What are Mantinades?
This site is about a booklet I have created. It contains, after the prologue and the introduction, 51 watercolors (on the left page) and 51 translated Mantinades (on the right).
The booklet has a handy size of 10 by 14 cm and they come individually shrink wrapped. You see it's size in the photograph.
One can easily put this booklet in a pocket of a jacket or in a handbag. You can carry it with you where ever you go. It weighs 90 gr.
A Mantinada is a short rhyme from the life of the Cretan people consisting of two lines of about 15 syllables. The themes are about the ordinary human feelings like hate, joy, decency, eroticism and of course love.
Mantinades are usually expressed with simple words and are often set in village life and Cretan nature. Mantinades date from Minoan times and are constantly being re invented. They are also used as lyrics in many traditional Cretan songs.
A monk I would like to be,
close to god and save my sole.
But that Devil in my underpants
has another goal.
Moon, if you rise above the mountains,
take me with you, be so good
'Cause my love lives far away
and I hate to go by foot.
When four eyes and two hearts meet
and let go of all their fears,
they might get in a state of joy
that quickly disappears.
You don't believe in love, you say,
and hate the stupid boy I am.
So why do you think that God
tells us to love all men?
Please wake up if you're asleep,
get dressed quick, put on a shirt.
Join me in the bars down town,
there are girls who lift their skirt.
At a young age I became fascinated by the beauty of the spoken and written word. Like so many I started to write poems and short stories without any success. But the fascination remained. It's bewitching, I still have it up till now.
In the eighties I learned to speak, living and working with the Cretans, the Greek language.
Quickly I noticed how beautiful a mantinada can be. In the nineties I began to write them down and to translate them in Dutch. In the years zero of this century more and more west Europeans moved to Crete.
Some of them went to Greek lessons and tried to learn the language, but when I asked them:” Do you know what a mantinada is?”,they did not know the answer.`What a pity`,I thought. What a shame, that this beautiful little piece of Cretan culture is, so far, unknown in Europe.
So I want to introduce more people to the beauty of the Greek language.
Especially for them is this booklet as well as for the Greeks who moved for economic reasons in the middle of the last century to England, the USA, Australia and South-Africa or other English-speaking countries. Just so they can show their grand children, who can't read Greek any more and say:”Look children, these are the mantinades, that I spoke of all the time, or softly sing, when I'm thinking about my youth”.
And of course also for the many tourists who visit Greece in summer. For those who are just looking for an original, colourful and affordable present for the father in law, a colleague or for the one who took care of the pets while they were away.
For scientists, Cretophiles, fantasists and other imbeciles......
I have picked up most of the mantinades in this booklet in kafenions, at parties or at work in the fields of South-West Crete. They were told to me by people who mostly only had primary school education. People who couldn't be pulled from the clay, not even by seven donkeys.