Fourteen Poems by C. P. Cavafy
are collected in a pamphlet and privately printed for distribution to friends in 1904.
Some things mean much more to you later.
Rocco e i suoi fratelli. 1960. Alain Delon and Renato Salvatori, directed by Luchino Visconti.*
Before Time Altered Them
They were full of sadness at their parting.
They hadn't wanted it: circumstances made it necessary.
The need to earn a living forced one of them
to go far away -- New York or Canada.
The love they felt wasn't, of course, what it once had been;
the attraction between them had gradually diminished,
the attraction had diminished a great deal.
But to be separated, that wasn't what they wanted.
It was circumstances. Or perhaps Fate
appeared as an artist and decided to part them now,
before their feeling died out completely, before Time altered them
the one seeming to remain for the other always what he was,
the good-looking young man of twenty-four.
Constantine P. Cavafy (1863-1933) wrote arguably his most important poetry after his fortieth birthday. Close to one third of his poerms were never printed in any form while he lived. He never published a collection in book form and refused at least two such offers (one for a Greek and one for an English edition), opting to have his poems printed in newspapers or periodicals or issued privately in broadsheets, which he would then collate in makeshift collections for friends.
I am indebted to JC for suggesting this particular selection.
Click here for The Virginia Quarterly Review winter 2004 issue which includes an alternative Cavafy poem, appropriately titled, "January 1904."
*Those of you who know (or possibly care) may register a kind of dissonance with the image I've chosen above as it relates to the poem, or not. If you do wonder what I was thinking, then all I can tell you is I wish I knew, having selected it with a kind of gut intuition that wanes in confidence even as I type.
Those of you who know Cavafy's poetry know I'm sure that there are several illustrated editions of his work by such artists as David Hockney and the photographer Duane Michals. I mean, there is some precedence here.
If I had found a Duane Michals image on-line I might have used it. MN suggested some well-cropped antigue statuary, which in fact I've already found for another selection, for another time. But somehow the Visconti frame above works for me. Speaks to me? Perhaps because the film "Rocco and His Brothers" had such an obvious and profound influence on photographers like Bruce Weber and Herb Ritts, and their work certainly shaped the way I look at beauty in the world, and because Cavafy is talking about beauty here -- the memory of beauty, the kind that doesn't age... but also because, to me, the film speaks to a tension that always exists between men, a tension that has to do with desire. The tension in the film, of course, has to do with something else (a woman), a conflict between brothers, but ...
Or maybe it's knowing that Rocco, like Cavafy, had lots of brothers (Cavafy was the youngest of seven; there was the one brother known as "the homosexual Cavafy" and John-Constantine who wrote poetry in English and was known as "the poet Cavafy" and then Constantine himself, and here's the official Cavafy website), and maybe it's something else. Maybe it's wanting to make a connection that doesn't exist. Maybe the image works if you don't know anything about the story of the film. Or about the poet. Maybe the meaning is a secret in me that doesn't need to be explained.
You decide.
If you understand what I'm trying to say, thank you. If not, I guess nevermind. And if you think it might have something to do with a beautiful Greek or an Italian or even a French twenty-four-year old, then you know me far too well to say anything at all.
Need I also add that I am a devotee of W.H. Auden and Lawrence Durrell? Maybe not. Trust me, though: it is not necessary to get all the references here. As I told my friend, Gil, "even I don't get all the references, and I'm the one writing this."
But I do remember how I felt once, not wanting to part from someone even when the attraction had gone. And when he was gone, what it was like afterward, holding onto the memory of someone who would always be beautiful and twenty-four.
Some things mean much more to you later.
Rocco e i suoi fratelli. 1960. Alain Delon and Renato Salvatori, directed by Luchino Visconti.*Before Time Altered Them
They were full of sadness at their parting.
They hadn't wanted it: circumstances made it necessary.
The need to earn a living forced one of them
to go far away -- New York or Canada.
The love they felt wasn't, of course, what it once had been;
the attraction between them had gradually diminished,
the attraction had diminished a great deal.
But to be separated, that wasn't what they wanted.
It was circumstances. Or perhaps Fate
appeared as an artist and decided to part them now,
before their feeling died out completely, before Time altered them
the one seeming to remain for the other always what he was,
the good-looking young man of twenty-four.
Constantine P. Cavafy (1863-1933) wrote arguably his most important poetry after his fortieth birthday. Close to one third of his poerms were never printed in any form while he lived. He never published a collection in book form and refused at least two such offers (one for a Greek and one for an English edition), opting to have his poems printed in newspapers or periodicals or issued privately in broadsheets, which he would then collate in makeshift collections for friends.
I am indebted to JC for suggesting this particular selection.
Click here for The Virginia Quarterly Review winter 2004 issue which includes an alternative Cavafy poem, appropriately titled, "January 1904."
*Those of you who know (or possibly care) may register a kind of dissonance with the image I've chosen above as it relates to the poem, or not. If you do wonder what I was thinking, then all I can tell you is I wish I knew, having selected it with a kind of gut intuition that wanes in confidence even as I type.
Those of you who know Cavafy's poetry know I'm sure that there are several illustrated editions of his work by such artists as David Hockney and the photographer Duane Michals. I mean, there is some precedence here.
If I had found a Duane Michals image on-line I might have used it. MN suggested some well-cropped antigue statuary, which in fact I've already found for another selection, for another time. But somehow the Visconti frame above works for me. Speaks to me? Perhaps because the film "Rocco and His Brothers" had such an obvious and profound influence on photographers like Bruce Weber and Herb Ritts, and their work certainly shaped the way I look at beauty in the world, and because Cavafy is talking about beauty here -- the memory of beauty, the kind that doesn't age... but also because, to me, the film speaks to a tension that always exists between men, a tension that has to do with desire. The tension in the film, of course, has to do with something else (a woman), a conflict between brothers, but ...
Or maybe it's knowing that Rocco, like Cavafy, had lots of brothers (Cavafy was the youngest of seven; there was the one brother known as "the homosexual Cavafy" and John-Constantine who wrote poetry in English and was known as "the poet Cavafy" and then Constantine himself, and here's the official Cavafy website), and maybe it's something else. Maybe it's wanting to make a connection that doesn't exist. Maybe the image works if you don't know anything about the story of the film. Or about the poet. Maybe the meaning is a secret in me that doesn't need to be explained.
You decide.
If you understand what I'm trying to say, thank you. If not, I guess nevermind. And if you think it might have something to do with a beautiful Greek or an Italian or even a French twenty-four-year old, then you know me far too well to say anything at all.
Need I also add that I am a devotee of W.H. Auden and Lawrence Durrell? Maybe not. Trust me, though: it is not necessary to get all the references here. As I told my friend, Gil, "even I don't get all the references, and I'm the one writing this."
But I do remember how I felt once, not wanting to part from someone even when the attraction had gone. And when he was gone, what it was like afterward, holding onto the memory of someone who would always be beautiful and twenty-four.
Perfect.
Like I said.
Trust your own instincts.
The image and the poem are beautifully matched. But when I see men so shy of themselves, I shake my fists at the perversity of nature - and I think that it is nature, not society - for withholding real freedom from men until they are too old to luxuriate in it.