Aeschylus’ Mothers Poem by Joseph S. Josephides

There, all mothers of Keramidia:
newly married, middle-aged, old-aged,
ripping their veils with the fingers,
all day long lamenting deeply
over the bodies of the foreign German soldiers
killed by the youngsters outside the village.
They attach their hair on the mute corpses,
the tears, river-wise, flow to their chests.

The German officer, turned face to cry in secret,
its heart of steel softened, forgot their ambush,
so he suspended his order to burn the village.

He should have studied tragedies of Aeschylus,
and so he just felt like Xerxes perplexed,
punished by Greek gods for contempt. It seems
that he recalled the verse: 'Iet Aiani pandyrton
dysthroon avdan. Oioi. Goasth, avrovatai.' *

While the Greek women were mourning
he though he was listening German mothers
moaning in ancient Greek: ‘Dosin kakan
kakon kakois. Boa nin antidoupa me.’

Even if he was to punish Keramidia with fire
it would be put out by the tears of mothers.


© JosephJosephides