[1] This essay is republished, with a few changes, from _Poet Lore_,
vol. xxviii, no. 1, pp. 78-104.
[2] My translation of it originally appeared in the _Stratford
Journal_, from which I quote it in its entirety.
[3] Tigrane Yergate, _op. cit._, p. 710.
[4] Jean Moréas, _Voyage de Grèce_, 1898.
[5] On Patras, the birth-place of the poet. See Introduction, p. 13.
[6] On Missolonghi, the place of the poet's childhood. See
Introduction, p. 15.
[7] On the Island of Corfu, one of the most important centers of the
literary renaissance of modern Greece.
[8] Iacobos Polylas, 1826-98, translator of the _Odyssey_ and of parts
of the _Iliad_, and an important figure in the struggle for the
vernacular. He has also translated some of Shakespeare's plays.
[9] Dionysios Solomos, born in Zante, 1748, died in Corfu, 1857. He is
the first great poet of modern Greece. He has written lyrics in
Italian and in Greek. Several of his songs have spread as folk
songs throughout the Greek world. He is mainly known as the poet of
the modern Greek national hymn to Liberty.
[10] Gerasimos Markoras, born in Cephalonia, 1826, died in Corfu, 1911,
a lyric and epic poet. His poem "Oath" was inspired by the Cretan
struggle for freedom.
[11] On Egypt, whence the first lights of civilization dawned on Greece.
[12] On Mt. Athos, the Holy Mountain of the modern Greeks, inhabited by
about ten thousand monks. Although called by its hermits "the
virgin's garden" no female creature is allowed to enter its ground.
[13] Panselenus, a famous Byzantine painter, who is believed to be the
author of some of the Madonnas and Christs found in the monasteries
of the mountain.
[14] On classic Greece, in contrast with the following sonnet which
refers to the spirit of Greece throughout the ages, from the
classic period to the time of the Byzantine Empire.
[15] The Islands of the Ionian Sea.
[16] The hero of medieval Greece, Digenes Akritas, who is supposed to
have lived on the slopes of the Taurus mountains in Asia Minor and
to have fought against the invading Saracens. There are a great
number of folk-songs about him not only in Greek but in Turkish,
Bulgarian, Serbian, and Albanian as well.
[17] The word, meaning "blessed one," is here applied to ideal womanhood
and must not be confused with Makaria of p. 103, the mythical
Theban princess.
[18] The translator of Homer and Shakespeare. See notes 8 and 9, p. 80.
[19] A pseudonym for Constantine Chatzopoulos, one of the leading
literary figures in Athens to-day. He has written poems under this
pseudonym. But he is now mainly known as a master of short stories
which he has published under his real name, and as the translator
of Göthe's _Faust_ and of Hofmannsthal's _Electra_. This poem
dedicated to him was written during the unfortunate Greco-Turkish
war of 1897.
[20] Maviles was born in Ithaca, 1860, and fell in the battle of
Driscos, November 29, 1912. He is the writer of exquisite sonnets
and the successful translator of various foreign poems. The
Cretan Revolution of 1896 is here alluded to, which led to the
Greco-Turkish war of 1897. Maviles was one of the first to hasten
to Crete to help in the struggle for liberty.
[21] Alexandros Pallis is one of the greatest literary figures of
contemporary Greece, who, like Psicharis, has lived mostly far from
Greece. He is a poet, a critic, and a satirist. But his fame is
mainly due to his translation of the _Iliad_ and that of the _New
Testament_. The publication of the latter caused the student riots
of 1901.
[22] The poet had in mind the following lines of Sully Prudhomme from
his _Stances et Poèmes_, L'âme:
Tous les corps offrent des contours,
Mais d'ou vienne la forme qui touche?
Comment fais-tu les grands amours,
Petite ligne de la bouche?
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