Читать книгу The Complete Poems of C.P. Cavafy - Daniel Mendelsohn, Daniel Mendelsohn - Страница 93

She laments in the prologue to her Alexiad,

Anna Comnena laments her widowhood.

Her soul is in muzzy whirl. “And with

freshets of tears,” she tells us, “I deluge

mine eyes. … Alack the breakers” of her life,

“alack for the upheavals.” Anguish burns her

“unto the very bones and marrow and rending of my soul.”

Nonetheless the truth seems to be that she knew one

mortal grief alone, that power-loving woman:

that she had only one profound regret

(even if she won’t acknowledge it), that supercilious Greekling:

for all of her dexterity she ­didn’t manage

to secure the Throne; instead he took it

practically right out of her hands, that upstart John.

[1917; 1920]