casionally they dipped, not always together, and touched the floor with their hands; sometimes they stamped with their feet; always their eyes were on the ground. The orchestra sang loudly the while.

Andreas and I chose a table near the space reserved for the dancing, and ordered a meal and some retsina, the resin-tasting Greek wine. Soon the orchestra stopped, the dancing finished, the two boys sat down at their table and continued their meal. There was no applause and throughout little notice had been taken by anyone of the dancing. After a short interval, a young man got up, spoke to the orchestra which proceeded to play, and he danced, alone, absorbed, sometimes with a fluttering motion of the shoulders, as of wings, sometimes stooping to touch the ground with one hand, sometimes stamping the feet violently, but looking always at the floor. Again, when he had finished there was no applause and nobody had been looking at him particularly. He was followed by a succession of young male dancers, peasants, soldiers, workmen, and all followed the same 9/8 rhythm, but all danced, within this rhythm, individually and spontaneously.

I asked Andreas to explain this to me. Now Andreas is a scholar and has made a study of Greek mythology. This is his explanation: Zeybekikos: the first part "Zey" (from Zeus) symbolizes the spirit. The second half "bekos", meaning bread, symbolizes the body. The dance is said to satisfy the Soul and Body of man. The dancer moves his shoulder-blades like wings under his skin as if in flight and escape from his cares and misfortunes; he beats the soil violently with his feet

in order to "take off", and maintain himself in flight between time and space. He looks at the earth so as not to lose his direction and balance, and often touches the soil with his hand, or his knee, to take strength; courage, from the magnetic rays of his mother the Earth, in order to face the difficulties of life. In the dance he achieves the relaxation of his whole being, and the removal of every distress and conflict with which he may be harrassed.

The Zeybekikos, said to have been danced since 1200 B.C., is a "liberating" dance, a form, if you will, of personal psychoanalysis, and the dancer feels released, relaxed, spiritually "purged" after it. It is danced today all over Greece, and is becoming ever more popular.

"But what about the two, holding the handkerchief between them," I asked Andreas.

"Probably they do not know why they hold the handkerchief," he told me, "to them it is just a tradition. But the piece of cloth represents the headband the Greeks used to wear in ancient times, to tie back their hair. When they saw someone they fancied, they would take off the head-band—as we say today, they would 'let their hair down'-then proffer it to the intended one."

It had stopped raining when we mounted the stone steps and came out into the narrow dark street. And the sugar taxis appeared once again in Omonia Square. Andreas dived into one, and I walked slowly, thoughtfully back to my hotel, the music of the Zeybekikos still drumming in my ear. But I remembered to stop in at Zonar's and collect the wild cyclamen.

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