On Wed, 1 Sep 2010 06:06:45 -0700, Edmund wrote
(in article
<7fa5095c-053d-4f33-a5dc-c672707ff8e6@l20g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>):
> Hello, I heard about this group from a friend from another BL board
> and thought I'd check the group out via google and see what the
> atmosphere is like before committing to signing up the the whole
> Usenet package. Yeah i know that you can't see the pictures and
> whatever but that is not a concern for me right now :) I'm enjoying
> the stories of Stevie and the dioscussions that have been posted. I'm
> quite artistic and enjoy writing too so it's nice to see stories on
> here.
>
> Morpheus, you posted some: Cafavy: I love him but can't remember the
> poem title that you copied here. I know he is incredibly difficult to
> translate: I have the Aleki Barnstone and just wondered what you were
> using for cross reference.
>
> Anyway hi and let's see how it goes here. I'm too young to really
> understand usenet. I didn't even realise what it was until I read up
> on it and found that Google has a huge archive of posts.
As HMS Victor V., has said there are many web-sites for Cavafy and the
translations do differ quite a bit as you point out.
The title to this poem is: "Picture of a 23 Year-Old Painted by His Friend
of the Same Age, An Amateur"....which is a long title and I prefer to think
of a person younger than 23 when I consider the subject of the poem.
As for translations, I prefer Keeley.
The poem I posted is not one one of his translations.... and, to be honest, I
modified it a bit to be more like his version.
Here is the exact Keeley translation
"He finished the picture yesterday noon,
Now he looks at it detail by detail. He's painted him
wearing an unbuttoned gray jacket,
no vest, tieless, with a rose-colored
shirt, open, allowing a glimpse
of his beautiful chest and neck.
The right side of his forehead is almost covered
by his hair, his lovely hair
(done in the style he's recently adopted).
He's managed to capture perfectly the sensual note
he wanted when he did the eyes,
when he did the lips . . .
That mouth of his, those lips
so ready to satisfy a special kind of erotic pleasure."
This is from:
C. P. Cavafy : Collected Poems
Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard
Edited by George Savidis
Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ
1975, Revised Edition 1992
ISBN 0-691-06984-0
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