C. P. Cavafy's best-known lines (with the poem)
The top 3 according to 18 votes from people: And now, what will become of us without barbarians? / Those people were a kind of solution. · Now that you have wasted your life here, in this small corner, / you have destroyed it everywhere in the world. · For some people the day comes / when they have to declare the great Yes / or the great No.. (Updated Dec 16, 2023.)
"As you set out for Ithaka", "Waiting for the Barbarians", "The City" and "Thermopylae": the lines by Constantine P. Cavafy everyone knows, each with the poem it comes from.
Automatically translated (original in Ελληνικά). See the original
Top 14
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1
And now, what will become of us without barbarians? / Those people were a kind of solution.
Poem "Waiting for the Barbarians".
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2
Now that you have wasted your life here, in this small corner, / you have destroyed it everywhere in the world.
Poem "The City".
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3
For some people the day comes / when they have to declare the great Yes / or the great No.
Poem "Che fece… il gran rifiuto".
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4
The days gone by remain behind us, / a mournful line of snuffed-out candles.
Poem "Candles".
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5
And if you cannot shape your life the way you want, / at least try as much as you can / not to degrade it.
Poem "As Much As You Can".
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6
Honour to those who in their lives / have set out to guard Thermopylae.
Poem "Thermopylae".
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7
And tomorrow ends up no longer seeming like tomorrow.
Poem "Monotony".
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8
As one long prepared, and graced with courage, / … / go firmly to the window.
Poem "The God Abandons Antony".
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9
And what else is art but details?
Oral tradition, collected in his "Prose" (Fexis, 1963).
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10
And in art again, I rest from the labour of it.
Poem "Painted".
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11
As you set out for Ithaka / hope the voyage is a long one, / full of adventure, full of discovery.
Poem "Ithaka".
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12
Imperceptibly they have closed me off from the outside world.
Poem "Walls".
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13
Perhaps the light will be a new tyranny. / Who knows what new things it will show.
Poem "The Windows".
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14
The essential thing is that he burst with rage.
"In the Outskirts of Antioch", the last line Cavafy wrote.
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