Cavafy Constantine - Cavafy: 166 poems

Poetry evenings and nights at Sylvia Moubayeds were inspiring: there Edwin Honig encouraged me to think of publication. Stuart Blazers observations were always encouraging. Faith Sandstrom caused my version of Orophernes to appear in Celator . Judith Binder has been a force for the good in most of my adventures in poetry. Sam Abrams has improved various efforts with accurate queries. Once when I read some pieces at the Providence Athenaeum, Michael Harper attended and patted me on the shoulder as he left (I try not to think he was saying, Nice try, kid).

I sent some versions to James Merrill (whom I came to know thanks to John and Edith Camp) after he had published three translations in Grand Street . I said that if he had it in mind to do the whole I would stop. He wrote back saying that he would not and that I should continue. Bob Strassler made an effort to have my versions published in England. Ernst and Annette Schmidt invited friends and colleagues to their home in Tbingen to hear me read some versions aloud. Robert and Barbara Rodgers gave me an opportunity to read and talk about Cavafy at the University of Vermont.

My colleagues in the Department of Classics at Brown University, especially William Wyatt, Adele Scafuro, and David Konstan, and now recently Elsa Amanatidou, have always been ready to read and provide informed comment. I was also given space in the Brown Classical Journal for a few versions, and Caesarion appeared in our departmental 70th birthday tribute to Michael Putnam. Ruthann Whitten has been a help at every stage. Natalia Vogeikoff-Brogan gave good, prompt advice when it was needed. Charles R. Beye brought my work to the attention of Ann Rosener, who published eleven of the poems in her In Simple Clothes , a livre dartiste , with three etchings by William Brice.

Lucia Athanassaki pushed me to try Elytis and Seferis as well, and so did Angelos Matthaiou, who, when he learned that I was translating Cavafy, presented me with an armful of relevant texts. Charis Kalliga used my translation of her poems in Minoa Akra . Becky Sinos provided me with relevant background music for a reading on the Amherst College radio, and some relevant questions as well. Diskin Clay and Dia Philippides gave me critical bibliographical help. Despina Mylonas, almost from the very start, read every single translation at least once, and improved them all. Mike Keeley, to whom I sent a whole batch, read them critically and gave me authoritative advice.

With Peter Green over the years I have learned about Cavafy and Greece both then and now. Jim Ottaway, George Huxley, Ron and Connie Stroud, and Jane Chaplin have each in one way or another given me heartening encouragement, as have Lindley, Alan, David, and Alison. Hunter Lewis, publisher of Axios Press, has instructed me in various ways, most recently by directing my attention to Cavafys values. And indeed I owe my whole exploration of modern Greece to the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and these days especially to the Gennadius Library, and always to JEMB. A word about my approach to translating Cavafy: He composed in various modes, sometimes combining purifying, i.e., old-fashioned Greek and demotic, the language in general use today, in a single poem, sometimes using rhymes, but more often not. I have tried to approach his spare, not to say bony, style, eschewing poetic locutions, and by using fewer rather than more words to convey his meaning.

I have read and learned from other translations, chiefly those of the following: Rae Dalven, Edmund Keeley, Philip Sherrard, George Savides, Memas Kolaitis, James Merrill, Peter Green, Sam Abrams, Diskin Clay, Evangelos Sachperaglou, John Mavrogordato, Avi Sharon, Glenn Bowersock, Stratis Haviaris,, Theoharis Theoharis, Aliki Barnstone, Robert Elsie, Filippo Maria Pontani. For readers who are looking at Cavafy for the first time, I list a few favorites, both my own and those of readers generally: Ithaca, Waiting for the Barbarians, King Demetrios, The City, Footsteps, Alexandrian Kings, Ides of March, Young Men of Sidon.