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The Fall of Candia
It is these years of slavery in distant places, and banishment for
rebelliousness which reinforced the Greek preoccupation with xeniteia,
‘being-abroad’, a major theme in the folk poetry, and one which has
been transmitted into the modern poetry. It is not uncommon to find
references to Cretans in exile who have ‘died of homesickness’, like
some of those Sphakians who were banished after the rebellion of 1571.
This gloomy picture is relieved by two stories, both from much later,
whose interest must excuse their irrelevance. Both are of Cretan girls
who, in different ways, made good. The first was carried off to Constantinople
when the Turks took Canea in 1645, and in consequence of
her great beauty was presented to the Sultan Ibrahim, who gave her
to his Grand Vizier. Her young son remained in Crete, was brought up
in the Orthodox Faith, and went to Padua to take a degree in law. When
Tournefort visited Rethymnon he stayed with this son, Dr Patelaros,
who told him how on his return from Padua he had set out for Constantinople
to see his mother, who had become vastly rich. A traditionally
Greek recognition scene took place. ‘He made himself known to
her by a wart behind his ear; this wart, which he took care to show us,
is crown’d with a blackish spot, not unlike a half-moon in form. She
presently remembered this mark, and would fain have made use of it as
an argument that he was ordain’d to be a Mussulman; which to bring
about, no sollicitations were wanting.’
They even offered the doctor valuable property in Wallachia, so
he later claimed, to get him to change his faith. But in vain. He resolved
to die in the religion of his forefathers, and, says Tournefort, ‘he leads
an agreeable life, under the protection of France’.
The heroine of the second story was captured by Muslims in 1821.
The villagers of Apodoulo, when they heard of the approach of the
enemy, retired up Mt Ida, leaving behind only two centenarians who
were killed despite their age. One Captain Alexandros, however, having
lost four children in a recent epidemic, and wishing to isolate his
remaining two from the contagion, put them in a hut outside the village
and told them to keep quiet at all costs. The main body of Muslims
passed the hut without action but a straggler looked inside in the hope
of loot. The two children were abducted; the girl sold into slavery in
Egypt.
Pashley met this Alexandros when he visited the village and heard the
happy sequel; how in 1829, eight years after the girl’s disappear-ance,
an Englishman, with his wife and several domestics, arrived in
Canea. The party of visitors made haste to Apodoulo to find Alexandros.
The wife was the lost daughter. ‘It would be as difficult to
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