Here I’m not the Kleon famous in Alexandria (where they’re not easily dazzled) for my marvelous houses, my gardens, for my horses and chariots, for the jewels and silks I wore. Far from it—here I’m not that Kleon: his twenty-eight years are to be wiped out. I’m Ignatios, lector, who came to his senses very late; but even so, in that way I lived ten happy months in the peace, the security of Christ.
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