Cavafy: Five Poems

BCJ Editors, trans.

Brown University

Morning Sea

Here let me stand and look for a little at nature,
Morning sea’s and cloudless sky’s
Bright violet-blues, and lemon banks, beautiful
All and grandly lit.

Here let me stand and fool myself I see them
(I did one moment really when first I took my stand) and
Not my fantasies here,
My memories, images of pleasure.



Epitaph of Antiochos, King of Commagene

After she came back--sad--from his funeral,
the sister of the sober and gentle-lived,
the very learned Antiochos, king
of Commagene, she wanted an epitaph for him,
and the Ephesian savant, Kallistratos--who stayed
often in the realm of Commagene,
and by the royal household
was gladly and often entertained--
wrote it by recommendation of Syrian courtiers
and sent it to the old unmarried lady:

“Of Antiochos beneficent king
the fame, Commagenes, will be duly sung:
he was a provident governor of his country;
he was just, wise, noble;
he was moreover that best thing, Greek--
humanity has no more precious quality:
what is beyond is among the gods.”

Waiting for the Barbarians

What are we waiting for, gathered here in the marketplace?

It’s that the barbarians are going to arrive today.

Why such inactivity in the Senate?
Why do the Senators sit and not pass laws?

Because the barbarians will arrrive today.
Why should the Senators pass laws any more?
The barbarians when they come will pass the laws.

Why did the Emperor get up so early?
Why does he sit at the greatest gate of the city
On his throne with meaning wearing his crown?

Because the barbarians will arrive today
The Emperor is waiting to receive
Their leader, has indeed made ready
To give him a parchment, whereon
He wrote many titles and attributes.

Why did our two consuls and praetors
Come out today with their red, embroidered togas?
Why the bracelets with all the amethysts
Rings with emeralds that flash and shine?
Why hold today costly batons
Unusually worked with silver and gold?

Because the barbarians will arrive today
And such things impress barbarians.

Why do not the meritorious orators come as always
To bring out their speeches, to say their things?

Because the barbarians will arrive today
And they are bored with eloquence and speeches.
Why does there begin all at one this uneasiness
And this confusion? How serious the faces become.

Why do the streets and squares quickly empty
And all go home greatly worried?

Because night came on, and the barbarians did not come,
And certain people have arrived from the border
And have said there are no more barbarians.

And now what will come of us without barbarians?
These people were a kind of solution.

Byzantine Official in Exile, Poetaster

The lightweights, let them call me light,
in serious matters, I was always
most scrupulous. And I shall insist
no one know better than I
Fathers and Scriptures and Canons of Councils:
in his every doubt, Votoniates,
in his every trouble in churchly affairs,
took counsel with me, me first.
But exiled here (to blame: that mean
Irini Dukena) and dreadfully bored
it is not in any way odd that I have fun
writing sestets and octabes,
have fun with mythical stories
of Hermes and Apollo and Dionysos
or heroes of Thessaly and the Peloponnese,
and compose correrctest iambics,
as--permit me to say--the savants
of Constantinople do not know how.
This correctness probably is to blame for their malice.

Manuel Komnenos

Lord King Manuel Komnenos
one melancholy September day
felt death near. The astrologers
(paid) of the court babbled
how many more years would he live;
but he while they talk
remembers his old habitual carefulnesses
orders from the monastery cells
ecclesiastical garments to wear
and wears them and is happy he shows
a stern aspect of priest or monk.

Happy all who believe
and like Lord King Manuel come to an end
dressed in their sternest belief.