Editorial #3 | Love's Labour's Lost? | by Dora Psoma

Love Alley, photo by Evangelos Moliviatis, 2020

Editorial #3

Love's Labour's Lost?*

*In memoriam of James Arnold, my teacher, my mentor, my friend.

written by Dora Psoma

translated by Stavroula Giaritzidou

 

Thessaloniki. May 29th 2020. Greece is gradually relaxing quarantine measures. The lockdown is over and we are, in a sense, freer. As if the word “free” could have a comparative and a superlative form. (Free – Freer – Freest? Come on!)

I am walking about in Svolou Street and I find myself in front of «ΣΑΙΞΠΗΡΙΚΟΝ» bookstore οn Patriarchou Ioakim. I am not interested in buying anything today. I am just window-shopping.

Walking down Skra Street, I pause at a cul-de-sac, romantically misnamed “Love Street”. Clichés are a dime a dozen. What kind of suffering creature could have chosen a similar name for such a dreary dead-end alley?

Shakespeare and the slightly misinterpreted comedy of his, entitled “Love’s Labour’s Lost”, come to mind. I run home and rummage through my bookshelves to find it. I sit on the balcony and look down at the ruins of Galerius Palace on Gounari Street, next to Navarino Square.

Love's Labour's Lost, photo by Spyros Kavvadias, 2020

 

I open the book and leaf through it. A small, paperback edition, translated by Vasilis Rotas; the original was written in the mid-1590s, when Londoners found themselves dipping in and out of lockdowns, depending on either Queen Elisabeth I’s mood or the experts’ directives. The Plague was steadily devastating England’s capital since 1348.

What is Shakespeare confiding in us through the mists of time? What is he trying to tell us and, most important, what do we want to hear? Through a play about love and life that passes and fades, he encourages us to turn inward. He invites us to explore the power of language, as well as its limits.

The book captivated me. As we read on the back cover, “…it is similar to an engraving on a stone ring that speaks for the person who is wearing the jewel.” Vasilis Rotas gives an inspirational lecture on translation, editing and diction, while Shakespeare wishes us social well-being and health:

“A beard, fair health, and honesty;
With three-fold love I wish you all these three”[1]

This week on TTP, love was in abundance. And the labour was not lost. Once again, with ardour and respect, we set to translating and editing the texts that we present to you in this issue.

Tomaso Ferrando, Lydia Namubiru and Petra Molnar became our beloved ones. Reading their words and ideas, we no longer feel lonely or isolated in the microcosm of a country facing the invisible threat of a virus. Tomaso’s economic yet deeply human analysis, Lydia’s personal experience, as well as Petra’s denunciation of human rights violations through the use of digital technology in the midst of Covid-19 Crisis, should prompt the Greek-speaking audiences to look both inward and outward. To read and listen to words that were dearly loved.

Once again we feature images by visual artist Apostolis Rizos, his series Test Patterns in particular, which offers an unconventional take on the form of the photo diary. Merging two images in a diptych, he explores the human brain’s tendency to combine different elements (“mental unification”), and thus conceive new notions.

I close the book and I start writing this week’s editorial. For me, there is no feeling as pure as the love of words – both mine and others’. Forgive my –perhaps unjustifiable– lyricism and my obsession with words. They derive from my love for that intangible threshold of consciousness, where language interweaves with imagination. Where anything is possible.

This is a marathon. Indeed.

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[1]Love’s Labour’s Lost, William Shakespeare, Act V – Scene 2