Dreaming of home...
Jul. 25th, 2006 08:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matilda36Konstantinos Kavafis has always been one of my favourite poets. I love the sad hope against all odds, his ability to make love out of nothing and his deep dreamlike belief in a love that he knows like all wise people that doesn't exist.
Wandering for the net today I found this from him and it appealed to the Odysseus in me.
Wandering for the net today I found this from him and it appealed to the Odysseus in me.
Ithaka
As you set out for Ithaka
hope the journey is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon - you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope the voyage is a long one.
may there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbours seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind -
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey.
without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
(Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)
As you set out for Ithaka
hope the journey is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon - you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope the voyage is a long one.
may there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbours seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind -
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey.
without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
(Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 03:31 pm (UTC)Ummm... I wonder if I could find the DVD...
In French, we had a beautiful translation made by Marguerite Yourcenar *purrs*
Ah... I read it first in Greece... nice memories... *more purrs*
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 06:55 pm (UTC)I read him soon after reading Le memoir d'Adrien and I found the two writers on the same wavelenght...
Needless to say Yourcenar is another one of my favourites...
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 08:04 pm (UTC)I cried a lot when Antinous dies.
Yourcenar was soooo good.
Do you like L'oeuvre au noir ?
^_~
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 08:47 pm (UTC)But Hadrien...I was studing classics at the time and she gave me a completely different clue to read the history, phylosophy and literature i already loved so much...
no subject
Date: 2006-07-27 07:29 pm (UTC)I was hijacking a Latin translation course when I read Les Mémoires d'Hadrien. It was great fun. *wink*
Yourcenar and de Romilly made me start learning Greek. ^_^
no subject
Date: 2006-07-27 07:55 pm (UTC)Western civilisation was thought in Greek and I am still debating if it's good or bad.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-27 09:24 pm (UTC)The idea was good, what people made of it was/is very wrong.
I'm still fighting with classical Greek, but Plato is good fun.
^_~
no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 04:52 am (UTC)I do love my dru icons...the woman is my style goddess...
no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 01:22 pm (UTC)She's so beautiful!
*keeps drooling*