Friday 27 March 2015

You hum it, I'll join in

It was Greek Independence Day on Wednesday which got me thinking about the Greek national anthem and something I knew, but needed to confirm. Namely that the Greek national anthem is the longest in the world and possibly even the universe.

I say this without fear of contradiction because the Hymn to Liberty has no less than 158 stanzas. Extraordinary, isn't it? I have no idea how long it would take to get through the whole lot, but we are unlikely to find out because in the 19th century it was decided that just the first two stanzas were enough.

The Hymn to Liberty was written by Dionysios Solomos and set to music by Nikolaos Mantzaros. I should think by the time they'd done that it was time to put their feet up.

I'm not going to go on too long today because I'm getting ready for the A to Z Challenge which begins next week.

Just so you know what to listen for, here's the Greek national anthem, but not all 158 verses. A Greek transliteration and lyrics in English are also included, which I'm sure you'll agree is just the sort of informative service you're looking for from this blog.


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