#CP Cavafy

[xoxo-rielle]

– C.P. Cavafy, An excerpt from Ithaka

[xserpx]

As you set out for Ithaka

hope your road is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:

you’ll never find things like that on your way

as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

as long as a rare excitement

stirs your spirit and your body.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them

unless you bring them along inside your soul,

unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.

May there be many summer mornings when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;

may you stop at Phoenician trading stations

to buy fine things,

mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

sensual perfume of every kind—

as many sensual perfumes as you can;

and may you visit many Egyptian cities

to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you’re destined for.

But don’t hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you’re old by the time you reach the island,

wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you wouldn't have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

— Ithaka, by C. P. Cavafy

[poems-from-around-the-world]

The City - C.P. Cavafy - Greece

Translators: Edmund Keeley, Philip Sherrard (Greek)

You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore,

find another city better than this one.

Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong

and my heart lies buried like something dead.

How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?

Wherever I turn, wherever I look,

I see the black ruins of my life, here,

where I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.”

You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore.

This city will always pursue you.

You’ll walk the same streets, grow old

in the same neighborhoods, turn gray in these same houses.

You’ll always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere:

there’s no ship for you, there’s no road.

Now that you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner,

you’ve destroyed it everywhere in the world.

[lavidasoleada]

[haveyoureadthispoem-poll]

"You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore, / find another city better than this one."

Read it here | Reblog for a larger sample size!

[ukdamo]

I’ve Brought to Art

C.P. Cavafy

I sit in a mood of reverie.

I brought to Art desires and sensations:

things half-glimpsed,

faces or lines, certain indistinct memories

of unfulfilled love affairs. Let me submit to Art:

Art knows how to shape forms of Beauty,

almost imperceptibly completing life,

blending impressions, blending day with day.

[thatsugarglazedlook]

[drizzlingrain]

by Constantine Cavafy, via huckgutman.com

[bakaity-poetry]

~ Constantine P. Cavafy

[autowobblelens]

For some people the day comes

when they have to declare the great Yes

or the great No. It’s clear at once who has the Yes

ready within him; and saying it,

he goes from honor to honor, strong in his conviction.

He who refuses does not repent. Asked again,

he’d still say no. Yet that no—the right no—

drags him down all his life.

Cavafey

[anakinsafterlife]

Hmmm. As I was reading this, I was reminded keenly of the Leonard Cohen song. Looked it up and found I was right! It's based on this poem. Of course, CP Cavafy was a Greek Egyptian from Alexandria, so he was probably talking about the city personified, while Leonard Cohen was a Montrealer, so he's talking about a girl, although he did write these lyrics in Greece.

ALEXANDRA LEAVING

The song Alexandra Leaving on

Ten New Songs is based on this poem.

(based on The God Abandons Antony,

a poem by Constantine P. Cavafy)

Suddenly the night has grown colder.

Some deity preparing to depart.

Alexandra hoisted on his shoulder,

they slip between the sentries of your heart.

Upheld by the simplicities of pleasure,

they gain the light, they formlessly entwine;

and radiant beyond your widest measure

they fall among the voices and the wine.

lt's not a trick, your senses all deceiving,

a fitful dream the morning will exhaust---

Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving,

Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.

Even though she sleeps upon your satin.

Even though she wakes you with a kiss.

Do not say the moment was imagined,

Do not stoop to strategies like this.

As someone long prepared for this to happen,

Go firmly to the window. Drink it in.

Exquisite music, Alexandra laughing.

Your first commitments tangible again.

You who had the honor of her evening,

And by that honor had your own restored---

Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.

Alexandra leaving with her lord.

As someone long prepared for the occasion;

In full command of every plan you wrecked---

Do not choose a coward's explanation

that hides behind the cause and the effect,

You who were bewildered by a meaning,

whose code was broken, crucifix uncrossed---

Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.

Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.

Hydra, Greece

September 1999

— C. P. CAVAFY, translated from the Greek by Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard.

[poems-from-around-the-world]

The Bandaged Shoulder - C.P. Cavafy - Greece

Translator: Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard (Greek)

He said he’d hurt himself against a wall or had fallen down. But there was probably some other reason for the wounded, the bandaged shoulder.

Because of a rather abrupt gesture, as he reached for a shelf to bring down some photographs he wanted to look at, the bandage came undone and a little blood ran.

I did it up again, taking my time over the binding; he wasn’t in pain and I liked looking at the blood. It was a thing of my love, that blood.

When we left, I found, in front of his chair, a bloody rag, part of the dressing, a rag to be thrown straight into the garbage; and I put it to my lips and kept it there a long while— the blood of love against my lips.

[couldbeanastronaut]

The City by CP Cavafy

[haveyoureadthispoem-poll]

"...[L]isten—your final pleasure—to the voices, / to the exquisite music of that strange procession, / and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing. "

Read the English translation by Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard here

Reblog for a larger sample size!

[ukdamo]

On The Outskirts Of Antioch

CP Cavafy

We in Antioch were astonished when we heard what Julian was up to now.

Apollo had made things clear to him at Daphni: he didn't want to give an oracle (as though we cared!), he didn't intend to speak prophetically, unless his temple at Daphni was purified first. The nearby dead, he declared, got on his nerves.

There are many tombs at Daphni. One of those buried there was the triumphant and holy martyr Vavylas, wonder and glory of our church.

It was him the false god hinted at, him he feared. As long as he felt him near he didn't dare pronounce his oracle: not a murmur. (The false gods are terrified of our martyrs.)

Unholy Julian got worked up, lost his temper and shouted: "Raise him, carry him out, take him away immediately, this Vavylas. You there, do you hear? He gets on Apollo's nerves. Grab him, raise him at once, dig him out, take him away, throw him out, take him wherever you want. This isn't a joke. Apollo said the temple has to be purified."

We took it, the holy relic, and carried it elsewhere. We took it, we carried it away in love and in honour.

And hasn't the temple done brilliantly since! In no time at all a colossal fire broke out, a terrible fire, and both the temple and Apollo burned to nothing.

Ashes the idol: dirt to be swept away.

Julian exploded, and he spread it around— what else could he do?—that we, the Christians, had set the fire. Let him say so. It hasn't been proved. Let him say so. The essential thing is—he exploded.

[typo1]

In the Same Space

BY C. P. CAVAFY

The setting of houses, cafés, the neighborhood

that I’ve seen and walked through years on end:

I created you while I was happy, while I was sad,

with so many incidents, so many details.

And, for me, the whole of you has been transformed into feeling.