Footsteps -- Constantine Cavafy

This week's meta-theme: the Mediterranean.

(Poem #296) Footsteps On an ebony bed decorated with coral eagles, sound asleep lies Nero --- unconscious, quiet, and blissful; thriving in the vigor of flesh, and in the splendid power of youth. But in the alabaster hall that encloses the ancient shrine of the Aenobarbi how restive are his Lares. The little household gods tremble, and try to hide their insignificant bodies. For they heard a horrible clamor, a deathly clamor ascending the stairs, iron footsteps rattling the stairs. And now in a faint the miserable Lares, burrow in the depth of the shrine, one tumbles and stumbles upon the other, one little god falls over the other for they understand what sort of clamor this is, they are already feeling the footsteps of the Furies. -- Constantine Cavafy

 [Notes]

Aenobarbi: Nero belonged to that family.

Lares Familiares: Household gods of the Romans, probably spirits of the
ancestors, worshipped at a shrine by the house hearth.

Furies: In Greek and Roman mythology, the three terrible female spirits with
snaky hair (Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera) who punished the doers of unavenged
crimes; also called Erinyes.

[Minstrels Links]

Cavafy's most famous poem is the wonderful 'Ithaka', which you can read at
poem #217

[On the theme]

I've been reading a fair bit about the Mediterranean lately - the usual Theroux
travelogue (just finished), Durrell's famous quartet (just started), a biography
of Lear, that sort of stuff - and I was struck by the incredible richness of its
heritage... like a palimpsest [1], each place on its storied coast hides layers
upon layers of history and culture. Why, just look at Alexandria - Pharaonic
Egypt, Phoenician traders, Greek conquerors (and scholars - think of the
Library!), eighteen generations of Ptolemies, Roman generals, crypto-Judaic and
Messianic cults, proto-Christianity, Arab invaders, Moors and Tuaregs, Caliphs
and Khedives, French canal-builders and German diplomats, Pashas, Ottomans and
Sahibs in solar topis...

Sorry about that digression - I guess I got slightly carried away :-). Anyway,
regarding the theme: my last poem (Belloc's 'Tarantella') gave me the idea; and
so this week I'll be running a set of poems (slash poets) connected in some or
the other to the 'middle of the world'. Enjoy!

thomas.

[1] beautiful word, that :-)