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Constantine P. Cavafy: 124 quotes0 likes

“Body, remember not only how much you were loved,
not only the beds you lay on,
but also those desires glowing openly
in eyes that looked at you,
trembling for you in voices.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

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

“Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.”

Constantine P. Cavafy Waiting for the Barbarians

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

“How much we’ll tell down there, how much,
and how very different we’ll appear.
What we protect here like sleepless guards,
wounds and secrets locked inside us,
protect with such great anxiety day after day,
we’ll disclose freely and clearly down there.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

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

“Nero wasn’t worried at all when he heard
the utterance of the Delphic Oracle:
“Beware the age of seventy-three.”
Plenty of time to enjoy himself still.
He’s thirty. The deadline
the god has given him is quite enough
to cope with future dangers.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

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

“From my most unnoticed actions,
my most veiled writing —
from these alone will I be understood.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

Hidden Things
Collected Poems (1992)

“The love they felt wasn’t, of course, what it once had been;
the attraction between them had gradually diminished,
the attraction had diminished a great deal.
But to be separated, that wasn’t what they themselves wanted.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

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

“Later, in a more perfect society,
someone else made just like me
is certain to appear and act freely.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

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

“The matter, says Mardonios, has gone too far,
the talk it has aroused must be stopped at all cost. —
So Julian goes to the church at Nicomedia,
a lector again, and there
with deep reverence he reads out loud
passages from the Holy Scriptures,
and everyone marvels at his Christian piety.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

Julian in Nicomedia
Collected Poems (1992)

“He was a quiet, gentle man,
a man who loved peace
(his country had suffered much
from the wars of his predecessor),
he behaved graciously toward everyone,
humble and great alike.
Never high-handed, he always sought advice
in the kingdom’s affairs
from serious, experienced people. Just why his nephew killed him
was never precisely explained.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

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)

“And in Spain Galba
secretly musters and drills his army —
Galba, the old man in his seventy-third year.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

Nero’s Deadline
Collected Poems (1992)

“He remembers impulses bridled, the joy
he sacrificed. Every chance he lost
now mocks his senseless caution.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

An Old Man
Collected Poems (1992)

“Whatever job they give me,
I'll try to be useful to the country. That's what I intend.
But if they frustrate me with their manoeuvres —
we know them, those smart operators: no need to say more here —
if they frustrate me, it's not my fault.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

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

“We for the best will strive. And always more
defective, more perplexing than before,
shall all things fare; until, as in a mist,
we stray bewildered. Then we shall desist.
For in that helpless hour the gods attend.
They always come, the gods. They will descend
from their machines, and straightway liberate
some and as suddenly exterminate
others; and having reformed us, they will go. —
And afterward, one will act so; and so
another; and in time the rest will do
as they needs must. And we shall start anew.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

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

“From all I did and all I said
let no one try to find out who I was.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

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

“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.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

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

“As the shores of Ithaca gradually
Faded away behind him
And he sailed swiftly westward
Toward Iberia and the Pillars of Hercules,
Far from every Achaean sea,
He felt he was alive once more,
Freed from the oppressive bonds
Of familiar, domestic things.
And his adventurous heart rejoiced
Coldly, devoid of love.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

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

“Roses by the head, jasmine at the feet —
so appear the longings that have passed
without being satisfied, not one of them granted
a night of sensual pleasure, or one of its radiant mornings.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

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

“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.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

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

“When setting out upon your way to Ithaca,
wish always that your course be long,
full of adventure, full of lore.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

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

“A month passes by and brings another month.
Easy to guess what lies ahead:
all of yesterday’s boredom.
And tomorrow ends up no longer like tomorrow.”

Constantine P. Cavafy

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