The Collected Poems: with parallel Greek text (Oxford World's Classics)

287 Pages·2007·7.37 MB·English

by  C.P. Cavafy

OXFORD WORLD S CLASSICS
THE COLLECTED POEMS
C. P. CAVAFY was born in 1863 into a well-to-do Greek mercantile
family in Alexandria, Egypt. After his father's death and the begin-
ning of the family's financial difficulties, the young Cavafy moved
with his mother and brothers to England, where they spent the
period 1872-7 in Liverpool and London. Apart from three years in
Constantinople from 1882 to 1885, he spent the rest of his life in
Alexandria, where he worked, until his retirement in 1922, as a senior
clerk in the Irrigation Department, living alone (after the departure
of his brother Paul in 1908) in a relatively large apartment near
the centre of the city. He visited Greece on only four occasions. He
began publishing poetry in periodicals in 1886, but abandoned many
of his early poems, and self-publication gradually became his pre-
ferred means of disseminating his work. By the time of his death in
1933 his poetry was widely known—though the subject of much
controversy—throughout the Greek-speaking world and beyond.
EVANGELOS SACHPEROGLOU was born in Piraeus in 1941. He has
taught Economics and History at Athens College and Deree College
in Athens, where he lives.
ANTHONY HIRST is a part-time Lecturer in Modern Greek at
Queen's University Belfast. He is the author of God and the Poetic Ego
(2004), a study of the use and abuse of religious language in the work
of three modern Greek poets, and of many critical articles on Cavafy
and other Greek authors.
PETER MACKRIDGE is Emeritus Professor of Modern Greek at
Oxford University. His books include The Modern Greek Language
(1985) and Dtonystos Solomos (1989). He has co-authored two gram-
mars of Modern Greek (1997 and 2004) and has published many
articles on medieval and modern Greek literature.
OXFORD WORLD S CLASSICS
For almost 100 years Oxford World's Classics have brought
readers closer to the world's great literature. Now with over 700
titles—from the 4,ooo-year-old myths of Mesopotamia to the
twentieth century's greatest novels—the series makes available
lesser-known as well as celebrated writing.
The pocket-sized hardbacks of the early years contained
introductions by Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, Graham Greene,
and other literary figures which enriched the experience of reading.
Today the series is recognized for its fine scholarship and
reliability in texts that span world literature, drama and poetry,
religion, philosophy and politics. Each edition includes perceptive
commentary and essential background information to meet the
changing needs of readers.
OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS
C. P. CAVAFY
The Collected Poems
Translated by
EVANGELOS SACHPEROGLOU
Greek Text Edited by
ANTHONY HIRST
With an Introduction by
PETER MACKRIDGE
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
OXPORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford 0x2 6op
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide in
Oxford New York
Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi
New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
With offices in
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press
in the UK and in certain other countries
Published in the United States
by Oxford University Press Inc., New York
Translation, note on translation, chronology, and explanatory notes © Evangelos Sachperoglou 2007
Greek text, note on Greek text, select bibliography © Anthony Hirst 2007
Introduction © Peter Mackridge 2007
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
Database right Oxford University Press (maker)
First published as an Oxford World's Classics paperback 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press,
or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate
reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction
outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,
Oxford University Press, at the address above
You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover
and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Cavafy, Constantine, 1863-1933.
[Poems. English & Greek]
The collected poems / C.P. Cavafy ; translated by Evangelos Sachperoglou ;
Greek text edited by Anthony Hirst; introduction by Peter Mackridge.
p. cm. -(Oxford world's classics)
Poems in Greek and in English translation.
ISBN 978-0-19-921292-7 (alk. paper)
1. Cavafy, Constantine, 1863-1933-Translations into English. I. Sachperoglou, Evangelos,
1941- II. Hirst, Anthony, 1945- III. Title.
PA5610.K2A22007
889'.132^ic22
2007015833
Typeset by Cepha Imaging Private Ltd., Bangalore, India
Greek typesetting by loanna Stavridis
Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by
Clays Ltd., St. Ives pic
ISBN 978-0-19-921292-7
13579 10 8642
CONTENTS
Introduction xi
Note on the Greek Text xxxiv
Note on the Translation xl
Select Bibliography xlii
A Chronology ofC. P. Cavafy xlv
THE COLLECTED POEMS
nOIHMATA 1910 [1897-1909J/POEMS 1910 [1897-1909]
Voices 3
Desires 3
Candles 3
An old man 5
Supplication 7
The souls of old men 7
The first step 7
Interruption 9
Thermopylae 11
Che fee e . . . il gran rifiuto 11
The windows 13
[Trojans]
Walls 13
Waiting for the barbarians 15
[Monotony]
Perfidy 19
The funeral of Sarpedon 21
The horses of Achilles 23
[The retinue of Dionysus]
[King Demetrius]
[The footsteps]
[That is the Man]
nOIHMATA (1905-1915)/POEMS (1905-1915)
The city 29
Satrapy 29
Wise men 31
The ides of March 33
Finished 33
VI CONTENTS
The god forsakes Antony 35
Theodotus 35
Monotony 37
Ithaca 37
As best you can 39
Trojans 41
King Demetrius 43
The glory of the Ptolemies 43
The retinue of Dionysus 45
The Battle of Magnesia 45
The displeasure of the Seleucid 47
Orophernes 49
Alexandrian kings 53
Philhellene 55
The footsteps 57
Herod Atticus 57
Sculptor of Tyana 59
Tomb of the grammarian Lysias 61
TombofEurion 61
That is the Man 63
Perilous things 63
Manuel Comnenus 65
In church 65
Very seldom 67
Of the shop 67
Painted 69
Morning sea 69
Ionic 71
At the entrance of the cafe 71
One night 71
Come back 73
Far away 73
He vows 75
I went 75
Chandelier 75
nOIHMATA (1916-1918)/POEMS (1916-1918)
Since nine o'clock— 79
Perception 79
Before the statue of Endymion 81
Envoys from Alexandria 81
Aristoboulos 83
Caesarion 85
Nero's term 87
In the harbour town 89
CONTENTS Vll
One of their gods 89
Tomb of Lanes 91
Tomb of lases 91
A town in Osroene 93
Tomb of Ignatius 93
In the month of Athyr 93
For Ammones, who died aged
29, in 610 95
Aemilianus Monae, Alexandrian,
A.D. 628-655 97
When they are roused 97
To sensual pleasure 99
So long I gazed— 99
In the street 99
The tobacconist's window 101
Passage 101
In the evening 103
Grey 103
Outside the house 105
The next table 105
Body, remember . . . 107
Days of 1903 107
nOIHMATA 1919-1933/POEMS 1919-1933
The afternoon sun 111
Has come to rest 111
Of the Hebrews (A.D. 50) 113
Imenos 115
On the ship 115
Of Demetrius Soter
(162-150 B.C.) 117
If dead indeed 119
Young men of Sidon (A.D. 400) 121
That they come— 123
Darius 125
Anna Comnena 127
A Byzantine Nobleman, in exile,
composing verses 127
Their origin 129
The favour of Alexander Balas 129
Melancholy of Jason, son of
Kleander, poet in Commagene,
A.D. 595 131
Demaratus 131
I brought to Art 133
From the school of the renowned
philosopher 135
Vlll CONTENTS
Craftsman of craters 137
Those who fought for the Achaean
League 137
To Antiochus Epiphanes 139
In an old book— 139
In despair 141
Julian, noticing negligence 141
Epitaph of Antiochus, king of
Commagene 143
Theatre of Sidon (A.D. 400) 145
Julian in Nicomedia 145
Before they are changed by Time 147
He came to read— 147
In Alexandria, 31 B.C. 149
John Cantacuzenus prevails 149
Temethos, Antiochian, A.D. 400 151
Of coloured glass 153
The 25th year of his life 153
On an Italian shore 155
In the dreary village 155
Apollonius of Tyana in Rhodes 157
Kleitos'illness 157
In a township of Asia Minor 159
A priest of the Serapeum 161
In the wine taverns— 161
A great procession of priests and
laymen 163
Sophist leaving Syria 165
Julian and the Antiochians 165
Anna Dalassene 167
Days of 1896 167
Two young men, 23 to
24 years old 169
Greek since ancient times 171
Days of 1901 173
You didn't understand 173
A young man of Letters — in his
24th year 175
In Sparta 175
Portrait of a 23-year-old man,
painted by a friend of the same
age, an amateur artist 177
In a large Greek colony, 200 B.C. 179
The potentate from Western
Libya 181
CONTENTS IX
Kimon, son of Learchos, 22 years
old, student of Greek letters
(in Gyrene) 183
On the march to Sinope 185
Days of 1909,'10 and'i i 187
Myres: Alexandria, A.D. 340 187
Alexander Jannaeus, and
Alexandra 191
Lovely flowers and white such as
befitted well 193
Come, O king of the
Lacedaemonians 195
In the same space 197
The mirror in the entrance 197
He was asking about the
quality— 199
If only they had seen to it 201
According to the recipes of ancient
Greco-Syrian magicians 203
In the year 200 B.C. 205
Days of 1908 207
In the outskirts of Antioch 209
Explanatory Notes 213
Glossary 229
Chronological List of Poems 231
Index of Greek Titles 235
Index of English Titles 237