Business as Usual

Waiting for the Barbarians     
by C. P. Cavafy
translated by Edmund Keeley

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

          The barbarians are due here today.

Why isn't anything going on in the senate?
Why are the senators sitting there without legislating?

          Because the barbarians are coming today.
          What's the point of senators making laws now?
          Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.

Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting enthroned at the city's main gate,
in state, wearing the crown?

          Because the barbarians are coming today
          and the emperor's waiting to receive their leader.
          He's even got a scroll to give him,
          loaded with titles, with imposing names.

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 don't our distinguished orators turn up as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

          Because the barbarians are coming today
          and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

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 just in 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.


from: C. P. Cavafy: Collected Poems. Copyright  1975.

THE DANSE OF LIFE KNOWS NO SOCIAL OR ECONOMIC BOUNDARIES

 

He Asked About the Quality—       
by C. P. Cavafy
(translated by Aliki Barnstone)

He came out of the office where he was employed
in an unimportant and poorly paid position
(up to eight pounds a month, with tips);
when he finished his tedious work
that kept him stooped all afternoon,
he came out at seven, and sauntered slowly,
gazing idly in the street. Beautiful
and interesting, he carried himself
as if he'd reached his full sensual potential.
He turned twenty-nine a month ago.

He gazed idly in the street, and down the poor alleys
that led to his rooms.

Passing by a small shop
where they sold cheap
and inferior goods for laborers,
he saw a face inside, he saw a shape
that moved him to enter, and he acted as if
he wanted to see colored handkerchiefs.

He asked about the quality of the handkerchiefs
and what they cost
in a choked voice
almost erased by desire.
And the answers came the same way,
absently, in a lowered voice,
with an implied consent.

They kept talking about the merchandise—but
their sole aim: to touch hands
on top of the handkerchiefs, to draw
their faces together, their lips, as if by accident;
a fleeting touch of their limbs.

Quickly and furtively so the shopkeeper
sitting in the back would not notice.

 

Remember, Body ...

by C. P. Cavafy
(translated by Aliki Barnstone)

Body, remember not only how much you were loved,
not only the beds where you lay,
but also those desires for you,
shining clearly in eyes
and trembling in a voice—and some chance
obstacle thwarted them.
Now when everything is the past,
it almost looks as if you gave yourself
to those desires as well—how they shone—
remember—in the eyes that looked at you,
how they trembled for you in the voice—remember, body.

from: The Collected Poems of C. P. Cavafy. Copyright © 2006