View Entire Literary Sampler     

Literary Sampler

The Dance (9999)

In a field of cinders where Armenians
were still dying,
A German woman, trying not to cry
told me the horror she witnessed:

"This incomprehensible thing I'm telling you about,
I saw with my own eyes.
From my window of hell
I clenched my teeth
and watched with pitiless eyes:
the town of Barez turned
into a heap of ashes.
Corpses piled as high as trees.
From the waters, from the springs,
from the streams and the road,
the stubborn murmur of your blood
still revenges my ear.

Don't be afraid. I must tell you what I saw,
so people will understand
the crimes men do to men.
For two days, by the road to the graveyard...
Let the hearts of the whole world understand.
It was Sunday morning,
the first useless Sunday dawning on the corpses.
From dusk to dawn in my room,
with a stabbed woman,
my tears wetting her death.
Suddenly I heard from afar
a dark crowd standing in a vineyard
lashing twenty brides
and singing dirty songs.

Leaving the half-dead girl on the straw mattress,
I went to the balcony on my window
and the crowd seemed to thicken like a forest,
An animal of a man shouted, "you must dance,
dance when our drum beats."
With fury whips cracked
on the flesh of these women.
Hand in hand the brides began their circle dance.
Now, I envied my wounded neighbor
because with a calm snore
she cursed the universe
and gave her soul up to the stars...

In vain, I shook my fists at the crowd.
'Dance,' they raved,
'dance till you die, infidel beauties.
With your flapping tits, dance!
Smile and don't complain.
You're abandoned now, you're naked slaves
so dance like a bunch of fuckin' sluts.
We're hot for you all.'
Twenty graceful brides collapsed.
'Get up,' the crowds roared,
brandishing their swords.
Then someone brought a jug of kerosene.
Human justice, I spit in your face.
The brides were anointed.
'Dance,' they thundered--
here's a fragrance you can't get in Arabia.'
Then with a torch, they set
the naked brides on fire.
And the charred corpses rolled
and tumbled to their deaths...
Like a storm I slammed the shutters
of my windows,
and went over to the dead girl
and asked: 'How can I dig out my eyes,
how can I dig, tell me?"

Credit: From The Dance by Siamento. Translated by Peter Balakian and Nevart Yaghlian.

Biography:

Born Adom Yarjanian, Siamento was born in Eghine, at the edge of the Euphrates in Turkish Armenia. In 1892, he left for Constantinople where he intially entered Merdjanian College and then later went to Berbérian College. After the massacres of 1896, Siamento took refuge in Egypt and then moved to Paris where he took classes at the Sorbonne. Next he moved to Switzerland where he connected with other Armenian writers and patriots who were there in Geneva. Siamento visited the United States in 1910. In Armenia, Siamento became a popular political activist with a bardic poetic style and wrote Bloody News from My friend as a response to the first massacre of Armenians committed by the Turkish government. On April 24, 1915, Siamento was one of hundreds of intellectuals and political and spiritual leaders who were rounded up. He was held in detention until August, when he was murdered.

Bibliography:

Amboghjakan Erker [Complete Works] Antelias: Press of the Catholicossate of Cilicia, 1989.

Earchanean-Siamanto, Atom. Amboghjakan Gortse [Complete Poems] Boston, MA: Hairenik Press, 1910.

News & Links | Donate | Site Map | About This Site | Legal | Privacy Policy