Top 15 Konstantinos P. Cavafy Quotes

When you set sail for Ithaca,
wish for the road to be long,
full of adventures, full of knowledge.

وإن لم تستطع تشكيل حياتك كما تريد
فحاول -على الأقل- بقدر ما تستطيع
ألا تبتذلها
بالاحتكاك الزائد بالعالم
بالحركة والكلام الزائد
حاول ألا تبتذلها بجرجرتها هنا وهناك
بالطواف بها وتعريضها -كثيرًا- للسخافة اليومية
للأحداث والحفلات الاجتماعية
إلى أن تُصبح مثل عبٍ مُضجر

Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and 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 and 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 the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen 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 gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not 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 will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

"Επιθυμίες
Σαν σώματα ωραία νεκρών που δεν εγέρασαν
και τάκλεισαν, με δάκρυα, σε μαυσωλείο λαμπρό,
με ρόδα στο κεφάλι και στα πόδια γιασεμιά — έτσ' η επιθυμίες μοιάζουν που επέρασαν
χωρίς να εκπληρωθούν· χωρίς ν' αξιωθεί καμιά
της ηδονής μια νύχτα, ή ένα πρωϊ της φεγγερό."

Desires
"Like beautiful bodies of the dead who had not grown old
and they shut them, with tears, in a brilliant mausoleum,
with roses at the head and jasmine at the feet — this is what desires resemble that have passed
without fulfillment; without any of them having achieved
a night of sensual delight, or a morning of brightness."

And if you can’t shape your life the way you want, at least try as much as you can not to degrade it...

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you. Wise as you have become, with so much experience, you must already have understood what these Ithacas mean.

Days to come stand in front of us
like a row of lighted candles — golden, warm, and vivid candles.

Days gone by fall behind us,
a gloomy line of snuffed-out candles;
the nearest are smoking still,
cold, melted, and bent.

I don’t want to look at them: their shape saddens me,
and it saddens me to remember their original light.
I look ahead at my lighted candles.

I don’t want to turn for fear of seeing, terrified,
how quickly that dark line gets longer,
how quickly the snuffed-out candles proliferate.

"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"

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.

Don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans
all proving deceptive — don’t mourn them uselessly.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.
Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say
it was a dream, your ears deceived you:
don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.

to certain people there comes a day when they must say the great Yes or the great No...

And if you can’t shape your life the way you want,
at least try as much as you can
not to degrade it
by too much contact with the world,
by too much activity and talk.

Try not to degrade it by dragging it along,
taking it around and exposing it so often
to the daily silliness
of social events and parties,
until it comes to seem a boring hanger-on.

At least let me now deceive myself with illusions
so as not to feel my empty life.

And yet I came so close so many times.
And yet how paralyzed I was, how cowardly;
why did I keep my lips sealed
while my empty life wept inside me,
my desires wore robes of mourning?

To have been so close so many times
to those sensual eyes, those lips,
to that body I dreamed of, loved.
To have been so close so many times.

September 1903

Anyway, those things would not have lasted long.
The experience of the years shows it to me.
But Destiny arrived in some haste and stopped them.
The beautiful life was brief.
But how potent were the perfumes,
On how splendid a bed we lay,
To what sensual delight we gave our bodies.

An echo of the days of pleasure,
An echo of the days drew near me,
A little of the fire of the youth of both of us,
Again I took in my hands a letter,
And I read and reread till the light was gone.

And melancholy, I came out on the balcony
Came out to change my thoughts at least by looking at
A little of the city that I loved,
A little movement on the street and in the shops.

Translated by Rae Dalven

You will always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere:
there is no ship for you, there is no road.
As you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you’ve destroyed it everywhere else in the world