Ithaka
\nBY C. P. CAVAFY
\nTRANSLATED BY EDMUND KEELEY<\/p>\n
As you set out for Ithaka
\nhope your road is a long one,
\nfull of adventure, full of discovery.
\nLaistrygonians, Cyclops,
\nangry Poseidon\u2014don\u2019t be afraid of them:
\nyou\u2019ll never find things like that on your way
\nas long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
\nas long as a rare excitement
\nstirs your spirit and your body.
\nLaistrygonians, Cyclops,
\nwild Poseidon\u2014you won\u2019t encounter them
\nunless you bring them along inside your soul,
\nunless your soul sets them up in front of you.<\/p>\n
Hope your road is a long one.
\nMay there be many summer mornings when,
\nwith what pleasure, what joy,
\nyou enter harbors you\u2019re seeing for the first time;
\nmay you stop at Phoenician trading stations
\nto buy fine things,
\nmother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
\nsensual perfume of every kind\u2014
\nas many sensual perfumes as you can;
\nand may you visit many Egyptian cities
\nto learn and go on learning from their scholars.<\/p>\n
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
\nArriving there is what you\u2019re destined for.
\nBut don\u2019t hurry the journey at all.
\nBetter if it lasts for years,
\nso you\u2019re old by the time you reach the island,
\nwealthy with all you\u2019ve gained on the way,
\nnot expecting Ithaka to make you rich.<\/p>\n
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
\nWithout her you wouldn’t have set out.
\nShe has nothing left to give you now.<\/p>\n
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won\u2019t have fooled you.
\nWise as you will have become, so full of experience,
\nyou\u2019ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.<\/p>\n
——<\/p>\n
C. P. Cavafy, “The City” from C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Translation Copyright \u00a9 1975, 1992 by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Reproduced with permission of Princeton University Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ithaka BY C. P. CAVAFY TRANSLATED BY EDMUND KEELEY As you set out for Ithaka hope your road is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery. Laistrygonians, Cyclops, angry Poseidon\u2014don\u2019t be afraid of them: you\u2019ll never find things like that on your way as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":388,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions\/388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottbevill.net\/HVA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}