Daniel Mendelsohn - The Complete Poems of C.P. Cavafy

CONTENTS

Title Page C. P. CAVAFY Complete Poems TRANSLATED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND COMMENTARY, BY DANIEL MENDELSOHN

Introduction: The Poet-Historian

A Note on Pronunciation of Proper Names

I: PUBLISHED POEMS

Poems 1905–1915

The City

The Satrapy

But Wise Men Apprehend What Is Imminent

Ides of March

Finished

The God Abandons Antony

Theodotus

Monotony

Ithaca

As Much As You Can

Trojans

King Demetrius

The Glory of the Ptolemies

The Retinue of Dionysus

The Battle of Magnesia

The Seleucid’s Displeasure

Orophernes

Alexandrian Kings

Philhellene

The Steps

Herodes Atticus

Sculptor from Tyana

The Tomb of Lysias the Grammarian

Tomb of Eurion

That Is He

Dangerous

Manuel Comnenus

In the Church

Very Rarely

In Stock

Painted

Morning Sea

Song of Ionia

In the Entrance of the Café

One Night

Come Back

Far Off

He Swears

I Went

Chandelier

Poems 1916–1918

Since Nine—

Comprehension

In the Presence of the Statue of Endymion

Envoys from Alexandria

Aristobulus

Caesarion

Nero’s Deadline

Safe Haven

One of Their Gods

Tomb of Lanes

Tomb of Iases

In a City of Osrhoene

Tomb of Ignatius

In the Month of Hathor

For Ammon, Who Died at 29 Years of Age, in 610

Aemilian Son of Monaës, an Alexandrian, 628–655 A.D.

Whenever They Are Aroused

To Pleasure

I’ve Gazed So Much—

In the Street

The Window of the Tobacco Shop

Passage

In Evening

Gray

Below the House

The Next Table

Remember, Body

Days of 1903

Poems 1919–1933

The Afternoon Sun

To Stay

Of the Jews (50 A.D.)

Imenus

Aboard the Ship

Of Demetrius Soter (162–150 B.C.)

If Indeed He Died

Young Men of Sidon (400 A.D.)

That They Come—

Darius

Anna Comnena

Byzantine Noble, in Exile, Versifying

Their Beginning

Favour of Alexander Balas

Melancholy of Jason, Son of Cleander: Poet in Commagene: 595 A.D.

Demaratus

I Brought to Art

From the School of the Renowned Philosopher

Maker of Wine Bowls

Those Who Fought on Behalf of the Achaean League

For Antiochus Epiphanes

In an Old Book

In Despair

Julian, Seeing Indifference

Epitaph of Antiochus, King of Commagene

Theater of Sidon (400 A.D.)

Julian in Nicomedia

Before Time Could Alter Them

He Came to Read—

The Year 31 B.C. in Alexandria

John Cantacuzenus Triumphs

Temethus, an Antiochene: 400 A.D.

Of Colored Glass

The 25th Year of His Life

On the Italian Seashore

In the Boring Village

Apollonius of Tyana in Rhodes

Cleitus’s Illness

In a Municipality of Asia Minor

Priest of the Serapeum

In the Taverns

A Great Procession of Priests and Laymen

Sophist Departing from Syria

Julian and the Antiochenes

Anna Dalassene

Days of 1896

Two Young Men, 23 to 24 Years Old

Greek Since Ancient Times

Days of 1901

You Didn’t Understand

A Young Man, Skilled in the Art of the Word—in His 24th Year

In Sparta

Portrait of a Young Man of Twenty-Three Done by His Friend of the Same Age, an Amateur

In a Large Greek Colony, 200 B.C.

Potentate from Western Libya

Cimon Son of Learchus, 22 Years Old, Teacher of Greek Letters (in Cyrene)

On the March to Sinope

Days of 1909, ’10, and ’11

Myres: Alexandria in 340 A.D.

Alexander Jannaeus, and Alexandra

Beautiful, White Flowers As They Went So Well

Come Now, King of the Lacedaemonians

In the Same Space

The Mirror in the Entrance

He Asked About the Quality—

Should Have Taken the Trouble

According to the Formulas of Ancient Greco-Syrian Magicians

In 200 B.C.

Days of 1908

On the Outskirts of Antioch

Poems Published 1897–1908

Contents of the Sengopoulos Notebook

Voices

Longings

Candles

An Old Man

Prayer

Old Men’s Souls

The First Step

Interruption

Thermopylae

Che Fece … Il Gran Rifiuto

The Windows

Walls

Waiting for the Barbarians

Betrayal

The Funeral of Sarpedon

The Horses of Achilles

II: REPUDIATED POEMS (1886–1898)

Brindisi

The Poet and the Muse

Builders

Word and Silence

Sham-el-Nessim

Bard

Vulnerant Omnes, Ultima Necat

Good and Bad Weather

Timolaus the Syracusan

Athena’s Vote

The Inkwell

Sweet Voices

Elegy of the Flowers

Hours of Melancholy

Oedipus

Ode and Elegy of the Streets

Near an Open Window

A Love

Remembrance

The Death of the Emperor Tacitus

The Eumenides’ Footfalls

The Tears of Phaëthon’s Sisters

Ancient Tragedy

Horace in Athens

Voice from the Sea

The Tarentines Have Their Fun

The Funeral of Sarpedon

III: UNPUBLISHED POEMS (1877?–1923)

The Beyzade to His Lady-Love

Dünya Güzeli

When, My Friends, I Was in Love …

Nichori

Song of the Heart

To Stephanos Skilitsis

Correspondences According to Baudelaire

[Fragment of an untitled poem]

“Nous N’osons Plus Chanter les Roses”

Indian Image

Pelasgian Image

The Hereafter

The Mimiambs of Herodas

Azure Eyes

The Four Walls of My Room

Alexandrian Merchant

The Lagid’s Hospitality

In the Cemetery

Priam’s March by Night

Epitaph

Displeased Theatregoer

Before Jerusalem

Second Odyssey

He Who Fails

The Pawn

Dread

In the House of the Soul

Rain

La Jeunesse Blanche

Distinguishing Marks

Eternity

Confusion

Salome

Chaldean Image

Julian at the Mysteries

The Cat

The Bank of the Future

Impossible Things

Addition

Garlands

Lohengrin

Suspicion

Death of a General

The Intervention of the Gods

King Claudius

The Naval Battle

When the Watchman Saw the Light

The Enemies

Artificial Flowers

Strengthening

September of 1903

December 1903

January of 1904

On the Stairs

In the Theatre

Poseidonians

The End of Antony

27 June 1906, 2 P.M.

Hidden

Hearing of Love

“The Rest Shall I Tell in Hades to Those Below”

That’s How

Homecoming from Greece

Fugitives

Theophilus Palaeologus

And I Got Down and I Lay There in Their Beds

Half an Hour

House with Garden

A Great Feast at the House of Sosibius

Simeon

The Bandaged Shoulder

Coins

It Was Taken

From the Drawer

Prose Poems

The Regiment of Pleasure

Ships

Clothes

Poems Written in English

[More Happy Thou, Performing Member]

Leaving Therápia

Darkness and Shadows

IV: THE UNFINISHED POEMS (1918–1932)

The Item in the Paper

It Must Have Been the Spirits

And Above All Cynegirus

Antiochus the Cyzicene

On the Jetty

Athanasius