#Constantin Cavafy

[ratatoskryggdrasil]

Yves Paradis, Hommage a Constantin Cavafy, 1986

[corydon8]

 À LA TAVERNE DE LA MER

À la taverne de la mer est assis un vieil homme aux cheveux blancs,

la tête inclinée sur un journal étalé devant lui,

car personne ne lui tient compagnie.

Il sait tout le mépris que les regards ont pour son corps,

il sait que le temps a passé sans plaisir aucun,

et qu’il ne peut plus offrir l’antique fraîcheur de sa beauté passée.

Il est vieux, il ne le sait que trop, il est vieux,

il ne le voit que trop, il est vieux,

il ne le ressent que trop à chaque fois qu’il pleure,

il est vieux, et il a le temps, trop de temps pour le voir.

C’était, c’était quand, c’était hier, encore.

Et on se souvient du « bon sens », ce menteur !

et comment le fameux « bon sens » lui a préparé cet enfer

lorsqu’à chaque désir il répondait

« Demain, demain il sera temps encore ».

Et il se souvient du plaisir retenu,

de chaque aube de jouissance refusée, de chaque instant perdu

qui se rit maintenant de son corps labouré par les ans.

À la taverne de la mer

est assis un vieil homme

qui, à force de penser, à force de rêver,

s’est endormi sur la table…

[endofwinter]

But the Wise Perceive Things About to Happen

                               “For the gods perceive future things, ordinary people things in the present, but  the wise perceive things about to happen. Philostratos, Life of Apollonios of Tyana, viii, 7.

Ordinary people know what’s happening now, the gods know future things because they alone are totally enlightened. 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.

[mournfulroses]

Constantine P. Cavafy, from The Collected Poems of C. P. Cavafy; "September, 1904,"

[daweyt]

Constantine P. Cavafy, from “Modern Greek Poetry; ‘The Bandaged Shoulder’”, tr. Kimon Friar.

[dabiconcordia]

As Much As You Can 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. Try not to degrade it by dragging it along, taking it around and exposing it so often to the daily silliness of social events and parties, until it comes to seem a boring hanger-on. by Constantine Cavafy

[liesmyth]

One monotonous day is followed by another monotonous, identical day. The same things will happen, they will happen again — the same moments find us and leave us. A month passes and ushers in another month. One guesses the coming events easily they are the boring ones of yesterday. And the morrow ends up not resembling a morrow anymore.

Constantine P. Cavafy, Monotony

[cowperviolet]

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.

They reared their heads, tossed their long manes,

beat the ground with their hooves, and mourned

Patroklos, seeing him lifeless, destroyed,

now mere flesh only, his spirit gone,

defenseless, without breath,

turned back from life to the great Nothingness.

Zeus saw the tears of those immortal horses and felt sorry.

“At the wedding of Peleus,” he said,

“I should not have acted so thoughtlessly.

Better if we hadn’t given you as a gift,

my unhappy horses. What business did you have down there,

among pathetic human beings, the toys of fate.

You are free of death, you will not get old,

yet ephemeral disasters torment you.

Men have caught you up in their misery.”

But it was for the eternal disaster of death

that those two gallant horses shed their tears. 

- Horses of Achilles, by Constantine Cavafy

[lightthereis]

“And if you can’t shape your life the way you want, at least try as much as you cannot degrade it...” ― Constantine P. Cavafy/Κωνσταντίνος Π. Καβάφης (Greek Poet)

[yorgunherakles]

bir gemi yok, bir yol yok sana

kavafis

[eucanthos]

Alexandria, 4 Kavafi street (once poet's residence), Egypt

Constantine P. Cavafy (Alexandria, April 29, 1863 - 1933, Alexandria)

Κωνσταντίνος Καβάφης

Ἡ Πόλις

Καινούριους τόπους δεν θα βρεις, δεν θάβρεις άλλες θάλασσες. Η πόλις θα σε ακολουθεί. Στους δρόμους θα γυρνάς τους ίδιους. Και στες γειτονιές τες ίδιες θα γερνάς, και μες στα ίδια σπίτια αυτά θ’ασπρίζεις. Πάντα στην πόλι αυτή θα φθάνεις.

The City is a well known Greek philosophical poem by Constantine Cavafy. Written August 1894, originally entitled “Once More in the Same City,” it was published April 1910.

In this poem, Alexandria is the symbol of the past that follows the protagonist everywhere. It is presented as the sign of failures, troubles and mistakes that people experience in their lives, brought upon themselves or not.

https://www.lifo.gr/tropos-zois/travel/i-alexandreia-toy-mythoy-kai-pera-apo-ayton

[newsmutproject]

Body, remember not only how much you were loved, not only the beds on which you lay, but also those desires which for you plainly glowed in the eyes, and trembled in the voice -- and some chance obstacle made them futile. Now that all belongs to the past, it is almost as if you had yielded to those desires too -- remember, how they glowed, in the eyes looking at you; how they trembled in the voice, for you, remember, body.

-Constantine P. Cavafy

[rahmamustafa99]

Cavafy - Poet of The City (2011)

[endofwinter]

Candles

Days to come stand in front of us like a row of lighted candles— golden, warm, and vivid candles.

Days gone by fall behind us, a gloomy line of snuffed-out candles; the nearest are smoking still, cold, melted, and bent.

I don’t want to look at them: their shape saddens me, and it saddens me to remember their original light. I look ahead at my lighted candles.

I don’t want to turn for fear of seeing, terrified, how quickly that dark line gets longer, how quickly the snuffed-out candles proliferate.

(Constantin Cavafy)

[mournfulroses]

Constantine P. Cavafy, from The Collected Poems of C. P. Cavafy; "December, 1904,"

[mundaneandmagicalcreature]

The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien | Ithaka, C.P. Cavafy (Tr: E. Keeley and P. Sherrard)