Konstantinos P. Cavafy Quotes

Painted Things I love my work and take pains with it. But today
I find the slow pace of composition discouraging.
The weather has got into me. It just gets darker
and darker. Non-stop wind and rain.
I’d rather watch than write.
I’m looking at this painting now:
it shows a handsome boy lying near a spring,
out of breath from running.
Such a beautiful boy! And such a divine noon
which has taken him and induced him to sleep!
I sit and gaze like this for a long time.
Immersed again in art, I recover from the labour of creating it.

"From "Ships"

The marketplaces of the Imagination have shops that are grand and opulent, but not of any great duration. Their transactions are brief, they dispose of their merchandise swiftly, and they are immediately liquidated."

The love they felt wasn’t, of course, what it once had been; the attraction between them had gradually diminished, the attraction had diminished a great deal. But to be separated, that wasn’t what they themselves wanted.

I have fashioned you in joy and in sorrow, / through so many happenings, out of so many things.

And if you can’t make your life as you’d wish it,
try, at the very least, to accomplish this much:
do not make it less than what it already is
by mixing too excessively with the masses,
by hanging around and endlessly chattering.

Don’t cheapen your life by parading it around,
hauling it everywhere and laying it out there
for the dreary humbug of familiars and fellowship,
until it comes to feel like a curious dead weight.

"You said, "I will go to another land, I will go to another sea.

Another city will be found, better than this.

Every effort of mine is condemned by fate;

and my heart is-like a corpse-buried.

How long in this wasteland will my mind remain.

Wherever I turn my eyes, wherever I may look

I see the black ruins of my life here,

where I spent so many years, and ruined and wasted."

New lands you will not find, you will not find other seas.

The city will follow you. You will roam the same

streets. And you will age in the same neighborhoods;

in these same houses you will grow gray.

Always you will arrive in this city. To another land-do not hope-

there is no ship for you, there is no road.

As you have ruined your life here

in this little corner, you have destroyed it in the whole world.2"

I'm practically broke and homeless. This fatal city, Antioch, has devoured all my money: this fatal city with its extravagant life.

Speak not of guilt, speak not of responsibility. When the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners; when the senses shiver and shudder, it is only a fool and and an irreverent person that will keep his distance, who will not embrace the good cause, marching towards the conquest of pleasures and passions. All of morality’s laws – poorly understood and applied – are nil and cannot stand even for a moment, when the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners.

One of Their Gods When one of them passed through the forum
of Seleucia just as night began to fall,
young, tall, perfect in his beauty,
with the joy of imperishability in his eyes
and his aromatic black hair,
the passers-by would stare,
asking each other if they knew the man:
was he a Greek from Syria, or a foreigner?
But some, who watched with greater attention,
understood and drew aside for him to pass;
and as he vanished under the arcades,
amid the shadow and light of evening,
proceeding to that neighbourhood
which comes alive only at night, with orgies and debauchery,
every kind of drunkenness and lust,
they wondered which of Them he might be,
and for which of his suspect passions
had he come down to the streets of Seleucia
from the Venerable and Sacred Abodes.

Esto era lo que había en él de singular:
que en medio de toda su vida disoluta
y de su mucha experiencia en el amor,
a pesar de la habitual armonía
entre su actitud y su edad,
había algunos instantes -pero muy raros
ciertamente- en que daba la impresión
de una carne casi intacta.
La hermosura de sus veintinueve años,
tan probada en el placer,
había momentos en que paradojalmente recordaba
a un adolescente que -con cierta torpeza- al amor
por primera vez su cuerpo puro entrega.

On hearing about powerful love, respond, be moved like an aesthete. Only, fortunate as you’ve been, remember how much your imagination created for you.

— Τι περιμένουμε στην αγορά συναθροισμένοι;

Είναι οι βάρβαροι να φθάσουν σήμερα.

Guard, O my soul, against pomp and glory. And if you cannot curb your ambitions, at least pursue them hesitantly, cautiously. And the higher you go, the more searching and careful you need to be.

The Funeral of Sarpedon Zeus is heavy with grief. Sarpedon
is dead at Patroclus’ hands and, right now,
the son of Menoetius and his Achaeans are setting out
to steal the corpse and desecrate it. But Zeus will not allow it.
He had left his beloved child alone
and now he’s lost – for such the Law demanded.
But at least he will honour him in death.
Behold: he sends Phoebus down to the field
with orders to care for the body. Phoebus lifts the hero’s corpse with reverence
and pity, and bears him to the river.
He washes away the blood and dust
and closes the wounds, careful
not to leave a scar; he pours balm
of ambrosia over the body and clothes him
in resplendent Olympian robes.
He blanches the skin and with a comb of pearl
straightens the raven-black hair.
He lays him out, arranging the lovely limbs. The youth seems a king, a charioteer,
twenty-five or twenty-six years old –
relishing his moment of victory,
with the swiftest stallions, upon a golden chariot
in a grand competition. Phoebus, completing his assignment,
calls on his two siblings,
Sleep and Death, commanding them
to carry the body to Lycia, land of riches. So the two brothers, Sleep and Death,
set out on foot to transport the body
to Lycia, land of riches.
And at the door of the king’s palace
they hand over the glorious body
and return to their affairs. As they receive him into the palace
they begin laments and tributes, processions
and libations flowing from sacred vessels
and everything that befits such a sad funeral;
then skilled craftsmen from the city
and artists well known for their work in marble
arrive to fashion the tomb and the stele.

عندما تتهيأ للرحيل إلى إيثاكا،
تمنّ أن يكون الطريق طويلًا،
حافلًا بالمغامرات، عامرًا بالمعرفة

لا تخش الليستريجونات والسيكلوبات
ولا بوسايدون الهائج
لن تجد أبدًا أيًا من هؤلاء في طريقك

إن بقي فكرك ساميًا، إن مست عاطفة نبيلة روحك وجسدك،
لن تقابل الليستريجونات والسيكلوبات
ولا بوزايدون العاتي،
إن لم تحملهم في روحك،
إن لم تستحضرهم روحك قدامك

تمنّ أن يكون الطريق طويلاً،
أن تكون صباحات الصيف عديدة،
فتدخل المرافئ التي ترى لأول مرة،
منشرحًا، جذلًا

توقف بالأسواق الفينيقية،
واقتن السلع الجيدة،
أصدافًا ومرجانًا، كهرمانًا وأبنوسًا،
وعطورا شهوانية من كل نوع،
قدر ما يمكن من العطور الشهوانية،

اذهب إلى كثير من المدن المصرية،
تعلم، وتعلم ثانية، من الحكماء

لتكن إيثاكا في روحك دائما
الوصول إليها قدرك
لكن لا تتعجل انتهاء الرحلة
الأفضل أن تدوم سنوات طويلة
وأن تكون شيخا حين تبلغ الجزيرة
ثريا بما كسبته في الطريق،
غير آمل أن تهبك ايثاكا ثراء

إيثاكا منحتك الرحلة الجميلة
لولاها ما كنت شددت الرحال
وليس لديها ما تمنحك إياه أكثر من ذلك

حتى وإن بدت لك ايثاكا فقيرة،
فإنها لم تخدعك.

ومادمت قد صرت حكيما، حائزا كل هذه الخبرة،
فلا ريب أنك قد فهمت ما تعنيه الايثاكات.