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

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       Byzantine Noble, in Exile, Versifying

      Let the dilettantes call me dilettante.

      In serious matters I have always been

      most diligent. And on this I will insist:

      that no one has a better knowledge of

      Church Fathers or Scripture, or the Synodical Canons.

      On every question that he had, Botaniates—

      every difficult ecclesiastical matter—

      would take counsel with me, me first of all.

      But since I’ve been exiled here (curse that spiteful

      Irene Ducas) and am frightfully bored,

      it’s not at all unseemly if I divert myself

      by crafting verses of six or seven lines—

      divert myself with mythological tales

      of Hermes, and Apollo, and Dionysus,

      or the heroes of Thessaly and the Peloponnese;

      or with composing strict iambic lines

      such as—if I do say so—the litterateurs

      of Constantinople don’t know how to write.

      That strictness, most likely, is the reason for their censure.

      [1921; 1920]