C.P. Cavafy’s “Waiting for the Barbarians”
January 18th, 2007Save as PDF
The Greek poet C. P. Cavafy is perhaps best-known in America for his "Ithaka," which was read at the funeral service for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. I have also heard it read at weddings and commencements and it always seems to work. Life is a journey after all.
"Waiting for the Barbarians" also resonates today. I’ve read it many times but when I came across it a few days ago, it seemed more relevant than ever. As for who the barbarians are, take your pick.
Waiting for the Barbarians
C. P Cavafy
Translated from the Greek by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard
What are we waiting for, packed in the forum?
The barbarians are due here today.
Why isn’t anything going on in the senate?
Why have the senators given up legislating?
Because the barbarians are coming today.
What’s the point of senators and their laws now?
When the barbarians get here, they’ll do the legislating.
Why did our emperor set out so early
to sit on his throne at the city’s main gate,
in state, wearing the crown?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor’s waiting to receive their leader.
He’s even got a citation to give him,
loaded with titles and imposing names.
Why have our two consuls and praetors shown up today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
rings sparkling with all those emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
so beautifully worked in silver and gold?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle barbarians.
And why don’t our distinguished orators push forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking.
Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?
(How serious everyone looks.)
Why are the streets and squares rapidly emptying,
everyone going home so lost in thought?
Because it’s night and the barbarians haven’t come.
And some people just in from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.
Now what’s going to happen to us without them?
The barbarians were a kind of solution.
