The Bridge of Arta
Masons forty-five and apprentices sixty
Masons forty-five and apprentices sixty
A bridge were
building across Arta’s river
They built all
day - each night it fell.
The builders
lament and the apprentices all weep:
“A shame for all
our efforts, a waste of all our work
That what we
build each day should fall down every night!”
A little bird
came by and sat across the river
It sang not like
a bird, nor like a swallow does
But sang and
spoke like people do:
“No bridge shall
stand without a human soul
And no orphan, no
traveller or stranger will suffice
Save only the
chief mason’s lovely wife
who later comes
and brings him, by-and-by, his meal.”
The chief mason
hears and stops as though stricken
He sends a
message to his beauty with the nightingale
To slowly dress,
and slowly change, and tarry with the meal
That she be late
and late she cross the bridge at Arta.
The bird, though,
disobeyed and told her this:
“Swiftly dress,
and swiftly change, and swiftly take the meal
swiftly go and
cross the bridge at Arta.”
There, behold her
on the whitewashed path
The chief mason
sees her and it breaks his heart
“A good day, and
health to you, apprentices and masons
But what is it
with the chief mason’s stern demeanour?”
“He dropped his
ring into the first deep chamber;
and who can go
and who can find and fetch it?”
“Meister, take
heart, and I will go and get it
I’ll go in, come
out, and your ring I’ll bring.”
She neither got
down far, nor did she reach the middle
“Pull, my dear,
the chain; pull up the chains.
I’ve turned it
inside out, yet nothing I have found.”
One slaps on
mortar with his trowel; another the asbestos;
The chief mason
heaves and drops a giant stone.
“Alas, poor is my
fate and my destiny accursed!
Sisters three we
were, and doomed we were all three.
One built over
the Danube, one the Euphrates river
And as for me,
the youngest, I build the bridge at Arta.
‘May the bridge
shake, like the rifles do,
May the
pedestrians fall, like the leaves of a tree do’
“Daughter, change
your word and give another curse
Lest your one
dear brother pass.”
And she changed
her word and pronounced another:
"May the
bridge shake, like the wild mountains do
May the pedestrians
fall, like the wild birds do;
My brother is in
strange lands, lest he chances to cross.”
http://pontiosakritas.blogspot.de/2011/06/blog-post_15.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severan_Bridge
http://news.kathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_civ_2_24/12/2011_467036http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond_%E2%80%93_San_Rafael_Bridge
