| Constatine P. Cavafy |
| Ithaca When you start on your journey to Ithaca, then pray that the road is long, full of adventure, full of knowledge. Do not fear the Lestrygonians and the Cyclopes and the angry Poseidon. You will never meet such as these on your path, if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine emotion touches your body and your spirit. You will never meet the Lestrygonians, the Cyclopes and the fierce Poseidon, if you do not carry them within your soul, if your soul does not raise them up before you. Then pray that the road is long. That the summer mornings are many, that you will enter ports seen for the first time with such pleasure, with such joy! Stop at Phoenician markets, and purchase fine merchandise, mother-of-pearl and corals, amber and ebony, and pleasurable perfumes of all kinds, buy as many pleasurable perfumes as you can; visit hosts of Egyptian cities, to learn and learn from those who have knowledge. Always keep Ithaca fixed in your mind. To arrive there is your ultimate goal. But do not hurry the voyage at all. It is better to let it last for long years; and even to anchor at the isle when you are old, rich with all that you have gained on the way, not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches. Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage. Without her you would never have taken the road. But she has nothing more to give you. And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not defrauded you. With the great wisdom you have gained, with so much experience, you must surely have understood by then what Ithacas mean. -- 1911, transl. Rae Dalven The Grave of the Grammarian Lysias Very close to you, as you enter on the right, in the Beirut library, we buried the sage Lysias, the grammarian. The spot is beautifully right. We placed him near those things of his that he perhaps remembers even there -- scholia, texts, grammars, scriptures, numerous commentaries in tomes on hellenisms. This way, his grave will also be seen and honored by us, when we pass among the books. -- 1914, transl. Rae Dalven The City You said, "I will go to another land, I will go to another sea. Another city will be found, a better one than this. Every effort of mine is a condemnation of fate; and my heart is -- like a corpse -- buried. How long will my mind remain in this wasteland. Wherever I turn my eyes, wherever I may look I see black ruins of my life here, where I spent so many years destroying and wasting." You will find no new lands, you will find no other seas. The city will follow you. You will roam the same streets. And you will age in the same neighborhoods; and you will grow gray in these same houses. Always you will arrive in this city. Do not hope for any other -- There is no ship for you, there is no road. As you have destroyed your life here in this little corner, you have ruinded it in the entire world. -- before 1911, transl. Rae Dalven Far Off I should like to relate this memory ... but it is so faded now ... scarecely anthing is left -- because it lies far off, in the years of my early manhood. A skin as if made of jasmine ... that night in August -- was it August? -- that night ... I can just barely remember the eyes; they were, I think, blue ... Ah yes, blue; a sapphire blue. -- 1914, transl. Rae Dalven Theodotus If you are truly one of the select few, watch how you acquire your power. However much you are glorified, however much the cities in Italy and in Thessaly acclaim your achievements, however many decrees in your honor your admirers may have issued in Rome, neither your joy nor your triumph will last, nor will you feel like a superior -- what do you mean superior? -- man when in Alexandria, Theodotus brings you, upon a bloodstained tray, the head of the wretched Pompey. And do not rely on the fact that in your life, circumscribed, regulated, and prosaic, there are no such spectacular and terrifying things. Perhaps at this very hour, Theodotus is entering the well-appointed house of one of your neighbors -- invisible, bodiless -- carrying such a hideous head. -- 1915, transl. Rae Dalven In Despair He has lost him completely. And now he is seeking on the lips of every new lover the lips of his beloved; in the embrace of every new lover he seeks to be deluded that he is the same lad, that it it to him he is yielding. He has lost him copmletely, as if he had never been at all. For he wanted -- so he said -- he wanted to be saved from the stigmatized, the sick sensual delight; from the stigmatized, sensual delight of shame. There was still time -- as he said -- to be saved. He has lost him completely, as if he had never been at all. In his imagination, in his delusions, on the lips of others it is his lips he is seeking; he is longing to feel again the love he has known. -- 1923, transl. Rae Dalven Thermopylae Honor to those who in their lives are committed and guard their Thermopylae. Never stirring from duty; just and upright in all their deeds, but with pity and compassion too; generous whenever they are rich, and when they are poor, again a little generous, again helping as much as they are able; always speaking the truth, but without rancor for those who lie. And they merit greater honor when the foresee (and many do foresee) that Ephialtes will finally appear, and in the end the Medes will go through. -- 1911, transl. Rae Dalven Desires Like beautiful bodies of the dead, who had not grown old and they shut them with tears, in a magnificent mausoleum, with roses at the head and jasmine at the feet -- that is how desires look that have passed without fultillment; without one of them having achieved a night of sensual delight, or a moonlit morn. -- before 1911, transl. Rae Dalven Beautiful Flowers and White That Became Him Well He walked into the cafe where they used to go together. -- It was here that his friend had told him three months before, "We haven't a farthing. We are two boys who are completely penniless -- reduced to the cheapest places. I tell you this plainly, I can no longer go around with you. Someone else, you must know, is asking for me." This "someone else" had promised him two suits of clothes and a few handkerchiefs made of silk. -- To win him back once more he moved heaven and earth, and he found twenty pounds. He went around with him again because of the twenty poinds; but also, along with these, for their old friendship, for the old love they felt, for their very deep feeling. -- The "someone else" was a liar, a regular guttersnipe; he had only one suit of clothes made for him, and even that begrudgingly, after a thousand pleas. But now he no longer wants either the suits of clothes, or anything at all of the handkerchiefs of silk, or the twenty pounds, or the twenty piasters. On Sunday they buried him, at ten in the morning. On Sunday they buried him, it is almost a week. On his very cheap coffin, he placed flowers, beautiful flowers and white that became him well, that became his beauty and his twenty-two years. In the evening when he went -- on a job that came his way, a need to earn his bread -- to the cafe where they used to go together; a knife in his heart, was the desolate cafe where they used to go together. -- 1929, transl. Rae Dalven Since Nine O'Clock -- Half past twelve. The time has passed quickly since nine o'clock when I lit the lamp, and sat down here. I sat without reading, and without speaking. With whom could I speak all alone in this house. Since nine o'clock when I lit the lamp, the vision of my youthful body has appeared and found me and reminded me of closed heavily scented rooms, and pleasure long past -- what audacious pleasure! And it also brought before my eyes streets that have now become unrecognizable, centers full of movement that are ended, and theaters and cafes that once used to be. The vision of my youthful body appeared and brought me also the sad memories; family mournings, separations, feelings of my dear ones, feelings of the dead so little esteemed. Half past twelve. How the time has passed. Half past twelve. How the years have passed. -- 1918, transl. Rae Dalven |
| The great Alexandrian poet (1863 - 1933) charged his classically-themed and elegant poetry with the common motifs of love and the taverna. Cavafy wrote openly about his homosexuality, eschewing metaphor. Although his voice is often heavy with nostalgia and longing, it remains unsentimental, uncomplaining, contained -- yet imbued with concentrated emotion. A poet's poet. |
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| Cavafy charged his elegant classically-themed poetry with common motifs and concentrated emotion. Site includes poems, brief bio, photos, links and access to the Electronic Poetry Anthology. |
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