Words attract or repel or are indifferent, just like people. Everything depends on the quality of the encounter. […] A text crackles with the electricity produced by words on their “escapades” (erotic in nature). […] Whoever knows not how to conjure such encounters, to exploit that is (and in fact to reveal) the eroticism of words, knows not how to write. To write is to know how to make words seem unrecognisable.
Words ⋮ seem unrecognisable.
Yorgos Maniatis, from his 1971 book
King Midas Has Ass’s Ears
Οἱ λέξεις ἕλκονται ἢ ἀπωθοῦνται ἢ αδιαφορούν, τὸ ἴδιο ὅπως οἱ ἄνθρωποι. Ἐξαρτᾶται ἀπὸ τὴν ποιότητα τῆς συναντήσεως. […] Ἕνα κείμενο σπινθηροβολεῖ ἀπὸ τὸν ἠλεκτρισμὸ ποὺ παράγουν οἱ λέξεις στὶς «περιπέτειές» τους (ἐρωτικοῦ χαρακτήρα). […] Ὅποιος δὲν ξέρει νὰ ἐπινοεῖ τέτοιες συναντήσεις, νὰ ἐκμεταλλεύεται δηλαδὴ (καὶ μάλιστα νὰ ἀποκαλύπτει) τὸν ἐρωτισμὸ τῶν λέξεων, δὲν ξέρει νὰ γράφει. Γράφει, ὅποιος ξέρει νὰ κάνει τὶς λέξεις νὰ γίνονται ἀγνώριστες.
Yorgos Maniatis (1939–2018) first published his book Midas Has Ass’s Ears [O Mídas Vassiliás Ékhi Aftiá Gaidárou] in 1972 (Athens: Kedros Books). These lines appear in footnote number twelve of the third edition published in 2018 (Athens: Stigmi Books, pp. 26–27) with its cover back-to-front – this was intentional.
Translated for (and taken from) an essay titled “Everything Depends on the Quality of the Encounter” that the documentary filmmaker Stavros Psillakis wrote for the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival publication On the Threshold (TiDF25).
The commissioned translation was not used in full.
see also
A mutilated ⋮ death.
All that I ⋮ back.
Like ⋮ the smell of earth.
Rose-like ⋮ all the flowers.
arkhæio
ON THE THRESHOLD
