#cavafy

[yorgunherakles]

artık müzikte "şiirsel içerikler" aramayı, yazında "sözcüklerin müziğinin" peşinde koşmayı bıraktın.

konstantin kavafis - selected poems

[lotrmusical]

today's poem that feels like being hit with hammers is hidden things by c p cavafy (the edmund keeley/philip sherrard translation):

From all I did and all I said let no one try to find out who I was. An obstacle was there that changed the pattern of my actions and the manner of my life. An obstacle was often there to stop me when I’d begin to speak. From my most unnoticed actions, my most veiled writing— from these alone will I be understood. But maybe it isn’t worth so much concern, so much effort to discover who I really am. Later, in a more perfect society, someone else made just like me is certain to appear and act freely.

[largebadpicture]

from Lovely White Flowers by Cavafy

[newsmutproject]

Body, remember not only how much you were loved, not only the beds on which you lay, but also those desires which for you plainly glowed in the eyes, and trembled in the voice -- and some chance obstacle made them futile. Now that all belongs to the past, it is almost as if you had yielded to those desires too -- remember, how they glowed, in the eyes looking at you; how they trembled in the voice, for you, remember, body.

-Constantine P. Cavafy

[impoliticwestie]

Politeia, Athens, Greece, 2025.

[hippodamoi]

[dk-thrive]

Most of my time that year was spent reading.

Most of my time that year was spent reading. I would never have become so devoted and compulsive a reader of books had it not been for Rome, or more precisely, for my desperate need to fend off a city I didn’t even want to see to imagine another. Sunlight was so intense between two and three in the afternoon that these were the only hours of the day when I’d push out the shutters to let the blinding sun stream into my room. All you saw was sunlight in the room. By four, though, I would draw the shutters in and lock them halfway to allow just a band of light to cross my bed. I liked that band of light; I could read by it. Years later when I read about the afternoon sun across a bed in a poem by Cavafy, I was transported back to those early days on Via Clelia. I was not the only one who’d known the pleasure of sunlight across a bed. But Cavafy had held a human body, I was holding a book, and I was old enough to know that the difference did not flatter me. I was alone in those days.

— André Aciman, Roman Year: A Memoir (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, October 22, 2024)

[manwalksintobar]

Returning from Greece

Well, we’re nearly there, Hermippos. Day after tomorrow, it seems—that’s what the captain said. At least we’re sailing our seas, the waters of Cyprus, Syria, and Egypt, the beloved waters of our home countries. Why so silent? Ask your heart: didn’t you too feel happier the farther we got from Greece? What’s the point of fooling ourselves? That would hardly be properly Greek. It’s time we admitted the truth: we are Greeks also—what else are we?— but with Asiatic affections and feelings, affections and feelings sometimes alien to Hellenism. It isn’t right, Hermippos, for us philosophers to be like some of our petty kings (remember how we laughed at them when they used to come to our lectures?) who through their showy Hellenified exteriors, Macedonian exteriors (naturally), let a bit of Arabia peep out now and then, a bit of Media they can’t keep back. And to what laughable lengths the fools went trying to cover it up! No, that’s not at all right for us. For Greeks like us that kind of pettiness won’t do. We must not be ashamed of the Syrian and Egyptian blood in our veins; we should really honor it, take pride in it.

(Translated from the Greek by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)

[cmacaulays]

c.p. cavafy, the first step

[cowperviolet]

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. - BY C. P. CAVAFY TRANSLATED BY EDMUND KEELEY

[peterwebscott]

King Claudius by Cavafy

This poem by Cavafy (in my translation) has an unconventional (to say the least) take on the character of Hamlet’s uncle Claudius and the plot of Shakespeare’s play: My minds turns to distant places.I walk along the streets of Elsinore,and round its squares, and I rememberits saddest story, that unfortunate kingkilled by his nephewfor imaginary suspicions. In all the houses of the poor folkthey…

[yorgunherakles]

bir gemi yok, bir yol yok sana

kavafis

[thatsugarglazedlook]

[baked-potatoes-rule]

C.P.Cavafy

[ukdamo]

If Actually Dead

CP Cavafy

“Where did the Sage withdraw to, where did he disappear? After his many miracles, the renown of his teaching which spread to so many countries, he suddenly hid himself and nobody knew for certain what happened to him (nor did anybody ever see his grave). Some reported that he died at Ephesus. But Damis does not record that in his memoir. Damis says nothing about the death of Apollonios. Others said that he disappeared at Lindos. Or maybe the story is true about his assumption in Crete, at the ancient sanctuary of Diktynna. But then again we have that miraculous, that supernatural apparition of his before a young student at Tyana. Maybe the time has not yet come for him to return and show himself to the world again; or maybe, transfigured, he moves among us unrecognized—. But he will come again as he was, teaching the ways of truth; and then of course he will bring back the worship of our gods and our elegant Hellenic rites.”

These were the musings of one of the few pagans, one of the very few still left, as he sat in his shabby room just after reading Philostratos’ On Apollonios of Tyana. But even he—a trivial and cowardly man— played the Christian in public and went to church. It was the time when Justin, known as the elder, reigned in total piety, and Alexandria, a godly city, detested pitiful idolators.

[impoliticwestie]

Cavafy, Athens, 2024.

On Cavafy’s first journey to Greece.

After his arrival in 1901, he reacquired his Greek citizenship and abandoned the British citizenship, which his father had acquired in the late 1840s.

C.P. Cavafy

@CCavafy

Oct 26

“Cavafy has all the characteristics of an exceptional man of decadence—wise, ironic, hedonistic—charming with a vast memory. Seated in a soft armchair, he looks out the window, waiting for the barbarians to arrive.”

– Nikos Kazantzakis, who died on 26 October 1957, recalls meeting Cavafy.