Comments & modern Greek artists, Greek painters: And eternity occurs to me, and all the ages past...

Poetry & modern Greek painters, Greek artists


Yannis Stavrou, Hydra under the Moon Light, oil on canvas

This computation of my sorrow's age.
How pleasant is it, in the days of youth...

Giacomo Leopardi
To the Moon

O lovely moon, how well do I recall
The time,--'tis just a year--when up this hill
I came, in my distress, to gaze at thee:
And thou suspended wast o'er yonder grove,
As now thou art, which thou with light dost fill.
But stained with mist, and tremulous, appeared
Thy countenance to me, because my eyes
Were filled with tears, that could not be suppressed;
For, oh, my life was wretched, wearisome,
And is so still, unchanged, beloved moon!
And yet this recollection pleases me,
This computation of my sorrow's age.
How pleasant is it, in the days of youth,
When hope a long career before it hath,
And memories are few, upon the past
To dwell, though sad, and though the sadness last!


Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837)

L' Infinito

This solitary hill has always been dear to me
And this hedge, which prevents me from seeing most of
The endless horizon.
But when I sit and gaze, I imagine, in my thoughts
Endless spaces beyond the hedge,
An all encompassing silence and a deeply profound quiet,
To the point that my heart is almost overwhelmed.
And when I hear the wind rustling through the trees
I compare its voice to the infinite silence.
And eternity occurs to me, and all the ages past,
And the present time, and its sound.
Amidst this immensity my thought drowns:
And to flounder in this sea is sweet to me.

And some of his thoughts...

Death is not evil, for it frees man from all ills and takes away his desires along with desire's rewards.

No human trait deserves less tolerance in everyday life, and gets less, than intolerance.

No one is so completely disenchanted with the world, or knows it so thoroughly, or is so utterly disgusted with it, that when it begins to smile upon him he does not become partially reconciled to it.

Old age is the supreme evil, for it deprives man of all pleasures while allowing his appetites to remain, and it brings with it every possible sorrow. Yet men fear death and desire old age.

People are ridiculous only when they try or seem to be that which they are not.

Real misanthropes are not found in solitude, but in the world; since it is experience of life, and not philosophy, which produces real hatred of mankind.

There are some centuries which - apart from everything else - in the art and other disciplines presume to remake everything because they know how to make nothing.