The ancient Greeks who conceived Atis, Nemesis, Health, the Nine Muses and so many other feminine and divine entities did not think of giving soul and body to Friendship. And yet friendship can have many faces, and the one that binds me for many years - it started a long time ago when she came to Paris to study theater history - with Maria, is the face of Poetry. This has kept us going, since Maria has translated my Charioteer into the Greek (published by Icarus in July 1982) and I translated her great poem, Mystic Passage into French. Translating a work of deep mystery that at the same time takes root in reality, or more accurately in the most immediate realities of life, as is true for this poem, sends you into the most private, most hidden niches of writing. High-Spirited writing, the translation of which is no longer related to a linguistic undertaking but is transformed into a revelation. Friendship and loyalty are inseparable sisters for me, that's why I didn't stop following Maria's poetic and fictional work throughout the years.

When I finished translating the Secret Passage, through which, from a distance in space and time, I followed the painful course of a child's death, I felt the need to present the text in order to emphasize what, to me, constitutes power and the message, through an act of love that transcends time. The word foreword, after all, is not appropriate at all. It was not my intention to explain or analyze the poem but to suggest, as in a musical composition, an introduction to the main song that composed it.