“When reading a translation, all one gets is the sensibility, and either one likes it or one does not. I happen to like Cavafy’s very much indeed.”

W. H. Auden

Cavafy never intended for his poetry to reach the larger public. His poems circulated among friends but that was the extent of it. 

His dry and direct style was probably too explicit and intimate for him to do so. 

Yet, as Auden denotes, Cavafy is one of the most influential poets of the 19th century, surpassing any language or cultural barrier. 

Cavafy’s poetry is indeed inherently Greek. It is often that the poet loses himself in the long lost past of his country and many of his compositions include historical and mythological figures. He usually rejects the present in his poetry, clinging to an idealised image of the past. For example, in his poems The Trojans, Alexandrian Kings, and Thermopylae he argues that there’s something heroic to sticking to one’s principles, even if they are doomed. That despite honouring empty traditions, this illusion is enough sometimes.

Honor is due to those who are keeping watch,

Sentinels guarding their own Thermopylae;

Never distracted from what is right to do,

And right to be; in all things virtuous,

But never so hardened by virtue as not to be

Compassionate, available to pity;

Generous if they’re rich, but generous too,

Doing whatever they can, if they are poor;

Always true to the truth, no matter what,

But never scornful of those who have to lie.

Even more honor is due when, keeping watch,

They see that the time will come when Ephialtes 

Will tell the secret to the Medes and they

Will know the way to get in through the goat-path.

(Thermopylae, Translation by David Ferry) 

Would most of us not instead think the decision of the 300 as inane, an act of empty patriotism? Would Owen’s dulce et decorum est not be a more accurate representation of what we believe nowadays? 

But Cavafy cannot exist if not in his world; that world is built upon the shoulders of his predecessors, giants of the past. 

Cavafy’s poetry can be divided into three categories: historical, philosophical, and homoerotic. 

It is not surprising that existentialist themes exist in Cavafy’s poetry. He was a secluded person and, much like in Emily Dickinson’s case, this usually leads to reflection on the human condition that often trickles down into one’s poetry. 

I believe the most beautiful examples of poetry in this collection are An Old Man and The City.

According to Cavafy, there is a sense of dread and agony that cohabits with the human experience. An Old Man is permeated with pessimism as the speaker recalls an old man “alone”, “head bent over the table”, regretting his glory days as he did not spend them to his fullest potential. It is the typical theme of the carpe diem, seizing the day because one is conscious of the caducity of life. Cavafy, however, always takes it further. Something is haunting about his apathy in telling of a human tragedy. 

Another example of this is The City. In this poem, he argues that change is unattainable. That we, as limited beings, are doomed to remain so. That one cannot change no matter how hard they try. It often reminds me of a line from Horace’s eleventh Epistle, “caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt”, those who cross the sea change skies, not souls. 

You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore,

find another city better than this one.

Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong

and my heart lies buried like something dead.

How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?

Wherever I turn, wherever I look,

I see the black ruins of my life, here,

where I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.”

You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore.

This city will always pursue you.

You’ll walk the same streets, grow old

in the same neighborhoods, turn gray in these same houses.

You’ll always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere:

there’s no ship for you, there’s no road.

Now that you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner,

you’ve destroyed it everywhere in the world.

(The City, Translation by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)

Cavafy is best known for his poems Ithaca and Waiting for the Barbarians. In Ithaca, he argues that it is not about the destination but the journey and that Ithaca would lose its significance were it not for the adventures that brought one there. In Waiting for the Barbarians, the people of Rome are waiting for the title barbarians who never show up. It is a reflection on how alterity is needed to evolve and flourish. For what is Rome if it has no one to fight against? 

A part of his poems that is not often explored, however, is the one regarding his homosexual desires. His poetry often leaves ambiguity about the other person’s gender, to me, that is where its significance lies. Let’s take One Night for example.

The room was cheap and sordid,

hidden above the suspect taverna.

From the window you could see the alley,

dirty and narrow. From below

came the voices of workmen

playing cards, enjoying themselves.

And there on that common, humble bed

I had love’s body, had those intoxicating lips,

red and sensual,

red lips of such intoxication

that now as I write, after so many years,

in my lonely house, I’m drunk with passion again. 

(One Night, Translation by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)

This poem recounts a memory of a past lover and only now does it come to fruition. Reverie serves as the starting point for poetic inspiration. Cavafy lives his life through sensation and not emotion. Even in describing an erotic scenario, his town is the same as in honouring the Spartans or dealing with existential dread. It is where each one of these poems leads us that matters. He instructs us to pursue our values with honour, be conscious of our mortality, or create beauty out of remembrance. Cavafy builds a world around him in which he likes to hide. And if not for later poets who understood the value and novelty of his work we would not be invited. But how beautiful that we are.