C. P. Cavafy: Collected Poems, Revised Edition

by C. P. Cavafy, George Savidis (Editor), Edmund Keeley (Translator), Philip Sherrard (Translator)

Overview

C. P. Cavafy (1863–1933) lived in relative obscurity in Alexandria, and a collected edition of his poems was not published until after his death. Now, however, he is regarded as the most important figure in twentieth-century Greek poetry, and his poems are considered among the most powerful in modern European literature. Here is an extensively revised edition of the acclaimed translations of Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard, which capture Cavafy's mixture of formal and idiomatic use of language and preserve the immediacy of his frank treatment of homosexual themes, his brilliant re-creation of history, and his astute political ironies. The resetting of the entire edition has permitted the translators to review each poem and to make alterations where appropriate. George Savidis has revised the notes according to his latest edition of the Greek text.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691213132
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	05/05/2020
Series:	The Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation , #37
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	786 KB

About the Author

George Savidis (1929–1995) was professor of modern Greek at the University of Thessaloniki and George Seferis Visiting Professor at Harvard University. Edmund Keeley (1928–2022) was the Charles Barnwell Straut Class of 1923 Professor of English, emeritus, and professor emeritus of creative writing at Princeton University. Philip Sherrard (1922–1995) was research fellow at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and lecturer in the history of the Orthodox Church at King’s College London.

Read an Excerpt

The City

You said: “I'll go to some other land, I'll go to some other sea.
There's bound to be another city that's better by far.
My every effort has been ill-fated from the start;
my heart-like something dead-lies buried away;
How long will my mind endure this slow decay?
Wherever I look, wherever I cast my eyes,
I see all round me the black rubble of my life
where I've spent so many ruined and wasted years.”

You'll find no new places, you won't find other shores.
The city will follow you. The streets in which you pace
will be the same, you'll haunt the same familiar places,
and inside those same houses you'll grow old.
You'll always end up in this city. Don't bother to hope
for a ship, a route, to take you somewhere else; they don't exist.
Just as you've destroyed your life, here in this
small corner, so you've wasted it through all the world.

[1894; 1910]




Ithaca

As you set out on the way to Ithaca
hope that the road is a long one,
filled with adventures, filled with discoveries.
The Laestrygonians and the Cyclopes,
Poseidon in his anger: do not fear them,
you won't find such things on your way
so long as your thoughts remain lofty, and a choice
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Laestrygonians and the Cyclopes,
savage Poseidon; you won't encounter them
unless you stow them away inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up before you.

Hope that the road is a long one.
Many may the summer mornings be
when-with what pleasure, with what joy-
you first put in to harbors new to your eyes;
mayyou stop at Phoenician trading posts
and there acquire the finest wares:
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and heady perfumes of every kind:
as many heady perfumes as you can.
Many Egyptian cities may you visit
that you may learn, and go on learning, from their sages.

Always in your mind keep Ithaca.
To arrive there is your destiny.
But do not hurry your trip in any way.
Better that it last for many years;
that you drop anchor at the island an old man,
rich with all you've gotten on the way,
not expecting Ithaca to make you rich.

Ithaca gave you the beautiful journey;
without her you wouldn't have set upon the road.
But now she has nothing left to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca didn't deceive you.
As wise as you will have become, with so much experience,
you will understand, by then, these Ithacas; what they mean.

[1910; 1911]





Hidden (1908)

From all I did and from all I said
they shouldn't try to find out who I was.
An obstacle was there and it distorted
my actions and the way I lived my life.
An obstacle was there and it stopped me
on many occasions when I was going to speak.
The most unnoticed of my actions
and the most covert of all my writings:
from these alone will they come to know me.
But perhaps it's not worth squandering
so much care and trouble on puzzling me out.
Afterwards-in some more perfect society-
someone else who's fashioned like me
will surely appear and be free to do as he pleases.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Poet—Historian
A Note on Pronunciation of Proper Names

i
PUBLISHED POEMS
Poems 1905—1915
The City
The Satrapy
But Wise Men Apprehend What Is Imminent
Ides of March
Finished
The God Abandons Antony
Theodotus
Monotony
Ithaca
As Much As You Can
Trojans
King Demetrius
The Glory of the Ptolemies
The Retinue of Dionysus
The Battle of Magnesia
The Seleucid’s Displeasure
Orophernes
Alexandrian Kings
Philhellene
The Steps
Herodes Atticus
Sculptor from Tyana
The Tomb of Lysias the Grammarian
Tomb of Eurion
That Is He
Dangerous
Manuel Comnenus
In the Church
Very Rarely
In Stock
Painted
Morning Sea
Song of Ionia
In the Entrance of the Café
One Night
Come Back
Far Off
He Swears
I Went
Chandelier

Poems 1916—1918
Since Nine–
Comprehension
In the Presence of the Statue of Endymion
Envoys from Alexandria
Aristobulus
Caesarion
Nero’s Deadline
Safe Haven
One of Their Gods
Tomb of Lanes
Tomb of Iases
In a City of Osrhoene
Tomb of Ignatius
In the Month of Hathor
For Ammon, Who Died at 29 Years of Age, in 610
Aemilian Son of Monaës, an Alexandrian, 628—655 A.D.
Whenever They Are Aroused
To Pleasure
I’ve Gazed So Much–
In the Street
The Window of the Tobacco Shop
Passage
In Evening
Gray
Below the House
The Next Table
Remember, Body
Days of 1903

Poems1919—1933
The Afternoon Sun
To Stay
Of the Jews (50 A.D.)
Imenus
Aboard the Ship
Of Demetrius Soter (162—150 B.C.)
If Indeed He Died
Young Men of Sidon (400 A.D.)
That They Come–
Darius
Anna Comnena
Byzantine Noble, in Exile, Versifying
Their Beginning
Favour of Alexander Balas
Melancholy of Jason, Son of Cleander: Poet in Commagene: 595 A.D.
Demaratus
I Brought to Art
From the School of the Renowned Philosopher
Maker of Wine Bowls
Those Who Fought on Behalf of the Achaean League
For Antiochus Epiphanes
In an Old Book
In Despair
Julian, Seeing Indifference
Epitaph of Antiochus, King of Commagene
Theater of Sidon (400 A.D.)
Julian in Nicomedia
Before Time Could Alter Them
He Came to Read–
The Year 31 B.C. in Alexandria
John Cantacuzenus Triumphs
Temethus, an Antiochene: 400 A.D.
Of Colored Glass
The 25th Year of His Life
On the Italian Seashore
In the Boring Village
Apollonius of Tyana in Rhodes
Cleitus’s Illness
In a Municipality of Asia Minor
Priest of the Serapeum
In the Taverns
A Great Procession of Priests and Laymen
Sophist Departing from Syria
Julian and the Antiochenes
Anna Dalassene
Days of 1896
Two Young Men, 23 to 24Years Old
Greek Since Ancient Times
Days of 1901
You Didn’t Understand
AYoung Man, Skilled in the Art of the Word–
in His 24th Year
In Sparta
Portrait of a Young Man of Twenty-Three Done by His Friend of the Same Age, an Amateur
In a Large Greek Colony, 200 B.C.
Potentate from Western Libya
Cimon Son of Learchus, 22 Years Old, Teacher of Greek Letters (in Cyrene)
On the March to Sinope
Days of 1909, ’10, and ’11
Myres: Alexandria in 340 A.D.
Alexander Jannaeus, and Alexandra
Beautiful, White Flowers As They Went So Well
Come Now, King of the Lacedaemonians
In the Same Space
The Mirror in the Entrance
He Asked About the Quality–
Should Have Taken the Trouble
According to the Formulas of Ancient Greco-Syrian Magicians
In 200 B.C.
Days of 1908
On the Outskirts of Antioch

Poems Published 1897—1908
Contents of the Sengopoulos Notebook
Voices
Longings
Candles
An Old Man
Prayer
Old Men’s Souls
The First Step
Interruption
Thermopylae
Che Fece . . . Il Gran Rifiuto
The Windows
Walls
Waiting for the Barbarians
Betrayal
The Funeral of Sarpedon
The Horses of Achilles

ii
REPUDIATED POEMS
(1886—1898)
Brindisi
The Poet and the Muse
Builders
Word and Silence
Sham-el-Nessim
Bard
Vulnerant Omnes, Ultima Necat
Good and Bad Weather
Timolaus the Syracusan
Athena’s Vote
The Inkwell
Sweet Voices
Elegy of the Flowers
Hours of Melancholy
Oedipus
Ode and Elegy of the Streets
Near an Open Window
A Love
Remembrance
The Death of the Emperor Tacitus
The Eumenides’ Footfalls
The Tears of Phaëthon’s Sisters
Ancient Tragedy
Horace in Athens
Voice from the Sea
The Tarentines Have Their Fun
The Funeral of Sarpedon

iii
UNPUBLISHED POEMS
(1877?—1923)
The Beyzade to His Lady-Love
Dünya Güzeli
When, My Friends, I Was in Love . . .
Nichori
Song of the Heart
To Stephanos Skilitsis
Correspondences According to Baudelaire
[Fragment of an untitled poem]
“Nous N’osons Plus Chanter les Roses”
Indian Image
Pelasgian Image
The Hereafter
The Mimiambs of Herodas
Azure Eyes
The Four Walls of My Room
Alexandrian Merchant
The Lagid’s Hospitality
In the Cemetery
Priam’s March by Night
Epitaph
Displeased Theatregoer
Before Jerusalem
Second Odyssey
He Who Fails
The Pawn
Dread
In the House of the Soul
Rain
La Jeunesse Blanche
Distinguishing Marks
Eternity
Confusion
Salome
Chaldean Image
Julian at the Mysteries
The Cat
The Bank of the Future
Impossible Things
Addition
Garlands
Lohengrin
Suspicion
Death of a General
The Intervention of the Gods
King Claudius
The Naval Battle
When the Watchman Saw the Light
The Enemies
Artificial Flowers
Strengthening
September of 1903
December 1903
January of 1904
On the Stairs
In the Theatre
Poseidonians
The End of Antony
27 June 1906, 2 P.M.
Hidden
Hearing of Love
“The Rest Shall I Tell in Hades to Those Below”
That’s How
Homecoming from Greece
Fugitives
Theophilus Palaeologus
And I Got Down and I Lay There in Their Beds
Half an Hour
House with Garden
A Great Feast at the House of Sosibius
Simeon
The Bandaged Shoulder
Coins
It Was Taken
From the Drawer

Prose Poems
The Regiment of Pleasure
Ships
Clothes

Poems Written in English
[More Happy Thou, Performing Member]
Leaving Therápia
Darkness and Shadows


Notes
Further Reading
Acknowledgments
Index of Titles

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“The best [English version] we are likely to see for some time.”—James Merrill, New York Review of Books

“[Keeley and Sherrard] have managed the miracle of capturing this elusive, inimitable, unforgettable voice. It is the most haunting voice I know in modern poetry.”—Walter Kaiser, New Republic

“Among the key books of our century and should be read by anyone who cares for poetry.”—Washington Post Book World

"The Keeley and Sherrard translations . . . remain unsurpassed as embodiments of Cavafy’s art in English."—Robert Pinsky, former U.S. Poet Laureate

Editorial Reviews

Auden maintained that Cavafy's tone seems always to "survive translation," and Daniel Mendelsohn's new translations render that tone more pointedly than ever before…this Collected Poems not only brings us closer to one of the great poets of the 20th century; it also reinvigorates our relationship to the English language.
—The New York Times

James Longenbach

Already a celebrated critic, memoirist and classicist, Mendelsohn drew together his interests in ancient history, literature, gay life and culture, and beautiful language to produce the finest, most readable version of the modern Greek poet Cavafy (1863-1933) to come along in decades. Cavafy has long been highly regarded by American readers, especially for the straightforward, seemingly timeless, hard-to-pin-down tone of his poems-which alternately revel in and suffer from both ancient Greek history and homoerotic desire-but, as Mendelsohn observes in his deeply impassioned and informative introduction, many American readers overlook "those poems that are deliberately set in the obscurer margins, both geographical and temporal, of the Greek past... in favor of the works with more obvious contemporary appeal." With this new, completely annotated, translation, Mendelsohn says he aims to "restore the balance," to help readers reanimate Greek history with Cavafy, to see how relevant and pressing his whole oeuvre truly is. This larger volume (Knopf is also publishing Mendelsohn's version of Cavafy's Unfinished Poems, never before translated into English, as a separate volume, reviewed below) contains all the poems by Cavafy we have known in English, from famous works like "Ithaka" ("you will understand, by then, these Ithacas; what they mean") and "The First Step" ("you must claim your right to be/ a citizen of the city of ideas"), all rendered with a lucid music. This is likely to be the definitive Cavafy for some time to come. (Mar.)

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Publishers Weekly

"Among the key books of our century and should be read by anyone who cares for poetry."

Washington Post Book World

"Among the key books of our century and should be read by anyone who cares for poetry."—Washington Post Book World

From the Publisher