Читать книгу The Complete Poems of C.P. Cavafy - Daniel Mendelsohn, Daniel Mendelsohn - Страница 34

As you will have heard, I’m no beginner.

Lots of stone has passed between my hands.

And in Tyana, my native land,

they know me well. And here the senators

commission many statues.

Let me show

a few to you right now. Notice this Rhea;

august, all fortitude, quite archaic.

Notice the Pompey. The Marius,

the Aemilius Paullus, and the African Scipio.

The likenesses, as much as I was able, are true.

The Patroclus (I’ll touch him up soon).

Near those pieces of yellowish

marble there, that’s Caesarion.

And for some time now I’ve been involved

in making a Poseidon. Most of all

I’m studying his horses: how to mold them.

They must be rendered so delicately that

it will be clear from their bodies, their feet,

that they aren’t treading earth, but racing on water.

But this work here is my favorite of all,

which I made with the greatest care and deep feeling:

him, one warm day in summer

when my thoughts were ascending to ideal things,

him I stood dreaming here, the young Hermes.

[1893; 1903; 1911]