Cavafy: Poems Nos 44 and 45

44. EURION'S TOMB


A somewhat elaborate tomb of syenite
(a crystalline rock sparkling like granite)
covers the beautiful Eurion.
Lilies and violets overgrow the stone.

Eurion the Alexandrian
died at twenty-five;
his father Macedonian;
magistrates on his mother's side.

He read philosophy with Aristokleitos,
rhetoric with Paros;
at Thebes he studied scripture.
He wrote a provincial history,
extant still.

But we have lost and mourn
more precious than all else
his radiant human form --
so Apolline!



45. CHANDELIER


An empty room.
Four walls covered with
plain green cloth.

In the midst -

a burning chandelier
each brilliant flame
an intense sensual urge.

In that vacant room
the heat and light
multiplied, reflected
flaring down.

No timid body
could humanly withstand
this conflagration
this hugely magnified libido.

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[tHEnOOSEsWINGS]

That you for the text. "In that vacant room_the heat and light_multiplied, reflected,_flaring down.". This concludes the contextual transposition-" this conflagration" (-latin "to blaze"). There is an altered state and perhaps an entity (being) that is evolving/has evolved here. The sexual desire and lust reiterates my conclusion-to transfer to a different position/location. There appears to be these metaphoric exchanges occurring throughout his poetry.

[brychar66]

I agree with your overview. Cavafy is not the first gay man to make a god of the animus (male version of the female anima in Jungian terms). It is exactly what Hadrian did for Antinous. Libido does not mean just sex drive, it covers the whole will to life. Of course, sex is the prime manifestation of this, the sine qua non.

[brychar66]

Note: the new edition of Cavafy's poems I mentioned here was published by Oxford World's Classics in the UK and the translator is Evangelos Sachperoglou. It contains the Greek as well as the English text. Charles.

[BCD6969]

you have such a sexy voice.

[Theotokos86]

Yes, I agree. Even from your translation, it seems to me sensual, but I am not expert. That is not to say it as sensual as some have made it out to be, and you may be more in the right. It reads much like a poem of the Romantics, short, bold and sensual it seems. Good job.

[megansspark]

Fascinating. Your thoughts alongside the verse make a good experience even better.

[palcsi]

Your commentaries and musings on the poems make the readings even more enjoyable. Thank you.

[tHEnOOSEsWINGS]

I have tried a number of internet sites for translations of Cavafy poem's-but the translations are different to each other and to your readings. My interpretation of the concepts in the last poem is one of raw energy being transposed upon one's body in any form it may take-reflections of the crystal of the chandelier and fire (flames).

[bafr1]

its is so great , that are reciting this , excellent