Body, remember not only how much you were loved,
not only the beds on which you lay,
but also those desires for you
that glowed plainly in the eyes,
and trembled in the voice—and some
chance obstacle made futile.
Now that all of them belong to the past,
it almost seems as if you had yielded
to those desires—how they glowed,
remember, in the eyes gazing at you;
how they trembled in the voice, for you, remember, body.
– C. P. Cavafy
Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard
Postscript:
Love, beauty and remembrance.
We’ve run another poem by Cavafy, Ithaka, here.
You can read about Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis here and here. This is a longer article about his work and his life in the New York Review of Books.
You can see this translation, and links to other translations at the Cavafy Archive.
Tagged: C.P. Cavafy, desire, Edmund Keeley, Greek, love poetry, memory, Philip Sherrard, translation