Being born in April and dying in April is, of course, a special pattern of destiny. Being born on April 20 – and dying on April 20, seventy years later, neither the day before nor the day after – this must be the favor of the god of symmetry anyway.
But the poet is the favorite of this god.
Only this god himself has problems with symmetry.
Everywhere you look for the outstanding Greek poet Konstantinos Cavafy (1863 – 1933), who wrote in modern Greek, the number 154 falls all over – he published so many poems in his lifetime. According to sources, dozens of poems that were not published during his lifetime were left unfinished in drafts and he gave up his first poems. Also, Cavafy wrote his best texts when he was over forty.
Kavaf is a poet for losers. The poetry of defeat, that’s what we need. It is not Mayakovsky boiling loudly, not Gumilyov the wanderer, not the cold Eliot, who also feels the ephemeral nature of our civilization and therefore sometimes returns to the same ancient history (it is important here that he refers to his heyday, and Kavafis, in his most famous poem, to his fall), but that is to say about us. Cavafy. We are those losers.
It will always confront us with inevitable loss (otherwise we didn’t know!), warn of its consequences (the results will be sad), and repeat (between the lines, in a different translation – but with the same insistence): without any complaint, defeat or loss with dignity and You must accept it with honor.
It will not heal our wounds – the better: our wound will go deeper.
Caught in fear and doubt
the mind is agitated and anxiety shines in the eyes,
we make savings plans so desperately
to avoid the inevitable
danger that threatens us dramatically.
But we were wrong – not what awaits us,
all the news was fake
(or did we not hear it or did we not understand it correctly?).
Disaster, but not this – we did not expect –
in anger, it suddenly fell upon us
surprise – knowing we were late – and we were all crushed.
He loves the period of decline in antiquity – when after the death of Alexander the Great his empire was destroyed by his descendants (everything he did, everything he conquered and united), three centuries of incomprehensible existence, a series of wars, separation of regions. (No, I don’t like all this either, I’m against it – but who asks me: Kavafis loved this period, pen and pencil would suit gold better.)
In general, we perceive the word “ancient” differently: we immediately think of a heroic image, philosophical Hellas, the Greek Acropolis. No, Cavafy is talking about something else. Its antiquity is Alexandria, Asia Minor, sometimes Byzantium. The tangle of history is confused, the Golden Age has precious stones but goat hair already.
When you think of going to Ithaca,
pray that the journey is long.
Here we will make a large blank, an ellipse, to save space: we will skip almost the entire poem. And here is the result:
And if you find it miserable
Do not consider yourself deceived.
Now you’re smart, you’ve seen a lot
and he correctly understood what Ithaca meant.
Brodsky also writes about Cavafy – who notices this better in Cavafy than Brodsky and falls in love – and asks why Cavafy is so interested in Julian, the poet has seven poems associated with him (and that’s a lot, we remember the number) 154 ), if this emperor ruled for only three years?
I’ll answer as Julian failed. Meanwhile, Julian, who was raised as a Christian, is trying to re-establish paganism as the state religion after he took the throne, rather than focusing on strengthening the state and rallying his citizens around a single religion. Even if he did not persecute Christians, torture them, give them to the lions, he deprived Christianity of state support and sent court sages to public discussions with Christian preachers.
(Sit down, Vodennikov, says Brodsky, you’re five years old.)
Kavafis’ most famous poem for Russian readers is, of course, “Waiting for the Barbarians”.
What are we waiting for when we meet here in the square?
“Yes, they say today the barbarians will come.
There are many translations of this poem, but I liked Mihail Gasparov’s translation the most.
Why are people afraid?
“The barbarians are coming, they’ll be here soon.
Why are senators unemployed?
“The barbarians are coming and they will have power.
– Why did the emperor froze on the throne?
“The barbarians are coming, he will honor them.
Why is everything to be known in gold and stones?
“The barbarians are coming, they love the shine.
Why are the speakers confused?
– The barbarians are coming, they don’t like talk.
Why are the water pipes not working?
“The barbarians are coming, ask them.
Why is everyone screaming and running?
– News from the border: the barbarians did not come,
There were no barbarians.
What will happen now?
There was at least some clarity about the barbarians.
The barbarian death came, he didn’t make the best joke with dates (after all, rhyming like that is somehow too much even for a poet’s death) and brought ultimate clarity. He took his voice (doctors found throat cancer in the poet, he underwent a tracheotomy, which destroyed his physical voice – for the remaining short time Cavafy had to correspond with his visitors), then ate it too.
When Cavafy changes his address once again, he moves into an apartment on the second floor of building 10 on Lepsius Street. He jokes about it: “Where else could I have settled better? Beneath me is a notorious house that caters for the meat, not far away is a pardoning church, and behind it is a hospital where we die.
As a matter of fact, he died in this hospital on his seventieth birthday on April 29, 1933.
When you can’t make life the way you want
at least you’re trying to be able to do that
do your best : don’t humiliate him with meanness
in countless ostentations, conversations, connections,
speeches, dates, visits, gestures.
Do not humiliate with an exaggerated value,
and turning it inside out on the move,
and show off because you admire
in the bullshit of meetings and companies,
until you get bored like someone else’s life.
We will try to remember this advice of her, when fate has not yet begun to joke with us with her silly rhyming jokes.