Translations of Cavafy by Anna
Seraphimidou
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Ideal and dear ones
voices of those who are dead, or of those
who are for us as lost as the dead .
Sometimes in our dreams, they speak;
sometimes in our thoughts the mind hears them.
And with their sound for a moment, the sounds
of the first poetic creation of our life return--
like music, at night, in the distance, fading away.
When you start on the road to Ithaca
wish that the way be long
full of adventures, full of experience.
Fear not the Laestrygones and the Cyclops
the angry Poseidon
you will never find such as these in your way
if your thoughts stay clear, if a choice
emotion affects your body and spirit.
The Laestrygones and the Cyclops,
the wild Poseidon you will never meet,
if you do not carry them in your soul,
if your soul does not set them up in front you.
Wish that the way be long.
Let there be many summer mornings
when with such a pleasure, such a joy
you will enter harbors never before seen;
you will stop at Phoenician stalls
and will acquire lovely goods,
mother-of-pearl and coralls, amber and ebony
and hedonic perfumes of every kind,
hedonic perfumes as plenty as you can;
go to many Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from the studious.
Always keep in mind Ithaca.
Arriving there is your goal.
But do not hurry the trip at all.
It is better that it lasts many years;
and when finally an old man, you berth on the island,
rich with what you have gained on the road,
do not expect that Ithaca will give you riches.
Ithaca gave you this lovely voyage.
Without her you would not have started on the road.
She has nothing else to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not fooled you.
Wise that you have become , with such experience,
you must by now know what Ithacas mean.
***************
this is the most quoted poem of Cavafy
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Walls
Without thought, without sorrow,
without shame
they built around me great
and high walls.
And I now sit here and despair
I think of nothing else: my
thoughts are consumed with this
turn of the chance;
because I had a lot of things
to do outside.
Oh, when they were building
the walls, how did I not notice.
But I never heard a noise nor
the sound of builders.
Imperceptibly they shut me
out of the world.
Our future days stand ahead
of us
like a row of small lit candles-
golden warm and lively candles.
The past days remain behind,
a sad line of extinguished
candles
the nearest ones still smoking,
cold candles, melted, bent.
I do not want to see them;
their view saddens me,
and it saddens me to remember
their first light.
I look ahead at my lit candles.
I do not want to turn and see
and shudder
at how fast the dark line
lengthens
how fast the dark candles
multiply.
********************
Since nine
Twelve thirty. How fast the
time has passed
since nine when I lit the
lamp
and sat here. I sat without
reading
without talking. With whom
would I talk
all alone in this house.
The image of my young body
since nine when I lit the
lamp
came and found me and reminded
me
of closed perfumed rooms
and past pleasure- what bold
pleasure!
It also brought infront of
my eyes
streets that have now become
unrecognisable
night clubs full of motion
that has now ended
and theaters and coffee shops
that once were.
The image of my young body
came and also brought me the
sad events;
mournings in the family, separations,
feelings of my people, feelings
of the dead valued so little.
Twelve thirty. How the time
has passed
Twelve thirty. How the years
have passed.
*****************************
And wise men, of the forthcoming
Theoi gar mellontwn, anthrwpoi de gignomenwn sophoi the prosiontwn aisthanontai
Philostratos, "Ta es Tuanea Apollwnion, VII,7"
Men know of what has already occured.
What will happen is known to
gods,
the full and only owners of all
enlightenment.
Of future happenings, wise men,
the forthcoming
perceive. Their hearing
sometimes, while engrossed in serious
studies,
is disturbed. The mystic thrum
comes to them of approaching events.
And they attend it, reverent,
while on the street
outside,
the people hear nothing.
*************************
Waiting for the barbarians
-What are we waiting for, gathered in the Forum?
The barbarians are coming today.
-Why such inaction in the Senate?
-Why do the senators sit and do not legislate?
Because the barbarians will arrive today.
-What then of laws made by the Senators?
When the barbarians come they will legislate.
-Why has out emperor risen so early in the morning?
and sits at the grandest city Gate
on the throne, formal, wearing the crown?
Because the barbarians will arrive today.
And the empreror waits to welcome
their leader. In truth he prepared
to give him a scroll where
he is described with many names and titles .
-Why have our two consuls and the praetors come out
today with their red embroidered togas;
why did they wear bracelets with so many amethysts;
why are they carrying precious staffs
with silver and gold finely wrought?
Because the barbarians will arrive today;
and these things dazzle the barbarians.
-Why have the worthy orators not come as always
to give their speeches and tell their tale?
Because the barbarians will arrive today;
and they are bored with eloquence and orations.
-Why has this sudden unrest started
and the confusion. ( How serious the faces have become).
-Why are the streets and squares fast emptying,
and everyone returns home very thoughtfull.
Because night fell and the barbarians did not come.
And some came from the frontiers,
and said that there are no barbarians any longer.
And now what shall we do without barbarians.
These people were a sort of a solution.
**************************************************
So we are almost there, Hermippe,
the day after tomorrow, I
think; so the captain said.
At least we are sailing our
seas,
The waters of Cyprus, of Syria
and Egypt
The beloved waters of our
fatherland.
Why are you so quiet? Ask
your heart
as we distanced ourselves
from Greece
were you not also rejoicing?
Should we fool ourselves?
This would certainly not be
greek like.
Let us at last accept the truth;
we also are Greeks- what else
are we?-
but with the loves and passions
of Asia
with loves and emotions
sometimes strange to the Greeks.
It is not for us, Hermippe,
the philosophers,
to resemble some of our lesser
kings
( remember how we laughed
at them
when they visited our studies)
where under their external
show
of Greek behavior , and (fancy!)
Macedonian,
a part of Arabia peeks now
and then
a Media that cannot be contained,
and with what funny tricks
the poor fools
try to pass it off unnoticed.
Oh, no these attitudes are
not for us.
To Greeks as we are such demeaning
behavior is inappropriate
let us not be ashamed of
the blood of Syria and Egypt
that flows in our veins,
let us honor it and proudly
claim it.
------------
This is in the "unpublished collection"
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He is an old man. Exhausted
and bent,
broken by years, and by excesses,
walking slowly, he goes up
the road.
Yet, when he enters his house
in order to hide
the state he is in, and his
old age,
he contemplates
the portion he still claims
of youth.
Adolescents now recite his
verses.
Through their bright eyes
his visions pass.
Their healthy, hedonistic
brain
their well drawn firm flesh
by his revelations of beauty
are affected.
********************
Honor to those who in their
life
assigned themselves
to guarding Thermopylae.
Never moving from duty
just and straight in all their
acts
with sadness and compassion
too;
valiant whenever they
are rich, and when
poor , again valiant in their
small measure
aiding as much as they can.
Always speaking the truth
though without hatred for
the liars.
And more honor is due to them
when they foresee (and many
foresee)
that Ephialtes will appear
in the end
and the Medes will in the
end pass.
Note:
Thermopylae is a pass that
was being defended
by the Spartans against
the Persians,
King Leonidas and his 300
men. They all died to a man
when Ephialtes showed the
enemy a path.
The modern greek word for
nightmares is "ephialtes".
(Herodotus 7228.2, Anthologia
Palatina 7.249)
"Stranger,
announce to the Spartans that we lie here dead,
obedient to their words"
This epitaph, attributed
to Simonides,
was written to commemorate
the heroic sacrifice of
the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae
in 480 BC.
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For some people there comes
a day
when they should say the great
Yes or the great No
Who has ready in him the Yes
is instantly
revealed and in saying
it
sends packing his honor
and his convictions.
The one who refused
does not regret it. If he were asked again,
no he would again say. And
yet it wears him down,
this no, the proper
no, through his whole life.
*note: from Dante: che fece
(per vilta) il grand rifiuto
who made ( from cowardice) the grand refusal
Cavafy has ommitted the "per vilta"
*******************************
God deserting Antonius
When suddenly, in the midnight
hour, an invisible
troupe is heard to pass
with exquisite music, with
voices---
your luck which is succumbing
now, your works
which failed,your life's plans
which all turned out false,
do not weep over uselessly.
As if a long time ready, as
if courageous,
bid farewell to Alexandria
that is leaving.
Above all do not fool yourself,
do not say that
it was a dream, and your hearing
was mislead;
do not deign to have such
fruitless hopes .
As if long ready, as if courageous,
as is fitting of you who was
worthy of such a city
get steadily close to the
window
and listen with emotion, but
not
with the pleadings and complaints
of the cowards,
as a last pleasure, to the
sounds,
the exquisite instruments
of the mystic troupe,
and bid fairwell to the Alexandria
you are losing
Notes:
The poem refers to Plutarch's
story that, when Antony was
besieged in Alexandria
by Octavian, he heard the sounds of
instruments and voices,
which made its way through the city, and
then passed out; the god
Bacchus (Dionysus), Antony's protector,
was leaving the city
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Satrapy
What a disaster, while you
were fashioned
for beautiful and grand
creations
that this unfair fortune of
yours always
withholds you encouragement
and success;
that cheap habits hinder you,
and small mindedness and indifference.
And how horrible the day you
give in
( the day you let go and give
in)
and you start on foot
to Soussa
and you go to the monarch
Artaxerxes
who accepts you with favour
in his court,
and offers you
satrapies, and such.
And you accept with despair
these things that you do not
want.
For other stuff your soul
longs, and weeps for other;
for the praise of the Demos
and the Sophists
for the difficult and priceless
Brava,
the Agora and the Theatre,
and the Wreathes.
How can Artaxerxes give you
these,
how can you find these in
a satrapy;
and what a life will you lead
without them.
-----------------------------
Note: Satrap-a ruler of
a region in the Persian system
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As much as you
can
If you cannot make your life
as you want it
at least try this
as much as you can:do not
demean it
with a lot of assosiations
in crowds
with a lot of movement and
talks.
Do not demean it by taking
it around and exposing it
to relations and the
daily
nonsense of gatherings
until it becomes like
a pestering stranger
*************
Return often and take me,
beloved sensation, return
and take me-
when the memories of the body
awake,
and old desire rushes through
the blood;
when the lips and the skin
remember
and feel as if hands are touching
again.
Return often and take me at
night,
when the lips and the skin
remember...
**************
Said Myrtias (Syrian student
in Alexandria; during the
reign of
august Konstant and august
Konstantius;
partly ethnic, and partly
christianized)
"Strengthened by theory and
studies,
I will not be,like a coward,
afraid of my passions.
I will give up my body to
hedonism,
I will enjoy dreamed for delights,
the most daring erotic desires,
the lusty drives of my blood,
without
any fear, because when I want-
and I will have the will,
strengthened
as I will be with theory and
studies-
at the crucial moments I will
be finding again
my spirit, as previously,
ascetic
*******************************************
Body, remember not only how much
you were loved,
not only the beds you lay on,
but also those longings for you
that
shone clearly in the eyes
,
that trembled in the voice
-- and some
random obstacle put them off.
Now that everything is in the past,
it almost seems that you have also
given
in to those longings-- how they
shone,
remember, in the eyes that gazed
at you;
how they trembled in the voice,
for you, remember , body