In Despair (audio only)
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In part to verify a date, and in part just to pass the time, last night I picked up a volume of Ptolemaic inscriptions and began reading. Those endless poems of praise and flattery all sound the same.
2008
translated from the modern Greek by John Cavafy
Without reflection, without mercy, without shame,
they built strong walls and high, and compassed me about.
And here I sit now and consider and despair.
It wears away my heart and brain, this evil fate:
I had outside so many things to terminate.
1927
Half past twelve. The time has quickly passed since nine o’clock when I first turned up the lamp and sat down here. I’ve been sitting without reading, without speaking.
2009