In Despair (audio only)
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translated from the modern Greek by John Cavafy
Without reflection, without mercy, without shame,
they built strong walls and high, and compassed me about.
And here I sit now and consider and despair.
It wears away my heart and brain, this evil fate:
I had outside so many things to terminate.
1927
On this wine bowl of pure silver— destined for the home of Heracleides, where discerning taste and elegance reside— I've engraved flowers, streams and thyme, and in their midst a handsome youth, naked and erotic, dangling his leg in the water still.
2008
In part to verify a date, and in part just to pass the time, last night I picked up a volume of Ptolemaic inscriptions and began reading. Those endless poems of praise and flattery all sound the same.
2008