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The Complete Poems of C.P. Cavafy
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Год написания книги
2018
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Julian, Seeing Indifference
“Seeing, then, that there is great indifference
among us toward the gods”—he says with that solemn affect.
Indifference. But what then did he expect?
Let him organize religion as much as he pleased,
let him write the high priest of Galatia as much as he pleased,
or to others like him, exhorting, giving directions.
His friends weren’t Christians: that much is certain.
But even so they weren’t able to
play the way that he did (brought up as a Christian)
with the system of a new religion,
ridiculous in theory and in practice.
In the end they were Greeks. Nothing in excess, Augustus.
[1923?; 1923]
Epitaph of Antiochus, King of Commagene
After she returned from his funeral, greatly bereaved,
the sister of him who had temperately and sweetly lived—
the exceedingly scholarly Antiochus, king
of Commagene—she wanted an epitaph for him.
And the Ephesian sophist Callistratus—who sojourned
often in the principality of Commagene,
and who in the royal household had been
so pleasantly and frequently received—
wrote it, at the suggestion of Syrian courtiers,
and sent it to her aged ladyship.
“May the renown of Antiochus the benevolent king
be meetly extolled, O Commagenians.
He was the provident captain of the land.
The life he lived was just, and wise, and gallant.
The life he lived, still more, was that finest thing: Hellenic—
mankind holds no quality more precious:
among the gods alone does anything surpass it.”
[1923?; 1923]
Theater of Sidon (400 A.D.)
A respectable citizen’s son— above all else, a beauteous
youth who belongs to the theatre, agreeable in so many ways:
I now and then compose, in the language of the Greeks,
exceedingly daring verses, which I circulate
very secretly, of course— gods! they mustn’t be seen
by those who prate about morals, those who wear gray clothes—
verses about a pleasure that is select, that moves
toward a barren love of which the world disapproves.
[1923?; 1923]
Julian in Nicomedia
Foolhardy doings, full of risks.
The encomia for the ideals of the Greeks.
The white magic and the visits to the pagans’
temples. The raptures over the ancient gods.
The frequent conversations with Chrysanthius.
The theories of the (quite clever) philosopher Maximus.
Другие электронные книги автора Daniel Mendelsohn
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