At the Café Door
Something they said beside me
made me look toward the café door,
and I saw that lovely body which seemed
as though Eros in his mastery had fashioned it,
joyfully shaping its well-formed limbs,
molding its tall build,
shaping its face tenderly,
and leaving, with a touch of the fingers,
a particular nuance on the brow, the eyes, the lips.
Reprinted from C.P. CAVAFY: Collected Poems Revised Edition, translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard, edited by George Savidis. Translation copyright © 1975, 1992 by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Princeton University Press. For reuse of these translations, please contact Princeton University Press.
Translations in other languages
Algo que dijeron a mi lado atrajo
mi atención, a la entrada del café.
Vi entonces aquel hermoso cuerpo que parecía
haberlo Eros creado con extrema maestría,
modelando a placer la simetría de sus miembros;
irguiendo, escultural, su talle;
modelando con emoción el rostro,
infundiéndole con el tacto de sus manos
en la frente un sentimiento, en los ojos y en los labios.
Cavafis, C. (2023). Ciento cincuenta y cuatro poemas (P. Bádenas de la Peña, traducción e introducción). UMA Editorial.
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