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The Song
‘That’s how I learnt, that’s how I play,’ he says. ‘What’s it to do with
you?’
‘Nothing,’ they say. ‘But if you want we can teach you to play so
the rocks will dance.’ And they beg him to come out of the circle and
be taught. He goes on playing. They ask, at any rate, for the lyre. He
hands it over taking care not to put his hand outside the circle – for
they would cut it off. A Nereid takes the lyre, plays it for a few moments
with ravishing skill, and gives it back: ‘Take it. You don’t trust us.’
But they go on trying to trick him into putting at least a hand or a
finger outside.
Finally the cock crows. It is the signal for their departure. They cannot
teach him without some payment. So now, carefully, the lyrist
puts just the tip of his little finger outside the circle, and the Nereids cut
it off. In next to no time they have taught him to play like themselves –
and then they are off, to hide during the daylight hours. 4
Cretan instrumentalists have no false modesty. Why should they,
when they are members of an honourable guild? There are probably
less of them now than there once were – it is difficult to be sure of this–
but they are far more mobile than before. A pair of professionals based
on Canea can cover the whole of western Crete, playing at festivals,
and, if they are well known, making records and playing on Canea
radio.
Among the lyrists, singers and poets of Crete, one stands out if only
for his versatility. This is John Dermitzakis, the bard of Sitea. He keeps
a draper’s shop, but is happy enough to put work aside and listen to his
own records with any interested visitors. He plays the lyre, the guitar
and the violin, and composes and sings his own mantinades. As well as
making records he has published his verses, together with a few pithy
moral aphorisms – ‘Death is the fate common to all of us, but we
conquer it with what we create’ - which illustrate the self-confidence I
spoke of. This is particularly well marked in Dermitzakis. His little
book is full of pats on the back from men who approved of his verses.
There is a letter from Spyros Markezinis the political leader; a postcard
from Nikos Kazantzakis in Antibes (‘With much pleasure I read your
mantinades which reminded me of my beloved Crete’); a postcard from
Samuel Baud-Bovy the musicologist; and an intriguing message from
‘Angelika Farmer, Great Missewden’.
Most of Dermitzakis’s verses are of no great interest. I mention him
here because he is typical of the rhymadori who have kept the tradition
going. Each of these creators left something behind him; and doubtless
some few of Dermitzakis’s better mantinades will enter the repertory,
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