DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9840#0327
XVII.] IGNORANCE AND SONGS OF THE CRETANS. 273
not one knows the year, or has any idea of an era.
They reckon neither from Christ nor Mohammed; but
tell me that they believe in Christ: on my asking who
he was, they answer, " How should we know ? we are
ignorant peasants, and only know how to cultivate our
fields and vineyards." Scarcely any Cretan Greeks,
except some of the Pateres in the monasteries, have ever
heard of the Christian era ; but they all date events one
by another. Thus, in Crete, the year of the great earth-
quake ; the time when Khadji Osman-pasha was governor
of Khania ; the outbreaking of the Greek revolution ;
the peace of Khusein-bey ; the war of Khadji Mikhali;
and the final submission to the Egyptians, are the prin-
cipal epochs to which all the events of the last five-and-
twenty years are referred.
A priest of Sykoldgo, my host and his wife all
contribute to increase my stock of Madhinadhas4.
In me behold the lightning's son,
The thunder's dearest child:
Therefore my thunderbolts I hurl,
And cause the snow-storm wild5.
While wandering through the world I've turned
On east and west my gaze ;
But face like thine I ne'er beheld,
Bright as the diamond's blaze".
4 Some of those which I obtained here are given above, in Chapter xvn.
'Eyfti 'pat <r dcTTpairr}^ 7raidl,
K 6t(t( (ipOVTy)^ ayovi,
KO.) 06 A. ft) (TTpCMpTU) koi! fipOVTU),
KCtl 9e\u> p'lKTU) ~£lOVl.
' (j\ov toV Kocrfxov eyvpt<ra,
-rrovevTi «ai \ef3avTi'
6ev el^ia tetoiov ttposwirov,
vd \dpirei crdv diapdvTt.
S 2
not one knows the year, or has any idea of an era.
They reckon neither from Christ nor Mohammed; but
tell me that they believe in Christ: on my asking who
he was, they answer, " How should we know ? we are
ignorant peasants, and only know how to cultivate our
fields and vineyards." Scarcely any Cretan Greeks,
except some of the Pateres in the monasteries, have ever
heard of the Christian era ; but they all date events one
by another. Thus, in Crete, the year of the great earth-
quake ; the time when Khadji Osman-pasha was governor
of Khania ; the outbreaking of the Greek revolution ;
the peace of Khusein-bey ; the war of Khadji Mikhali;
and the final submission to the Egyptians, are the prin-
cipal epochs to which all the events of the last five-and-
twenty years are referred.
A priest of Sykoldgo, my host and his wife all
contribute to increase my stock of Madhinadhas4.
In me behold the lightning's son,
The thunder's dearest child:
Therefore my thunderbolts I hurl,
And cause the snow-storm wild5.
While wandering through the world I've turned
On east and west my gaze ;
But face like thine I ne'er beheld,
Bright as the diamond's blaze".
4 Some of those which I obtained here are given above, in Chapter xvn.
'Eyfti 'pat <r dcTTpairr}^ 7raidl,
K 6t(t( (ipOVTy)^ ayovi,
KO.) 06 A. ft) (TTpCMpTU) koi! fipOVTU),
KCtl 9e\u> p'lKTU) ~£lOVl.
' (j\ov toV Kocrfxov eyvpt<ra,
-rrovevTi «ai \ef3avTi'
6ev el^ia tetoiov ttposwirov,
vd \dpirei crdv diapdvTt.
S 2