Unknown—a stranger in Antioch—the man from Edessa writes and writes. And at last, there, the final canto’s done. That makes eighty-three poems in all. But so much writing, so much versifying, the intense strain of phrasing in Greek, has worn the poet out, and now everything weighs down on him. But a thought suddenly brings him out of his dejection: the sublime “That’s the man” which Lucian once heard in his sleep.
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