Taygetos Taleton 5
posted by vetdino at Monday, July 02, 2007
Monday, July 02, 2007
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the historical background of an epic movie... "Because only we, contrary to the Barbarians, never count the enemy in battle" Aeschylus
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When dawn breaks the attention shifts to the West. The visitors observe the shadow of the pyramid shaping on the Messinian bay. A view to remember...
“A mountain is a poem waiting for you to hear it” Nikiphoros Vrettakos
“No mountain from all I have seen in my life, from the Mont Blanc with its eternal illusive snowy peaks, to the wildest Spanish Sierras, ever impressed me or made me feel deep in my heart the emotions I experienced when, on my way to Sparta, I faced the Taygetus, with all its impressive height for the first time.
I could never imagine there could be a mountain with such a character, such an individuality.
His image was majestic.
He appears to stand on huge, solid slopes, like the base of City-walls, in purple and lead colors. And his peaks have the shape of pyramids, projecting in the blue sky clearly and abruptly.
Unlike in other mountains, there are no lower tops which may hide him and thus, allows one to embrace the entire height of the mountain with one look.
From the valley of Sparta, which the Evrotas crosses like a snake through a green sea, the Taygetus rises uninterrupted, straight, mature, robust and proud, up to the snow-covered peaks.
As he appears in such a way, he does not only give you the impression of greatness, but fills you with a deep emotion.
You can not imagine him soul-less, like a cold mass of rock.
As he rises, God-high and strong, shading the big valley, he appears like a soul-full presence, like a titanic guard. He truly offers the emotion felt by Maurice Barres when he first saw him and through it he explained the military wonder of ancient Sparta.
Indeed, when one sees the Taygetus, he understands better, he understands fully, how this race was proud. How this masculine, simple, disciplined and war-like race, lived in the valley of Sparta, without EVER feeling the need to built walls around its Acropoles to hide at times of enemy invasions.
The people who, every day, faced the Titan called Taygetus, who breathed the air coming down his peaks, who felt, not his weight on their valley, but his monumental height, were not possible at that age of wars and small nations, not to develop into steel-made and proud warriors and not to consider their race superior to the culture of the Athenians…
In the past, before I had seen the Taygetus, I, together with many, considered them a lower race, lost from the face of the earth without leaving a trace of remembrance through the centuries; no temple, no work of art.
Now I feel that the Spartans “left” the Taygetus as their greatest monument, inspired by his presence, they raised their souls to his highest peak and became one with him...”
Kostas Ouranis about the Taygetus, from his book “Greece” ΕΛΛΑΔΑ
Maurice Barres is a Frenchman and back in 1897 coined the term "national socialist". It is interesting that he visited Sparta. I will add him to the list of philodorians.
Thanks for your time and trouble. I enjoyed the translations and now have a connection to the videos. Thanks. Much I didn't know about Mt. Taygetus.
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