Читать книгу The Complete Poems of C.P. Cavafy - Daniel Mendelsohn, Daniel Mendelsohn - Страница 92

The poet Phernazes is working on

the crucial portion of his epic poem:

the part about how the kingdom of the Persians

was seized by Darius, son of Hystaspes. (Our

glorious king is descended from him:

Mithridates, Dionysus and Eupator.) But here

one needs philosophy; one must explicate

the feelings that Darius must have had:

arrogance and intoxication, perhaps; but no—more

like an awareness of the vanity of grandeur.

Profoundly, the poet ponders the matter.

But he’s interrupted by his servant, who comes

running and delivers the momentous intelligence:

The war with the Romans has begun.

Most of our army has crossed the border.

The poet stays, dumbfounded. What a disaster!

How, now, can our glorious king,

Mithradates, Dionysus and Eupator,

be bothered to pay attention to Greek poems?

In the middle of a war—imagine, Greek poems.

Phernazes frets. What bad luck is his!

Just when he was sure, with his “Darius,”

to make his name, and to reduce his critics,

those envious men, to silence at long last.

What a setback, what a setback for his plans!

And if it had only been a setback: fine.

But let’s see if we are really all that safe

in Amisus. It’s not a spectacularly well-fortified land.

The Romans are most fearsome enemies.

Is there any way we can get the best of them,

we Cappadocians? Could it ever happen?

Can we measure up to the legions now?

Great gods, protectors of Asia, help us.—

And yet in the midst of all his upset, and the disaster,

a poetic notion stubbornly comes and goes—

far more convincing, surely, are arrogance and intoxication;

arrogance and intoxication are what Darius would have felt.

[<1897?; 1917; 1920]