A Poem, Very Topical for early 2018

WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS

By Constantine P. Cavafy  

translated from the Greek by Stratis Haviaras, 2004


What are we waiting for, gathered here at the agora?

  The barbarians are supposed to show up today.

Why is there such indolence in the senate?
Why are the senators sitting around, making no laws?

  Because the barbarians are supposed to show up today.
  Why should the senators trouble themselves with laws?
  When the barbarians arrive, they'll do the legislating.

Why has our emperor risen so early this morning,
and why is he now enthroned at the city gate,
sitting there in state and wearing his crown?

  Because the barbarians are supposed to show up today.
  And the emperor is waiting there to receive
  their leader.  He's even had a parchment scroll
  prepared as a tribute:  it's loaded with
  all sorts of titles and high honors.

Why have our two consuls and  praetors turned up
today, resplendent in their red brocaded togas;
why are they wearing bracelets encrusted with amethysts,
and rings studded with brilliant, glittering emeralds;
why are they sporting those priceless canes,
the ones of finely-workked gold  and silver?

  Because the barbarians are supposed to show up today,
  and such things really dazzle the barbarians.

Why don't our illustrious speakers come out to speak
as they always do, to speak what is on their minds?

  Because the barbarians are supposed to show up today,
  and they really can't stand lofty oration and demagogy.

Why is everyone suddenly ill at ease
and confused (just look how solemn their faces are)?
Why are the streets and squares all at once empty,
as everyone heads for home, lost in their thoughts?

  Because it's night now, and the barbarians haven't shown up.
  And there are others, just back from the borderlands,
  who claim that the barbarians no longer exist.

What in the world will we do without the barbarians?
Those people would have been a solution, of sorts.

Another Poem, This One Evocative

"ITHAKA"   

By Constantine P. Cavafy  

translated from Greek by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard, 1992

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistragonians 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.
Laistrogonians 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 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 what these Ithakas mean.