George Seferis on Makriyannis and Writing

Now, I should like to end this brief account with a man who has always been dear to me; he has supported me in difficult hours, when all hope seemed gone. He is an extreme case of contrasts, even in my country. He is not an intellectual. But the intellect thrown back upon itself sometimes needs freshness, like the dead who needed fresh blood before answering Ulysses. At the age of thirty-five he learned to read and write a little in order to record, so he said, what he had seen during the war of independence, in which he had taken a very active part. His name is Ioannis Makriyannis. I compare him to one of those old olive trees in our country which were shaped by the elements and which can, I believe, teach a man wisdom. He, too, was shaped by human elements, by many generations of human souls. He was born near the end of the eighteenth century on the Greek mainland near Delphi. He tells us how his poor mother, while she was gathering fire wood, was seized by labor pains and gave birth to him in a forest. He was not a poet, but song was in him, as it has always been in the soul of the common people. When a foreigner, a Frenchman, visited him, he invited him for a meal; he tells us, «My guest wanted to hear some of our songs, so I invented some for him.» He had a singular talent for expression; his writing resembles a wall built stone by stone; all his words perform their function and have their roots; sometimes there is something Homeric in their movement. No other man has taught me more how to write prose. He disliked the false pretenses of rhetoric. In a moment of anger he exclaimed, «You have appointed a new commander to the citadel of Corinth - a pedant. His name was Achilles, and in hearing the name you thought that it was the famous Achilles and that the name was going to fight. But a name never fights; what fights is valor, love of one's country, and virtue.» But at the same time one perceives his love for the ancient heritage, when he said to soldiers who were about to sell two statues to foreigners: «Even if they pay you ten thousand thalers, don't let the statues leave our soil. It is for them that we fought.» Considering that the war had left many scars on the body of this man, one may rightly conclude that these words carried some weight. Toward the end of his life his fate became tragic. His wounds caused him intolerable pain. He was persecuted, thrown into prison, tried, and condemned. In his despair he wrote letters to God. «And You don't hear us, You don't see us.» That was the end. Makriyannis died in the middle of the last century. His memoirs were deciphered and published in 1907. It took many more years for the young to realize his true stature.