Constantine P. Cavafy

"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 neighbourhoods, turn grey 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."

"When setting out upon your way to Ithaca, wish always that your course be long, full of adventure, full of lore."

"Body, remember not only how much you were loved, not only the beds you lay on, but also those desires glowing openly in eyes that looked at you, trembling for you in voices."

"People of Kommagini, let the glory of Antiochos, the noble king, be celebrated as it deserves. He was a provident ruler of the country. He was just, wise, courageous. In addition he was that best of all things, Hellenic — mankind has no quality more precious: everything beyond that belongs to the gods."

"I created you while I was happy, while I was sad, with so many incidents, so many details.And, for me, the whole of you has been transformed into feeling."

"The Spartans weren't to be led and ordered around like precious servants. Besides, they wouldn't have thought a pan-Hellenic expedition without a Spartan king in command was to be taken very seriously. Of course, then, "except the Lacedaimonians." That's certainly one point of view. Quite understandable."

"The days of the future stand in front of us Like a line of candles all alight — Golden and warm and lively little candles."

"I look before me at my lighted candles, I don’t want to turn around and see with horror How quickly the dark line is lengthening, How quickly the candles multiply that have been put out."

"And from this marvellous pan-Hellenic expedition, triumphant, brilliant in every way, celebrated on all sides, glorified incomparable, we emerged: the great new Hellenic world."

"He wasn’t completely wrong, poor old Gemistus (let Lord Andronicus and the patriarch suspect him if they like), in wanting us, telling us to become pagan once again."

"Speak not of guilt, speak not of responsibility. When the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners; when the senses shiver and shudder, it is only a fool and and an irreverent person that will keep his distance, who will not embrace the good cause, marching towards the conquest of pleasures and passions. All of morality’s laws – poorly understood and applied – are nil and cannot stand even for a moment, when the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners."

"What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?The barbarians are due here today."

"Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas? Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts, rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds? Why are they carrying elegant canes beautifully worked in silver and gold?Because the barbarians are coming today and things like that dazzle the barbarians."

"Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion? (How serious people's faces have become.) Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly, everyone going home lost in thought?Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven't come. And some of our men who have just returned from the border say there are no barbarians any longer.Now what's going to happen to us without barbarians? Those people were a kind of solution."

"I'm practically broke and homeless. This fatal city, Antioch, has devoured all my money: this fatal city with its extravagant life."

"Whatever job they give me, I'll try to be useful to the country. That's what I intend. But if they frustrate me with their manoeuvres — we know them, those smart operators: no need to say more here — if they frustrate me, it's not my fault."

"One of the three will want me anyway. And my conscience is quiet about my not caring which one I choose: the three of them are equally bad for Syria. But, a ruined man, it's not my fault. I'm only trying, poor devil, to make ends meet. The almighty gods ought to have taken the trouble to create a fourth, a decent man. I would gladly have gone along with him."

"The frivolous can call me frivolous. I’ve always been most punctilious about important things. And I insist that no one knows better than I do the Holy Fathers, or the Scriptures, or the Canons of the Councils."

"The holy Cross goes forward; it brings joy and consolation to every quarter where Christians live; and these God-fearing people, elated, stand in their doorways and greet it reverently, the strength, the salvation of the universe, the Cross."

"The empire is delivered at last. The vile, the appalling Julian reigns no longer."

"He knows he’s aged a lot: he sees it, feels it. Yet it seems he was young just yesterday. So brief an interval, so very brief. And he thinks of Prudence, how it fooled him, how he always believed — what madness — that cheat who said: “Tomorrow. You have plenty of time.”"

"He remembers impulses bridled, the joy he sacrificed. Every chance he lost now mocks his senseless caution."

"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."

"The love they felt wasn’t, of course, what it once had been; the attraction between them had gradually diminished, the attraction had diminished a great deal. But to be separated, that wasn’t what they themselves wanted."

"Of what’s to come the wise perceive things about to happen. Sometimes during moments of intense study their hearing’s troubled: the hidden sound of things approaching reaches them, and they listen reverently, while in the street outside the people hear nothing whatsoever."

"Don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now, work gone wrong, your plans all proving deceptive — don’t mourn them uselessly. As one long prepared, and graced with courage, say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving. Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say it was a dream, your ears deceived you: don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these."

"When they saw Patroklos dead — so brave and strong, so young — the horses of Achilles began to weep; their immortal nature was upset deeply by this work of death they had to look at."

"Immoral to a degree — and probably more than a degree — they certainly were. But they had the satisfaction that their life was the notorious life of Antioch, delectably sensual, in absolute good taste. To give up all this, indeed, for what? His hot air about the false gods, his boring self-advertisement, his childish fear of the theatre, his graceless prudery, his ridiculous beard."

"Things impolitic and dangerous: praise for Greek ideals, supernatural magic, visits to pagan temples. Enthusiasm for the ancient gods"

"The matter, says Mardonios, has gone too far, the talk it has aroused must be stopped at all cost. — So Julian goes to the church at Nicomedia, a lector again, and there with deep reverence he reads out loud passages from the Holy Scriptures, and everyone marvels at his Christian piety."

"His friends weren’t Christians; that much was certain. But even so they couldn’t play as he could (brought up a Christian) with a new religious system, ludicrous in both theory and application. They were, after all, Greeks. Nothing in excess, Augustus."

"That we’ve broken their statues, that we’ve driven them out of their temples, doesn’t mean at all that the gods are dead. O land of Ionia, they’re still in love with you, their souls still keep your memory."

"He who hopes to grow in spirit will have to transcend obedience and respect. He'll hold to some laws but he'll mostly violate both law and custom, and go beyond the established, inadequate norm. Sensual pleasures will have much to teach him. He won't be afraid of the destructive act: half the house will have to come down. This way he'll grow virtuously into wisdom."

"Roses by the head, jasmine at the feet — so appear the longings that have passed without being satisfied, not one of them granted a night of sensual pleasure, or one of its radiant mornings."

"A month passes by and brings another month. Easy to guess what lies ahead: all of yesterday’s boredom. And tomorrow ends up no longer like tomorrow."

"Nero wasn’t worried at all when he heard the utterance of the Delphic Oracle: “Beware the age of seventy-three.” Plenty of time to enjoy himself still. He’s thirty. The deadline the god has given him is quite enough to cope with future dangers."

"And in Spain Galba secretly musters and drills his army — Galba, the old man in his seventy-third year."

"The people going by would gaze at him, and one would ask the other if he knew him, if he was a Greek from Syria, or a stranger. But some who looked more carefully would understand and step aside; and as he disappeared under the arcades, among the shadows and the evening lights, going toward the quarter that lives only at night, with orgies and debauchery, with every kind of intoxication and desire, they would wonder which of Them it could be, and for what suspicious pleasure he had come down into the streets of Selefkia from the August Celestial Mansions."

"Just to be on the first step should make you happy and proud. To have come this far is no small achievement: what you have done is a glorious thing. Even this first step is a long way above the ordinary world. To stand on this step you must be in your own right a member of the city of ideas. And it is a hard, unusual thing to be enrolled as a citizen of that city. Its councils are full of Legislators no charlatan can fool."

"Guard, O my soul, against pomp and glory. And if you cannot curb your ambitions, at least pursue them hesitantly, cautiously. And the higher you go, the more searching and careful you need to be."

"If you are one of the truly elect, be careful how you attain your eminence."

"Honor to those who in the life they lead define and guard a Thermopylae. Never betraying what is right, consistent and just in all they do but showing pity also, and compassion; generous when they are rich, and when they are poor, still generous in small ways, still helping as much as they can; always speaking the truth, yet without hating those who lie."

"One candle is enough. Its gentle light will be more suitable, will be more gracious when the Shades arrive, the Shades of Love."

"It will be a great relief when a window opens. But the windows are not there to be found — or at least I cannot find them. And perhaps it is better that I don’t find them. Perhaps the light will prove another tyranny. Who knows what new things it will expose?"

"Try to keep them, poet, those erotic visions of yours, however few of them there are that can be stilled. Put them, half-hidden, in your lines."

"From all I did and all I said let no one try to find out who I was."

"From my most unnoticed actions, my most veiled writing — from these alone will I be understood."

"Κατόπι — στὴν τελειοτέρα κοινωνία — κανένας ἄλλος καμωμένος σὰν ἐμένα βέβαια θὰ φανεῖ κ’ ἐλεύθερα θὰ κάμει."

"The greatest gods of our glorious Greece appeared before you. And if they left, don’t think for a minute that they were frightened by a gesture."

"He was a quiet, gentle man, a man who loved peace (his country had suffered much from the wars of his predecessor), he behaved graciously toward everyone, humble and great alike. Never high-handed, he always sought advice in the kingdom’s affairs from serious, experienced people. Just why his nephew killed him was never precisely explained."