Those Who Fought for the Achaean League
Valiant are you who fought and fell gloriously;
fearless of those who were everywhere victorious.
Blameless, even if Diaeos and Critolaos were at fault.
When the Greeks want to boast,
"Our nation turns out such men" they will say
of you. And thus marvellous will be your praise. --
Written in Alexandria by an Achaean;
in the seventh year of Ptolemy Lathyrus.
poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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The Glory of the Ptolemies
I'm Lagides, king -through my power and wealth
complete master of the art of pleasure.
There's no Macedonian, no barbarian, equal to me
or even approaching me. The son of Selefkos
is really a joke with his cheap lechery.
But if you're looking for other things, note this too:
my city's the greatest preceptor, queen of the Greek world,
genius of all knowledge, of every art.
poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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Ionic
That we've broken their statues,
that we've driven them out of their temples,
doesn't mean at all that the gods are dead.
O land of Ionia, they're still in love with you,
their souls still keep your memory.
When an August dawn wakes over you,
your atmosphere is potent with their life,
and sometimes a young ethereal figure
indistinct, in rapid flight,
wings across your hills.
poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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Theophilos Palaiologos
This is the last year, this the last
of the Greek emperors. And, alas,
how sadly those around him talk.
Kyr Theophilos Palaiologos
in his grief, in his despair, says:
'I would rather die than live.'
Ah, Kyr Theophilos Palaiologos,
how much of the pathos, the yearning of our race,
how much weariness-
such exhaustion from injustice and persecution-
your six tragic words contained.
poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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Imenos
'... to be cherished even more
s a sensual pleasure achieved morbidly, corruptingly-
it rarely finds the body able to feel what it requires-
that morbidly, corruptingly, creates
an erotic intensity which health cannot know ....'
Extract from a letter
written by young Imenos (from a patrician family)
notorious in Syracuse for his debauchery
in the debauched times of Michael the Third.
poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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Ionian
Just because we've torn their statues down,
and cast them from their temples,
doesn't for a moment mean the gods are dead.
Land of Ionia, they love you yet,
their spirits still remember you.
When an August morning breaks upon you
a vigour from their lives stabs through your air;
and sometimes an ethereal and youthful form
in swiftest passage, indistinct,
passes up above your hills.
poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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Greek from Ancient Times
Antioch is proud of its splendid buildings,
its beautiful streets, the lovely countryside around it,
its teeming population;
proud too of its glorious kings, its artists
and sages, its very rich
yet prudent merchants. But far more
than all this, Antioch is proud to be a city
Greek from ancient times, related to Argos
through Ione, founded by Argive colonists
in honor of Inachos' daughter.
poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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The Grave of the Grammarian Lysias
Very close to you, as you enter on the right, in the Beirut
library, we buried the sage Lysias,
the grammarian. The spot is beautifully right.
We placed him near those things of his that he perhaps
remembers even there -- scholia, texts, grammars,
scriptures, numerous commentaries in tomes on hellenisms.
This way, his grave will also be seen and honored
by us, when we pass among the books.
poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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September, 1903
At least let me now deceive myself with illusions
so as not to feel my empty life.
And yet I came so close so many times.
And yet how paralyzed I was, how cowardly;
why did I keep my lips sealed
while my empty life wept inside me,
my desires wore robes of mourning?
To have been so close so many times
to those sensual eyes, those lips,
to that body I dreamed of, loved-
so close so many times.
poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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Theatre of Sidon (400 B.C.)
Son of an honorable citizen—most important of all, a good-looking
young man of the theatre, amiable in many ways.
I sometimes write highly audacious verses in Greek
and these I circulate—surreptitiously, of course.
O gods, may those puritans who prattle about morals
never see those verses about an exceptional kind of sexual pleasure,
the kind that leads toward a condemned, a barren love.
poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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