To the hard work that lay before him, he gave never a thought; the daily discipline to which his free and untrammeled boyhood must bend seemed a necessary trifle. Nothing mattered any more! He only knew that the smiling faces of the two men beside him seemed quivering in a golden mist, he only knew that the words he had just heard were making music in his brain; for the lad in whose veins ran the blood of the old scholars of Greece, had come into his inheritance.
NOTES
NOTES FOR “MATTINA”
No. 1, Kyra. A title of respect or a prefix before the name, used to old women of the people. You would say “Kyra Sophoula” or “Kyra Calliope” if the women were old or elderly, instead of plain “Sophoula” or “Calliope.” It corresponds I fancy to “Dame” which was used in England in the middle ages, or even I think they sometimes used “Goody.”
Kyr is the masculine equivalent for old men. Sometimes “Barba” meaning “uncle” colloquially is instead, as it is with you in the South I think for old negroes.
Kyria is simply “Mrs.” or “Madame” and is used either before the name as, “Kyria Dragoumis” for instance; or alone if you do not use the name as, “Yes, Kyria” for “Oui, Madame.”
No. 2, Monastery Road. The Monastery on the hills in Poros is an old one of the Byzantine epoch restored about a hundred years ago. It has a beautiful little chapel with a wonderfully carved wooden “templon” (the screen which separates the altar from the body of the church). There are a few old monks left but not many.
No. 3, Sponge-divers. Some Greeks earn their living by diving for sponges. The best sponges in Greece are found in Hydra, but the sponge-captains often take their divers to the north coast of Africa.