With no consideration, no pity, no shame, they have built walls around me, thick and high. And now I sit here feeling hopeless. I can’t think of anything else: this fate gnaws my mind— because I had so much to do outside. When they were building the walls, how could I not have noticed! But I never heard the builders, not a sound. Imperceptibly they have closed me off from the outside world.
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
Sin miramiento, sin piedad, sin pudor
grandes y altas murallas en torno mío levantaron.
Y ahora estoy aquí sin esperanza.
No pienso en otra cosa: este destino devora mi razón;
porque fuera, mucho tenía yo que hacer.
¿Por qué, ay, no reparé cuando levantaban la muralla?
Mas nunca oí el ruido ni la voz de sus autores.
Sin sentirlo, fuera del mundo me cercaron.
Cavafis, C. (2023). Ciento cincuenta y cuatro poemas (P. Bádenas de la Peña, traducción e introducción). UMA Editorial.
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