KONSTANTINOS PETROU KAVAFIS'S POEM 'ITHAKA'

Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis

After a Loli Stone's masterclass about The Iliad, accompanied by Homer, The Stones have decided to visit the island. Ithaca is a wonderful Mediterranean island and a fantastic place to practice trekking.

The family has decided to discover the hidden places of the island by foot. While The Stones enjoyed and contemplated the views, Daniel Stone was playing his fidle and Loli Stone was reciting one of the most transcendental and beautiful poems ever written, Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis's Ithaca.

Konstantin or Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis, also known as Constantine Peter Cavafy, in Greek Κωνσταντίνος Π. Καβάφης (April 29 1863-April 29, 1933) was an Egyptiot Greek poet, journalist and civil servant. His consciously individual style earned him a place among the most important figures not only in Greek poetry, but in Western poetry as well.

Kavafis wrote 155 poems, while dozens more remained incomplete or in sketch form. During his lifetime, he consistently refused to formally publish his work and preferred to share it through local newspapers and magazines, or even print it out himself and give it away to anyone interested.

His most important poems were written after his fortieth birthday, and officially published two years after his death.

More information: Poetry Foundation

Kavafis was born in 1863 in Alexandria, Egypt, to Greek parents, originated from the Greek community of Constantinople (Istanbul), and was baptized into the Greek Orthodox Church.

His father's name was Πέτρος Ἰωάννης, Petros Ioannēs -hence the Petrou patronymic (GEN) in his name- and his mother's Charicleia. His father was a prosperous importer-exporter who had lived in England in earlier years and acquired British nationality. After his father died in 1870, Kavafis and his family settled for a while in Liverpool.

David & Loli Stone recite Kavafis's Ithaka in Aetos

In 1876, his family faced financial problems due to the Long Depression of 1873, so, by 1877, they had to move back to Alexandria.

In 1882, disturbances in Alexandria caused the family to move again, though temporarily, to Constantinople. This was the year when a revolt broke out in Alexandria against the Anglo-French control of Egypt, thus precipitating the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War. Alexandria was bombarded by a British fleet, and the family apartment at Ramleh was burned.

In 1885, Kavafis returned to Alexandria, where he lived for the rest of his life. His first work was as a journalist; then he took a position with the British-run Egyptian Ministry of Public Works for thirty years. Egypt was a British protectorate until 1926.

He published his poetry from 1891 to 1904 in the form of broadsheets, and only for his close friends. Any acclaim he was to receive came mainly from within the Greek community of Alexandria. Eventually, in 1903, he was introduced to mainland-Greek literary circles through a favourable review by Gregorios Xenopoulos.

He received little recognition because his style differed markedly from the then-mainstream Greek poetry. It was only twenty years later, after the Greek defeat in the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), that a new generation of almost nihilist poets would find inspiration in Kavafis's work.

More information: Cambridge Scholars

He died on April 29, 1933, his 70th birthday. Since his death, Kavafis's reputation has grown. His poetry is taught in school in Greece and Cyprus, and in universities around the world.

E. M. Forster knew him personally and wrote a memoir of him, contained in his book Alexandria. Forster, Arnold J. Toynbee, and T. S. Eliot were among the earliest promoters of Kavafis in the English-speaking world before the Second World War. In 1966, David Hockney made a series of prints to illustrate a selection of Kavafis's poems, including In the dull village.

Kavafis was instrumental in the revival and recognition of Greek poetry both at home and abroad. His poems are, typically, concise but intimate evocations of real or literary figures and milieux that have played roles in Greek culture. 

Visiting the Alalkomenes Acropolis, Ithaca

Uncertainty about the future, sensual pleasures, the moral character and psychology of individuals, homosexuality, and a fatalistic existential nostalgia are some of the defining themes.

Besides his subjects, unconventional for the time, his poems also exhibit a skilled and versatile craftsmanship, which is extremely difficult to translate.

Kavafis was a perfectionist, obsessively refining every single line of his poetry. His mature style was a free iambic form, free in the sense that verses rarely rhyme and are usually from 10 to 17 syllables. In his poems, the presence of rhyme usually implies irony.

Kavafis drew his themes from personal experience, along with a deep and wide knowledge of history, especially of the Hellenistic era. Many of his poems are pseudo-historical, or seemingly historical, or accurately but quirkily historical.

One of Kavafis's most important works is his 1904 poem Waiting for the Barbarians. The poem begins by describing a city-state in decline, whose population and legislators are waiting for the arrival of the barbarians. When night falls, the barbarians have not arrived. The poem ends: What is to become of us without barbarians? Those people were a solution of a sort.

More information: Poets

In 1911, Kavafis wrote Ithaca, inspired by the Homeric return journey of Odysseus to his home island, as depicted in the Odyssey.

The poem's theme is the destination which produces the journey of life: Keep Ithaka always in your mind. / Arriving there is what you’re destined for. The traveller should set out with hope, and at the end you may find Ithaca has no more riches to give you, but Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey.

Almost all of Kavafis's work was in Greek; yet, his poetry remained unrecognized and underestimated in Greece, until after the publication of the first anthology in 1935 by Heracles Apostolidis, father of Renos Apostolidis.

His unique style and language, which was a mixture of Katharevousa and Demotic Greek, had brought him under the criticism of Kostis Palamas, the greatest poet of his era in mainland Greece, and his followers, who were in favour of the simplest form of Demotic Greek.

He is known for his prosaic use of metaphors, his brilliant use of historical imagery, and his aesthetic perfectionism. These attributes, amongst others, have assured him an enduring place in the literary pantheon of the Western World.

More information: The New Yorker

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
 

Konstantinos P. Kavafis

THE STONES TRAVEL TO ITHACA ISLAND, ULYSSES'S HOME

Brauny Stone has suggested to travel to Ithaca

Today, The Stones have decided to travel to Ithaca, the Greek island located in the Ionian Sea, well-known by being the hometown of Ulysses.

After some discussions with Brauny, the family has chosen this wonderful place to spend some days. They want to relax and discover the amazing history of this island, one of the most mystic of the Mediterranean Sea. Because it is their first travel together, The Grandma has decided to prepare the budget and the activities planning to avoid they have too much work and they have enough time to prepare their suitcases and be ready to take their plane tomorrow afternoon. She has also gone to El Prat International Airport to prepare her private jet.

Before talking about this travel, The Stones have been talking about some aspects of English Grammar. They have studied the order of adjectives, the a/an article and the Saxon genitive. They have received great news when they have met Juan Stone, a new member of this great family.

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More information: Order of Adjectives I & II

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Ithaca, Ithaki or Ithaka, in Greek Ιθάκη, Ithakē, is a Greek island located in the Ionian Sea, off the northeast coast of Kefalonia and to the west of continental Greece.

Ithaca's main island has an area of 96 square kilometres and had a population in 2011 of 3,231. It is the second-smallest of seven main Ionian Islands, after Paxi. Ithaca is a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and the only municipality of the regional unit. The capital is Vathy or Vathi.

Modern Ithaca is generally identified with Homer's Ithaca, the home of Odysseus, whose delayed return to the island is the plot of the classical Greek tale the Odyssey.

More information: Ithaca

Although the name Ithaca has remained unchanged since ancient times, written documents of different periods also refer to the island by other names, such as:

-Val di Compare (Valley of the Bestman), Piccola (Small) Cephallonia, Anticephallonia (Middle Ages until the beginning of the Venetian period)

-Ithaki nisos (Greek for island), Thrakoniso, Thakou, Thiakou (Byzantine period)

-Thiaki (Byzantine and before the Venetian period)

-Teaki (Venetian period)

-Fiaki (Ottoman period)

The island has been inhabited since the 2nd millennium BC. It may have been the capital of Cephalonia during the Mycenaean period and the capital-state of the small kingdom ruled by Odysseus. 

The Grandma checks her private plane

The Romans occupied the island in the 2nd century BC, and later it became part of the Byzantine Empire. The Normans ruled Ithaca in the 13th century, and after a short Turkish rule it fell into Venetian hands, Ionian Islands under Venetian rule.

Ithaca was subsequently occupied by France under the 1797 Treaty of Campo Formio. It was liberated by a joint Russo-Turkish force commanded by admirals Fyodor Ushakov and Kadir Bey in 1798 and subsequently became a part of the Septinsular Republic, which was originally established as a protectorate of the Russian Empire and Ottoman Empire. It became a French possession again in 1807, until it was taken over by the United Kingdom in 1809.

Under the 1815 Treaty of Paris, Ithaca became a state of the United States of the Ionian Islands, a protectorate of the British Empire. In 1830 the local community requested to join with the rest of the newly restored nation-state of Greece. Under the 1864 Treaty of London, Ithaca, along with the remaining six Ionian islands, was ceded to Greece as a gesture of diplomatic friendship to Greece's new Anglophile king, George I. The United Kingdom kept its privileged use of the harbour at Corfu.

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The origins of the first people to inhabit the island, which occurred during the last years of the Neolithic period (4000–3000 BC), are not clear. The traces of buildings, walls and a road from this time period prove that life existed and continued to do so during the Early Hellenic era (3000–2000 BC). In the years (2000–1500 BC) some of the population migrated to part of the island. The buildings and walls that were excavated showed the lifestyle of this period had remained primitive.

During the Mycenaean period (1600–1100 BC), Ithaca rose to the highest level of its ancient history. Mostly based on the Odyssey and oral traditions, it is believed that the island became the capital of the Ionian Kingdom-State, which included the surrounding lands, and was referred to as one of the most powerful states of that time. The Ithacans were characterized as great navigators and explorers with daring expeditions reaching further than the Mediterranean Sea.

The epic poems of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey, shed some light on Bronze-Age Ithaca. Those poems are generally thought to have been composed sometime in the 9th or 8th centuries BC, but may have made use of older mythological and poetic traditions; their depiction of the hero Odysseus and his rule over Ithaca and the surrounding islands and mainland preserves some memories of the political geography, customs, and society of the time.

Ithaca, Ionian Sea, Greece

After the end of the Mycenaean period Ithaca's influence diminished, and it came under the jurisdiction of the nearest large island.

During the ancient Hellenic prime (800–180 BC), independent organized life continued in the northern and southern part of the island. In the southern part, in the area of Aetos, the town Alalcomenae was founded. From this period, many objects of important historical value have been found during excavations. Among these objects are coins imprinted with the name Ithaca and the image of Odysseus which suggest that the island was self-governed.

According to the different periods, conquerors and circumstances, the population of the island kept changing. Although there is no definite numerical information until the Venetian period, it is believed that from the Mycenaean to the Byzantine period, the number of inhabitants was several thousand, who lived mainly in the northern part of Ithaca. During the Middle Ages, the population decreased due to the continuous invasions of pirates, forcing the people to establish settlements and live in the mountains.

In 1479, Ottoman forces reached the islands and many of the people fled from the island out of fear of the new Turkish settlers. Those that remained hid in the mountains to avoid the pirates who controlled the channel between Cephalonia and Ithaca and the bays of the island.

In the following five years, the Turks, Toques and Venetians laid claim to the islands diplomatically. Possession of the islands was finally taken by the Ottoman Empire from 1484 to 1499. During this period, the Venetians had strengthened into a major power with an organized fleet. The Venetians pursued their interest in the Ionian Islands, and in 1499 a war between the Venetians and the Turks began. The allied fleets of the Venetians and the Spanish besieged Ithaca, and the other islands.

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The fleets prevailed, and from 1500 onwards the Venetians controlled the islands. According to a treaty of 1503, Ithaca, Cephalonia and Zakynthos would be ruled by the Venetians, and Lefkada by the Ottoman Empire. By then Ithaca was almost uninhabited, and the Venetians had to grant incentives to settlers from neighbouring islands and the mainland to repopulate it. During the next centuries, the island remained under Venetian control.

A few years after the French Revolution, the Ionian area came under the rule of the First French Republic (1797–1798), and the island became the honorary capital of the French département of Ithaque, comprising Cephalonia, Lefkada, and part of the mainland, the prefecture was at Argostoli on Kefalonia.

The population welcomed the French, who took care in the control of the administrative and judicial systems, but later the heavy taxation they demanded caused a feeling of indignation among the people. During this short historical period, the new ideas of system and social structure greatly influenced the inhabitants of the island.

At the end of 1798, the French were succeeded by Russia and Turkey (1798–1807), which were allies at that time. Corfu became the capital of the Ionian States, and the form of government was democratic, with a fourteen-member senate in which Ithaca had one representative.

The Ithacan fleet flourished when it was allowed to carry cargo up to the ports of the Black Sea.

Ithaca, Ionian Sea, Greece

In 1807, according to the Tilsit Treaty with Turkey, the Ionian Islands once again came under the French rule (1807–1809 AD). The French quickly began preparing to face the British fleet, which had become very powerful, by building a fort in Vathy.

In 1809 Great Britain mounted a blockade on the Ionian Islands as part of the war against Napoleon, and in September of that year they hoisted the British flag above the castle of Zakynthos. Cephalonia and Ithaca soon surrendered, and the British installed provisional governments. The treaty of Paris in 1815 recognised the United States of the Ionian Islands and decreed that it become a British protectorate. Colonel Charles Philippe de Bosset became provisional governor between 1810 and 1814.

A few years later resistance groups started to form. Although their energy in the early years was directed to supporting the Greeks in the revolution against the Turks, it soon started to turn towards the British. By 1848 the resistance movement was gaining strength and there were skirmishes with the British Army in Argostoli and Lixouri which led to some relaxation in the laws and to freedom of the press.

Union with Greece was now a declared aim, and by 1850 a growing restlessness resulted in even more skirmishes. Ithaca along with the other islands were transferred to Greece in 1864 as a gesture of goodwill when the British-backed Prince William of Denmark became King George the First of the Hellenes.

During the British protectorate period prominent citizens of Ithaki participated in the secret Philiki Etairia which was instrumental in organizing the Greek Revolution of 1821 against Turkish rule, and Greek fighters found refuge there. In addition, the participation of Ithacans during the siege of Messolongi and the naval battles against Ottoman ships at the Black Sea and the Danube was significant.

Ithaca was annexed to Greek Kingdom with the rest of the Ionian islands in 1864.

More information: Discover Greece

Ithaca lies east of the northeast coast of Cephalonia, from which it is separated by the Strait of Ithaca. The regional unit covers an area of 117.812 square kilometresand has approximately 100 kilometres of coastline. The main island stretches in the north-south direction, in length of 23 km and maximum width of 6 km. It consists of two parts, of about equal size, connected by the narrow isthmus of Aetos (Eagle), just 600 metres wide. The two parts enclose the bay of Molos, whose southern branch is the harbor of Vathy, the capital and largest settlement of the island. The second largest village is Stavros in the northern part.

Lazaretto Islet or Island of The Saviour guards the harbor. The church of The Saviour and the remains of an old gaol are located on the islet.

The capes in the island include Exogi, the westernmost, Melissa to the north, Mavronos, Agios Ilias, Schinous, Sarakiniko and Agios Ioannis, to the east, and Agiou Andreou, to the south. Bays include Afales Bay to the northwest, Frikes and Kioni Bays to the northeast, Molos Gulf to the east, and Ormos Gulf and Sarakiniko Bay to the southeast. The tallest mountain is Nirito in the northern part (806 m), followed by Merovigli (669 m) in the south.

Its largest towns are Vathy (pop. 1,920 in 2011), Perachori (343), Stavros (366), Platreithias (201), and Kioni (182). Ithaca is the only populated island in this island group.

More information: Greeka

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.

Konstantinos Kavafis

SAM SHEPARD: CINEMA AS A SOCIAL COMMITMENT

Sam Shepard

First time The Grandma watched Sam Shepard in a film was in 1987. The film was called Baby Boom and explained the adventures of an agressive executive woman, played by Diane Keaton, who has to take care of a little baby and decides to travel to a small town to start a new life.

After that film, Sam Shepard was an habitual actor for The Grandma who has always admired him: The Right Stuff, Crimes of the Heart, Steel Magnolias, The Pelican Brief, Swordfish, Fair Game or Ithaca are considered a must in the list of The Grandma's great movies.

More information: Britannica

Sam Shepard was an American actor, screenwriter, playwright, director, and author. The following is his screen filmography as an actor, screenwriter, and director. Shepard was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Chuck Yeager in the 1983 film The Right Stuff. The following year, he was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for co-writing Paris, Texas (1984). For his role in the 1999 television film Dash and Lilly, he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, Miniseries or Television Film. 

Sit tibi terra levis, Sam!

Democracy's a very fragile thing. You have to take care of democracy. 

As soon as you stop being responsible to it and allow it to turn into scare tactics, it's no longer democracy, is it? It's something else. 

It may be an inch away from totalitarianism. 

Sam Shepard

PAULA BOND, OPEN HAPPINESS

Paula is graviting inside the Space Station

Paula Bond. Astronaut. Greece.

I was born in Ithaca, Ulysses hometown in Greece. Living in an island, offers you a micro vision of life because you live isolated and your daily routines are very limited. This is the reason because of I decided to have a macro vision of the world and I became an astronaut. When you're in the space you feel like an ant and realize the magnitude of the universe. I like reading biographies and photography.

-Good morning, Paula Bond, and thanks to attend us.

-Good morning. Welcome to my country, the cradle of Mediterranean civilization.

-Thanks. It's always a pleasure being here. Well, to start this interview I would like to know how you define yourself.

-I'm an astronaut, a person who travels in space and tries to search answers to thousands of human questions.

-The most part of people, when they were children wanted to be an astronaut. How can you explain them to them?

-Yes, it's true. An astronaut or a firefighter. I don't know but perhaps an explanation could be that children are honest and maybe they perceive astronauts and firefighters like modern heroes. Everybody wants to be a superhero when he/she is a child because a superhero represents good things and because of they are still innocent, they have the superheroes like someone to imitate. A child always imitates the things that he/she sees. It's normal. They're under an age of knowledge and learning.

-Then, do you believe in heroes?

-Yes, of course. I was born in Ithaca, Ulysses and Penelope’s island and for the Greek culture heroes and gods have been something very important that has influenced our personality. Everybody can be a hero, because a hero isn't a superhero. A superhero is a modern creation, a person who has incredible powers but a hero is a person who resists adversity and fight against it. Then, in our society, we can find millions of examples of heroes.

-How do you feel being a member of The Bond's family?

-It's a good experience. The family is a group of fantastic people and I'm very proud of being a part of them. It has been a great experience to open happiness.

-How is a normal day with The Bonds?

-It's difficult to talk about a normal day with The Bonds because we're a family full of energy and creativity and then all is possible and they can change all things in a second but I must accept that I've improved my English with them.

-How long have you been studying English?

-English has been always very important in Greece, especially since the arrival of the massive tourism but I didn't study English at school, I studied Russian.

-Russian? It's not possible!

-Yes. Greece has a lot of things in common with the Russian culture. Both of us are orthodox and we haven't latin alphabets.

-Then, you speak two languages? Is it very difficult to do it?

-No it isn't. In fact, as many languages you speak is easier to learn the next. I have learnt this from The Bonds. All of them speak, at least, two languages and this is very important because a language is a powerful tool of communication and, in my case, two languages mean two alphabets, too.

-What can you explain about your life with The Bonds?

-It's a great experience. I spend my life up, in the sky and it's good to stay with your feet on the land and pay attention about the reality from another point of view. I've spent good moments with them.

-And after?

-When we started as a family, we arrived with different ideas, knowledge and perspectives. During our experience as a Bond's member, we have been working together and we've created a good team. This is something that we won't lose although every member of our family is going to take a different path but I'm sure that we're going to open happiness wherever we stay.

-Which is your best memory with the family?

It's very difficult to choose one but I remember two special moments: the day that King Kong took me and the family rescued me and the day I could explain to my family my opinion about the education in a closer future. It was a very interesting discussing.

-You like photography, don’t you?

-Yes, I do.

-What's your own favourite photo?

-When I was in NASA, training and being fit were two important things. We were in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. We swam a lot in the Caribbean Sea and I remember when I discovered a whale shark swimming next to me. I was astonished. Imagine! It lives in oceans and rivers and finds its prey with its sense of smell and kills them with their 3,000 teeth and it was there swimming with me.

-You have also said that you like reading biographies. Which is your favourite?

-Although I have read all the biographies of the most important astronauts like Neil Armstrong or Yuri Gagarin, my favourite biography is about Christopher Columbus, the man who sailed from Spain to the west in 1492 and believed that the Earth was round. After ten weeks, he found an island and he named it San Salvador. I like this biography because I don’t believe anything. It’s an incredible fake.

-How can you be sure about it?

-I don’t say this. Science says this. There are a lot of evidences that indicates it. It’s the same case than William Shakespeare or Miguel de Cervantes. It’s difficult to separate the myth and the reality.

-Who is your favourite character?

-I haven't got a special one although I like Captain Ahab of Herman Melville's Moby Dick. I would like to think that one day, in a closer future; someone will be able to read The Bond's Biography because it will mean that we have contributed to do something positive to our society.

-What title would you choose for this biography?

-Open happiness, because every day has been an open door to learn something new and to live unforgettable experiences.

-Do you like this message?

-Yes I do. It's a motivational message. It's the message that completes another one which I like a lot: When God closes a door, somewhere He opens a window.

-What will happen if it's not possible to open this window?

-Demolish the wall. Don't forget that if you don't find a way, you must create it.

-Thank you very much, Paula Bond.

-Thanks to you.

C'mon and lift me up to a better way.
Open up a smile on another face,

so I can feel something new.

 Butch Walker

ADRIANA, RHODES AND HARIS ALEXIOU

Rhodes, Greece

Latest news about the family!

Although Adriana was born in Ithaca, Ulysses hometown, her parents decided to name Adriana in honour to Hadria, the ancient Latin city on the Adriatic Sea banks. Nowadays, she lives in Rhodes (Ρόδος in Greek) where she’s studying History of Art in the Aegean University. She chose this University because this island could offer her a mix of cultures (Latin, Greek, Byzantine, Turkish and Medieval) and she could become an expert in The Order of the Temple. 

Adriana receives some help from Eva, our Maltese gymnast. They share knowledge about these Medieval Knights who dominated the Mediterranean in the XII and XIII centuries and further Malta and Rhodes established in other places of the Catalonia and Aragon Crown as Lleida, Majorca, Miravet, Monzón, Tortosa or Montpellier. Adriana respects and conserves her Greek traditions strongly and she always sings songs of her favourite singer, Haris Alexious, who is considered, nowadays, one of the best female Mediterranean voices, shared honour with Maria del Mar Bonet.

More information: Knights Templar Order

Έχει πανσέληνο απόψε κι είναι ωραία
είναι αλλιώτικη η σιωπή χωρίς παρέα
Δε νιώθω θλίψη μα μου 'χει λείψει

There is a full moon tonight and it is nice;
silence is different without company.
I feel no sorrow but I have missed.