?If I am in the mood, I will play. I will sing. And I will dance the Zembekiko, the
Hassepiko, the Pentozalit ? but I tell you plainly from the start, I must be in
the mood. Let?s have that clear. If you force me, it?ll be finished. As regards those things, you must realise, I
am a man.?
? A man? What do you mean??
?Well, free!?
?It is a mystery, he murmured, a great mystery! So, if we
want liberty in this bad world, we?ve got to have all those murders, all those
lousy tricks, have we? I tell you. If I began to go over all the bloody
villainy and all the murders we did, you?d have your hair stand on end. And yet, the result of all that, what?s it
been?? ? Liberty!? ?Instead of wiping us
out with a thunderbolt, God gives us liberty!?
?I just don?t understand!?
?How does a plant sprout
and grow into a flower on manure and muck? Say to yourself, Zorba, that the
manure and muck is man and the flower liberty.?
?For hundreds of years,
Dante?s verses have been sung in the poet?s
country. And just as love songs prepare Italian girls for love, so the
ardent Florentine verses prepared Italian youths for the day of deliveries.
From generation to generation, all communed with the soul of the poet and so
transformed their slavery into freedom?
?Did you hear that bird? It seemed to say something to us,
than it flew away.?
?My friend smiled.? It?s a bird, let it sing;? ?it?s a bird
let it speak,? he said, quoting a
line from one of our popular ballads.?
?How was it that at this moment, at daybreak on this
Cretan coast, such a memory should come into my head, together with that
faithful verse, and fill my mind with bitterness.?