Masks of Charos in Modern Greek Demotic Songs. Sources

MASKS OF CHAROS IN MODERN GREEK DEMOTIC SONGS MICHAŁ BZINKOWSKI MASKS OF CHAROS IN MODERN GREEK DEMOTIC SONGS SOURCES, REPRESENTATIONS AND CONTEXT J agiellonian U niversi ty Press Reviewer dr hab. Dariusz Brodka, prof. UJ Cover design Paweł Sepielak With the fi nancial support of the Institute of Classical Philology of the Faculty of Philology at the Jagiellonian University © Copyright by Michał Bzinkowski & Jagiellonian University Press First edition, Kraków 2017 All rights reserved No part of this book may by reprinted, or reproduced, or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means now known, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage, or retreival system without prior permission in writing from the Publishers. ISBN 978-83-233-4330-1 ISBN 978-83-233-9698-7 (e-book) www.wuj.pl Jagiellonian University Press Editorial Offi ces: Michałowskiego 9/2, 31-126 Kraków Phone: +48 12 663 23 80, +48 12 663 23 82, Fax: +48 12 663 23 83 Distribution: Phone: +48 12 631 01 97, Fax: +48 12 631 01 98 Cell Phone: +48 506 006 674, e-mail: [email protected] Bank: PEKAO SA, IBAN PL80 1240 4722 1111 0000 4856 3325 Αγγελικό και μαύρο, φως Γιώργος Σεφέρης Light, angelic and black George Seferis In Memory of my Grandparents CONTENTS Preface Charon or Charos? ......................................................................................... 9 Chapter I – Sources 1. Folk songs in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Greece .................. 15 2. Mirologia and the songs of the Underworld and Charos....................... 24 Chapter II – Representations 1. Th e Underworld of demotic songs ......................................................... 31 2. Charos in Modern Greek language ........................................................ 44 3. Charos’ general characteristics ............................................................... 47 Verbs and verbal phrases .................................................................. 47 Nouns and adjectives ......................................................................... 57 4. Charos’ specifi c characteristics ............................................................... 61 Hunter, Horseman, Black Rider ....................................................... 61 Reaper .................................................................................................. 70 Merchant, Peddler .............................................................................. 75 Chapter III – Context 1. Wrestling or playing with Charos .......................................................... 79 2. Charos and the Angels ............................................................................. 92 3. Charos nekropompos .............................................................................. 114 Th e procession of Charos .................................................................. 115 Th e ship of the dead ........................................................................... 121 4. Charos the builder .................................................................................... 128 5. Charos’ family ........................................................................................... 135 6. Charos’ wedding ....................................................................................... 143 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 149 Bibliography ................................................................................................... 153 Appendix ......................................................................................................... 163 PREFACE Charon or Charos? On 21st August 1912, the Montreal Daily Star published an interesting statement entitled signifi cantly: “NO CHARON HERE. He is All Very Good for the World Beneath.” Th e Royal Netherlands Steamship Company was forced to change the name of its ship because of Greek dockers, who had unexpectedly boycotted the steamship that moored in a Greek port. Th e note in the newspaper said that “the men refused to work the ship on account of its association with the mythological old gentleman, who plies the ferry across the river of the lower world.”1 Both the incident and the explanation are quite meaningful. First- ly, they show a complete misunderstanding of the West Europeans of the reaction of Greek workers. Th e mythological person they were so afraid of was obviously not the Ancient Greek Charon, but the modern fi gure of Charos – personifi ed Death – that retained his name (and per- haps some features, which I shall discuss later), and is deeply rooted in folk culture as well as in the Modern Greek conscience. Secondly, such a sudden and resolute reaction of the dockers may confi rm the vitality of Charos in Greek culture and the negative connotation that his name evokes among Greeks. Th e ancient ferryman of the dead, whose name was inherited by Charos (Χάρος), the modern personifi cation of death, was rather ne- glected in the pantheon of Greek gods and appears very rarely in An- cient Greek literature.2 His name as well as his person are most probably 1 I cite the whole passage from Rose 1913: 247. 2 I have already outlined the question in my paper Bzinkowski 2009: 17–22. Charon occurs, among others, in the epic poem “Minyas” cited by Pausanias (10.18.1), 10 Masks of Charos in Modern Greek Demotic Songs... of Semitic origin3 and the concept of a boatman or a ferryman on the rivers of death was known in the ancient Near East.4 In the European conscience, Charon is mostly associated with his representation in Dante’s Inferno, where he appears as an old man with fi ery eyes and is demonic in appearance (Canto III, 82–128). Dante, in turn, did not create such a picture but borrowed it from Virgil’s Aeneid (VI, 299–301), where Charon appears to be even more odious. Th ese two images of the ferryman of the dead infl uenced all the later writers and painters in European tradition who in any way alluded to him.5 Th e Modern Greek Charos, at least the way he is depicted in demotic songs, as we shall see, has nothing in common with the ancient and medieval representations of Charon. He is not an ugly looking old man, white-haired, white-bearded and dressed in rags, nor a ferryman carry- ing the souls to the Underworld across the river. However, for the West Europeans who see his name in the modern Hellenic version, he brings to mind only unequivocal associations. Such a stereotypical view may partly originate in the seeming sim- ilarity of one of the well-known representations of the Modern Greek Charos, according to which he leads the dead, which I shall present in subsequent parts of the present book,6 but mostly is a result of the igno- rance of contemporary Greek culture – a phenomenon typical for the rest of Europeans, at least from the nineteenth century, when Europe started to recover the cradle of its civilization together with the Philhel- lenic movement, and aft er the Greek War of Independence 1821–1833. It would not be an oversimplifi cation to say that the burden of the classical past still lies heavily on the perception of Modern Greece. in Aristophanes (Ranae 182), in the “Dialogues with the dead” of Lucian of Samosat (Charon 8, Loeb ed. 2.412), and in Diodor of Sicily (1.92.96). On black-fi gured pottery Charon appears no earlier than c. 500 BC and in the second quarter of the fi ft h century we fi nd him on white-ground lekythoi. Sourvinou-Inwood 1995: 301 f. 3 Blažek 2007: 155 ff . 4 In the Gilgamesh epic, we come across the ferryman Urshanabi (or Arad-Ea). Babylonians and Assyrians also knew Hamar-tabal (or Humuttabal). In Egyptian mythology the role of someone leading the dead to the Underworld was played by Anubis. Terpening 1985: 13 f. Prioreschi 1990: 124 f. Th e Etruscan Charun is said to have been introduced to Etruria by the Greeks. Terpening 1985: 14. 5 Terpening 1985: 11 f. 6 See the chapter “Charos nekropompos.” Preface 11 Similarly, as Modern Greece is not just a continuation of the Ancient one, the modern Charos is in no case a simple counterpart of the ancient Charon, nor an elaboration of the idea of the ferryman of the dead. He is defi nitely someone else and I shall attempt to elucidate who he is exactly in the present book. * * * Th e fi gure of Charos (Χάρος) is widespread in the whole Hellenic world, including Cyprus and the Pontus region, where he is called Charon- das (Χάροντας).7 Yet, in spite of the fact that his name is well-known for every Greek, it would not be an exaggeration if I said that even for them – due to the variety and complexity of his representations – he constitutes an intangible personality around whom many common ste- reotypes have inevitably arisen. Th us, any simple answers given for the question of who Charos is – for instance: he is death or a personifi cation of death,8 a black rider on a black horse, a reaper with a scythe etc. – are only partly true, because the question is far more complicated. Th e question of Charos obviously has already been the subject of research, during which many attempts have been made to approach his personality with diff erent results and using quite diff erent methodology. Some of them, although they still bring a lot of extremely interesting data and are well-documented, are a little outdated (Schmidt 1871; Hes- seling 1897, 1931; Waser 1898; Moravcsik 1931). Th e other ones, so far the most valuable, focus only on some particular aspects of the fi gure of Charos,

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