Arta Bridge
Coordinates: 39 ° 9 ′ 6 ″ N , 20 ° 58 ′ 29 ″ E
The Arta Bridge over the Arachthos is the most famous historical bridge in Greece. It is already mentioned in antiquity by Pliny and is said to date from the time of King Pyrrhus I of Epirus.
In its current form, the bridge dates back to 1612 and is therefore a structure that was built under the Ottoman occupation. It is made of stone and has four arches. The longest span is 25 m, the total length 130 m.
Many plays and fairy tales in Greek history have this bridge as their subject. According to legend, the builder first had to wall his wife into the bridge to complete it. Until this sacrifice was made, the bridge collapsed again and again overnight.
The folk poem: The Arta Bridge
Forty-five masters and sixty journeymen
built a bridge over the river from Arta.
They built all day, but everything collapsed again at night.
The bricklayers wailed and the helpers cried:
“A shame for all our efforts, all the work in vain.
Everything we build up during the day collapses at night. "
A little bird came and sat over to the river,
it did not sing like a bird, nor like a swallow,
but it sang and spoke in a human voice:
" If you are not a human walled up, there will be no bridge
and no orphans, no strangers and no travelers walled up,
but only the master master’s pretty wife who
comes by too early in the morning and too late in the evening. ”
The master master heard this and he was overcome with fear.
He grabs, he sends his slim woman with the bird with the nightingale a message:
Slowly she should change, slowly she should get dressed, slowly she should go in the evening,
late she should go and cross the bridge from Arta.
And the bird listened and said:
"Get dressed quickly, change your clothes quickly, bring the food
quickly, you must go quickly and cross the bridge of Arta."
Then she appeared in front of the white path.
The headmaster saw her and it broke his heart.
"Good afternoon and all the best to you masters and journeymen,
but what has the chief master to make him so sad?"
"His ring fell under the first pillar,
and who should go down there to find the ring?
" Master don't be sad, I'll bring it back to you,
I'll go down to find the ring. ”
Neither deep down nor to the middle she came,
“ Pull the chain my dear, pull the chains up,
I've searched everything but I found it nothing. ”
One swings the trowel, the next the lime,
the chief master takes a large stone and lets it fall down.
“Oh, that's our lot, what a shame for our fate!
We were three sisters and calamity came upon all three of us,
one walled in over the Danube, the other over the Euphrates,
and I the youngest in the bridge of Arta.
Just as the carnation trembles, the bridge should tremble
and just as the leaves fall from the trees, the passers-by should fall. "
" Daughter, change your words, give another curse,
you only have one brother who could accidentally cross it. "
And she changed her words and uttered a new curse:
“When the wild hills tremble, then the bridge trembles too,
and when the wild birds fall, the passers-by should also fall,
because I have a brother abroad who is them afterwards she added: "A bear only signs every 7 years and if a mother is given birth on the same day as the bear then she will not give birth again until after 7 years!"
