Poems
Most poems did not survive the Ottoman occupation of Greece, and only a fraction remains of the original number of works, yet the ones we do hold today were famous enough to have existed in enough copies to survive. The most well known oral songs were written down and copied in great numbers, the most exceptional case being the Digenis Acritas which was well known even in western Europe outside the Byzantine empire.
The most important acritic romances are:
- Digenis Acritas (Διγενής Ακρίτας).
- Andronicus' Steed (Ο Ανδρόνικος και ο Μαύρος του).
- Son of Andronicus (Ο υιός του Ανδρόνικου).
- Song of Armouris (Το άσμα του Αρμούρη).
Read more about this topic: Acritic Songs
Famous quotes containing the word poems:
“There’s a wonderful family called Stein:
There’s Gert and there’s Ep and there’s Ein.
Gert’s poems are bunk,
Ep’s statues are junk,
And no-one can understand Ein.”
—Anonymous.
“No poems can please for long or live that are written by water-drinkers.”
—Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus] (65–8 B.C.)
“Some poems are for holidays only. They are polished and sweet, but it is the sweetness of sugar, and not such as toil gives to sour bread. The breath with which the poet utters his verse must be that by which he lives.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)