One Night
The room was cheap and sordid,
hidden above the suspect taverna.
From the window you could see the alley,
dirty and narrow. From below
came the voices of workmen
playing cards, enjoying themselves.
And there on that common, humble bed
I had love’s body, had those intoxicating lips,
red and sensual,
red lips of such intoxication
that now as I write, after so many years,
in my lonely house, I’m drunk with passion again.
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
Era pobre y sórdida la alcoba,
escondida encima de la equívoca taberna.
Desde la ventana se veía el callejón
sucio y estrecho. De abajo
subían las voces de unos obreros
que jugando a las cartas se divertían.
Y allí, en una cama mísera y vulgar
poseí el cuerpo del amor, poseí los labios
sensuales y sonrosados por la embriaguez;
sonrosados de tanta embriaguez que incluso ahora,
cuando escribo, después de tantos años,
en mi casa solitaria, vuelvo a embriagarme.
Cavafis, C. (2023). Ciento cincuenta y cuatro poemas (P. Bádenas de la Peña, traducción e introducción). UMA Editorial.
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