Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933)

This is the second of Cavafy’s poems on the Podcast. Like the first it plays off a classical story. In this case it takes an incident from Plutarch’s life of Anthony, and shifts from the particular historical event, when Anthony is supposed to have heard his patron God, DIonysus leaving the city, to a more universal poem about loss and defeat. How should you behave when faced with failure?

The poem offers advice to an unnamed protagonist.

Leonard Cohen used this poem as a starting point for his song Alexandra Leaving, turning Alexandria the city into a human Alexandra and turning the general defeat into a romantic one.

This is taken from ‘C. P. Cavafy Collected Poems, revised edition’, trans Keeley and Sherrard, edited by George Savidis (Princeton University Press)