The Complete Poems of C.P. Cavafy. Daniel Mendelsohn

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      Of Demetrius Soter (162–150 B.C.)

      His every expectation turned out wrong!

      He used to imagine that he’d do celebrated deeds,

      would end the shame that since the time of the Battle

      of Magnesia had ground his homeland down.

      That Syria again would be a mighty power,

      with her armies, with her fleets,

      with her great encampments, with her wealth.

      He endured it, grew embittered in Rome

      when he sensed, in the conversation of his friends,

      the scions of the great houses,

      in the midst of all the delicacy and politesse

      that they showed toward him, toward the son

      of King Seleucus Philopator—

      when he sensed that nonetheless there was always a hidden

      disdain for the dynasties of the Greek East:

      which were in decline, not up to serious affairs,

      quite unfit for the leadership of peoples.

      He’d withdraw, alone, and grow indignant, and swear

      that it wouldn’t be the way they thought, at all.

      Look, he has the will:

      would struggle, would do it, would rise up.

      If only he could find a way to reach the East,

      manage to get away from Italy—

      and all of this power that he has

      in his soul, all this vehemence,

      he’d spread it to the people.

      Ah, if only he could be in Syria!

      He was so little when he left his homeland

      that he only dimly remembers what it looks like.

      But in his thoughts he’s always studied it

      like something sacred you approach on bended knee,

      like an apparition of a beautiful place, like a vision

      of cities and of harbors that are Greek.—

      And now?

      Now, hopelessness and dejection.

      They were right, those lads in Rome.

      It’s not possible for them to survive, the dynasties

      that the Macedonian Conquest had produced.

      No matter: he himself had spared no effort;

      as much as he was able, he’d struggled on.

      Even in his black discouragement,

      there’s one thing that still he contemplates

      with lofty pride: that even in defeat

      he shows the same indomitable valor to the world.

      The rest—was dreams and vain futility.

      This Syria—it barely even resembles his homeland;

      it is the land of Heracleides and of Balas.

      [1915; 1919]