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The Death of Pan
So Digenes is familiar in Cretan legend. But he hardly features in
Cretan song except in his death, which is one of the most popular
themes in Crete, The theme, which is found also in Rhodes and Cyprus
(and started of course in Asia Minor), is treated differently in each
area; it is a good example of the way themes are incorporated into a
local tradition. The Cretan song is thus quite different from the
Cypriot. In Cyprus various episodes from the Akritic cycle arc woven
into a longish, dramatic account. Charos, dressed in black, comes to
Digenes’s house and finds him eating and drinking. They wrestle
together for the hero’s soul, and in the end – but only with God’s help –
Charos wins. Digenes on his deathbed tells the friends who stand
around of his life’s exploits; and when he dies he takes his wife with
him in his crushing embrace.
This makes a good story. The Cypriot poetares is a professional and
goes from village to village reciting his work and selling it in pamphlets
afterwards. He combines the function of poet and journalist – very like
those accursed Paphlagonians. So he is merely treating the Digenes
themes in his usual style. That is, he is primarily interested in the story,
which he puts over with a wealth of formulae to help him. You can see
in the first four lines of a version recorded by Professor Notopoulos how
the bard’s aim is to catch the audience’s attention for a narrative:
Schoolmasters and schoolmistresses have told me to begin
To sing the song of Digenes the brave.
Let us start the song which they have praised so much,. .
And thanks to my Creator it has not a lie in it. 1
That is rapid and fetching enough.
The Cretan mountaineer treats these themes in his usual style too.
So he compresses and reduces and distils, and the result is a short lyrical
heroic piece.
Digenes lies dying and the earth trembles at him.
The heavens lighten and thunder, the upper world is shaken,
And the lower world has opened, the foundations grind,
And the gravestone shudders – how is it to cover him,
To cover the eagle, the brave one of the world ?
Houses could not cover him, caves had no room for him,
He straddled the mountains at a stride, he jumped the peaks,
He played quoits with the rocks.
He beat hares at speed of movement, and hawks at flying,
At racing and jumping he beat deer and the ibex.
Charos is secretly envious, watches him from far off;
Wounded him to the heart and took his soul.
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