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Tags: at body bryant cavafy charles gay greek harbour nero's poetry remember spoken term the verse
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Uploaded: December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Author: brychar66
Length: 08:17
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Cavafy Poems 74 - 77Here are four more of my translations of Cavafy's poems and no. 77 means we are halfway through the canon of 154 poems, although there are further non-canonical poems which I hope to translate also in due course. With regard to No. 77 General Galba became Emperor following Nero's suicide in 68 AD. Galba himself however retained the imperial purple (had he time to put it on) for a short interlude only.74. AT THE HARBOURForeigners brought him to our tiny harbour;name of Emis; twenty-eight years old.He'd left his country to learn the incense trade;took sick on the water; died when he disembarkedat this god-forsaken Syrian anchoragemiles from anywhere, a sullen coast,whispering of his home and aged parents.We placed him in a pauper's grave. No onehad heard of his people. We did not know from whichof the many scattered Greek townships he had come,travelling here to Syria to die.It's just as well: with us he is at peace,at home in our tiny harbour, his ungrieved parentsfondly imagining their son still lives.75. BODY, REMEMBERI do not alone recall,not only recall erotic encounters,body to body on a rumpled bed,actual physical concourse of the flesh.Precious to the remembering mindthose rarified conjunctions -eyes that stared in instant passion,voices breaking mid-sentence - leading to no seminal conclusion.Both recollections empowering,each fulfilling; consummationequally achieved by physical contactand Platonic junction, eyes and voice alone -glances as passionate kisses; the accentual carress.76. TOMB OF LANESMarcus, you will not find him here,your much loved Lanes. This tomb is emptyof the being you adored. The hours you spend here,the tears you shed, are wasted.You know where you will find him;where memory can feed and loss be calmed.You have his living portrait in your house.There his precious lineaments, preserved,retain the presence of the man you loved,enshrining, not entombing, his breathing spirit.Remember when you fetched from the consulatethat famed Kyrenian artistwho, when he viewed your Lanes then alive,insisted he be shown as Hyakinthos?(Thinking to broaden the appeal of his own art.)This Lanes refused and ordered the Kyreniannot to portray him as Hyakinthosbut as Lanes, son of Rametichos of Alexandria.77. NERO'S TERMA young Nero is come to Delphi:ascends the gorge in splendour,bathes in the sacred spring;consults the Oracle, of course."Danger! Danger! Age seventy-three!"cries the Pythoness in agony,rockface reverberating with the crazy sound.Nero's relieved. He's only thirty.Plenty of scope to outwit the approaching threat.(Thus the pitfalls of egocentricity!)He's tired now. Time to return to Rome.Wonderfully worn out from days of pleasure,lascivious days, moonfed nights,theatres, scented gardens, grottos, groves,one warm brown yielding body on a bed;twilight hours in the sumptuous citiesof Achaia, naked flesh, athletic bodies.Plenty of time, young Nero thinks,fresh-faced at only thirty - when he stops to thinkof the mad and staring Pythoness.(Thus the pitfalls of egocentricity!)Meanwhile power-hungry in far SpainGeneral Galba drills his private army,General Galba, aged seventy-three. |
