“Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?”

—  Constantine P. Cavafy , Waiting for the Barbarians

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.

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Constantine P. Cavafy photo
Constantine P. Cavafy 62
Greek poet 1863–1933

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