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5
The Cretan Renaissance
Constantinople fell on 29 May 1453. There were Cretans involved in
the defence, and Cretan ships arrived at Candia with the shattering
news early in June. An anonymous poet described the horror:
Groans, sobs, lamentation, sighs, grief,
Sadness inconsolable have fallen on the Greeks.
They have lost their home, their Holy City,
Their courage, their pride, their hope.
How was the news brought? A ship sailed down from Tenedos:
‘Where are you from, ship, where have you come from?’
‘I come from the curse and the heavy dark
From the storming hail and lightning, the dizzy wind;
I come from the City burnt by the thunderbolt.’
He describes the pillage and murder, and the fate of the Emperor
Constantine XI:
He looked humbly to right and to left;
The Cretans are fleeing, the Genoese,
The Venetians are fleeing, and he remains.
He cried humbly with his lost lips:
‘You are fleeing, my children, you arc slipping away,
And where do you leave me, the unhappy-fated?
You leave me to the dogs and the wild beast’s mouth.
Christians, Greeks, cut off my head,
Take it, good Cretans, and carry it to Crete,
For the Cretans to see it and be sad at heart. ’
But in fact the emperor’s body was lost. The poet ends:
Angels and saints protect us no longer.
Thus the Cretans heard of the most important event in Greek
history. The emperor’s words signified that, Constantinople now lost, Crete
was become the refuge of Hellenism.
1453 therefore marks conveniently the beginning of Crete’s importance
to the west. Refugees had fled to the great island before this; but
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