Waiting for the Barbarians

[axmxz]

by Constantine P. Cavafy

An attempt at translation.

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

I definitely prefer your version of the translation!

[axmxz]

I feel like there's something I'm not getting with Keeley? Like, the man was a Hellenist. It took me maybe an hour to write this. What stopped him?

[hamsterwoman]

Yeah, IDK... it's got to be a Choice to dispense with meter, but I'm not sure why it would be seen as a GOOD choice? Maybe just a general belief that since translation cannot fully duplicate the poetic structure of the original, one might as well not even try and just go for the closest podstrochnik and not worry about the rest? I feel like at that point you might as well just not call the translation poetry at all, but English is generally looser at what it calls poetry than I am anyway :P

(Wikipedia has links to some other translations ostensibly, which I was curious to check out, but they're all dead links, boo...)

[axmxz]

Yeah, I wasn't able to find any of the others they listed!

[westernbourg]

Why will they come? And what is the Emperor thinking about?

[axmxz]

They won't. As for the Emperor's thoughts - I would guess he was miffed at being stood up.

[westernbourg]

The emperor thinks - that means he exists (Imperors folk saying).