Constantine P. Cavafy, "Hidden" [trans. Daniel Mendelsohn]
HIDDEN
From all I did and from all I said
they shouldn’t try to find out who I was,
An obstacle was there and it distorted
my actions and the way I lived my life.
An obstacle was there and it stopped me
on many occasions when I was going to speak.
The most unnoticed of my actions
and the most covert of all my writings:
from these alone will they come to know me.
But perhaps it’s not worth squandering
so much care and trouble on puzzling me out.
Afterwards-in some more perfect society-
someone else who’s fashioned like me
will surely appear and be free to do as he pleases.
CONSTANTINE P. CAVAFY (1908)
From the unpublished poems
Translated by Daniel Mendelsohn
An excerpt from Cavafy's "Notes on Poetics and Ethics" (found in Daniel Mendelsohn's translation of the poems):
The wretched laws of society--the result of neither sanitary or critical judgement--have belittled my work. They have stifled my expression; they have prevented me from shedding light and emotion to those who are fashioned like me. Life's harsh circumstances have forced me to toil in order to master the English language. What a pity. If I toiled equally in French--if circumstances had permitted it, if French was equally useful to me--then perhaps in this language--because of the facility provided by pronouns, which both declare and obscure--I could express myself more freely. Finally, what am I to do? I go to waste, aesthetically speaking. And I will remain an object of speculation; and I will be understood more fully by what I have spurned.
This entry was originally posted at http://the-grynne.dreamwidth.org/968829.html and has
comments.
From all I did and from all I said
they shouldn’t try to find out who I was,
An obstacle was there and it distorted
my actions and the way I lived my life.
An obstacle was there and it stopped me
on many occasions when I was going to speak.
The most unnoticed of my actions
and the most covert of all my writings:
from these alone will they come to know me.
But perhaps it’s not worth squandering
so much care and trouble on puzzling me out.
Afterwards-in some more perfect society-
someone else who’s fashioned like me
will surely appear and be free to do as he pleases.
CONSTANTINE P. CAVAFY (1908)
From the unpublished poems
Translated by Daniel Mendelsohn
An excerpt from Cavafy's "Notes on Poetics and Ethics" (found in Daniel Mendelsohn's translation of the poems):
The wretched laws of society--the result of neither sanitary or critical judgement--have belittled my work. They have stifled my expression; they have prevented me from shedding light and emotion to those who are fashioned like me. Life's harsh circumstances have forced me to toil in order to master the English language. What a pity. If I toiled equally in French--if circumstances had permitted it, if French was equally useful to me--then perhaps in this language--because of the facility provided by pronouns, which both declare and obscure--I could express myself more freely. Finally, what am I to do? I go to waste, aesthetically speaking. And I will remain an object of speculation; and I will be understood more fully by what I have spurned.
This entry was originally posted at http://the-grynne.dreamwidth.org/968829.html and has
comments.