Haris Alexiou - Δι versuri traducere în engleză

Through the Blessings

• 1. The specific 'old lament' I had in mind here is actually not about sinners, but Revelation 3:14-22 that rails against 'lukewarm' believers. “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.' This line combined with the fact that the first two verses of this song deal with negative imagery associated with secular society, whose maladies this song contrasts with the more positive imagery associated with a life of faith, got me thinking about the Biblical lines.
• 2. δεν καίει για κάτι - a literal translation would be 'does not burn for something.' But sometimes in Greek translations, it is equally acceptable to apply the negation (δεν) to the pronoun (κάτι), yielding 'burns nothing.'
• 3. γη is a word with many associations: the planet earth, earth's inhabitants, dry land, soil, a region, a place to which one has emotional ties. 'Soil' has a smaller range of associations in English, but it seems to fit the overall image pattern.
• 4. αεί simply means 'always, forever,' but it is at the root of Greek words for 'eternal' and 'eternity' as well as at the root of English 'eon.' I chose to surface these associations, which resonate with the song's Biblical aspects, rather than going with the literal definition.
• 5. 'Lies within' is not part of the Greek original, although I sensed that it is implied. What was the reason the lyricist put με Θεού πνοή in this very prominent place, occurring both in the middle and at the end of the song? I think it has to do with the breath of God, which in the Biblical account God used to animate the first human being, who had been only a sort of clay statue up to that point, i.e., the breath of God gives life, and by association with the idea of the human soul (that which animates our bodies and lives on after the body's death) with eternal life. 'Lies within' is intended to make these associations clearer for English-speakers.
• 6. I think τα πέντε μέτρα makes sense here if the intended sense of μέτρα is not 'meters' but 'measures' (i.e. bars of a song. If this interpretation is correct, then this line becomes a meta-comment on the song itself, which in contrast to its themes of faith is participating in a form of popular music-making that is, (ironically from the speaker's perspective) generally secular and commercial.
• 7. There is no '(crismon)' in the Greek original. But its meaning and its sound (rhyming with 'talon' in line 4 of this verse) felt right to me. 'Crismon' is the Latin word for the superimposed Greek letters xi-rho, a symbol used extensively in Christian churches because these are the first two letters of the word 'Christ' (Χριστοσ) in Greek. So the crismon is probably the most widely distributed example of 'engraved initials,' although I can't be certain this is what the writer had in mind.
• 8. νύχι can mean 'fingernail' or 'claw/talon' or 'hoof.' Since the speaker seems to identify with the falcon mentioned in verse 1, 'talon' (while a bit startling here) seemed like a good choice to me.