IN AMARA INSULA CITRORUM

Tremor abest treni

post viam ferream dirutam,

hic abhinc annos plures.

Hodie Cypridis insulam

Viridis Linea dissecat.

In ora cruoris Venerei,

sub clivis montis Troodii,

perdita zona gemmata.

O Cyprus!

Campus iuxta Larnacam

nos tam fortiter angit.

Est ibi formosa Morfu,

exul urbs, nomine digna suo.
- Cyrenia! Tu quoque longe

remota loco proprio.

In Turci maris tutela

alieno lates in gremio.

Usque manet Crescens Luna

et Viridis fertur Linea.

Num reliqua possint addi

praeter Pafon Leucosianve?

- Fuit exodus Famagustae.

Ex castro Famagustae tu
orientem spectas, Othello!

Polluis tu tibi mentis undam,

foris cum fluctus aestuant.

Mare luit, mordet, devorat

hasce duas oras.

A Princeps Cypri phantasmatum!

- Famagustae nemo spirat.

JS MMII

CYPRUS IN DISTRESS

On first August, 1571, Famagusta, in Cyprus, fell to the victorious Turkish arms. Marcantonio Bragadino, the great Venetian commander, had to accept the Ottoman terms of surrender. He was not exposed to the enemy by treachery, for it was the fiend who betrayed the Venetian.

After having visited a horrible catalogue of spectacular cruelty and humiliation on Marcantonio, the Turks finally flayed him alive. Timothy Boatswain also points out that the hero's skin, stuffed with straw, was triumphantly paraded through the streets and symbolically consigned to a slave prison.

Famagusta was the last Venetian outpost on the island of Aphrodite, held by Venice, "La Serenissima", since 1489. Nicosia (Levkosía), in her turn, fell as early as September 1570, and 30,000 people were massacred.

***

"I am still waiting for you,
Aphrodite, here in Cyprus.
Once more, I'll be patient and wait
until you come from Cythera,
to this pasture for horses,
to these blooming meadows
with so many flowers of April.
And when gentle breezes are blowing,
you, Immortal, will come to me."
(JS, 2002)

***
[For further details, see my 'Bitter Lemons. Eulogy of Love and Cyprus'. Tampere University Press. Tampere, 2002; T. Boatswain and C. Nicolson, 'A Traveller's History of Greece'. Athens 1991]