by C. P. Cavafy
Translated by Edmund Keeley


Waiting for the Barbarians


What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.

Why isn't anything going on in the senate?
Why are the senators sitting there without legislating?

Because the barbarians are coming today.
What's the point of senators making laws now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.

Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting enthroned at the city's main gate,
in state, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor's waiting to receive their leader.
He's even got a scroll to give him,
loaded with titles, with imposing names.

Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.

Why don't our distinguished orators turn up as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven't come.
And some of our men just in from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.

Now what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.



"Constantine P. Cavafy, also known as Konstantin or Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis, or Kavaphes (Greek Κωνσταντίνος Π. Καβάφης) (April 29, 1863–April 29,1933) was one of the most renowned modern Greek poets. He lived in Alexandria and worked as a journalist and civil servant. In his poetry he examines critically some aspects of Christianity, patriotism, and homosexuality, though he was not always comfortable with his role as a nonconformist. He published 154 poems; dozens more remained incomplete or in sketch form. His most important poetry was written after his fortieth birthday."

Internet source: Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_P._Cavafy




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Written on 2009-03-13 at 16:52

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Eva
I am a Greek student and I've been taught this poem 1 year ago.It's always admirable to see Greek poets on poetbay.com,thank you for that.this poem is pretty much a symbolic one, one of the most clever he has ever written.
2009-03-14



One of my all-time favorite poets. His poem "Ithaca" gives me goosebumps every time I read it. I hear it was a favorite of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. His poems (at least in translation) are extremely readable and (as Auden points out) he uses very little imagery; yet many of his poems require multiple readings. He wrote a lot of history-themed poems, such as "Waiting for the Barbarians" and others, like Ithaca, that were intimate and personal. It does seem as if the "Barbarians" (or some other kind of imagined or real disaster) abandon us, we're not quite sure what to do.
2009-03-13