Kostis Palamas, in his poem “Daughters of Zion” from the poetic collection “The Immovable Life” (published in 1904), is inspired by the Gospel according to Mark the Evangelist, where Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and Salome, who were “beholding from afar,” became witnesses of all the events that are referred to in the Crucifixion and the Resurrection of Jesus.
In this poem, Kostis Palamas praises the Holy Myrrhbearing Women as the purest examples of faith and love for Christ: they followed Him, served Him, mourned Him at the Cross, and were the first to witness His Resurrection. He portrays them as spiritually exalted—almost equal to angels—yet insists their greatness lies in their deeply human love, expressed through tenderness, devotion, and personal attachment to Christ not merely as God but as the suffering and beloved Man. Their longing, tears, and fidelity reveal a truth greater than preaching: that sincere, self-giving love for Christ transforms human nature itself and manifests divine glory more powerfully than words, with Mary Magdalene standing as the highest embodiment of this love.
In the final lines, Kostis Palamas reinterprets the empty tomb of Christ not as a place of death but as a symbol of a world transformed and renewed by the Resurrection: what seemed like an end is revealed as emptiness and defeat overcome. He turns to the Holy Myrrhbearing Women—Mary Magdalene, Salome, and Mary—as the first witnesses of this victory, asking them to share their overwhelming joy and revelation with all humanity, every nation and place. The “stone of misfortune” being rolled away by a radiant angel becomes an image of sorrow, despair, and death being lifted, so that even what is “dead”—both literally and spiritually—may receive new, eternal life.
“And there were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome, who also, when He was in Galilee, followed Him and ministered to Him, and many other women who had come up with Him to Jerusalem” (Gospel according to Mark).
Fragrant roses of Jericho,
you scatter your perfumes in the Gospels;
you, with words unconquerable of faith and love,
speak to my unbelieving heart.
You are shaded by the cedars of Lebanon,
you are refreshed by the stream of the Jordan;
to Jesus Christ the eros of your youth
you bring myrrh, gold, incense.
You listen to His divine, hidden words,
and with your longing, your care, your devotion,
kissing again and again His immaculate feet,
you anoint them with your hair.
Upon the Cross, as He slowly faded,
you mourned His all-holy beauty;
creation, nature, even the sun were clothed in black,
and your hearts here below were clothed in black as well.
When, breaking the stone of His tomb,
the Lord gave light again to creation,
you were His most precious creatures
whom He stood to greet first.
Daughters of Zion, equal to angels in portion,
crowned with the glory of the Lord,
I love you, because however much you were sanctified,
you remain always formed as human.
For within the God-Man, I reflect,
who has taken all your heart,
you do not so much behold the power of God
as you feel the grace of man.
And from His almighty Word
only the sound of His voice reaches you,
and with Him the desert is more radiant
than the heavenly throne of His Father.
Daughters of Zion, and the longing
that trembles within your pure breasts,
is more for the Bridegroom—the martyr of the Cross—
than for the Lord who has risen.
Yet you made man
to be enthroned as God of gods here below.
Mary Magdalene—and the most beautiful
of all are you, you, His miracles.
And your glory shines forth more purely
in your single, quiet tear
than in the preachings of the Apostles,
than across the whole world from end to end.
To those same humble women of Zion, who received from Jesus His first resurrection greeting, who “very early on the first of the Sabbaths” came to the tomb to anoint the dead Christ with myrrh and found the white-clad angel who told them the joyful message: “He is risen, He is not here; behold the place where they laid Him.” Upon this miracle of the Resurrection are based the following verses of the poet:
It is not a tomb; it is the world brought to completion,
standing wide open, utterly empty, the stone rolled away,
and at last revealed to you—a threefold veneration—
to you, Magdalene, Salome, and you, O Mary!
From your unimaginable blessedness
give to the earth—to every soul and every human being,
every people, every homeland, every place!
Oh that the unmoving stone of misfortune
might be rolled away by the grace of a snow-white angel,
and that the mighty dead and the beautiful dead
might receive a life forever new!
(“A Resurrection Farewell”)
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
