Sto perigiali to kryfo – Grigoris Bithikotsis

Grigoris Bithikotsis sings “Sto perigiali to kryfo”, a Greek song which translates to “The hidden seashore” in English.

The song Sto perigiali to kryfo is also known as Arnisi, and is one of the most known Greek songs composed by Mikis Theodorakis. Arnisi means “Refusal” or “Renunciation” and is actually a poem written by the Nobelist poet Giorgos Seferis.

Many people believe that the poem refers to a small beach in Konnos Cyprus, where Seferis was the ambassador of Greece for some time. This is not true though, as Seferis visited Cyprus many years after this poem was written and published.

Sto perigiali to kryfo (Arnisi) was written after Seferis returned from Paris in 1924 and it was published in 1931. It was set to music by the composer Mikis Theodorakis in 1960, sung by Grigoris Bithikotsis in 1962 and became enormously popular in Greece. Since then numerous artists have sung Sto perigiali to kryfo, including Maria Farantouri, Alexia, Milva and more.

George Seferis is a Greek poet, essayist, and diplomat who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963. Seferis is considered to be the most distinguished Greek poet of the pre-war generation of the 1930s.

In his work Seferis combined the language of everyday speech with traditional poetic forms and rhythms. The recurrent theme in his poetry and this particular song as well, is exile and nostalgia for the Mediterranean and freedom of speech and life.