The Lanis you loved, Markos, isn’t here in this tomb you come to weep by, lingering hours on end. The Lanis you loved is closer to you when you’re in your room at home and you look at his portrait— the portrait that still keeps something of what was valuable in him, something of what it was you used to love. Remember, Markos, that time you brought in the famous Kyrenian painter from the Proconsul’s palace? What artistic subtlety he used trying to persuade you both, the minute he saw your friend, that he absolutely must do him as Hyacinth. In that way his portrait would come to be better known. But your Lanis didn’t hire out his beauty like that: reacting strongly, he told him to portray neither Hyacinth nor anyone else, but Lanis, son of Rametichos, an Alexandrian.
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