Konstantinos P. Cavafy Quotes

Hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.

"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 -like something dead- lies buried.
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 neighbourhoods, turn grey 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.

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
The barbarians are due here today.
Why isn't anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?
Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.
Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city's main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.
Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.
Why don't our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.
Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?
Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.
And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution

"Without compunction, pity or shame,
they've built towering walls around me.

Desperate, I sit and think one thing:
alone here this fate confounds me.

For there were many things I'd hoped to do out there.
With all the construction, how was I not aware?

Yet the crack and clang of hammers I never once heard.
Imperceptibly they've confined me from the outside world.

("Walls")"

Desires Like the beautiful bodies of those who died young,
tearfully interred in a grand mausoleum
with roses by their heads and jasmine at their feet –
so seem those desires that have passed
without fulfilment; without a single night
of pleasure, or one of its radiant mornings.

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.

With a rather abrupt gesture, reaching for a shelf to bring down some photographs he wanted to look at, the bandage came 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 he 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.

He came to read; two or three books
are lying open: history and poetry.
But after just ten minutes of reading
he lets them drop. There on the sofa
he falls asleep. He truly is devoted to reading-
but he is twenty-three years old, and very handsome.
And just this afternoon, Eros surged
within his perfect limbs and on his lips.
Into his beautiful flesh came the heat of passion,
and there was no foolish embarrassment
about the form that pleasure took..

"Powiedziałeś: "Pojadę do innej ziemi, nad morze inne.
Jakieś inne znajdzie się miasto, jakieś lepsze miejsce.
Tu już wydany jest wyrok na wszystkie moje dążenia
i pogrzebane leży, jak w grobie, moje serce.
Niechby się umysł wreszcie podźwignął z odrętwienia.
Tu, cokolwiek wzrokiem ogarnę,
ruiny mego życia czarne
widzę, gdziem tyle lat przeżył, stracił, roztrwonił".

Nowych nie znajdziesz krain ani innego morza.
To miasto pójdzie za tobą. Zawsze w tych samych dzielnicach
będziesz krążył. W tych samych domach włosy ci posiwieją.
Zawsze trafisz do tego miasta. Będziesz chodził po tych samych ulicach.
Nie ma dla ciebie okrętu - nie ufaj próżnym nadziejom - nie ma drogi w inną stronę.
Jakeś swoje życie roztrwonił
w tym ciasnym kącie, tak je w całym świecie roztrwoniłeś."

"The City"

You said, “I will go to another land, I will go to another sea.
Another city will be found, a better one than this.
Every effort of mine is a condemnation of fate;
and my heart is — like a corpse — buried.
How long will my mind remain in this wasteland.
Wherever I turn my eyes, wherever I may look
I see black ruins of my life here,
where I spent so many years destroying and wasting.”

You will find no new lands, you will find no other seas.
The city will follow you. You will roam the same
streets. And you will age in the same neighborhoods;
and you will grow gray in these same houses.
Always you will arrive in this city. Do not hope for any other — There is no ship for you, there is no road.
As you have destroyed your life here
in this little corner, you have ruined it in the entire world.

Before Jerusalem


Now they've come before Jerusalem.
Passions, avarice, and ambition,
as well as their chivalrous pride
have swiftly slipped from their souls.

Now they've come before Jerusalem.
In their ecstasy and their devoutness
they've forgotten their quarrels with the Greeks;
they've forgotten their hatred of the Turks.

Now they've come before Jerusalem.
And the Crusaders, so daring and invincible, so vehement in their every march and onslaught,
are fearful and nervous and are unable
to go further; they tremble like small children,
and like small children weep, all weep,
as they behold the walls of Jerusalem.

He Vows Every now and then he vows to live a better life.
But when night comes with her own counsels,
with her promises and her compromises,
when night comes with her power
over the body that seeks and yearns,
he returns, lost, to the same fatal pleasures.

Όσο μπορείς
Κι αν δεν μπορείς να κάμεις την ζωή σου όπως την θέλεις,
τούτο προσπάθησε τουλάχιστον
όσο μπορείς: μην την εξευτελίζεις
μες στην πολλή συνάφεια του κόσμου,
μες στες πολλές κινήσεις κι ομιλίες.

Μην την εξευτελίζεις πηαίνοντάς την,
γυρίζοντας συχνά κ’ εκθέτοντάς την
στων σχέσεων και των συναναστροφών
την καθημερινήν ανοησία,
ώς που να γίνει σα μια ξένη φορτική.

....night is here but the barbarians have not come.
And some people arrived from the borders,
and said that there are no longer any barbarians.
And now what shall become of us without any barbarians?
Those people were some kind of solution.

SETI SE, TELO...

Telo, seti se ne samo koliko si bilo voljeno,
ne jedino kreveta na kojima si ležalo,
nego i onih želja, koja su zbog tebe
iskrile u onim jasnim očima
i drhtale u glasu – a neka ih je
slučajna prepreka osujetila.
Sada, kad je sve to već u prošlosti,
izgleda skoro kao da si se onim
željama i predavalo – kako su iskrile,
seti se, u očima što su te gledale:
kako su drhtale u glasu zbog tebe, seti se, telo.

You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore.
This city will always pursue you. You will walk
the same streets, grow old in the same neighborhoods,
will turn gray in these same houses.
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.