Constantine P. Cavafy

Constantine P. Cavafy, also known as Konstantin or Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis, or Kavaphes (Greek Κωνσταντίνος Π. Καβάφης) (29 April 1863 – 29 April 1933) was a Greek poet who is often ranked among most important literary figures of the 20th century.

Quotes

When setting out upon your way to Ithaca,
wish always that your course be long,
full of adventure, full of lore.

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.
- "The City", st. 2 (1910)

When setting out upon your way to Ithaca,
wish always that your course be long,
full of adventure, full of lore.
- "Ithaka", l. 1 (1911)

Body, remember not only how much you were loved,
not only the beds you lay on,
but also those desires glowing openly
in eyes that looked at you,
trembling for you in voices.
- "Body, Remember..." (1918)

People of Kommagini, let the glory of Antiochos,
the noble king, be celebrated as it deserves.
He was a provident ruler of the country.
He was just, wise, courageous.
In addition he was that best of all things, Hellenic —
mankind has no quality more precious:
everything beyond that belongs to the gods.
- "Epitaph of Antiochos, King of Kommagini" (1923)

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.
- "In the Same Space" (1929)

The Spartans weren't to be led
and ordered around
like precious servants. Besides,
they wouldn't have thought a pan-Hellenic expedition
without a Spartan king in command
was to be taken very seriously.
Of course, then, "except the Lacedaimonians."
That's certainly one point of view. Quite understandable.
- "In The Year 200 B.C." (1931)

The days of the future stand in front of us
Like a line of candles all alight —
Golden and warm and lively little candles.
- "Candles" [Κεριά], as translated by Manolis, in Constantine P. Cavafy: Poems (2008) edited by George Amabile

I look before me at my lighted candles,
I don’t want to turn around and see with horror
How quickly the dark line is lengthening,
How quickly the candles multiply that have been put out.
- "Candles" [Κεριά], as translated by Manolis, in Constantine P. Cavafy: Poems (2008) edited by George Amabile

And from this marvellous pan-Hellenic expedition,
triumphant, brilliant in every way,
celebrated on all sides, glorified
incomparable, we emerged:
the great new Hellenic world.
- In The Year 200 B. C. (1931)

He wasn’t completely wrong, poor old Gemistus
(let Lord Andronicus and the patriarch suspect him if they like),
in wanting us, telling us to become pagan once again.
- "After the Swim" as translated by Daniel Mendelsohn

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.
- The Regiment of the Senses as translated by Manuel Savidis

Waiting for the Barbarians (1904)

Full text online – Translation by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard (1992)

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
The barbarians are due here today.
- l. 1

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,
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.
- l. 16

Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home lost in thought?
Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven't come.
And some of our men who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.
Now what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.
- l. 26

To Have Taken The Trouble (1930)

Full text online

I'm practically broke and homeless.
This fatal city, Antioch,
has devoured all my money:
this fatal city with its extravagant life.
- l. 1

Whatever job they give me,
I'll try to be useful to the country. That's what I intend.
But if they frustrate me with their manoeuvres —
we know them, those smart operators: no need to say more here —
if they frustrate me, it's not my fault.
- l. 18

One of the three will want me anyway.
And my conscience is quiet
about my not caring which one I choose:
the three of them are equally bad for Syria.
But, a ruined man, it's not my fault.
I'm only trying, poor devil, to make ends meet.
The almighty gods ought to have taken the trouble
to create a fourth, a decent man.
I would gladly have gone along with him.
- l. 28

Collected Poems (1992)

As translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard; edited by George Savidis, published online at The Official Website of the Cavafy Archive

Bid farewell to her, to Alexandria, whom you are losing.

The frivolous can call me frivolous.
I’ve always been most punctilious about
important things. And I insist
that no one knows better than I do
the Holy Fathers, or the Scriptures, or the Canons of the Councils.
- A Byzantine Nobleman in Exile Composing Verses

The holy Cross goes forward; it brings joy and consolation
to every quarter where Christians live;
and these God-fearing people, elated,
stand in their doorways and greet it reverently,
the strength, the salvation of the universe, the Cross.
- A Great Procession of Priests and Laymen

The empire is delivered at last.
The vile, the appalling Julian
reigns no longer.
- A Great Procession of Priests and Laymen

He knows he’s aged a lot: he sees it, feels it.
Yet it seems he was young just yesterday.
So brief an interval, so very brief.
And he thinks of Prudence, how it fooled him,
how he always believed — what madness —
that cheat who said: “Tomorrow. You have plenty of time.”
- An Old Man

He remembers impulses bridled, the joy
he sacrificed. Every chance he lost
now mocks his senseless caution.
- An Old Man

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.
- As Much As You Can

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.
- Before Time Altered Them

Of what’s to come the wise perceive
things about to happen.
Sometimes during moments of intense study
their hearing’s troubled: the hidden sound
of things approaching reaches them,
and they listen reverently, while in the street outside
the people hear nothing whatsoever.
- But the Wise Perceive Things about to Happen

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.
- The God Abandons Antony (1911).
- Variant translations:
- Like one who’s long prepared, like someone brave,
  as befits a man who’s been blessed with a city like this,
  go without faltering toward the window
  and listen with deep emotion, but not
  with the entreaties and the whining of a coward,
  to the sounds — a final entertainment —
  to the exquisite instruments of that initiate crew,
  and bid farewell to her, to Alexandria, whom you are losing.
  - As translated by Daniel Mendelsohn (2009).
- 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 full of courage,
  say goodbye to her, to Alexandria who is leaving.
  - Unknown translator

When they saw Patroklos dead
— so brave and strong, so young —
the horses of Achilles began to weep;
their immortal nature was upset deeply
by this work of death they had to look at.
- The Horses of Achilles

Immoral to a degree — and probably more than a degree —
they certainly were. But they had the satisfaction that their life
was the notorious life of Antioch,
delectably sensual, in absolute good taste.
To give up all this, indeed, for what?
His hot air about the false gods,
his boring self-advertisement,
his childish fear of the theatre,
his graceless prudery, his ridiculous beard.
- Julian and the Antiochians

Things impolitic and dangerous:
praise for Greek ideals,
supernatural magic, visits to pagan temples.
Enthusiasm for the ancient gods
- Julian in Nicomedia

The matter, says Mardonios, has gone too far,
the talk it has aroused must be stopped at all cost. —
So Julian goes to the church at Nicomedia,
a lector again, and there
with deep reverence he reads out loud
passages from the Holy Scriptures,
and everyone marvels at his Christian piety.
- Julian in Nicomedia

His friends weren’t Christians; that much was certain.
But even so they couldn’t play
as he could (brought up a Christian)
with a new religious system,
ludicrous in both theory and application.
They were, after all, Greeks. Nothing in excess, Augustus.
- Julian Seeing Contempt

He who hopes to grow in spirit
will have to transcend obedience and respect.
He'll hold to some laws
but he'll mostly violate
both law and custom, and go beyond
the established, inadequate norm.

That we’ve broken their statues,
that we’ve driven them out of their temples,
doesn’t mean at all that the gods are dead.
O land of Ionia, they’re still in love with you,
their souls still keep your memory.
- Ionic.
- Variant translation: Because we have broken up their images,
  because we have expelled them from their fanes,
  in no wise are they dead for that — the gods.
  Land of Ionia, it is you they love
  still — you whose memories still delight their souls.
  - Poems by C. P. Cavafy as translated by John Cavafy (2003)

He who hopes to grow in spirit
will have to transcend obedience and respect.
He'll hold to some laws
but he'll mostly violate
both law and custom, and go beyond
the established, inadequate norm.
Sensual pleasures will have much to teach him.
He won't be afraid of the destructive act:
half the house will have to come down.
This way he'll grow virtuously into wisdom.
- Growing in Spirit (1903)

Roses by the head, jasmine at the feet —
so appear the longings that have passed
without being satisfied, not one of them granted
a night of sensual pleasure, or one of its radiant mornings.
- Longings

A month passes by and brings another month.
Easy to guess what lies ahead:
all of yesterday’s boredom.
And tomorrow ends up no longer like tomorrow.
- Monotony

Nero wasn’t worried at all when he heard
the utterance of the Delphic Oracle:
“Beware the age of seventy-three.”
Plenty of time to enjoy himself still.
He’s thirty. The deadline
the god has given him is quite enough
to cope with future dangers.
- Nero’s Deadline

And in Spain Galba
secretly musters and drills his army —
Galba, the old man in his seventy-third year.
- Nero’s Deadline

The people going by would gaze at him,
and one would ask the other if he knew him,
if he was a Greek from Syria, or a stranger.
But some who looked more carefully
would understand and step aside;
and as he disappeared under the arcades,
among the shadows and the evening lights,
going toward the quarter that lives
only at night, with orgies and debauchery,
with every kind of intoxication and desire,
they would wonder which of Them it could be,
and for what suspicious pleasure
he had come down into the streets of Selefkia
from the August Celestial Mansions.
- One of Their Gods

Just to be on the first step
should make you happy and proud.
To have come this far is no small achievement:
what you have done is a glorious thing.
Even this first step
is a long way above the ordinary world.
To stand on this step
you must be in your own right
a member of the city of ideas.
And it is a hard, unusual thing
to be enrolled as a citizen of that city.
Its councils are full of Legislators
no charlatan can fool.
- The First Step

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 Ides of March

If you are one of the truly elect,
be careful how you attain your eminence.
- Theodotos

Honor to those who in the life they lead
define and guard a Thermopylae.
Never betraying what is right,
consistent and just in all they do
but showing pity also, and compassion;
generous when they are rich, and when they are poor,
still generous in small ways,
still helping as much as they can;
always speaking the truth,
yet without hating those who lie.
- Thermopylae

One candle is enough. Its gentle light
will be more suitable, will be more gracious
when the Shades arrive, the Shades of Love.
- To Call Up the Shades

It will be a great relief when a window opens.
But the windows are not there to be found —
or at least I cannot find them. And perhaps
it is better that I don’t find them.
Perhaps the light will prove another tyranny.
Who knows what new things it will expose?
- The Windows

Try to keep them, poet,
those erotic visions of yours,
however few of them there are that can be stilled.
Put them, half-hidden, in your lines.
- When They Come Alive

The greatest gods of our glorious Greece
appeared before you.
And if they left, don’t think for a minute
that they were frightened by a gesture.

From all I did and all I said
let no one try to find out who I was.
- Hidden Things

From my most unnoticed actions,
my most veiled writing —
from these alone will I be understood.
- Hidden Things

Κατόπι — στὴν τελειοτέρα κοινωνία —
κανένας ἄλλος καμωμένος σὰν ἐμένα
βέβαια θὰ φανεῖ κ’ ἐλεύθερα θὰ κάμει.
- Later, in a more perfect society,
  someone else made just like me
  is certain to appear and act freely.
- Hidden Things

The greatest gods of our glorious Greece
appeared before you.
And if they left, don’t think for a minute
that they were frightened by a gesture.
- Julian at the Mysteries

He was a quiet, gentle man,
a man who loved peace
(his country had suffered much
from the wars of his predecessor),
he behaved graciously toward everyone,
humble and great alike.
Never high-handed, he always sought advice
in the kingdom’s affairs
from serious, experienced people.
Just why his nephew killed him
was never precisely explained.
- King Claudius (inspired by the story of Hamlet by William Shakespeare)

On hearing about powerful love, respond, be moved
like an aesthete.

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.
- On Hearing of Love

How much we’ll tell down there, how much,
and how very different we’ll appear.
What we protect here like sleepless guards,
wounds and secrets locked inside us,
protect with such great anxiety day after day,
we’ll disclose freely and clearly down there.
- “The Rest I Will Tell to Those Down to Hades”

As the shores of Ithaca gradually
Faded away behind him
And he sailed swiftly westward
Toward Iberia and the Pillars of Hercules,
Far from every Achaean sea,
He felt he was alive once more,
Freed from the oppressive bonds
Of familiar, domestic things.
And his adventurous heart rejoiced
Coldly, devoid of love.
- Second Odyssey, as translated by Walter Kaiser

When the Watchman Saw the Light (1900)

Full text online, with link to Greek original

Now the longed-for signal has appeared. Yet when happiness comes
it brings less joy than one expected.
But at least we've gained this much: we've rid ourselves
of hope and expectation.

So let's not exaggerate.
The light is good; and those coming are good,
their words and actions also good.
And let's hope all goes well.
But Argos can do without the house of Atreus.
Ancient houses are not eternal.

Of course many people will have much to say.
We should listen. But we won't be deceived
by words such as Indispensable, Unique, and Great.
Someone else indispensable and unique and great
can always be found at a moment's notice.

Poems by C. P. Cavafy (2003)

As translated by John Cavafy

We for the best will strive. And always more
defective, more perplexing than before,
shall all things fare; until, as in a mist,
we stray bewildered. Then we shall desist.
For in that helpless hour the gods attend.
They always come, the gods. They will descend
from their machines, and straightway liberate
some and as suddenly exterminate
others; and having reformed us, they will go. —
And afterward, one will act so; and so
another; and in time the rest will do
as they needs must. And we shall start anew.
- The Intervention of the Gods

Quotes about Cavafy

Arranged alphabetically by author

Cavafy is intrigued by the comic possibilities created by the indirect relation of poets to the world. ~ W. H. Auden

Whether Cavafy is describing an ancient political intrigue or an erotic encounter that occurred last week, his topic is the passage of time. ~ James Longenbach

Cavafy has three principal concerns: love, art, and politics in the original Greek sense. … As a witness, Cavafy is exceptionally honest. He neither bowdlerizes nor glamorizes nor giggles. The erotic world he depicts is one of casual pickups and short-lived affairs. Love, there, is rarely more than physical passion, and when tenderer emotions exist, they are almost always one-sided. At the same time, he refuses to pretend that his memories of sensual pleasure are unhappy or spoiled by feelings of guilt.
- W. H. Auden, "C. P. Cavafy," from Forewords and Afterwords (1973)

Cavafy's attitude toward the poetic vocation is an aristocratic one. His poets do not think of themselves as persons of great public importance and entitled to universal homage, but, rather, as citizens of a small republic in which one is judged by one's peers and the standard of judgment is strict.
- W. H. Auden, "C. P. Cavafy," from Forewords and Afterwords (1973)

Cavafy is intrigued by the comic possibilities created by the indirect relation of poets to the world. While the man of action requires the presence of others here and now, for without the public he cannot act, the poet fabricates his poem in solitude.
- W. H. Auden, "C. P. Cavafy," from Forewords and Afterwords (1973)

In his poems about the relations between Christians and Pagans in the age of Constantine, Cavafy takes no sides. Roman Paganism was worldly in the sense that the aim of its ritual practices was to secure prosperity and peace for the state and its citizens. … after Constantine, it was the Christian who had a better chance than the Pagan of getting on in the world, and the Pagan, even if not persecuted, who became the object of social ridicule.
- W. H. Auden, "C. P. Cavafy," from Forewords and Afterwords (1973)

From his biographers we know how cautious and reserved Cavafy was, how reluctant to talk about himself. Although he frequented cafes and saw many people, his loneliness remained unalleviated. This poem is a rather unusual confession for the poet, especially since it comes so early in his life: Now that you've wasted your life here, in this small corner, you've destroyed it everywhere in the world. The "City" is a summing up of the poet's life, starting with the desire for escape, for a journey, the last hope for a new beginning and ending with the realization that the journey is impossible because once a life has been ruined in one city it will be the same in any other. What separates him from society will not change from city to city.
- Carmen Capri-Karka (K. Kaprē-Karka), in Love and the Symbolic Journey in the Poetry of Cavafy, Eliot, and Seferis (1982), p. 37

He has the strength (and of course the limitations) of the recluse, who, though not afraid of the world, always stands at a slight angle to it.
- E. M. Forster, "The Poetry of C.P. Cavafy," from Pharos and Pharillon (1923)

He wrote consistently but almost never published through traditional means. There is nothing more detrimental to art, he maintained, than succumbing to “how the public thinks and what it likes and what it will buy.” … Whether Cavafy is describing an ancient political intrigue or an erotic encounter that occurred last week, his topic is the passage of time. … Earlier translators have, to varying degrees, rightly emphasized the prosaic flatness of Cavafy’s language; the flatness is crucial to the emotional power of the poems, since it prevents their irony from seeming caustic, their longing from seeming nostalgic.
- James Longenbach , in "A Poet’s Progress" in The New York Times (17 April 2009)

The focal point of Greek-American cultural interest has definitely shifted in recent decades. Where formerly there was a somewhat affected and strained focus on classical Hellas, the contemporary awareness is much more in tune with the literature of modern Greece. This shift has almost been entirely due to the increasing availability of English translations of modern Greek writings, for not many American-born Greeks comfortably read novels or poetry in the original Greek. The beginnings of the new mood can be traced to the translations of the novels of Nikos Kazantzakis in the 1950s. These also stimulated interest in other Greek writers, notably the poets Constantine P. Cavafy, a product of the Greek diaspora in Alexandria, Egypt, and George Seferis, who won the Nobel literature prize in 1963.
- Peter C. Moskos, Greek Americans: Struggle and Success (2013)

He was a man who starts at a certain age with all signs showing that he's unable to produce anything of importance. And then, by refusing and refusing things which are offered him, in the end he finds, he sees, as they say; he becomes certain that he's found his own expression. It's a splendid example of a man who, through his refusals, finds his way.
- George Seferis, interview with Edmund Keeley (December 1968), from Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, 4th series (1977)

External links

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Constantine P. Cavafy