The Collected Poems of C. P. Cavafy: A New Translation »

Aliki Barnstone’s translations have appeared in American Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, Virginia Quarterly Review, and other journals. An editor and critic, she lives in Las Vegas and teaches at UNLV.

A new translation of a poet widely considered one of the most important of the twentieth century.

The Washington Post - Michael Dirda

At its best, his mature work hardly seems poetry at all. (Marguerite Yourcenar once likened his short pieces to reading notes or aides-memoires .) Cavafy prefers nouns and avoids epithets, uses rhyme sparingly if at all, offers lots of historical or physical detail, and typically casts a poem as a dramatic monologue. Even his titles are oddly prosaic, though touched with a kind of shabby grandeur: "A Byzantine nobleman in exile composing verses" or "The melancholy of Iason Kleandros, poet in Kommagini, 595 C.E." In fact, Cavafy gains most of his power, as the Greek poet George Seferis insists, when we view his work as "one and the same poem" and "read him with the feeling of the continuous presence of his work as a whole.

Foreword   Gerald Stern     xvii
Acknowledgments     xxv
Introduction: C. P. Cavafy: Eros and History as Prophesy     xxix
1896
Julian at the Mysteries     3
1897
Walls     5
An Old Man     6
The Horses of Achilles     7
1898
Prayer     8
The Funeral of Sarpedon     9
1899
Candles     11
The First Step     12
1900
When the Watchman Saw the Light     13
The Enemies     14
1901
Che Fece...Il Gran Rifiuto     15
The Souls of Old Men     16
Interruption     17
1903
The Windows     18
Thermopylae     19
Growing Strong     20
1904
September, 1903     21
December, 1903     22
January, 1904     23
On the Stairs     24
At the Theater     25
Disloyalty     26
Waiting for the Barbarians     28
Voices     30
Desires     31
1905
Trojans     32
1906
King Dimitrios     33
1907
Antony's Ending     34
TheProcession of Dionysos     35
1908
Hidden Things     36
Monotony     37
1909
This Is the Man     38
The Footsteps     39
1910
The City     40
The Satrapy     41
1911
The Ides of March     42
Finished     43
A Sculptor from Tyana     44
The God Abandons Antony     45
Ionian     46
The Glory of the Ptolemies     47
Ithaka     48
On Hearing of Love     50
The Dangers     51
1912
Philhellene     52
Herodis Attikos     53
Alexandrian Kings     54
Come Back     56
In Church     57
1913
Very Rarely     58
As Much as You Can     59
For the Shop     60
I Went     61
"I Will Tell the Rest to Those Down in Hades"     62
Like This     63
1914
Exiles     64
The Tomb of Lysias the Grammarian     65
The Tomb of Evrion     66
Chandelier     67
Far Off     68
1915
The Wise Sense What Is to Come      69
Theodotos     70
At the Cafe Door     71
He Swears     72
As I Lounged and Lay on Their Beds     73
One Night     74
Morning Sea     75
Drawn     76
1916
Orofernis     77
The Battle of Magnesia     80
Manuel Komninos     82
The Displeasure of the Selefkid     83
When They Are Aroused     85
In the Street     86
Before the Statue of Endymion     87
1917
In a City of Osroini     88
Passing Through     89
For Ammonis, Who Died at Twenty-nine, in 610     90
One of Their Gods     91
Evening     92
Sensual Pleasure     93
Gray     94
The Tomb of Iasis     95
In the Month of Athyr     96
I Have Gazed So Long     97
The Tomb of Ignatios     98
House with Garden     99
Days of 1903     100
Half an Hour     101
The Tobacco Shop Window     102
1917 or 1918
Remember, Body...     103
The Tomb of Lanis     104
Meaning      105
1918
Kaisarion     106
Nero's Term     108
Envoys from Alexandria     109
Aristovoulos     110
In the Port     112
Aimilianos Monai, Alexandrian, 628-655 C.E.     113
Since Nine O'Clock     114
1919
Outside the House     115
The Next Table     116
The Bandaged Shoulder     117
The Afternoon Sun     118
Imenos     119
Of the Jews (50 C.E.)     120
To Stay     121
Of Dimitrios Sotir (162-150 B.C.E.)     122
On the Ship     124
1920
If Truly Dead     125
Young Men from Sidon (400 C.E.)     127
So They Will Come     129
Dareios     130
Anna Komnini     132
1921
A Byzantine Nobleman in Exile Composing Verses     133
Their Beginning     134
The Favor of Alexandros Valas     135
The Melancholy of Iason Kleandros, Poet in Kommagini, 595 C.E.     136
Dimaratos     137
I Brought to Art     139
From the School of the Celebrated Philosopher     140
A Craftsman of Wine Bowls      142
1922
Those Who Fought for the Achaian League     143
To Antiohos Epifanis     144
In an Old Book     145
1923
In Despair     146
From the Drawer     147
Julian Seeing Indifference     148
Epitaph of Antiohos, King of Kommagini     149
Theater of Sidon (400 C.E.)     150
1924
Julian in Nikomedia     151
Before Time Changed Them-     152
He Came to Read     153
In Alexandria, 31 B.C.E.     154
Ioannis Kantakouzinos Triumphs     155
1925
Temethos, Antiochian, 400 C.E.     156
Of Colored Glass     157
The Twenty-fifth Year of His Life     158
On an Italian Shore     159
In the Boring Village     160
Apollonios of Tyana in Rhodes     161
1926
The Illness of Kleitos     162
In a Township in Asia Minor     163
The Priest of Serapeion     164
In the Bars     165
A Grand Procession of Priests and Laymen     166
A Sophist Leaving Syria     167
Julian and the Antiochians     168
1927
Anna Dalassini     169
Days of 1896      170
Two Young Men, Twenty-three to Twenty-four Years Old     171
Greek since Ancient Times     173
Days of 1901     174
1928
You Did Not Know     175
A Young Man, an Artist of the Word, in His Twenty-fifth Year     176
In Sparta     177
Portrait of a Twenty-three-Year-Old Man, Painted by His Friend the Same Age, an Amateur     178
In a Large Greek Colony, 200 B.C.E.     179
A Prince from Western Libya     181
Kimon, Son of Learhos, Twenty-two, Student of Greek Letters (in Kyrini)     182
On the March to Sinopi     184
Days of 1909, '10, and '11     186
1929
Myris: Alexandria, 340 C.E.     187
Alexandros Iannaios and Alexandra     190
Beautiful White Flowers Became Him     191
Come, O King of the Lacedaimonians     193
In the Same Space     194
1930
The Mirror in the Front Hall     195
He Asked about the Quality     196
They Should Have Cared     198
1931
According to the Recipes of the Ancient Greco-Syrian Magicians     200
In 200 B.C.E     201
1932
Days of 1908     203
1935
In the Suburbs of Antioch     205
A Note on the Transliteration of Names     207
Notes     209
A Note on the Text, Selection, and Order of the Poems     255
A Biographical Note on Cavafy     257
Index of Titles and First Lines     260