Famous Greek poet of the early 20th century, 15 poems by Cavafis

Konstantin Cavafis (1863-1933), born in the early twentieth century, was one of the great Greek poets and one of the founders of modern Greek poetry. Alexander, Egypt, spent seven years in England as a teenager and later lived in Alexandria except for several trips abroad and medical treatments. He is serious in his writings, almost all of which are short poems, and the subject matter is mostly related to historical myths, or the expression of philosophical and personal feelings, and his poetic style is simple, combining objectivity, drama and teaching, and has a far-reaching influence.

city

You say, "I'm going to another country, another coast.

Find another city better than here.

No matter what I do, it always backfires.

And my mind was buried, like a dead thing.

How long can my depleted mind last in this place?

Wherever I turn, wherever I look,

All I see is the black ruins of my life, here,

I wasted many years, many years completely ruined by me. ”

You won't find a new country, you won't find another coast.

The city will always follow you.

You'll go down the same streets, aging

In the same residential areas, white-haired flies in these same houses.

You will end in this city forever. Don't get any hope in anything else:

There's no boat carrying you there, and there's no way for you.

Now that you're here, waste your life in this little corner

You have destroyed it anywhere in the world.

Staring too long

I stared too long,

It filled my eyes.

The outline of the flesh. Red lips. Enchanting limbs.

Hair seems to be taken from a Greek statue;

Always so beautiful, even if it has not been combed,

It hung down, gently, covering the white forehead.

The face of love, like my poetry

Longing for that... In the dark night of my youth,

My night, the secret, the rendezvous...

After 9 o'clock

12:30. I turn on the lights since 9 o'clock

After sitting here, time flies by.

I sat like this, without reading,

No words. Completely lonely in the house,

Who can I talk to?

I turn on the lights after 9 o'clock

The shadow of my young body

The eerie charmed me and reminded me

Those fragrant confined rooms,

Those passing sensual pleasures —what bold amusements.

It also brought it back to me

The streets that are now unfamiliar —

Nowadays, the lively nightclubs are closed,

Theaters and cafes are also missing.

The shadow of my young body

Bring me back the things that make me sad:

The misfortune of home, the parting of sorrow,

The memory of loved ones, as well

Remembrance of the unknown deceased.

12:30. How time passes.

12:30. How the years passed.

window

In these dark rooms, I was spending time

In the bitter days, I paced back and forth

Look for a window – be a window

Open, it will be a comfort. ——

And the window was gone, or me

Cannot be found. Maybe they can't find the best ending.

Maybe the light is another new kind of arbitrariness.

God knows what new things he will expose.

candle

Our days ahead will be like a row

Little lit candles stood before us—

Golden, warm, and active little candles.

The lost days stay behind us,

A line of burned-out candles of mourning;

The nearest candle is still smoking,

Cooled candle, melted and bent.

I don't want to look at them, and their form makes me sad,

Reminiscing about their original light also makes me sad.

I looked forward at the candle I had lit.

I don't want to turn around, lest I shudder in the face—

How quickly that line of dim candles grew,

How quickly the burned candle multiplied.

Necromancy

One candle is enough. Soft candlelight

When the ghosts come, those ghosts of love,

More timely and appropriate.

One candle is enough. Room for tonight

Shouldn't be too bright. Fall into meditation,

Accept with all your heart, borrow the soft candlelight -

In deep meditation I recreate the illusion

Bring back the ghosts, those ghosts of love.

Take advantage of the time to change them before

They were sad when they broke up.

Nor do they want to be like this: the world makes separation inevitable.

The pressures of life forced them to be one of them

It's a long trip — New York or Canada.

They felt love, of course, no more than ever;

The other person's attraction is getting smaller and smaller,

In fact, it has weakened by more than half.

But the heavens are different, and that is not what it wants.

Things are hard to resist. Maybe it's fate

Pretending to be artists, determined to break them apart at this moment,

Before the heart dies, take advantage of the time to change them before

Let one person look unchanged in the eyes of another,

Always the handsome twenty-four-year-old.

geezer

In the middle of a noisy bar

An old man leaned over the table;

He had a share in front of him, and there were no companions around him.

In his poor old age,

He meditated on the years he rarely enjoyed

When he is strong, able to speak, personable.

He knew he was much older; He felt, saw,

But the younger days seemed like that

Yesterday. How short the time, how short the time.

He meditated on how wisdom had deceived him;

And how he believed her—how stupid! ──

The liar's lie: "Friend. What you have is time. ”

He remembered the impulses he had suppressed; Sacrificed

Lots of joy. Every lost opportunity

The moment mocked his ignorant prudence.

But so much recollection made the old man

Dizzy. Leaning over the table in the bar

He fell into a deep sleep.

wall

No compassion, no mercy, no shame,

They built walls around me, tall and thick.

At the moment I was sitting here overwhelmed.

I can't think of anything: this fate

It's biting my heart—

I still have a lot of work to do out there.

I didn't even realize it when they built the wall!

I didn't hear them, there was no sound at all.

God is unconscious

They cut me off from the outside world.

On the steps

I'm walking down that infamous step,

You go through the door and for a second,

I saw your strange face, and you saw me.

I turned sideways in case you looked directly at me again,

You hurried past me, covering your face,

Flash into that infamous house,

There, neither you nor I can have joy.

The caress you are looking for, only I can give you;

The caress I'm looking for—your weary and understanding eyes have indicated—

Only you can give.

Our bodies feel and look for each other:

Our blood and skin understand.

Between panic and obsession, we hid.

On the street

His handsome face is a little whitish,

The brown eyes looked very tired, and looked confused,

Twenty-five-year-olds say that twenty people also believe,

Dressed up really has the style of an artist

—Look at the color of the tie, the cut of the collar —

He wandered aimlessly down the street,

It's like sleepwalking in the pleasure of breaking the prohibition,

It was the pleasure he had just stolen.

pray

The sea had just engulfed a sailor.

His mother does not yet know; She walked

In front of the statue of the Virgin, light a candle,

Pray that the wind and the sun will be beautiful, and he can go home soon——

Her ears were constantly on guard against the movement of the wind.

When she prayed and pleaded,

The icon is listening, with a heavy and sorrowful face,

For it knew that the son she had hoped for would never return.

In the evening

That's not going to last long—

Years of experience make it not difficult to guess.

But fate still made the ending a little abrupt.

That's it, that wonderful life.

Despite the strong aroma,

The bed we slept in was so spacious,

The indulgent body gets so much pleasure.

The echo comes from the days and nights of indulgence,

From those days and nights,

From the flames of youth that we share with each other:

I picked up another letter again,

Read it over and over again until it gets dark.

Sorrow gathered, and I went up to the balcony,

Looking forward to being in this city I love

What can I see, to relieve my sorrows,

For example, small movements, in the shops, on the street.

Body, remember...

Body, don't just remember that you were loved so much,

And the beds you slept on,

Remember to look into your eyes

Those desires that burn openly,

With the voice that trembles for you—

It was by chance that they were blocked.

At this moment, everything has sunk into the past,

It seems that you will also be committed to it

Those desires—how they burned,

Remember, in the eyes that gaze at you,

Remember, body, how those voices trembled for you.

In the same space

Home, downtown, neighboring neighborhoods,

Over the years, I have seen and walked.

I have created you in joy and sorrow:

So many details, so many things.

For me, you have turned into emotion.