Constantine P. Cavafy Quotes

"Candles" [Κεριά], as translated by Manolis, in Constantine P. Cavafy: Poems (2008) edited by George Amabile

Κατόπι — στὴν τελειοτέρα κοινωνία —
κανένας ἄλλος καμωμένος σὰν ἐμένα
βέβαια θὰ φανεῖ κ’ ἐλεύθερα θὰ κάμει.
Hidden Things
Collected Poems (1992)

Before Time Altered Them http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=123&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)

Hidden Things
Collected Poems (1992)

Nero’s Deadline http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=53&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)

Ionic http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=76&cat=1.
Variant translation: Because we have broken up their images,
because we have expelled them from their fanes,
in no wise are they dead for that — the gods.
Land of Ionia, it is you they love
still — you whose memories still delight their souls.
Poems by C. P. Cavafy as translated by John Cavafy (2003) http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=205&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)
Context: That we’ve broken their statues,
that we’ve driven them out of their temples,
doesn’t mean at all that the gods are dead.
O land of Ionia, they’re still in love with you,
their souls still keep your memory.

Julian at the Mysteries http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=166&cat=4
Collected Poems (1992)
Context: The greatest gods of our glorious Greece
appeared before you.
And if they left, don’t think for a minute
that they were frightened by a gesture.

Julian and the Antiochians http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=107&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)

The Intervention of the Gods http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=235&cat=4
Poems by C. P. Cavafy (2003)

" Body, Remember... http://cavafis.compupress.gr/kave_45.htm" (1918)

Source: http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=157&cat=4 On Hearing of Love
Collected Poems (1992)

Second Odyssey http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=329&cat=4, as translated by Walter Kaiser
Collected Poems (1992)

King Claudius http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=163&cat=4 (inspired by the story of Hamlet by William Shakespeare)
Collected Poems (1992)

" In The Year 200 B.C. http://cavafis.compupress.gr/kave_1.htm" (1931)
Context: The Spartans weren't to be led
and ordered around
like precious servants. Besides,
they wouldn't have thought a pan-Hellenic expedition
without a Spartan king in command
was to be taken very seriously.
Of course, then, "except the Lacedaimonians." That's certainly one point of view. Quite understandable.

Growing in Spirit http://cavafis.compupress.gr/kave_130.htm (1903)
Collected Poems (1992)
Context: He who hopes to grow in spirit
will have to transcend obedience and respect.
He'll hold to some laws
but he'll mostly violate
both law and custom, and go beyond
the established, inadequate norm.
Sensual pleasures will have much to teach him.
He won't be afraid of the destructive act:
half the house will have to come down.
This way he'll grow virtuously into wisdom.

Thermopylae http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=69&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)
Context: Honor to those who in the life they lead
define and guard a Thermopylae.
Never betraying what is right,
consistent and just in all they do
but showing pity also, and compassion;
generous when they are rich, and when they are poor,
still generous in small ways,
still helping as much as they can;
always speaking the truth,
yet without hating those who lie.

The Windows http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=137&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)
Context: It will be a great relief when a window opens.
But the windows are not there to be found —
or at least I cannot find them. And perhaps
it is better that I don’t find them.
Perhaps the light will prove another tyranny.
Who knows what new things it will expose?

" In the Same Space http://cavafis.compupress.gr/kave_134.htm" (1929)
Context: p>I created you while I was happy, while I was sad,
with so many incidents, so many details.And, for me, the whole of you has been transformed into feeling.</p

"After the Swim" as translated by Daniel Mendelsohn

" In The Year 200 B.C. http://cavafis.compupress.gr/kave_1.htm" (1931)
Context: The Spartans weren't to be led
and ordered around
like precious servants. Besides,
they wouldn't have thought a pan-Hellenic expedition
without a Spartan king in command
was to be taken very seriously.
Of course, then, "except the Lacedaimonians." That's certainly one point of view. Quite understandable.

" The City http://cavafis.compupress.gr/kave_33.htm", st. 2 (1910)
Context: You won't find a new country, won't find another shore.
This city will always pursue you.
You'll walk the same streets, grow old
in the same neighbourhoods, turn grey in these same houses.
You'll always end up in this city. Don't hope for things elsewhere:
there's no ship for you, there's no road.
Now that you've wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you've destroyed it everywhere in the world.

An Old Man http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=39&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)
Context: He knows he’s aged a lot: he sees it, feels it.
Yet it seems he was young just yesterday.
So brief an interval, so very brief. And he thinks of Prudence, how it fooled him,
how he always believed — what madness —
that cheat who said: “Tomorrow. You have plenty of time.”

The Ides of March http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=86&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)

The First Step http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=145&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)
Context: Just to be on the first step
should make you happy and proud.
To have come this far is no small achievement:
what you have done is a glorious thing.
Even this first step
is a long way above the ordinary world.
To stand on this step
you must be in your own right
a member of the city of ideas.
And it is a hard, unusual thing
to be enrolled as a citizen of that city.
Its councils are full of Legislators
no charlatan can fool.

The Windows http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=137&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)
Context: It will be a great relief when a window opens.
But the windows are not there to be found —
or at least I cannot find them. And perhaps
it is better that I don’t find them.
Perhaps the light will prove another tyranny.
Who knows what new things it will expose?

" Epitaph of Antiochos, King of Kommagini http://cavafis.compupress.gr/kave_115.htm" (1923) <!-- some of the ironies of the poem are lost with only this portion of it … but so it goes...-->
Context: People of Kommagini, let the glory of Antiochos,
the noble king, be celebrated as it deserves.
He was a provident ruler of the country.
He was just, wise, courageous.
In addition he was that best of all things, Hellenic —
mankind has no quality more precious:
everything beyond that belongs to the gods.

The Horses of Achilles http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=134&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)
Context: 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.

Julian in Nicomedia http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=106&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)
Context: Things impolitic and dangerous:
praise for Greek ideals,
supernatural magic, visits to pagan temples.
Enthusiasm for the ancient gods

But the Wise Perceive Things about to Happen http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=128&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)
Context: 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.

One of Their Gods http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=40&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)
Context: The people going by would gaze at him,
and one would ask the other if he knew him,
if he was a Greek from Syria, or a stranger.
But some who looked more carefully
would understand and step aside;
and as he disappeared under the arcades,
among the shadows and the evening lights,
going toward the quarter that lives
only at night, with orgies and debauchery,
with every kind of intoxication and desire,
they would wonder which of Them it could be,
and for what suspicious pleasure
he had come down into the streets of Selefkia
from the August Celestial Mansions.

"Candles" [Κεριά], as translated by Manolis, in Constantine P. Cavafy: Poems (2008) edited by George Amabile
Context: I look before me at my lighted candles,
I don’t want to turn around and see with horror
How quickly the dark line is lengthening,
How quickly the candles multiply that have been put out.

Source: Waiting for the Barbarians (1904), l. 1

Source: To Have Taken The Trouble (1930), l. 1

Collected Poems (1992), When the Watchman Saw the Light (1900)
Context: So let's not exaggerate.
The light is good; and those coming are good,
their words and actions also good.
And let's hope all goes well.
But Argos can do without the house of Atreus.
Ancient houses are not eternal.

Source: Waiting for the Barbarians (1904), l. 26
Context: Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home lost in thought?Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven't come.
And some of our men who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.Now what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.

Collected Poems (1992), When the Watchman Saw the Light (1900)
Context: Of course many people will have much to say.
We should listen. But we won't be deceived
by words such as Indispensable, Unique, and Great.
Someone else indispensable and unique and great
can always be found at a moment's notice.

Source: Waiting for the Barbarians (1904), l. 26
Context: Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home lost in thought?Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven't come.
And some of our men who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.Now what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.

The First Step http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=145&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)
Context: Just to be on the first step
should make you happy and proud.
To have come this far is no small achievement:
what you have done is a glorious thing.
Even this first step
is a long way above the ordinary world.
To stand on this step
you must be in your own right
a member of the city of ideas.
And it is a hard, unusual thing
to be enrolled as a citizen of that city.
Its councils are full of Legislators
no charlatan can fool.

A Byzantine Nobleman in Exile Composing Verses http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=16&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)
Context: The frivolous can call me frivolous.
I’ve always been most punctilious about
important things. And I insist
that no one knows better than I do
the Holy Fathers, or the Scriptures, or the Canons of the Councils.

" In the Same Space http://cavafis.compupress.gr/kave_134.htm" (1929)
Context: p>I created you while I was happy, while I was sad,
with so many incidents, so many details.And, for me, the whole of you has been transformed into feeling.</p

The God Abandons Antony http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=12&cat=1 (1911).
Variant translations:
Like one who’s long prepared, like someone brave,
as befits a man who’s been blessed with a city like this,
go without faltering toward the window
and listen with deep emotion, but not
with the entreaties and the whining of a coward,
to the sounds — a final entertainment —
to the exquisite instruments of that initiate crew,
and bid farewell to her, to Alexandria, whom you are losing.
As translated by Daniel Mendelsohn (2009).
Don't mourn your luck that's failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans
all proving deceptive — don't mourn them uselessly:
as one long prepared, and full of courage,
say goodbye to her, to Alexandria who is leaving.
Unknown translator http://cavafis.compupress.gr/kave_20.htm
Collected Poems (1992)
Context: Don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans
all proving deceptive — don’t mourn them uselessly.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.
Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say
it was a dream, your ears deceived you:
don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.

The Regiment of the Senses http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=296&cat=5 as translated by Manuel Savidis
Context: Speak not of guilt, speak not of responsibility. When the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners; when the senses shiver and shudder, it is only a fool and and an irreverent person that will keep his distance, who will not embrace the good cause, marching towards the conquest of pleasures and passions.
All of morality’s laws – poorly understood and applied – are nil and cannot stand even for a moment, when the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners.

Theodotos http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=105&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)

In The Year 200 B. C. (1931)

Source: Waiting for the Barbarians (1904), l. 16

“The Rest I Will Tell to Those Down to Hades” http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=173&cat=4
Collected Poems (1992)

Julian in Nicomedia
Collected Poems (1992)

Nero’s Deadline
Collected Poems (1992)

An Old Man
Collected Poems (1992)

Source: To Have Taken The Trouble (1930), l. 18

Hidden Things http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=161&cat=4
Collected Poems (1992)

When They Come Alive http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=114&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)

Longings http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=45&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)

As Much As You Can http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=113&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)

" Ithaka http://cavafis.compupress.gr/kave_17.htm", l. 1 (1911)

Monotony http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=96&cat=1
Collected Poems (1992)

A Great Procession of Priests and Laymen
Collected Poems (1992)