Cavafy Read online

  some Artemidorus who carries a letter,

  who says in a hurry, “Read this right away:

  something important of interest to you.”

  Do not fail to stop; do not fail to postpone

  any conference or task

  or strivers who greet you

  and make their obeisances.

  Later you’ll see them.

  Make even the Senate wait

  a little for you to receive

  the grave message of Artemidorus.

  Finalities

  In fear and suspicions,

  with troubled mind and fearful eyes

  we waste away plotting what to do

  to escape the certain danger

  that threatens us terribly.

  And yet we are mistaken:

  It isn’t this in the road ahead.

  The reports were false

  (either we did not hear them

  or we did not understand them).

  A different catastrophe, one we did not imagine

  sudden, violent , falls on us unready

  —no time now—and carries us off.

  Sculptor of Tyana

  As you will have heard I am no beginner

  A certain amount of stone passes through my hand

  They know me well in Tyana, my home,

  and legislators here have ordered

  many of their statues from me.

  To show you some just now

  look at this Rhea: reverence,

  endurance itself, eldest of all.

  Look at Pompey, Marius,

  Aemilius Paulus, Scipio Africanus,

  likenesses as true as I could make;

  Patroklos (I’ll retouch him shortly).

  By those pieces of yellow marble

  that’s Caesarion.

  For some time now I’ve been occupied with a Poseidon.

  I take special care with the horses,

  how to form them.

  They have to be so light

  —their bodies and legs—

  you can easily see

  they do not tread the earth

  they only run the waters.

  But here is my most darling work

  devised with passion and utmost care.

  One hot summer day

  when my mind rose up to the ideal

  I formed him here in a dream, young Hermes.

  The God Leaves Anthony

  When suddenly at midnight you hear

  an invisible company pass,

  splendid music and voices,

  your fate that collapses, your works

  that failed, the plans of your life

  that all turned out delusions,

  do not mourn them helplessly.

  As though long ready, as though confident,

  tell her goodbye, the Alexandria that is leaving.

  Above all, do not be fooled. Do not say

  it was a dream, that your hearing was deceived.

  Vain hopes, do not descend to them.

  As though long ready, as though confident,

  as befits you, who have had as your due such a city,

  go up to the window strong

  and listen with feeling and not

  with cowardly pleas and complaints

  up to full and final enjoyment of the sound,

  the splendid instruments of the secret company,

  and tell her goodbye, the Alexandria you are losing.

  Ionic

  Because we broke their idols

  because we chased them from their temples

  the gods despite this did not die at all.

  O land of Ionia, they love you still

  in their hearts remember you still

  as an August morning lightens over you

  an energy from their lives passes into your air

  and sometimes a young and ethereal form

  quick-paced, indistinct, passes over your hills.

  The Glory of the Ptolemies

  I, Lagid, descendant and king, totally occupy

  (with my strength and wealth) the field of sensual pleasure.

  No one, be he Macedonian or barbarian, is my peer.

  No one is even near.

  That Seleucid is a laugh with the treats he buys.

  If you are looking for other things, see here.

  This is clear: My city is the teacher,

  crest of all Hellenic culture

  in all the letters, in all the arts

  the most skilled.

  Ithaca

  When you go out on the voyage to Ithaca

  pray the way will be long.

  full of adventures, full of recognitions.

  Laestrygonians and Cyclopes,

  angry Poseidon, do not fear them.

  You will never find such things in your way

  if your view stays high, if a very

  special emotion touches your mind and body.

  Laestrygonians and Cyclopes,

  wild Poseidon, you won’t meet them,

  if you don’t transport them into your soul.

  if your soul does not raise them before you.

  Pray the way will be long.

  Pray there be many summer mornings

  when you—how gratefully, how gladly—

  enter harbors you see for the first time.

  stop at Phoenician exchanges,

  acquire their fair, worked pieces, and

  diamonds and coral, electrum and ebony,

  and voluptuous scents of every kind,

  voluptuous scents, as many as you can.

  Go to many Egyptian cities.

  Learn and learn from their scholars.

  Always keep Ithaca in your mind

  Arrival there is your goal

  But do not at all hurry the trip.

  Better years to get there.

  Then when you are old you will anchor at the island

  rich with all you’ve gained on the way.

  not expecting Ithaca to give you wealth.

  Ithaca gave you a beautiful voyage.

  Without her you would not have set out.

  but she cannot give you any more.

  And if you find her poor, Ithaca did not fool you.

  Wise as you have become, so expert by then,

  You will know what an Ithaca means.

  The Dangers

  Said Myrtias (Syrian student

  at Alexandria under the reign

  of Augustus Constans and Augustus Constantius,

  in part pagan, in part tending toward Christianity):

  “Empowered with theory and study, I

  shall not like a coward fear my affections:

  I shall give my body to pleasures,

  to enjoyments dreamt of,

  to the most daring erotic desires,

  to my blood’s wanton rush without

  any fear, because whenever I will,

  and I shall have the will, empowered

  as I shall be with theory and study,

  in the critical instants I shall find again

  my spirit, as before, ascetic.”

  Philhellene

  Take care the engraving is artfully done,

  the expression stately and severe,

  the diadem probably better narrow—

  I do not like those broad Parthian ones—

  the inscription as usual in Greek

  not overdone, not fulsome—

  so the proconsul doesn’t misconstrue

  (always grubbing around and reporting to Rome)

  but still, honorific, of course.

  Something very special on the other side:

  discus-thrower, young man, good looking.

  But above all see to it, Sithaspes,

  (do not for the love of God forget)

  that after “King” and “Savior” you

  inscribe in elegant letters “Philhellene.”

  and don’t now start getting smart with me

  “Where
are the Hellenes?” and “Where is Hellenic culture

  back of the Zagros here, beyond the Phraates?”

  So many others, more barbarian than we are,

  write it, and so also shall we.

  In the end do not forget that sometimes

  sophists come to us from Syria

  and rhymsters and other vessels empty of serious learning.

  We are not then un-Hellenic, surely.

  Herodes Atticus

  Ah, Herodes Atticus, what glory is his!

  Alexander of Seleucia, one of our good sophists,

  on arriving in Athens to speak

  finds the city empty, for Herodes

  is in the country, and all the young

  have followed him there to hear him.

  The sophist Alexander therefore

  writes a letter to Herodes

  and asks him to send back the Greeks.

  Courteous Herodes answers directly

  “Along with the Greeks, I’ll come too.”

  How many lads in Alexandria now

  in Antioch or in Beirut

  (our speakers of tomorrow, whom Hellenism makes ready)

  when they gather at their elegant festal tables

  where talk is now of nice sophistics

  and now of their wonderful love affairs

  for a moment abstracted fall still

  leave glasses untouched beside them

  and reckon the luck of Herodes:

  What other sophist has deserved this?

  Whatever he likes and wherever he goes

  the Greeks—the Greeks—follow him.

  They do not judge nor do they argue,

  nor choose anymore, they just follow.

  Alexandrian Kings

  The Alexandrians assembled

  to see Cleopatra’s children

  Caesarion and his little brothers

  Alexander and Ptolemy

  who for the first time

  were taken out to the Gymnasium

  to be proclaimed as kings

  amidst a bright array of soldiers.

  Alexander—he was named King

  of Armenia, Media, and of the Parthians

  Ptolemy—he was named King

  of Cilicia, Syria, and of Phoenicia.

  Caesarion stood in front

  dressed in pink silk

  garland of hyacinths at his breast

  belt a double row of sapphires and amethysts

  shoes tied by white ribbons

  embroidered with rose-colored pearls.

  He was named greater than the little ones.

  He was named King of Kings.

  The Alexandrians understood, Yes,

  it was all theatrics and talk

  but the day was warm and poetic

  the sky light blue

  Alexander’s gymnasium an

  awesome triumph of art

  the courtiers’ opulence exceptional

  Caesarion all grace and beauty

  (Cleopatra’s son, blood of the Lagids).

  And still the Alexandrians ran to the fun

  enthusiastic and cheering

  Greek Egyptian even Hebrew

  enchanted by the beautiful sight

  although, Yes, they knew what it was worth

  what empty words were these kingdoms.

  Come Back

  Come back again and again and take me

  sensation I love, come back and take me

  whenever body’s remembering wakes

  and old desire runs through the blood again

  whenever lips and skin remember

  and hands sense they are touching again.

  Come back again and again and take me at night

  whenever lips and skin remember. . . .

  At Church

  I love church, its seraphim,

  silver appointments, candlesticks,

  pulpit, icons, lights.

  When I enter there, in the church of the Greeks

  with fragrance of incense

  liturgical voices and harmonies

  the priests’ grand presence

  the sober rhythm of their every gesture

  splendid in the attire of their vestments

  my mind goes to the great honors of our race

  to our glorious spirit of Byzantium.

  Very Rarely

  He is an old man exhausted and bent

  crippled by years and abuse

  slowly he goes through the alley

  but once inside his house to hide

  the state he is in and his age

  he rehearses what portion of youth he still has.

  Now the young men quote his lines

  in their lively eyes his fantasies pass.

  Their sound and sensual minds

  their nicely contoured tight-knit flesh

  it is his display of beauty that arouses.

  To the Extent that You Can

  Even if you can’t

  make of your life what you want,

  try this at least

  to the extent that you can.

  Do not devalue your life

  by being too much in touch with society

  too much to-and-fro and chat.

  Do not devalue your life by escorting it,

  turning it constantly about and exposing it

  to the every day nonsense

  of relationships and parties,

  until it turns foreign, a burden.

  The Shop’s

  He wrapped them up carefully one by one

  in a rich green silk: roses made of rubies

  lilies of pearl, violets out of amethysts.

  So he prefers them, wants them,

  thinks they look nice, and not

  as he saw them in nature

  not as he studied them there.

  He will leave them in the safe

  index to skillful audacious work.

  When a buyer walks into the store

  he takes from his case other things to sell

  fabulous baubles: bracelets, chains

  necklaces and rings.

  I Went

  I was not constrained

  I let myself fully go.

  I went to pleasures

  half of them acted and half

  just rehearsed in my head.

  In the luminous night I went out

  and I drank from strong wines

  exactly those that heroes of sensual pleasure quaff.

  The Tomb of the Grammarian Lysias

  Nearest on the right as you enter the library

  in Beirut we buried Lysias , the learned

  grammarian. The place is gorgeously appropriate.

  We put him close to the things

  he may remember even there:

  commentaries, texts, and grammars,

  documents, a lot of interpretation

  in fascicules of Hellenism;

  and that way too his tomb will be seen

  and honored by us

  whenever we go to the books.

  Eurion’s Grave

  In this exquisite tomb all of syenite stone

  —a profusion of violets and lilies covers it over—

  fair Eurion rests, Alexandrian lad of twenty-five.

  old Macedonian family on his father’s side,

  on his mother’s he descended from alabarchs.

  He studied philosophy with Aristokleitos, rhetoric with Paros.

  At Thebes he studied holy writ.

  He composed a history of the Arsinoite nome.

  This at least will last, but we have lost

  the most precious thing, his countenance.

  It was a vision of Apollo.

  Chandelier

  In a small empty room, just four walls

  covered with plain green cloth

  a handsome chandelier burns bright

  and in each of its flames there glows

  venery’s affect, venery’s rush.

  In the small room
, brightly lit,

  by the strong flame of the chandelier,

  it is not at all an ordinary flame that comes out.

  It is not made for timid folk,

  the pleasure of this heat.

  Long Ago

  I would like to speak about this memory

  but the way it’s been wiped out now—

  as if nothing is left

  because it is long ago

  in my first pubescent years.

  Skin as of jasmine

  that August—was it August?—evening.

  I barely remember the eyes now.

  They were—I am sure—blue

  Ah yes—blue—a sapphire blue.

  But Wise Men, Approaching Events

  “Because gods perceive the future; humans, what is happening; wise men, what draws near.”

  Philostratus, Apollonios of Tyanea 8.7

  Humans recognize what is happening;

  gods know what will be,

  full and sole possessors of all light.

  From what will be, wise men apprehend

  what events draw near. Their sound

  sometimes in hours of serious study

  is troubling: it comes, calls for initiates

  telling them what draws near,

  and they are ready and attend,

  while those in the road outside,

  the people, they hear nothing.

  Theodotos

  If you really are of the elect

  see how you acquire your dominance .

  For all that you are glorified

  for all that sovereign states recount

  your successes in Italy and Thessaly

  for all the decrees your enthusiasts

  brought out in your honor at Rome

  your joy will not last, nor your triumph

  you will not feel yourself

  superior—why superior?—

  when Theodotos brings to you

  on a bloody dish at Alexandria

  wretched Pompey’s head.

  And don’t in reliance

  on the mode of your life

  limited, ordered, and dull

  suppose that such fearful

  spectaculars do not exist.

  He may this very hour be entering

  some neighbor’s prim house

  unseen, insensible, Theodotos,