Make sure the engraving is done skillfully. The expression serious, majestic. The diadem preferably somewhat narrow: I don’t like that broad kind the Parthians wear. The inscription, as usual, in Greek: nothing excessive, nothing pompous— we don’t want the proconsul to take it the wrong way: he’s always nosing things out and reporting back to Rome— but of course giving me due honor. Something very special on the other side: some discus-thrower, young, good-looking. Above all I urge you to see to it (Sithaspis, for God’s sake don’t let them forget) that after “King” and “Savior,” they engrave “Philhellene” in elegant characters. Now don’t try to be clever with your “where are the Greeks?” and “what things Greek here behind Zagros, out beyond Phraata?” Since so many others more barbarian than ourselves choose to inscribe it, we will inscribe it too. And besides, don’t forget that sometimes sophists do come to us from Syria, and versifiers, and other triflers of that kind. So we are not, I think, un-Greek.
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.
The Canon