Complete Poems (70 page)

For this reason, the end of the third century B.C.—and in particular the date 200 B.C.—has an especially dark and ironic resonance in Cavafy’s work, coming as it does just before the end of Greek political significance in the ancient world: see, for instance, “In 200 B.C.” and “In a Great Greek Colony, 200 B.C.” Other poems that refer to the decline of Greek fortunes in the first half of the second century B.C. include “The Battle of Magnesia,” “For Antiochus Epiphanes,” “The Seleucid’s Displeasure,” and “Envoys from Alexandria.”

The Cavafy Archive contains a number of sketches that the poet did not collect into dossiers; Professor Lavagnini has identified these as being the fragmentary material of four discrete poems. They have no titles, and there is no sign that Cavafy considered them to be works in progress on a par, either practically or aesthetically, with the Unfinished drafts. Indeed, this fragmentary material suggests, by implication, something important about the thirty Unfinished drafts: that Cavafy only assembled dossiers when he felt that a poem had “taken”—that it was, indeed, fully on its way to being a poem.

[Bondsman and Slave]

The last line is the actual legend on a coin minted during the reign of Septimius Severus (145–211 A.D.), the first emperor to be born in Africa and the founder of the short-lived and troubled Severan dynasty; his wife was Julia Domna, the patroness of Philostratus, author of
The Life of Apollonius of Tyana
and of
The Lives of the Sophists,
two favorite texts of Cavafy’s.

[My Soul Was on My Lips]

The lines in question are from an epigram in the
Palatine Anthology
(a vast collection of Greek poetry, epigrams, drinking songs, and erotic verse from the Classical through the Byzantine period). Attributed to Plato, it makes a reference to the famously effeminate dramatic playwright Agathon, whose victory party (he had won the tragic competition) is the setting for Plato’s
Symposium
: “When I kissed Agathon, I had my soul upon my lips / for it came, poor wretch, and made as if to pass over.”

[Matthew First, First Luke]

A widely reviled edict promulgated by the emperor Julian in the summer of 362 forbade the teaching of the pagan classics by Christians. The passage to which these lines refer contains Julian’s notoriously contemptuous dismissal of Christian scholars: “Was it not the gods who revealed all their learning to Homer, Hesiod, Demosthenes? … If they [the Christian teachers] think that those writers were in error concerning the honored gods, then let them go to the Galileans’ churches to expound upon Matthew and Luke.…” The edict was revoked by Theodosius I. The tetchy sophist is probably Libanius, a friend and ardent supporter of Julian’s, who was nonetheless honored by Theodosius.

The following books will be of value to the general reader interested in further exploring Cavafy’s life, work, and intellectual world:

The Mind and Art of C. P. Cavafy
(Denise Harvey & Co., 1983). An appealingly diverse collection of the classic essays on Cavafy and his work by E. M. Forster, George Seferis, Patrick Leigh Fermor, W. H. Auden, and others.

G. W. Bowersock.
Julian the Apostate
(Harvard University Press, 1978). A refreshingly brisk and vigorous short study of the historical figure who fascinated Cavafy more than any other.

Peter Brown.
The World of Late Antiquity AD
150–750 (W. W. Norton, 1989). An expansive survey of the history and culture of a period that represents one of Cavafy’s historial “margins”—long neglected by traditional classicists but of paramount interest to the poet.

E. M. Forster.
Alexandria: A History and a Guide
(1922; repr. Oxford, 1986). A survey
cum
guidebook that savors seductively of Cavafy’s own era, by the English novelist who befriended Cavafy there during World War I, and who was responsible for first bringing the poet to the attention of English readers and critics. (With an Introduction by Lawrence Durrell, whose
Alexandria Quartet
is required reading for anyone interested in the city that shaped Cavafy’s poetry.)

Peter Green.
The Hellenistic Age
(Modern Library Chronicles, 2007). An excellent brief introduction to the era that provided a setting for so many of Cavafy’s poems; for those not daunted by its thousand pages, the same author’s magisterial
Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution
of the Hellenistic Age
(California, 1993) provides a magnificently detailed yet admirably lively account of the period.

Edmund Keeley.
Cavafy’s Alexandria
(1976; repr. Princeton University Press,1995). A meticulous analysis of the Cavafian corpus by the eminent translator and scholar, with a special emphasis on the crucial symbolic role of the city in the poet’s work.

R. Liddell.
Cavafy: A Biography
(Duckworth, 1974; repr. 2000). Workmanlike but packed with useful information, this is still the only book-length biography of the poet in English.

John Julius Norwich.
A Short History of Byzantium
(Knopf, 1998). The abridged version of Norwich’s magisterial three-volume study is the best popular introduction to the history of the Empire.

Philostratus, edited and translated by C. P. Jones.
Apollonius of Tyana
(Loeb Classical Library, 2006). This new translation brings to vivid life the sprawling quasi-novel that Cavafy considered a “storehouse of poetic material.”

Christopher Robinson,
C. P. Cavafy
. Bristol Classical Press, 1988. An excellent short study of certain thematic motifs and linguistic subtleties in Cavafy’s work; for readers with some Greek, the discussions of the poet’s use of
katharevousa,
to which the present translation is indebted, will prove particularly illuminating.

The preparation of this volume has taken more than a decade; during that time, I have been given invaluable and deeply appreciated assistance and advice by a number of friends, scholars, and institutions. It is a pleasure to be able to thank them here.

My work was originally supported by the Onassis Center for Modern Greek Studies at New York University, where I was a writer-in-residence in 1996, and by a Stanley Seeger Fellowship at Princeton University in 1999. I should say, apropos of my alma mater, that my interest in Modern Greek—not necessarily a given among classicists—has always been encouraged and supported with great warmth by Princeton’s Program in Modern Greek Studies, from the early summer-travel grants I received when I was a graduate student, which gave me my first taste of the living Greece, to the very generous Seeger Fellowship just mentioned. Two individuals in particular there merit special thanks: first, Richard Burgi, who was my first Modern Greek teacher and who made me memorize Cavafy; and then Dimitri Gondicas, who has shown unflaggingly generous friendship and support to this somewhat unlikely Neohellenist, and eventually to this project, over the years. I’m deeply grateful to them both.

I am also indebted to the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation for a generous grant that allowed me to work on the translation and commentary of the Unfinished Poems.

The friends and colleagues who have shown interest in my Cavafy translations from the start are too numerous to name here; they know who they are, and they know how grateful I am to them. Among those whose comments and suggestions have meant particularly much to me are those great American
Cavafisti
Ben Sonnenberg and Walter Kaiser, as well as Alexander Nehamas; also Bob Gottlieb, and particularly Richard Howard,
witting and unwitting accomplice,
who provided invaluable support
and insight; and Robert Silvers, to whom I owe so much, and who found a number of these translations a home where they could be appreciated before this volume was finished.

I must, however, single out for especially fervent thanks Pavlos Sfyroeras and Maria Hatjigeorgiou, whose enthusiasm, support, advice, and subtle insights into Cavafy are everywhere reflected here; Christopher Jones, who lavished on the manuscript more loving and meticulous attention than I could ever have hoped for; and finally Glen Bowersock, whose wisdom, scholarship, and attention to the smallest details, in commenting on my work in progress, more than once set me on the straight path when I was about to go astray. His friendship and interest in me and my work mean more to me than I can say, and I hope that the result, in the case of these translations and commentary, do some justice to his extraordinary kindnesses and to his example for more than twenty years now.

Anyone reading this text who is already familiar with the world of Cavafy and Cavafian scholarship will know how much I owe to those who have gone before me: my reliance on the vitally important work of George Savidis, Renata Lavagnini, Diana Haas, Edmund Keeley (another kindly presence at Princeton), Alexander Nehamas, Peter Bien, and many others will be obvious, as, I hope, will be gratitude to them. In this context, it is a pleasure to acknowledge the invaluable support, and the long-distance friendship, of Manuel Savidis, whose generosity in allowing me to quote from material in the Cavafy Archive, like his stewardship of that resource in general, shows how worthy a successor to his splendid father he is. That he has entrusted me with the first translation of the Unfinished Poems is an honor of which I hope I have shown myself worthy.

The critical reception of these translations in their hardcover editions, in 2009, yielded a number of helpful insights and, in a few cases, allowed me to make improvements; I am particularly indebted to the reviews of Maria Margaronis, in
The Nation,
of Eric Ormsby, in
The New Criterion,
and of Peter Green, in
The New Republic,
all of which have left a welcome mark on this paperback edition.

As always, Lydia Wills has been instrumental in bringing a project of mine to fruition; to expect anyone, even an agent, to master the intricacies
of Cavafian rights and publication dates is probably to ask too much, but here as usual she showed her brilliant colors. At Knopf, the superb Sarah Rothbard and Jennifer Kurdyla were indispensable in shepherding these very complicated texts to publication; no one knows better than I how hard and meticulously they worked. Finally, I must say a word about my editor, Robin Desser. She assumed the care of this project ten years ago, and since then has shown a superhuman patience and understanding, as I gradually became aware of the magnitude of the task confronting me. Her enthusiasm, trust, and support for me over these years, in this and other things, are very precious to me.