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Shilpa KarhikWaiting For The Barbarians by Constantine P. Cavafy
May 2nd 2008 04:45
Waiting For The Barbarians
by Constantine P. Cavafy
What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
The barbarians are due here today.
Why isn't anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?
Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.
Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city's main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.
Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.
Why don't our distinguished orators come 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 restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?
Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.
And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.
Review in Poem by Dexter.
War mongers, pacifists and the self involved,
We are all governed by the warriors whim.
The military enemy, the spiritual opposition,
The daunting challenge is a savage test.
Fear them for they are uncivilized and undemocratic,
Hate them because they will take your freedom.
Invasion of the mind, socio-geographic conquests,
A perception of leadership, of controlled calamity.
Fought inside big buildings full of disjointed bureaucrats,
Battles of words and papers, these are peaceful negotiations.
Wailing and yelling, bickering and heckling,
It has all ways been folly in the forum.
by Constantine P. Cavafy
Constantine P. Cavafy (1863 - 1933)
What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
The barbarians are due here today.
Why isn't anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?
Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.
Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city's main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.
Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.
Why don't our distinguished orators come 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 restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?
Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.
And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.
Review in Poem by Dexter.
War mongers, pacifists and the self involved,
We are all governed by the warriors whim.
The military enemy, the spiritual opposition,
The daunting challenge is a savage test.
Fear them for they are uncivilized and undemocratic,
Hate them because they will take your freedom.
Invasion of the mind, socio-geographic conquests,
A perception of leadership, of controlled calamity.
Fought inside big buildings full of disjointed bureaucrats,
Battles of words and papers, these are peaceful negotiations.
Wailing and yelling, bickering and heckling,
It has all ways been folly in the forum.
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