Today I would like to introduce the Egyptiot Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy (1863-1933). He was well-travelled and had spent some years in England and Constantinople as well as his native Alexandria. Cavafy resisted publishing his poems and preferred to circulate them personally to his friends. Many of these poems are homoerotic, so some caution was not out of place in the times and milieu in which he lived; and the thought of scandal was probably never far from his mind. His poem, In the Twenty-fifth Year of His Life, highlights this fear. It speaks of young man who goes to a saloon night after night in the hope of once more meeting the man who, for just one night, had let him experience exquisite sensual delights. The young man tries to hide his emotions, but his passion is stronger and he is "beyond caring" as he asks around and spend hours on end fixing his gaze to the saloon door, in the hope that the vision would reappear. The poem ends in a resigned note:
"It is not improbable that this life he leads will expose him to some ruinous scandal."
David Hockney: In the Dull Village
In Days of 1896, Cavafy describes a man on whom the blow had already fallen. "He is utterly disgraced..." the poem begins, blaming public opinion, but after a brief description of this downfall, he springs to the young man's defence:
"There is another point of view, and seen from that angle
he is quite appealing; a simple and true
child of Eros, who without hesitation,
placed far above his honour and reputation,
the pure pleasure that his pure flesh could give."
In other words, it may be society's sense of honour and reputation that is flawed. Cavafy's poems are generally short and they leave one with that simple, but profound feeling that is so characteristic of the haiku. He leaves plenty of shades that invite the reader's mind to fill with the light of imagination. In the dull village, which was portrayed in the 1966 etching by David Hockney, pictured above, Cavafy describes the erotic yearning of a youth who longs to leave for the metropolis in order to fulfil his romantic dreams. Will they or will they not come true?
"And in his sleep, pleasure came upon him; in his sleep
he sees and holds those limbs, the flesh he desired..."
A blessing that perhaps far exceeded the dubious reality that may, or may not, have awaited him in the real world.
Cavafy, of course, wrote more than just about love, but his insights are equally simple and potent, whatever the theme. In Waiting for the Barbarians, for instance, he describes the flurry of a city-state on the eve of a barbarian invasion. The barbarians, however, fail to show up and the people are left at a loss as what to do next:
Now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.
Here is one of his most well known poems, Ithaca. The poem likens life to the adventures of Ulysses, who had to face all sorts of monsters and challenges before finally returning to Ithaca, his homeland, and in so doing Cavafy hints at the very meaning of life:
As you set out for Ithaka
pray that your journey be long,
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 harbors 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 marvelous 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.
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