University:
Boston University
Course:
CAS WR 153 | Writing, Research, & Inquiry with Creativity/Innovation
Academic year:

2020
Views:

235

Pages:

1
Author:

Zariah Howe

The City C. P. CAVAFY Translated by Peter Green You said: “I’ll find a new land, find another sea— A new city’ll turn up, a better one than this. Every effort I make is condemned, turns out amiss, While my heart, like a corpse, lies buried deep, And my mind—how long will my mind stay sunk in stagnant sleep? Here, wherever I look, wherever I turn my gaze I see the blackened wreck of all my days, So many years spent, ruined, lost by me.” There are no new places you’ll find, you’ll catch no other tide. This city will follow you. The streets you tread Will be the same, it’s in these same houses your head Will turn grey, in the same neighborhoods that you’ll age. Always you’ll end up in this city. Don’t hope to turn the page To an Elsewhere for which there’s no ship for you, no road shows clear. Just as you destroyed your life back here In this tiny retreat, so you ruined it world-wide. note Since all recent English versions of this poem known to me dispense with rhyme altogether, perhaps I should point out that the complex abbccdda rhyme-scheme adopted here is Cavafy’s own, in the original Greek.