Waiting for the Barbarians
by Constantine P. Cavafy
An attempt at translation.
The only English translation I could find is by Edmund Keeley, and for
some reason it ignores the Medieval 15-syllable "political verse"/folk song meter of the call and the Early Modern 12-syllable meter of the response. In fact, it ignores meter altogether, so far as I can tell:
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.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
I don't care for Keeley's translation, so I wrote my own,
using his version, Google translate, and a few Russian versions, all
of which are perverse in their own ways.
Cavafy, aka. Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis used 15 syllables for call and 12 for response. I kept it to 13 syllables for call and 12 for response.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
Today the city falls to the Barbarians.
-The clerks and lawmakers sit idle in the Senate
Why aren't the Senators at work on legislation?
Because the city falls to the Barbarians
What point and purpose is there now to ordinance?
Barbarians bring their own barbaric law codes.
-Why did our Emperor arise at dawn this morning?
Why sits he by the main gate of the city,
Enthroned, becrowned, as for a state occasion?
Because the city falls to the Barbarians.
The emperor expects to meet their leader.
He has prepared for him a solemn offering:
A scroll with decorous names and stately titles.
-Why are our praetors here? And why the consuls?
All dressed so fancy, in embroidered scarlet togas,
Their arms adorned with rings and costly bracelets
Festooned with amethysts and emeralds galore?
They lean on staves ornate with gold and silver -
What is the point of this flamboyant opulence?
Because the city falls to the Barbarians,
And such extravagances charm and dazzle them.
-Why don’t we see our many honored orators
Come forth to make their best long-winded speeches?
Because the city falls to the Barbarians,
And the Barbarians are bored by rhetoric.
-Why is the crowd becoming lost and restless,
Their faces growing grimmer by the minute?
The streets and squares now stand completely empty,
As everyone departs for home in worry?
Because they haven't shown, and night is falling.
And runners have arrived from distant borders,
With dreadful news: there are no more Barbarians.
What will become of us, if there are no Barbarians?
They were, if nothing else, a sort of answer.