Tag: Cavafy

I could have trespassed. Cavafy’s house was temporarily closed for refurbishment, but the workers were away for their noontime break, and someone left the front door ajar. Too bad I wasn’t well-versed in Egypt’s laws on property transgression and had to decide against the risk of spending time inside an Egyptian jail.

I do, however, admit to these things: Sticking my head in and taking a peek through the marble staircase, and summoning Sean Connery’s reading of Cavafy’s Ithaka in my head as I walked down the street where the poet lived…

“As you set out for Ithaka / hope your road is a long one / full of adventure, full of discovery. / Laistrygonians, Cyclops, / angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them / you’ll never find things like that on your way / as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, / as long as a rare excitement / stirs your spirit and your body. / Laistrygonians, Cyclops, / wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them / unless you bring them along inside your soul, / unless your soul sets them up in front of you…”

Unless you bring them along inside your soul. One of my favorite lines from this favorite poem. Almost everyone who learned of my upcoming trip immediately expressed concern about the dangers of a woman traveling solo to Egypt. What I carried in my soul was my mom’s prayers, and I left no room for angry Poseidon, Cyclops, Laistrygonians, and Fear. And true enough, I encountered none of them.

And I hoped for my road to be a long one, with many summer mornings when, with what pleasure, what joy, I entered harbors I was seeing for the first time! And I visited many Egyptian cities to learn, and to go on learning…

I keep Ithaka always in my mind. Arriving there is what I’m destined for. I do not hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years, so I’m old by the time I reach the island, wealthy with all I’ve gained on the way, not expecting Ithaka to make me rich… And if I find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled me. Wise as I will have become, so full of experience, I’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.