Songs and Dance

"Before eleven o'clock these sports were abandoned, and the dance and its accompanying song were commenced. The cyclic chorus exhibited consisted of six women and as many men, each of which held the hand of his neighbour. The coryphaeus favoured us by singing various poetical effusions as they danced... The little songs thus sung, at the present day, are called Madhinadhas by the Cretans; I collected many of them during my stay in the island. The commonest of all such songs of the Cretan peasant is "a woeful ballad, made to his mistress' eyebrow." The following are specimens.

O thou, my much-beloved maid,

Branch of a lofty tree

With thee what mind can converse hold?

Who can dispute with thee?

Bear witness brightly shining Moon,

And Hághio Kostandí!

Beauties like thine 'neath the expanse

Of Heaven I ne'er did see.

(Robert Pashley, Travels in Crete, Cambridge: The Pitt Press 1837, vol. Ι: 245-247)