You said, I will go to another world; I will go to another shore.
There will be found a city better than this one.
My every effort is recorded as a damnation
And my heart like a corpse interred.
So long will my mind remain withered.
Where I turn my eye, wherever I should gaze
Here I see black ruins of my days,
Where so many years I endured, Ι ravaged, I out-wore.
New places you will not see, you will not view other seas.
The city will follow you. Upon the same streets you’ll moulder
And in the same quarters you’ll grow older
And within these same houses your hair will go white-flecked.
Always you’ll be arriving in this city. As for elsewhere – do not expect –
There is no boat for you, no road is clear.
In this way, your life you blighted here
In this small corner, and in all the world, – you wrecked it by degrees.
Constantine Cavafy
Refer to: Sep 2020 – Return to the mothership
Translation from the Greek, of The City by Cavafy (1863-1933). An interesting article at https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/the-city-the-spirit-and-the-letter-on-translating-cavafy compares a number of translations. I read one of these at our session on ‘City’. My translation follows Cavafy’s rhyme scheme. The metre is as irregular as his appears to be.
I have just found out that one of the cities in which Cavafy lived was Liverpool, when he was a boy.