Apokopos

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The title page of the 1534 edition of the Apokopos

The so-called Apokopos ( Greek Ἀπόκοπος ) by a not well-known author named Bergadhis (also: Bergadis , Greek Μπεργαδής) contains a dream tale of a voyage under the world and is the first vernacular book in Greek literary history . It comes from the island of Crete and is mostly dated to the beginning of the 15th century.

Title, author, date

The common title of the work and its author are only known from the incipit - distichon of the Venetian editions, which probably does not come from the author himself. It is said:

Απόκοπος του Μπεργαδή, ρίμα λογιωτάτη,
την έχουσιν οι φρόνιμοι πολλά ποθεινοτάτη.

The Apokopos of Bergadhi, highly learned rhyming poem,
which the scholars find extremely charming.

The word apókopos (meaning “tired”), which is otherwise not used in Greek, goes back to an expression in the first sentence of the poem:

Μίαν ἀπὸ κόπου ἐνύσταξα.

One day I was tired from work ( apó kópou ).

Nothing further is known of the author Bergadis , not even his first name. The singular name refers to a Venetian-Cretan noble family called Bragadin or Bregadin from Rethymno , but possibly also to an unknown family of the same name. The anti-papist verses 301-302 gave rise to the assumption that the author was a Greek Catholic ( Hubert Pernot ). Well-known resentments against the Franciscans in Crete make an Orthodox Greek more likely.

Most scholars today date the poem to the beginning of the 15th century (1400–1420) due to the language, verse structure and sometimes also content.

Form and content

In the Venetian editions (from 1509) the poem consists of 556 decapentasyllabic verses (fifteen silver ) with pair rhymes , i.e. 278 rhyming distiches. However, research today considers only 440 verses to be genuine, the remaining verses are accordingly to be seen as added by later ones.

The poem contains a katabasis , a journey to hell experienced by the narrator in a dream. A single distich at the beginning sets out the framework plot, the end, the awakening of the narrator from the dream, is missing in the various arrangements of the text. The dream itself can be divided into three parts:

  1. (Verses 5–66): In the early morning the narrator rides as a hunter across a plain and pursues a deer, which suddenly disappeared at noon as if by magic. He rides slowly to the middle of the plain and gets off his horse near a tree. In the treetop he notices a bees nest and climbs up to taste the honey. Suddenly the tree begins to sway and when he looks down, he sees that the tree is no longer in the middle of the plain, but on the edge of a precipice. It is getting darker and darker and night is falling when he sees a dragon deep down in the abyss, waiting for him with an open mouth and finally devouring it. He is now in a dark grave underground, in a sunless land.
  1. (Verse 67-276): The second part is a dialogue between the narrator and two young men who come to him as messengers from the dead. They ask him about the upper world and above all want to know whether they are still known there and whether their widows and mothers in particular still remember them. After a moment's hesitation, the narrator responds with an attack on the widows and the clergy, who only have the property of the deceased and their widows in mind (such attacks are common in Central Greek literature). At the end of the section there is a lament about the faithlessness of women and the desire to be resurrected and to return to earth.
  1. (Verses 277–452): In the third part, the narrator in turn asks the two young men about their story. They tell him that they came from a city opposite Rome (αντίθετον σκαμνίν της βασιλειάς της Ρώμης) and were shipwrecked while going to the wedding of their sister, who had married in a distant country. When they got to the underworld, they met their sister with an infant; when she found out in a dream that her brothers had perished, she had a miscarriage and died too.

When the narrator announces that he is about to leave, multitudes of the dead come to him with letters for the living. Before they reach him, the narrator flees (verses 453–466, 481–482).

Since the end of the poem has not been preserved, the interpretations of the poem vary. Some see it as a poem about the transience of life, others as a pessimistic dream story, still others as a satirical dialogue in the Byzantine manner or as a carpe diem , as an invitation to enjoy life. In any case, there are significant references to the Cretan Renaissance literature , such as the dream poems of Marinos Phalieros or various poems from the underworld, as well as to the novel by Barlaam and Josaphat .

reception

The editio princeps des Apokopos , rediscovered in 1990, was published in Venice by Nikolaos Kalliergis in 1509. In addition to various manuscripts, it has survived in other prints that testify to the popularity of the work from the 16th to the 18th centuries. It is still widely read in Greece today and edited for the stage, for example by Simon Kakalas.

literature

Manuscripts and early prints

  • Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1139 (from 1540).
  • Codex Vindobonensis theologicus graecus 244 (between 1525 and 1562).
  • Editio princeps: Venice 1509 by Nikolaos Kalliergis, the son of the famous printer Zacharias Kalliergis (only rediscovered in 1990).
  • Other prints: 1534, 1543, 1553, 1627, 1648, 1668, 1683, 1721; a total of over ten Venetian prints are known.

Modern editions

  • Ἀπόκοπος . Ποίημα συντεθὲν ὑπὸ Μπεργαδὴ καὶ ἐκδοθὲν ὑπὸ Αἰμυλίου Λεγρανδίου . Ἐν τῷ γραφείῳ τῆς Πανδώρας, Ἀθήνησιν and Maisonneuve, Paris 1870 (Collection de monuments pour servir à l'étude de la langue neo-hellénique, no.9 : Apokopos ou Le repos du soir par Bergaès), (online) (PDF) (PDF) (The edition is based on the print from 1534)
  • Stylianos Alexiou (ed.): Ἀπόκοπος (κριτικὴ ἔκδοση). In: Κρητικά Χρονικά 17, 1963, 183-251.
  • Μπεργαδής: Ἀπόκοπος. Ἡ Βοσκοπούλα . Ἐπιμέλεια: Στυλιανός Ἀλεξίου. Hermes, Athens, 1971 (Νέα Ελληνική Βιβλιοθήκη, 15).
  • Bergadís: Apócopos . Introducción, traducción y notas de Manuel González Ricón. Secretariado de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla 1992 (Filosofía y letras series, no.143 , Anales de la Universidad Hispalense, no.143 ), ISBN 84-7405-841-4 .
  • Apokopos. A fifteenth century Greek (Veneto – Cretan) catabasis in the vernacular. Synoptic edition with an introduction, commentary and index verborum by Peter Vejleskov, with an English translation by Margaret Alexiou . Romiosini Verlag , Cologne 2005 ( Neograeca Medii Aevi , IX), ISBN 3-929889-60-9 . - Reviews: Elizabeth Jeffreys , in: Speculum 82, 2007, 490–491, (online) ; Tina Lendari , in: Journal of Hellenic Studies 127, 2007, 254-255; Sotiria Stavrakopoulou, in: Ελληνικά 58, 2008, 145–154, (online) .

Representations of an encyclopedic nature

Secondary literature

  • Stylianos Alexiou: Κρητικά Φιλολογικά Β΄: Παρατηρήσεις στον "Απόκοπο" . In: Κρητικά Χρονικά 13, 1959, 302-310, (online) .
  • Elena Cappellaro: Επιδράσεις του Βοκκακίου στον ᾽Απόκοπο (1370-1519). In: Σύγκριση / Comparaison 15, 2004, pp. 114-131, (online) (PDF).
  • Manuel González Rincón: La crítica sexual anticlerical en el Apókopos de Bergadís: la sollicitatio durante la confesión. In: Byzantion Nea Hellás 29, 2010, pp. 113–133, (abstract online) ; (online) (PDF).
  • Manuel González Rincón: La tempestad y el naufragio de los jóvenes del “Apókopos” de Bergadís. Su función en el relato. In: Erytheia 30, 2009, pp. 151-213, (abstract online) .
  • Manuel González Rincón: El motivo de la cetrería y de la caza cetrera de amor y Apókopos vv. 217-218. In: J. Alonso Aldama ?? O. Ornatos Sáenz (ed.), Cultura neogriega. Tradición y modernidad. Actas del III Congreso de Neohelenistas de Iberoamerica (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 2–5 de junio de 2005). Universidad del País Vasco, Vitoria 2007, pp. 263-288.
  • Ioannis Theophanis Kakridis : Ερμηνευτικά στον Απόκοπο του Μπεργαδή. In: Κρητικά Χρονικά 7, 1953, 409-413, (online) .
  • Michel Lassithiotakis : Apócopes 183-220: Remarques sur l'anticlericalisme de Bergadís. In: Θησαυρίσματα 22, 1992, pp. 127-147.
  • Cristiano Luciani: Su ulteriori reminiscenze dotte nell'Apokopos di Bergadìs. In: Santo Lucà (ed.): Omaggio Enrica Follieri . Grottaferrata 2000, pp. 369-376.
  • Cristiano Luciani: Elementi iconografici nella struttura dell 'Apokopos. In: Origini della letteratura neogreca. Atti del secondo congresso internazionale "Neograeca Medii Aevi", Venezia, 7-10 November 1991. A cura di NM Panagiotakis. Venice 1993, pp. 191-204.
  • Konstantinos Païdas: Το ερωτικό στοιχείο στον Απόκοπο του Μπεργαδή. In: Ελληνικά 49, 1999, pp. 277–288, (online) .
  • Nikolaos M. Panagiotakis : Το κείμενο της πρώτης έκδοσης του Αποκόπου. Τυπογραφική και φιλολογική διερεύνηση. In: Θησαυρίσματα 21, 1991, 89-167.
  • Hubert Pernot : Études de littérature grecque modern. Paris 1916, pp. 195-229: Deux poèmes crétois sur les Enfers , (online) .
  • Panos Vasiliou: Ερμηνευτικές προτάσεις στον Απόκοπο του Μπεργαδή. In: Ελληνικά 43, 1993, pp. 125-172, (online) (PDF).

Web links