Читать книгу The Complete Poems of C.P. Cavafy - Daniel Mendelsohn, Daniel Mendelsohn - Страница 63

The Lanes whom you loved is not here, Marcus,

in the tomb where you come to cry, and stay for hours and hours.

The Lanes whom you loved you have much closer to you,

at home, when you shut yourself in and look at his picture:

it preserves some part of what was precious in him,

it preserves some part of what you’d loved.

Remember, Marcus, how you brought the famed

Cyrenian painter back from the proconsul’s palace,

and with what artful cunning he attempted

to persuade you both, no sooner had he seen your friend,

that he simply had to do him as Hyacinth

(which would make his portrait so much better known).

But your Lanes ­didn’t loan out his beauty like that;

and objecting firmly he told him to represent

neither Hyacinth nor anyone else,

but Lanes, son of Rhametichos, an Alexandrian.

[1916; 1918]