Constantine P. Cavafy Poems

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.
Try to hold them, poet,
when they come alive in your mind
at night or in the noonday brightness.
...

Vacuous Julian had the following to say
about our religious beliefs: 'I read, I understood,
I condemned'. He thought we'd be devastated
by that 'condemned', the silly ass.
Witticisms like that don't get by with us Christians.
Our quick reply: 'You read but didn't understand;
had you understood, you wouldn't have condemned.'
...

My kind old father
whose love for me has always stayed the same
I mourn my kind old father
who died two days ago, just before dawn.
...

As you'll have heard, I'm no beginner.
I've handled a lot of stone in my time,
and in my own country, Tyana, I'm really quite famous.
Actually, a number of senators here
have also commissioned works of mine.
...

Lines written by young Temethos, madly in love.
The tile: 'Emonidis' -the favourite
of Antiochos Epiphanis; a very good-looking young man
from Samosata. But if the lines come out
ardent, full of feeling, it's because Emonidis
(belonging to another, much older time:
the 137th year of the Greek kingdom,
maybe a bit earlier) is in the poem
merely as a name -a suitable one nevertheless.
...

Unknown -a stranger in Antioch- the man from Edessa
writes and writes. And at last, there,
the final canto's done. That makes
...

The things he timidly imagined as a schoolboy
are openly revealed to him now. And he walks the streets,
stays out all night, gets involved. And as is right (for our kind of art)
his blood -fresh and hot
offers itself to pleasure.
...

Dimitrios Selefkidis was displeased
to learn that a Ptolemy
had reached Italy in such a squalid state:
poorly dressed and on foot,
only three or four slaves. This way
their dynasty will become a joke,
the laughter of Rome.
...

I'm not in the least put out that my chariot wheel broke
and I lost that silly race.
I'll drink great wines the whole night,
lying among lovely roses. Antioch is all mine.
...

Zeus mourns deeply:
Patroklos has killed Sarpedon.
Now Patroklos and the Achaians rush on
to snatch up the body, to dishonour it.
But Zeus doesn't tolerate that at all.
Though he let his favourite child be killed
this the Law required
he'll at least honour him after death.
...