What standing pool is there, what flowing river,
That doesn't know what Roman blood tastes like?
Where is it where the foam of breaking waves
Doesn't leave the stain of Roman blood in the sand?
My wandering Muse, find us a hiding-place
From such a story and from such a music,
Some grotto or some cavern Venus-blessed,
Where I can playa lighter tune than this.
Translated from the Latin
by
David Ferry
GEORGE KALOGERIS
Cavafy
Was it on rue Lepsius, not far from the Gate
of the Moon, you lived downstairs from a whorehouse
and heard the procession climbing the steps as night
descended and young men began to carouse
Alexandria's seedy outskirts, where you turned sixty;
a part-time clerk engrossed in Apollonius
and Plutarch, you swore gods passed through the hallway -
though none paid you a visit. Vague passages,
and yet such loud commotion on the stairs
could start the traffic passing overhead,
that vulgar singing troupe, so many figures
rising and descending the more you read
you weren't sure if the drunken, laughing youth
outside your door was real, imagined - or both.
