Another poem by Kavafis. A poem about gay love, remembered or observed. Anyway beautiful.
Πέρασμα
Εκείνα που δειλά φαντάσθη μαθητής, είν’ ανοιχτά, φανερωμένα εμπρός του. Και γυρνά, και ξενυχτά, και παρασύρεται. Κι ως είναι (για την τέχνη μας) σωστό, το αίμα του, καινούριο και ζεστό, η ηδονή το χαίρεται. Το σώμα του νικά έκνομη ερωτική μέθη· και τα νεανικά μέλη ενδίδουνε σ’ αυτήν. Κ’ έτσι ένα παιδί απλό γένεται άξιο να το δούμε, κι απ’ τον Υψηλό της Ποιήσεως Κόσμο μια στιγμή περνά κι αυτό — το αισθητικό παιδί με το αίμα του καινούριο και ζεστό.
Passage
What he so timidly imagined as a schoolboy, now lies open, manifested in front of him. And he returns, and stays overnight, and drifts. And as is (for our art) right, his blood, fresh and hot, rejoices in pleasure. His body is conquered by illicit erotic intoxication; and youthful members surrender to it. And so a simple boy becomes worthy of watching, and for a moment the Peak of World Poetry passes through him – the sensual boy with his blood fresh and hot.
Όταν με βρήκε πίσω απ’ το παράθυρο να προφητεύω τις συνεχείς σιωπές σου. Όταν μια βίαιη σκηνή εκτυλίχτηκε σ’ εμένα ανάμεσα και στο τετελεσμένο. Όταν προχώρησα στο διπλανό δωμάτιο κι αυτό το εκάλεσα «φυγή».
Κι άλλες επίμονες φορές σέ φώναξε μεσ’ από έξι λαϊκά τραγούδια για πιάνο και για δύσκολο απόγευμα.
Κι ακόμη τρεις θρηνητικές φορές όταν τα θέματα σουρούπωσαν, κι ονόμασα τα μάτια σου «καθημερνά απογεύματα» και όλον εσένα Κυριακή πού είναι πάντα δύσκολη.
Sunday Afternoon
Many times the afternoon asked for you:
When it found me by the window Trying to to prophesise your constant silences. When a violent scene unfolded between me and the fait accompli. When I went to the next room and I called this “escape.”
And other times, persistently it called you in the middle of six folk songs for piano and for a difficult afternoon.
And three other mournful times when matters got dark, and I named your eyes “afternoons of every day” and all of you Sunday always difficult.
In 1945, Sweden found itself having escaped the horrors of WWII. Relief was mixed with some smugness as the government started building the Swedish welfare state. Ekelöf, who had been both rich and poor revolted against the implied conformity. For him, who had been very early in identifying the threat of Nazism, the individual was at the heart. Non serviam means “I will not serve” and the “seit” is a stone holy to the Sami people in Lapland. I decided to keep the word negro in a poem written in 1945, recognising that Ekelöf identified with the oppressed and the outcasts.
Non serviam
Jag är en främling i detta land men detta land är ingen främling i mig! Jag är inte hemma i detta land men detta land beter sig som hemma i mig!
Jag har av ett blod som aldrig kan spädas i mina ådror ett dricksglas fullt! Och alltid skall juden, lappen, konstnären i mig söka sin blodsfrändskap: forska i skriften göra en omväg kring seiten i ödemarken i ordlös vördnad för någonting bortglömt jojka mot vinden: Vilde! Neger! – stångas och klaga mot stenen: Jude! Neger! – utanför lagen och under lagen: fången i deras, de vitas, och ändå -lovad vare min lag! – i min!
Så har jag blivit en främling i detta landet men detta landet har gjort sig bekvämt i mig! Jag kan inte leva i detta landet men detta landet lever som gift i mig!
En gång, i de korta, milda de fattiga stundernas vilda Sverige där var mitt land! Det var överallt! Här, i de långa, välfödda stundernas trånga, ombonade Sverige där allting är stängt för drag… är det mig kallt.
Non Serviam
I am a stranger in this land but this land is no stranger within me! I am not at home in this land but this land has made itself at home within me!
I have of a blood that is never diluted there flows in my veins a beaker full! And always the Jew, the Sami, the artist within me will look for its blood mates: Research in the records make a detour around the sacred stone in the wilderness in wordless awe of something forgotten chant against wind: Savage! Negro! – to buck and wail against the stone: Jew! Negro! – outside the law and under the law: caught in theirs, the whites’, and still -praise be to my law! – in mine!
So I have become a stranger in this land but this land has made itself comfortable in me! I cannot live in this land but this land lives like venom in me!
Once, in the short, mild poverty struck moments’ wild Sweden there was my land. It was everywhere! Here, in the long, well-fed moments’ constricted, cosy Sweden where everything shuts out the draught.. It is cold to me.
Δεν ήταν άλλη ή αγάπη μας έφευγε ξαναγύριζε καί μάς έφερνε ένα χαμηλωμένο βλέφαρο πολύ μακρινό ένα χαμόγελο μαρμαρωμένο, χαμένο μέσα στο πρωινό χορτάρι
ένα παράξενο κοχύλι πού δοκίμαζε νά τό εξηγήσει επίμονα ή ψυχή μας.
Ή αγάπη μας δεν ήταν άλλη ψηλαφούσε σιγά μέσα στα πράγματα πού μάς τριγύριζαν να έξηγησει γιατί δε θέλουμε νά πεθάνουμε με τόσο πάθος.
Κι αν κρατηθήκαμε άπό λαγόνια κι αν αγκαλιάσαμε μ’ όλη τή δύναμή μας άλλους αυχένες κι αν σμίξαμε τήν ανάσα μας με τήν ανάσα εκείνου του ανθρώπου κι αν κλείσαμε τα μάτια μας, δεν ήταν άλλη μονάχα αύτός ό βαθύτερος καημός νά κρατηθούμε μέσα στή φυγή.
Flight
Our love was nothing more leaving, coming back and brought us a lowered distant eyelid a marble smile, lost in the morning grass a strange shell that our soul tried insistently to explain.
Our love was nothing more than touching slowly among the things that surrounded us to explain why we don’t want to die with so much passion.
What if we were held on to each other by the loins, clasping with all our might each other’s necks and if we mixed our breath with the breath of the other person and if we closed our eyes, it was nothing more only this deepest heartache that we hold on to in the middle of our flight.
Το πλούσιο σπίτι είχε στην είσοδο έναν καθρέπτη μέγιστο, πολύ παλαιό· τουλάχιστον προ ογδόντα ετών αγορασμένο.
Ένα εμορφότατο παιδί, υπάλληλος σε ράπτη (τες Κυριακές, ερασιτέχνης αθλητής), στέκονταν μ’ ένα δέμα. Το παρέδοσε σε κάποιον του σπιτιού, κι αυτός το πήγε μέσα να φέρει την απόδειξι. Ο υπάλληλος του ράπτη έμεινε μόνος, και περίμενε. Πλησίασε στον καθρέπτη και κυττάζονταν κ’έσιαζε την κραβάτα του. Μετά πέντε λεπτά του φέραν την απόδειξι. Την πήρε κ’ έφυγε.
Μα ο παλαιός καθρέπτης που είχε δει και δει, κατά την ύπαρξίν του την πολυετή, χιλιάδες πράγματα και πρόσωπα· μα ο παλαιός καθρέπτης τώρα χαίρονταν, κ’ επαίρονταν που είχε δεχθεί επάνω του την άρτιαν εμορφιά για μερικά λεπτά.
The Mirror at the Entrance
The opulent house had at its entrance an enormous mirror, very old; bought at least eighty years ago.
A beautiful youngster, a tailor’s assistant (on Sundays an amateur sportsman), standing with a parcel. He delivered it to a servant of the house, who then went inside to bring the receipt. The tailor’s assistant was left alone, and waited. He went to the mirror and while looking adjusted his tie. After five minutes they brought him his receipt. He took it and left.
But the old mirror that had seen so much, during its many years of existence, thousands of things and faces; but the old mirror was filled with joy, enormously proud that it had admitted in front of it for some minutes absolute beauty.
A poem by Montale which highlights his capacity to evoke nature. A masterpeice.
Ho sostato talvolta nelle grotte
Ho sostato talvolta nelle grotte che t’assecondano, vaste o anguste, ombrose e amare. Guardati dal fondo gli sbocchi segnavano architetture possenti campite di cielo. Sorgevano dal tuo petto rombante aerei templi, guglie scoccanti luci: una città di vetro dentro l’azzurro netto via via si discopriva da ogni caduco velo e il suo rombo non era che un sussurro. Nasceva dal fiotto la patria sognata. Dal subbuglio emergeva l’evidenza. L’esiliato rientrava nel paese incorrotto. Così, padre, dal tuo disfrenamento si afferma, chi ti guardi, una legge severa. Ed è vano sfuggirla: mi condanna s’io lo tento anche un ciottolo róso sul mio cammino, impietrato soffrire senza nome, o l’informe rottame che gittò fuor del corso la fiumara del vivere in un fitto di ramure e di strame. Nel destino che si prepara c’è forse per me sosta, niun’altra mai minaccia. Questo ripete il flutto in sua furia incomposta, e questo ridice il filo della bonaccia.
I sometimes rested in the caves
I sometimes rested in the caves that support you, vast or narrow, shady and briny. Seen from the depth, the mouths present structures mighty against the field of sky. from your bosom arose roaring sky-reaching temples , spires throwing flashes: a city of glass within the clear blue gradually uncovered of every falling veil and its roar was but a whisper. From this surged the dreamt-of land. From the turmoil emerged the proof. The exile returned unsmeared to the land. So, father, from you unbound becomes clear, for those who look at you, a strict law. And fleeing it is in vain: it condemns me if I try it, even a pebble eroded on my path, petrified suffering without a name, or the shapeless refuse that threw the stream out of course of life into a tangle of branches and algae. In the fate that is prepared for me maybe there is a rest for me, no other threat forever. So the wave repeats its unruly fury, and so repeats the breath of calm.
In Church is a curious poem. It is a panegyric to the cultural aspects of the Greek Orthodox Church, while not containing an iota of faith. Kavafis was every ounce a product of this culture, but also forever an outsider.
Στην εκκλησία
Την εκκλησίαν αγαπώ — τα εξαπτέρυγά της, τ’ ασήμια των σκευών, τα κηροπήγιά της, τα φώτα, τες εικόνες της, τον άμβωνά της.
Εκεί σαν μπω, μες σ’ εκκλησία των Γραικών· με των θυμιαμάτων της τες ευωδίες, μες τες λειτουργικές φωνές και συμφωνίες, τες μεγαλοπρεπείς των ιερέων παρουσίες και κάθε των κινήσεως τον σοβαρό ρυθμό — λαμπρότατοι μες στων αμφίων τον στολισμό — ο νους μου πηαίνει σε τιμές μεγάλες της φυλής μας, στον ένδοξό μας Βυζαντινισμό.
In Church
I love the church – its decorated fans, the silver of the vessels, its candlesticks, its candelabra, its images, its pulpit.
When I enter there, in a church of the Greeks; with its perfume of incense, with the liturgical voices and chants, the majestic presence of the holy priests their every movement at a solemn pace – brilliant in their adorned vestments – my mind goes to the great glories of our race, to our splendid Byzantinism.
Manuel was one of the more energetic Byzantine emperors. I don’t know if there is any source for Kavafis’ poem, but it will do on its own.
Μανουήλ Kομνηνός
Ο βασιλεύς κυρ Μανουήλ ο Κομνηνός μια μέρα μελαγχολική του Σεπτεμβρίου αισθάνθηκε τον θάνατο κοντά. Οι αστρολόγοι (οι πληρωμένοι) της αυλής εφλυαρούσαν που άλλα πολλά χρόνια θα ζήσει ακόμη. Ενώ όμως έλεγαν αυτοί, εκείνος παληές συνήθειες ευλαβείς θυμάται, κι απ’ τα κελλιά των μοναχών προστάζει ενδύματα εκκλησιαστικά να φέρουν, και τα φορεί, κ’ ευφραίνεται που δείχνει όψι σεμνήν ιερέως ή καλογήρου.
Ευτυχισμένοι όλοι που πιστεύουν, και σαν τον βασιλέα κυρ Μανουήλ τελειώνουν ντυμένοι μες στην πίστι των σεμνότατα.
Manuel Komnenos
Emperor Manuel Komnenos one gloomy day in September felt death approaching. The astrologers (the paid ones) of the court were blabbering that he would live many more years. But while they were spouting that, he reverently remembers old customs, and commands that from the cells of the monks he is bought ecclesiastical clothing, and wears them, and rejoices at what he shows, the appearance of a modest priest or monk.
Happy all those who believe, and like Emperor Manuel end clad in the faith of the humblest.
