another North-to-South cultural-transmission theory is that the northern tribes were the Sea Peoples who swept south to attack also Hellas, around 1200 BCE. The Greeks that survived assimilated the northerners’ campfire tales and made them their own when they flourished again, also thanks to these tales, after their Dark Ages.

Atlantis, Poseidonis: the last remnant of the lost continent (imaginary reconstruction)

This “theory” was foreshadowed in several books by Jurgen Spanuth (1907-1998), a German pastor, classical scholar, and amateur archaeologist. He maintained that all these events survive in distorted version not just in Homer but also in Plato’s Atlantis parable. Spanuth compared Homer’s and Plato’s descriptions on a point-for-point basis, and suggested both derived from a common origin. This was the rise and fall of a mighty Bronze Age seafaring nation living in the Jutland area, which fell when an “Atlantean” North Sea flood drove them southward into the Mediterranean; they were the Sea Peoples that the Egyptians defeated in the Nile Delta. Their tale of how their vast empire collapsed in a flood was recorded by the Egyptians, and then Plato picked it up through Solon, who was briefed by priests when he visited Egypt (Das Entratselte Atlantis; Atlantis – The Mystery Unraveled; 1953, all through Die Atlanter; Atlantis of the North; 1976). German nationalism was all too clear in these inflated claims – in effect assuming credit for another people’s cultural foundations – and the reception of the books was rather cold in the reviews. Rebuffed by the mainstream, the pastor turned to some right-wing German magazines, which marginalized him further. If he succeeded in something indirectly is that he rekindled interest for new excavations in sunken North Sea ports, e.g. Rungholt, where ceramics were recovered evidencing trade between Frisia and Minoan Crete dating back to 1600-1400 BCE!

The other variant of the North-to-South cultural-transmission “theory”, with a largely Scandinavian setting, has a certain peculiarity: the storyteller is an Italian, the nuclear engineer Felice Vinci – probably the only Mediterranean accepting that his ancestors received the “lights of civilization” from the North. The reception was dismissive, as usual, and the Finns were quick to label it “an interesting joke”! The book is entitled Omero nel Baltico (Homer in the Baltic, 1998), or The Baltic Origins of Homer’s Epic Tales: The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Migration of Myth. The Achaeans were a Baltic people at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE, coming to Greece around the 16th century (after the Trojan War that took place in the 18th century), bringing their traditional oral sagas to the Aegean. Odysseus himself, claims Vinci, was Dutch(!); the islands of his kingdom, Ithaca, Dulichium, Cephallenia, and Zacynthus, correspond to islands in the Danish archipelago of South Funen, and Troy to Toija in SW Finland; the Hellespont could not be identified with the Dardanelles, but the Gulf of Finland; Mycenae stood in the same place as modern Copenhagen; and Odysseus’ voyage would have taken place along the coasts of Norway: Ogygia could be identified with one of the Faeroe Islands (among Britain, Scandinavia and Iceland); the Phaeacian land, Scheria, with Bergen’s environs; Circe’s island, and the places she describes (the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis) may be placed in the Lofoten archipelago of northern Norway; and Aeolus’ island in the Shetland archipelago, NE of Scotland. The same region is the setting of other Hellenic mythological tales such as the Argonauts, adds Vinci. Referring to Plato’s dialogue Critias, he claims that Athens rose formerly on a flat fertile zone in the Baltic, perhaps near Karlskrona in southern Sweden.

Il Ritorno di Ulisse (Odysseus’ Return), by Giorgio De Chirico (1968)

● Regarding Homeric epics’ background, the Flemish Karel Jozef de Graeve, in his République des Champs Elysées (Republic of the Elysian Fields, 1806), pointed out the area around the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt Delta.

Finally, the French Gilbert Pillot, in Le Code Secret de l’Odyssée (The Secret Code of the Odyssey, 1969), “saw” Odysseus crossing the Pillars of Heracles and voyaging on the Atlantic, initially to Morocco, the Canaries and Madeira, and then heading north to Ireland, Scotland and Iceland. He most probably thought – quite rightly – that “secret codes” are… sold out, and claimed he discovered “a secret message in the Odyssey”, with a “hidden” itinerary over the Atlantic, from the Canaries to Iceland through the British Isles. The verse epic, he argued, was a Hellenic syndicate’s way of concealing navigation data inside an “entertainment” – acting as an elaborate mnemonic. The Greek mariners could thus remember, yet protect, the key details (sailing directions, times, dangers) of their all-important northern trade route, leading to the sought-after sources of tin: the Cassiterides, or Tin Isles – a terra incognita, as Herodotus complained, impossible to locate, but a key to prosperity mainly in the Bronze Age.

Eternally mapping Homer’s Odyssey

MAPPING HOMER’S ODYSSEY, Armin Wolf concluded that Scheria-Phaeacia should have been in Calabria, Italy, as it is located between two seas: the Tyrrhenian and the Ionian Seas. The capital of the Phaeacians stood at the Tiriolo and Marcellinara region, in the Catanzaro province, he claimed. Additionally, he referred to the dozens (or hundreds?) of attempts to map the Odyssey; several of them we have already presented; but he added some more:

In 1898, an anonymous author with the pseudonym Eumaeus claimed that Odysseus had completed a periplus of Africa (centuries before the Phoenicians, mentioned by Herodotus), and had even discovered America. Pseudo-Eumaeus (the real one was Odysseus’ swineherd and friend) was the first to use the ocean currents to trace the route of the king of Ithaca. In 1925, even the distinguished archaeologist Wilhelm Dörpfeld drew a map of Homer’s world in which, apart from the “established” stops of the Odyssey, he pinpointed the southernmost tip of Africa, and there he located Telepylus of the Laestrygonians and also – like “Eumaeus” – Aeaea, Circe’s island.

After World War II, several maps placed the Odyssey on the Atlantic and North Sea: British Isles, Iceland, Norway. The Swiss F. J. Wil, in 1950, added Faeroes in the list, while the German Otto Zeller, in 1959, expanded the map from Gibraltar and the Azores to Norway and Heligoland. Karl Bartholomäus, professor of archaeogeodesy, in 1977, tried to prove by astronomical calculations that the track from Calypso to Nausicaa leads from the Azores to Heligoland. The German judge Hans Steuerwald, in 1978, “sent” Odysseus to Cornwall and Scotland. The wine produced on Circe’s isle (identified with one of the Hebrides), he added, was in fact Scotch whisky…

Incan Golden Solar disc, used as a star map.
It was lost during the Conquista.

A multitude of writers have created fantastic routes on the oceans of the earth. This mania of inventing “theories” probably reached its climax in 1983, with the Austrian ethnologist Christine Pellech, who argued that Odysseus had sailed right around the earth – before Magellan! She saw no difficulty in the great hero taking just seven days to row from the Mediterranean to Norway, and then in a single day the whole way from Norway to Canada! It goes without saying, of course, that he discovered the Strait of Magellan and Australia…

● More extreme views about the geography of the Homeric epics keep on surfacing, either centered on the Atlantic, or extending all over the globe. Some others turned their eyes to the sky arguing that the Homeric geography is to be found there, and that the Iliad and Odyssey can be decoded as a star map. What we will hear next, I suppose, is that the Trojan War was actually a… Star War!

LABYRINTH OF MAPS

● TROY. NW Asia Minor, Turkey: Hisarlık || E England: Cambridgeshire || SW Finland: Toija.
● LOTUS EATERS (LOTOPHAGI). Libya: a headland in the Gindanes area | Gulf of Sidra || Tunisia: Djerba (Meninx) island.
● CYCLOPES. Italy: SE Sicily, near Etna and Lentini (Leontini) | Marsala, W Sicily | Gulf of Naples || Spain: Balearics archipelago || Scandinavia.
● AEOLIA. Italy, N Sicily: Aeolian Islands (Lipari [Meligounis], or Stromboli [Strongule], or Ustica) || Spain: Balearics archipelago (Mallorca) || Scotland: Shetland archipelago.
● LAESTRYGONIANS. Italy: SE Sicily | N Sardinia || France: S Corsica || Scandinavia || Cuba: Havana || S African tip.
● CIRCE’S AEAEA. Italy: Monte Circeo, Lazio-Latium (< Latinus, Circe’s son) | Ischia, Gulf of Naples || Portugal: Madeira || Norway: Lofoten archipelago || S African tip || Scotland: Hebrides archipelago.
● HADES, UNDERWORLD. NW Hellas: Acheron river || Italy: lake Avernus (< Greek Aornos = with no birds), near Cumae, Campania, where Aeneas also found it || Peru: Amazon River.
● SIRENS. Italy: Cape Faro, by the Strait of Messina | Sirenuse archipelago, or a headland between the Gulfs of Naples and Salerno | Naples itself | Lucanian coast || Haiti or Cuba || Norway: Lofoten archipelago.
● SCYLLA & CHARYBDIS. Italy: Strait of Messina || Canada, Nova Scotia: Bay of Fundy || SW England: St. Michael’s Mount, Cornwall’s tip || Norway: Lofoten archipelago.
● THE SUN (HELIOS) ISLAND. Italy: Sicily || Canada: Nova Scotia or Newfoundland.
● CALYPSO’S OGYGIA. Maltese archipelago: Gaudos, modern Gozo || Morocco-Spain: Pillars of Heracles (Ceuta) || Portugal: Azores || Bermuda || Denmark: Faeroes.
● NAUSICAA & PHAEACIANS’ SCHERIA. NW Hellas: Corcyra (Corfu) || Cyprus || Carribean-Gulf of Mexico-Florida, USA || Portugal: Lisbon || Norway: Bergen || Germany: Heligoland || Italy: Calabria.
● ITHACA. W Hellas: Ithaca, or Cephallenia, or Leucas || Andalusia, Spain: Guadalete Delta or Cádiz || Denmark: S Funen.

Celestial map by the Dutch cartographer Frederik de Wit (17th century)

Homer’s mystery: the epimyth of a myth

ANY HYPOTHESIS AT ALL, NO MATTER HOW OUTRAGEOUS, is more plausible than saying “I do not know”… After all, what do these stories show, even those that are crazy and nuts? What else but the greatness of Odysseus and Homer, the creator of the Iliad and the Odyssey; two wonderful epics that the classicists initially treated as written poetry and also the rhapsode as a writer. Until Milman Parry (1902–1935) appeared in the 1920s, and indicated it was oral musical-poetic tradition. His research on the process of oral poetry improvisation through “stock epithets” and “reiteration” (words, phrases, stanzas) established that these formulae were artifacts easily applied to the hexametric lines of oral tradition. A two-word stock epithet (e.g. “the resourceful Odysseus”) is reiterated, permitting the rhapsode to improvise and complete the verse. This research by Parry and his assistant, Albert Lord, was conducted in Yugoslavia.

Homer (a Hellenic name in Aeolis) was born in Smyrna (Ionia’s northern limit), or on the island of Chios, and died on the Cycladic island of Ios. His name means hostage, follower, or blind (ὁ μὴ ὁρῶν: “he who does not see”). Like Thamyris or Hesiod, Homer was a wandering minstrel, who hanged around with ordinary people – fishermen, sailors, potters, shoemakers, or elderly men – at harbours.⁽¹¹⁾ This image, of course, is far from that of a court musician-poet. Rapidity-ease of movement and plainness of expression-thought do not distinguish the great epic poets Virgil, Dante, or Milton. They rather distinguish the humbler epico-lyrical school. But Homer does not belong to that school, neither his poetry is in any sense ballad poetry. This is apparent through the higher artistic structure and value of his poems. It is his noble and powerful style that eventually separates Homer from all forms of ballad poetry and popular epic. His art is distinguished from the works of Virgil, Dante, and Milton, due to the comparative absence of underlying motives or sentiments. In Virgil’s poetry, a sense of the greatness of Rome is the leading motive of a passionate rhetoric, veiled by the considered delicacy of his language. Dante and Milton are still more faithful exponents of the religion and politics of their time. French epics display sentiments of fear or hatred of the Saracens. In Homer’s work, the interest is purely dramatic. There is no antipathy of race or religion. He is principally interested in human feeling or emotion, and also drama. Indeed, his poems are often referred to as dramas.

Above all, we need to remember that Homer recited his epics; Virgil, Dante, and all the rest wrote them down…

• ⁽¹¹⁾ An elderly Homer, it is said, was going around Ios, the last stop of his life’s voyage, together with children, singing the carols of the day.

● Influences from the mythology and literature of Near East have been seen in the Odyssey. Martin West has noted some parallels between the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Odyssey. Both Odysseus and Gilgamesh travel to the ends of the earth, and even to the underworld. Odysseus follows instructions given to him by Calypso, or Circe, a daughter of the sun-god Helios. Their islands are located at the edges of the world. Gilgamesh also gets directions from the goddess Siduri, who also dwells by the sea at the ends of the earth. Others correlate Homer with Hittite epics. It seems that the great epic poet was equally “resourceful” with his protagonist, Odysseus.

THE “CLASSICAL” MEDITERRANEAN ODYSSEY

● [1] TROY. Setting sail, Odysseus and his men were greeted by friendly and calm waters. He had not committed hubris yet…
● [2] ISMARUS, LAND OF THE CICONES. Odysseus and his men looted the city and robbed it of all its goods. The crew refused to leave quickly and fell asleep on the beach. The next morning the Cicones returned with their fierce kinsmen from the mountains. Odysseus escaped but lost many men. On leaving, his twelve ships were driven off course by fierce storms.
● [3] THE LOTUS EATERS’ ISLAND. Odysseus’ scouting party ate lotus fruit with the natives. This caused them to fall asleep and stop caring about ever going home.
● [4] THE CYCLOPES’ ISLAND. The giant one-eyed Cyclops Polyphemus devoured two of Odysseus’ men each day. Odysseus gave Polyphemus intoxicating wine and then blinded him with a wooden stake. As a result, Odysseus was haunted by the wrath of Poseidon, the Cyclops’ father, who cursed Odysseus to wander the sea for years.
● [5] AEOLIA, LAND OF AEOLUS, GOD OF THE WINDS. Aeolus gave Odysseus hospitality for a month and then a leather bag containing all the winds, except the west wind, so as to return safely home. However, the crew foolishly opened the bag while Odysseus slept, just as Ithaca came into sight, thinking that it contained gold. The resulting storm drove the ships back to Aeolia, but Aeolus refused to provide any further help.
● [6] TELEPYLOS, IN THE LAND OF THE LAESTRYGONIANS. These man-eating giants attacked the fleet with boulders, sinking all the ships but one and killing hundreds.
● [7] AEAEA, CIRCE’S ISLAND. Circe turned all of Odysseus’ men into pigs after feeding them cheese and wine. Hermes gave Odysseus a drug called moly in order to resist Circe’s magic. She agreed to change Odysseus’ men back to their human form in exchange for his love. They remained on the island for one year feasting and drinking.
● [8] HADES, THE UNDERWORLD. Guided by Circe’s instructions, Odysseus crossed the ocean and reached a harbour at the western edge of the world where he sacrificed to the dead and summoned the spirit of the prophet Tiresias to advise him.
● [9] SIRENS. Odysseus escaped by having all his men plug their ears with beeswax and tie him to the mast. When he heard their beautiful song he begged the men to untie him but they ignored him.
● [10] SCYLLA & CHARYBDIS. Circe advised Odysseus to sail closer to the six-headed monster Scylla, for the whirlpool Charybdis could drown the ship. However, Scylla devoured six of his men.
● [11] THRINACIA, HELIOS’ SACRED ISLAND. Though Odysseus warned his men not to kill any of Helios’ sacred cattle, they disobeyed. Helios’ daughters told their father and he destroyed the ship and all men save Odysseus.
● [12] OGYGIA, CALYPSO’S ISLAND. The nymph made him her lover for seven years. On behalf of Athena, Zeus sent Hermes to tell Calypso to let Odysseus go.
● [13] SCHERIA, THE PHAEACIANS’ ISLAND. Washed up on the shore, Odysseus was found by Nausicaa, daughter of King Alcinous, who entertained him and escorted him to Ithaca.
● [14] ITHACA. On the twentieth day of sailing Odysseus finally arrived home.

• >> Chronicle 16. MEDITERRANEAN PERIPLUS-PARAPLUS
• << Chronicle 14. MUSIC MADE OF BODY AND SOUL

Next Chronicle 16. MEDITERRANEAN PERIPLUS-PARAPLUS ● Periplus: Circumnavigation or Log ● Navigators and Intellectuals ● The Peloponnesian War and Euripides ● Nomos (Law Song)

PERIPLUS: Deambulações luso-gregas

PERIPLUS: Deambulações luso-gregas

/ENGLISH/ PERIPLUS: Luso-Hellenic Wanderings
/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ ΠΕΡΙΠΛΟΥΣ: Ελληνοπορτογαλικές περιηγήσεις

PERIPLUS, significando circum-navegação, refere-se ás antigas viagens no Mediterrâneo e para lá dele, no oceano Atlântico e Índico. Escolhemos este termo para representar a nossa própria viagem no tempo e no espaço à volta da cultura mediterrânica e de todas as outras que floresceram através do contacto com este berço civilizacional.

Focalizámo-nos na ligação entre a música e a poesia, especialmente a dos nossos países, Portugal e Grécia. É por isso que os que vêm a bordo do Periplus são principalmente portugueses e gregos, embora sejamos tudo menos exclusivistas: construir pontes, abrir janelas, é o que fazemos melhor, trabalhando em conjunto, sobretudo via internet.

 
O nosso objectivo foi o de trabalhar a música e poesia numa contemporaneidade inspirada no riquíssimo comum património artístico, não apenas erudito mas também popular. Assim, para lá das músicas de nossa autoria incluímos, recuando até à música e poesia grega antiga e adaptando, de acordo com a nossa sensibilidade, o Primeiro Hino délfico dedicado a Apolo, composto provavelmente por Athenaeus, o Hino a Némesis de Mesomedes e o Epitáfio de Seikilos.

Kisanji (Calimba)

Dentro do mesmo espírito trabalhámos temas tradicionais como o português Cantiga de rega, o grego Syrtós cretense, o igualmente cretense Pesado como ferro, o epirótico Meu pássaro emigrado e o rebético Os mangas da taverna que aqui dialoga com o equivalente canto urbano português, o fado. Partindo ainda da morna de Cabo Verde aportamos nas escalas pentatónicas de África e do Épiro. Também encontrámos proximidades e referencias comuns nas canções de embalar e lenga-lengas de ambos os países, e uma quase identica lírica entre Da folhinha de uma rosa portuguesa e galega, e A folha da rosa, uma canção grega oriunda da Ásia Menor.

Hélia Correia e “A Terceira Miséria”
com o Pártenon na capa

Estão presentes poetas de que muito gostamos: Ares Alexandrou com Nota ilegal, Canção de embalar e Os meus ditames; Fernando Pessoa com Calma; Constantino Cavafy com Ítaca; Natália Correia com Cântico do país emerso; e Hélia Correia com a sua adaptação do Epitáfio de Seikilos, que ela aqui canta no original grego antigo.

Além de Hélia Correia temos mais convidados especiais: a cantora grega Eleni Tsaligopoulou e também a Outra Voz, Coro de Cidadãos, criado no âmbito do Área da Comunidade, de Guimarães Capital Europeia da Cultura. Esta participação da sociedade civil é para nós crucial, no esforço de ligação entre o popular e o erudito, a tradição e a inovação, o antigo e o moderno, a grecofonia e a lusofonia, o longe e o perto.

Amélia Muge & Michales Loukovikas

PERIPLUS: Luso-Hellenic Wanderings

PERIPLUS: Luso-Hellenic Wanderings

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ ΠΕΡΙΠΛΟΥΣ: Ελληνοπορτογαλικές περιηγήσεις
/PORTUGUÊS/ PERIPLUS: Deambulações luso-gregas

PERIPLUS, meaning “sailing around”, refers to the ancient voyages around the Mediterranean and beyond, in the Atlantic and the Indian oceans. We have chosen this term to signify our own voyage in time and space around the Mediterranean culture and all the others that blossomed coming into contact with this cradle of civilization.

Our focus is the union of music and poetry, especially those of our countries, Portugal and Hellas. That is why most of those aboard Periplus are Portuguese and Greeks, although we are anything but an exclusive club: building bridges, opening windows, is our specialty, working together mainly via the internet.

 

 

Our aim is to create new music and poetry, inspired by the great arts of the past, our rich, common heritage, not only erudite but also folk. Thus, except our own original songs, we have gone as far back as the ancient Hellenic music and poetry, adapting according to our sensibilities the First Delphic Hymn, dedicated to Apollo, probably composed by Athenaeos (circa 138-128 BCE), the Epitaph by Seikilos (sometime between 2nd century BCE and 1st century CE), and the Hymn to Nemesis by Mesomedes of Crete (early 2nd century CE).

Kalimba or thumb piano

In the same spirit, we have worked on folk themes, such as the Portuguese Watering Song, the Greek Cretan Syrtos, the equally Cretan Heavy As Iron, the Epirotic My Immigrant Bird, and the Rebetiko The Manges of the Tavern, which we combine with its Portuguese equivalent, the Fado, while from the Cape-Verdian Morna we land to the pentatone of Africa and Epirus. We have also found common grounds and references in lullabies and children’s rhymes of both countries and also in the love song The Foliage of a Rose as sung by Greeks, Portuguese and Galicians with almost identical lyrics.

Hélia Correia and “A Terceira Miséria”
with Parthenon on the cover

 

Some of the poets we have loved are present here: Ares Alexandrou with his Illegal Note, Lullaby, and The Inner Dictates; Fernando Pessoa with his Calm, Constantine Cavafy with his Ithaca; Natália Correia with her Ode to an Emersed Land; and Hélia Correia with her adaptation of the Epitaph by Seikilos, which she sings in the original ancient Greek.

Except Hélia Correia, we have more special guests: the Greek singer Eleni Tsaligopoulou, and also Outra Voz, a choir of Guimarães citizens, created after their city had been designated as a European Capital of Culture. This participation of the civil society is crucial for us in our effort to link the folk with the erudite, the traditional with the innovative, the ancient with the modern, the Graecophone with the Lusophone, the nearby with the distant.

Amélia Muge & Michales Loukovikas