The Photograph -- Constantine Cavafy

Guest poem sent in by Ian Shields

(Poem #1582) The Photograph In this obscene photograph secretly sold the policeman mustn't see) around the corner, in this whorish photograph, how did such a dream-like face make its way; How did you get in here? Who knows what a degrading, vulgar life you lead; how horrible the surroundings must have been when you posed to have the picture taken; what a cheap soul you must have. But in spite of all this, and even more, you remain for me the dream-like face, the figure shaped for and dedicated to Hellenic love— that's how you remain for me and how my poetry speaks of you. -- Constantine Cavafy

     (Konstantinos P. Kabaphes, 1863-1933)
     translated from Greek by Edmund Keeley and George Savidis

This is a distressing poem. Cavafy lived and died in the Hellenic community
of Alexandria, Egypt. His English translators note that in the original he
uses a subtle combination of classical and Demotic (vernacular) Greek that
has no equivalent in the English language. Despite this barrier, I find that
all of his various translators convey a deep, stark voice that is remarkably
powerful. His work is represented on your website (poems 217, 296, and 522)
and for further information and work by Cavafy, see
http://users.hol.gr/~barbanis/cavafy/

Cavafy wrote a number of erotic poems, all directed at men; thus, I assume
that individual portrayed in the photograph described in this poem is a boy
or young man. I am a psychologist who deals exclusively with incarcerated 16
and 17-year olds. Each of them is brought to me because he has done terrible
things. Some, in fact many of them, have also had terrible things done to
them; this sometimes explains (but never excuses) their behaviour. In the
course of my career I suppose hundreds of them have disclosed to me, in the
depths of therapy, that they have been sexually abused. Some have explained
that the evil men who did these things to them have "commemorated" the event
with photographs and videos that are being distributed on the internet. The
knowledge that similarly evil men continue to "enjoy" their abuse adds to
the horror.

Cavafy depicts a "similarly evil" man in his poem. His narrator describes
the "dream-like face" of the young man depicted in the photograph and
speculates on his "cheap soul". Yet it is the narrator's own cheap soul that
nauseates the reader.

Picasso once said that art is more than pretty pictures to put up on the
wall. Thus, art can be ugly. What is it that makes Cavafy's ugly words art?
For me, paradoxically, it is because his words are so distressing. To quote
another poet, (William Wordsworth in Elegiac Stanzas) "A deep distress hath
humanised my soul".

-Ian Shields

Waiting for the Barbarians -- Constantine Cavafy

Guest poem submitted by Zubaer Mahboob:

(Poem #1056) Waiting for the Barbarians What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum? The barbarians are due here today. Why isn't anything happening in the senate? Why do the senators sit there without legislating? Because the barbarians are coming today. What laws can the senators make now? Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating. Why did our emperor get up so early, and why is he sitting at the city's main gate on his throne, in state, wearing the crown? Because the barbarians are coming today and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader. He has even prepared a scroll to give him, replete with titles, with imposing names. 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, and 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. Why don't our distinguished orators come forward as usual to make their speeches, say what they have to say? Because the barbarians are coming today and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking. Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion? (How serious people's faces have become.) Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly, everyone going home so lost in thought? Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come. And some who have just returned from the border say there are no barbarians any longer. And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians? They were, those people, a kind of solution. -- Constantine Cavafy

Translated by Edmund Keeley.

An empire awaits its end, its ruling class awash in all the trappings of
opulence but rudderless without a guiding moral compass, and dissipating
under the weight of boredom and finery. Cavafy's poem tells hauntingly of
the ultimate hollowness of tyranny - an apt theme for our times. The
novelist JM Coetzee adopted the title of this poem for his 1982 novel
"Waiting for the Barbarians", a scantily-veiled denunciation of the
apartheid regime. If you enjoy the mythical landscape of this poem, you
might also enjoy the vivid imaginary empire created in that book.

Zubaer.

[Minstrels Links]

Constantine Cavafy:
Poem #217, Ithaka
Poem #296, Footsteps
Poem #522, In Harbor

In Harbor -- Constantine Cavafy

(Poem #522) In Harbor A young man, twenty eight years old, on a vessel from Tenos, Emes arrived at this Syrian harbor with the intention of learning the perfume trade. But during the voyage he was taken ill. And as soon as he disembarked, he died. His burial, the poorest, took place here. A few hours before he died, he whispered something about "home," about "very old parents." But who these were nobody knew, nor which his homeland in the vast panhellenic world. Better so. For thus, although he lies dead in this harbor, his parents will always hope he is alive. -- Constantine Cavafy

Heinlein once wrote: "Romantic times need pragmatic men". And though it's all
very well to celebrate the glories of the Silk Road in its heyday, it behooves
us also to remember that in those times, travel of any sort was a perilous
undertaking, fraught with danger and uncertainty. What I like about Cavafy's
poem is the way it accepts this danger as a part of life... the image of the
aged parents waiting, waiting for the son who will never return to them, is
heartbreakingly sad, yet Cavafy points out that the alternative is even sadder.
A beautifully poignant poem.

thomas.

[Theme and Links]

Our journey, which began in Li Po's China several poems ago, has taken us
through the grassy plains of Mongolia and the lofty peaks of Central Asia, the
cool gardens of Persia and the bare deserts of Arabia, until now we find
ourselves on the shores of that greatest of seas, the Mediterranean.

I did a week of poems based upon a Mediterranean theme once; this included a
previous Cavafy poem, 'Footsteps', archived at poem #296.

While we're in this part of the world: Martin once used 'Lays of Ancient Rome'
as a theme; likewise, I once ran a bunch of poems based upon the Trojan War. See
Minstrels poems 490, 492, 494, 495 and 500 for the former, and poems 449, 451
and 75 for the latter.

My favourite Cavafy poem is his masterpiece, 'Ithaka', which you can read (along
with biographical info and the like) at poem #217.

[Bonus Poem]

'For Cavafy'

 The poems are sad and short: love half-remembered,
 history--beautiful, closed and Greek.
 But what I like best
 is the blank three-quarters page,
 white as a statue's marble eyes--

 a space to write or cry.

        -- Bruce Williams

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 :-)

Ithaka -- Constantine Cavafy

Guest poem sent in by Vikram Doctor

(Poem #217) Ithaka As you set out for Ithaka hope the journey is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery. Laistrygonians and Cyclops, angry Poseidon - don't be afraid of them: you'll never find things like that on your way as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body. Laistrygonians and Cyclops, wild Poseidon - you won't encounter them unless you bring them along inside your soul, unless your soul sets them up in front of you. Hope the voyage is a long one. may there be many a summer morning when, with what pleasure, what joy, you come into harbours seen for the first time; may you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things, mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony, sensual perfume of every kind - as many sensual perfumes as you can; and may you visit many Egyptian cities to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars. Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you are destined for. But do not hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years, so you are old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you have gained on the way, not expecting Ithaka to make you rich. Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey. without her you would not have set out. She has nothing left to give you now. And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you. Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean. -- Constantine Cavafy

      (translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)

Some years back when I was despairing about the cost of New Year Cards,
though still wanting to send them out as a slightly shame faced, but still
useful once-in-a-year way of keeping in touch with people, I decided to
print a poem I liked on good hand made paper and send it out instead. I was
a bit apprehensive, since it seemed rather a precious idea, but I found that
people really liked it, and now say they look forward to it. It confirms my
feeling that most people have a latent ability to love poetry, which is
suppressed and scared into hiding by our appalling educational system.

I think I sent out Ithaka the third or fourth year I did it and after that I
noticed something. This was one poem people seemed to keep. I've come across
my New Year card pinned onto several people's softboards, and people have
asked me for copies. Ithaka automatically strikes a chord with people, which
is hardly surprising since its such a simple poem, and what it says is
something most of us know instinctively to be true. I like the images as
well - the shop sailing into a harbour on a summer morning, and the fabulous
bazaars and souks. And the last line leaves you with just enough balance
between clarity and ambiguity to stop the poem falling flat. This is one of
the great ones.

about Cavafy.

Cavafy is one of the greats too. I don't have much biographical matter with
me at the moment, but then in terms of major events there really isn't much.
He was born into the Greek community in Alexandria in 1863, when Alexandria
was still quite a Greek city. He lived there all his life, in moderate
obscurity. I think he was reasonably well off, so didn't have to do much
work. Alexandria in his time was in its last gasp of greatness, a
cosmopolitan, lively, with a large expat community, Westernised, yet
mysteriously 'Eastern' as well - if one is to take Lawrence Durrell's
Alexandria Quartet, which I'm sure we all read as impressionable teenagers,
as a guide.

Cavafy must have fit very well into this hothouse atmosphere. His poems talk
both about the city's glorious past in the time of Alexander and the
Ptolemies. And they talk about its sensuous present in perhaps the most
homoerotic poetry of this century (which has, of course, lead to him being
labeled as the great gay poet of this century. But luckily, I think he
transcends the annoying limitations of such a label - Cavafy is great on any
terms, gay or otherwise.

There is a deliberately antique feel, I think, to the poems - possibly
because he wrote in a rather archaic and formal version of Greek. This comes
through in translation - there is a sort of formal, faintly mannered quality
to them, which adds, rather than detracts from their quality. He died in
1933.

I'd just like to add that I visited Alexandria last year, obviously in
homage to Cavafy, but sadly the Alexandria he writes about has mostly
vanished. There are few Greeks left in Alexandria today - one cafe where you
get Egyptian food with Greek names, the sea front cafes, and Cavafy's house,
which is maintained by the Greek government. I dragged my boyfriend through
the back roads to find it, though unfortunately just got there after it
closed. Alexandria is a nice place today - a pleasant provincial town, with
a lovely location spread across a bay and a strong sea breeze blowing and
nice laid back people. But of Cavafy's sensual city, and the world of the
Alexandria Quartet there is nothing left beyond what's written.

Vikram Doctor