Cavafy:16.Waiting for Barbarians

This is probably one of a handful of poems that people think of when they hear the name Cavafy. I hope I have done it justice. I must repeat my warning that I do not translate his poems, but paraphrase them. So it will be of no use as a crib! Although I hope I have transferred the full flavour of the original Greek in my English version.

16. WAITING FOR BARBARIANS

'Why are we all waiting in the forum?'

'It's said the savage hordes will come today
thundering wildly into the city
on their diminutive fiery ponies
looting and raping girls, boys and women.'

'Why don't the senate act?
Why sit dumbly in the silent House
awaiting the inevitable?'

'Because the barbarian horsemen are coming.
What is there for our useless senate to do?
When the vandals arrive they'll take everything over -
everything that's left after the looting.'

'Why did the emperor rise so early
put on his crown
and sit on his gilded throne
inside the city gate?'

'The Destroyers will soon be here.
The emperor wishes to receive them courteously
with an elaborate parchment to hand their warlord
granting him the most grandiloquent titles.'

'Why are these solemn civic dignitaries
unbecomingly shuffling about the forum
in their most costly raiment,
bracelets studded with amethysts
and rings that flash with emeralds?
Why do they carry slender staffs of office
elaborately worked with gold and silver?'

'Because your scruffy rough barbarian
is much impressed by dazzling baubles.'

'Why do not our plausible rhetoricians
join us? They could make impressive speeches.'

'Those grunting savages are like animals
and will not endure their windy lectures.'

'What's happening now?
Everyone looks troubled,
face staring into face, awaiting a signal.
There's movement in the crowd.
The square is emptying.
People seem to be going home.
What a disappointing anticlimax!'

'It's getting dark. Nothing has occured,
no barbarians, no raping and no looting.
There's a rumour going round
that it was all a hoax, a stupid misunderstanding,
a piece of old wives' gossip
and tittle-tattle exaggeration.
One even said the vandals no longer exist,
the savage hordes were years ago disbanded.'

'Without them, this was all purposeless.
The day's excitement has evaporated.
What a let-down now they are not coming!
A chill wind is blowing through the forum
off the empty plain.'