Читать книгу The Complete Poems of C.P. Cavafy - Daniel Mendelsohn, Daniel Mendelsohn - Страница 15

The gods perceive what lies in the future, and mortals, what occurs in the present, but wise men apprehend what is imminent.

—PHILOSTRATUS, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, VIII, 7

Mortal men perceive things as they happen.

What lies in the future the gods perceive,

full and sole possessors of all enlightenment.

Of all the future holds, wise men apprehend

what is imminent. Their hearing,

sometimes, in moments of complete

absorption in their studies, is disturbed. The secret call

of events that are about to happen reaches them.

And they listen to it reverently. While in the street

outside, the people hear nothing at all.

[1896; 1899; <1915]