Body, remember not only how much you were loved, not only the beds on which you lay, but also those desires which for you plainly glowed in the eyes, and trembled in the voice -- and some chance obstacle made them futile. Now that all belongs to the past, it is almost as if you had yielded to those desires too -- remember, how they glowed, in the eyes looking at you; how they trembled in the voice, for you, remember, body.

-Constantine P. Cavafy

Cavafy - Poet of The City (2011)

As Much As You Can

by

Constantine Cavafy

And if you can't shape your life the way you want,

at least try as much as you can

not to degrade it

by too much contact with the world,

by too much activity and talk.

Try not to degrade it by dragging it along,

taking it around and exposing it so often

to the daily silliness

of social events and parties,

until it comes to seem a boring hanger-on.

Constantine P. Cavafy

The complete poems of Cavafy translated by Rae Dalven, The Hogarth Press LTD, London, 1948.

This is a pseudo-historical poem about a Syrian man in the Hellenistic period (323 BC-31 BC) that spent his youth abroad, trying to gain skills and connections, and deciding that he would be better off back to his homeland where he can serve his country using what he learned abroad. He is ready to serve any of the highly immoral political leaders of Syria, as long as it suits his personal interests. And he declares himself innocent : there is simply not another more moral option, all of them are equally horrible.

This poem has always resonated with me, first of all culturally, because in my greek culture (and I believe it is the case for many cultures) the avoidance of personal responsibility and the incessant transfer of responsibility to others, or fate, or nature, or God, is so typical. It is simply never our fault, what can we do? It's The System that's to blame, and the cruel gods that made it this way. What can one single individual do? Why am I to blame for enabling injustice, for taking part in a system that is inherently rotten to the core? It is what it is. Defeat, acceptance, involvement, enabling. Zero political conscience, zero accountability. Every man for himself. Of course if we get out of the cultural context, I do believe that this idea is universal. And since my blog is primarily a ASOIAF blog, well, we can find endless examples in that book series where this idea is predominant.

This was inspired by the horrifying train accident that happened in Greece, yesterday, with 50 deaths, for which, of course (what a suprirse), nobody wants to assume responsibility. The stationmaster was inexperienced, it's not his fault, it's the fault of those who put him in this post at 59 yo and with only 6 months of training (who are "those"), the train company is not responsible for the maintainance of the rails (what is it responsible for), the greek ministry doesn't have the money to implement a functioning system of rail signalling (why didn't they abolish the rail network then), the train drivers are not responsible for agreeing to drive the trains at the absence of basic security measures such as rail signaling, it's the job after all, what can they do. Result : 50 people are dead because we have a rail network in a country that shouldn't have a rail network. The only way of knowing which trains are circulating at which railway is one dude, the stationmaster. One dude. And nobody is responsible for that. It is what it is. It was an accident, a tragedy.

Returning from Greece

Well, we’re nearly there, Hermippos. Day after tomorrow, it seems—that’s what the captain said. At least we’re sailing our seas, the waters of Cyprus, Syria, and Egypt, the beloved waters of our home countries. Why so silent? Ask your heart: didn’t you too feel happier the farther we got from Greece? What’s the point of fooling ourselves? That would hardly be properly Greek. It’s time we admitted the truth: we are Greeks also—what else are we?— but with Asiatic affections and feelings, affections and feelings sometimes alien to Hellenism. It isn’t right, Hermippos, for us philosophers to be like some of our petty kings (remember how we laughed at them when they used to come to our lectures?) who through their showy Hellenified exteriors, Macedonian exteriors (naturally), let a bit of Arabia peep out now and then, a bit of Media they can’t keep back. And to what laughable lengths the fools went trying to cover it up! No, that’s not at all right for us. For Greeks like us that kind of pettiness won’t do. We must not be ashamed of the Syrian and Egyptian blood in our veins; we should really honor it, take pride in it.

(Translated from the Greek by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)

her şey alt üst olduğunda hatırla... ( bozgun ) öleceksin.

t.s elliot - çorak ülke

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 as though it were something dead. How long can I let my mind moulder in this place? Wherever I turn, wherever I happen to 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 will walk the same streets, grow old in the same neighborhoods, will turn gray in these same houses. You will always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere: there is no ship for you, there is no road. As you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner, you’ve destroyed it everywhere else in the world.

Constantine Cavafy, “The City”

In 200 B.C.

Constantine Cavafy

"Alexander son of Philip, and the Greeks except the Lacedaemonians--"

We can very well imagine that they were utterly indifferent in Sparta to this inscription. "Except the Lacedaemonians", but naturally. The Spartans were not to be led and ordered about as precious servants. Besides a panhellenic campaign without a Spartan king as a leader would not have appeared very important. O, of course "except the Lacedaemonians."

This too is a stand. Understandable.

Thus, except the Lacedaemonians at Granicus; and then at Issus; and in the final battle, where the formidable army was swept away that the Persians had massed at Arbela: which had set out from Arbela for victory, and was swept away.

And out of the remarkable panhellenic campaign, victorious, brilliant, celebrated, glorious as no other had ever been glorified, the incomparable: we emerged; a great new Greek world.

We; the Alexandrians, the Antiocheans, the Seleucians, and the numerous rest of the Greeks of Egypt and Syria, and of Media, and Persia, and the many others. With our extensive territories, with the varied action of thoughtful adaptations. And the Common Greek Language we carried to the heart of Bactria, to the Indians.

As if we were to talk of Lacedaemonians now!

Remember, Body...

Body, remember not only how much you were loved, not only the beds on which you lay, but also those desires which for you plainly glowed in the eyes, and trembled in the voice -- and some chance obstacle made them futile. Now that all belongs to the past, it is almost as if you had yielded to those desires too -- remember, how they glowed, in the eyes looking at you; how they trembled in the voice, for you, remember, body.

Constantine Cavafy

“The aging of my body and my beauty

is a wound from an appalling knife.”

– C.P. Cavafy, “Melancholy of Jason Kleander, Poet in Kommagini, A.D. 595”, translated by James Merrill;

Body, remember not only how much you were loved, not only the beds on which you lay, but also those desires which for you plainly glowed in the eyes, and trembled in the voice -- and some chance obstacle made them futile. Now that all belongs to the past, it is almost as if you had yielded to those desires too -- remember, how they glowed, in the eyes looking at you; how they trembled in the voice, for you, remember, body.

-Constantine Cavafy 

i love reading cavafy because he’s so sad and horny about antiquity like yesss king tell me more about ptolemy II and his 8pack glistening with fallen tears

TV licence: Cy Twombly, Michaelangelo and Cavafy get together

23 x 20cm

Collage

Let me stop here. Let me also look at nature awhile.

The brilliant blue of the morning sea, of the cloudless sky,

The shore yellow; all lovely,

all bathed in light.

- Constantine Cavafy | Morning Sea

Constantine P. Cavafy, from “Modern Greek Poetry; ‘The Bandaged Shoulder’”, tr. Kimon Friar.