Читать книгу The Complete Poems of C.P. Cavafy - Daniel Mendelsohn, Daniel Mendelsohn - Страница 28

The Seleucid Demetrius was displeased

to learn that a Ptolemy had arrived

in Italy in such a sorry state.

With only three or four slaves;

dressed like a pauper, and on foot. This is why

their name would soon be bandied as a joke,

an object of fun in Rome. That they have, at bottom,

become the servants of the Romans, in a way,

the Seleucid knows; and that those people give

and take away their thrones

arbitrarily, however they like, he knows.

But nonetheless at least in their appearance

they should maintain a certain magnificence;

shouldn’t forget that they are still kings,

that they are still (alas!) called kings.

This is why Demetrius the Seleucid was annoyed,

and straightaway he offered Ptolemy

robes all of purple, a gleaming diadem,

exceedingly costly jewels, and numerous

servants and a retinue, his most expensive mounts,

that he should appear in Rome as was befitting,

like an Alexandrian Greek monarch.

But the Lagid, who had come a mendicant,

knew his business and refused it all;

he ­didn’t need these luxuries at all.

Dressed in worn old clothes, he humbly entered Rome,

and found lodgings with a minor craftsman.

And then he presented himself to the Senate

as an ill-fortuned and impoverished man,

that with greater success he might beg.

[1910; 1916]