I
So lui Cafavy se beroemde gedig in Engels:
The City
You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore,
find another city better than this one.
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong
and my heart lies buried like something dead.
How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?
Wherever I turn, wherever I look,
I see the black ruins of my life, here,
where I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.”
You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore.
This city will always pursue you.
You’ll walk the same streets, grow old
in the same neighborhoods, turn gray in these same houses.
You’ll always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere:
there’s no ship for you, there’s no road.
Now that you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you’ve destroyed it everywhere in the world.
Copyright Credit: C. P. Cavafy, “The City” from C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Translation Copyright © 1975, 1992 by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Reproduced with permission of Princeton University Press
Source: C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems (Princeton University Press, 1975)
‘n Gedig wat handel oor die onvermoë om te ontglip van jou self en herinneringe.
II
Hierdie pragvers word deur Lawrence Durrell herdig in sy roman Justine (1957).
Die digter bely:
I have tried to transplant rather than translate — with what success I cannot say.
The City
You tell yourself: I’ll be gone
To some other land, some other sea,
To a city lovelier far than this
Could ever have been or hoped to be —
Where every step now tightens the noose:
A heart in a body buried and out of use:
How long, how long must I be here
Confined among these dreary purlieus
Of the common mind? Wherever now I look
Black ruins of my life rise into view.
So many years have I been here
Spending and squandering, and nothing gained.
There’s no new land, my friend, no
New sea; for the city will follow you,
In the same streets you’ll wander endlessly,
The same mental suburbs slip from youth to age,
In the same house go white at last —
The city is a cage.
No other places, always this
Your earthly landfall, and no ship exists
To take you from yourself. Ah! don’t you see
Just as you’ve ruined your life in this
One plot of ground you’ve ruined its worth
Everywhere now — over the whole earth?
Waarom wonder hierdie leser die purlieus? In al my Engelse woordeboeke staan daar: “a tract on the border of a forest, especially one earlier included in it and still partly subject to forest laws.” Dalk ‘n samesnoering van lieu (plek) en puralee? Alles te make met grense trek …
In The Alexandria Quartet word die verbintenisse tussen inkommers en inwoners beskou – die mitologiese digter (met sy strooihoed) wat immer aanwesig bly.
En hier werk Durrell bepaald vir my:
Your earthly landfall, and no ship exists
To take you from yourself
Hy laai dit met sy eie weemoed en gevoel van onrus.
Sy persoonlike geskiedenis en sy troebel verhouding met sy dogter kan ‘n mens hier inlees.
III
Hierdie digter was driekeer in Egipte en beoog ‘n besoek iewers vroeg volgende jaar.
Die voorafgaande digters het hierdie gedig ingegee:
Alexandria
الإسكندرية
Alexandria, the Capital of Memory
Lawrence Durrell
Staying in the Hotel Cecil
the desk manager arranged
a city trip to the see the Pharos,
Great Library and Catacombs
of Kom El Shoqafa.
“The city is a cage.” A line
from Cavafy steered the day
with ten American tourists on the bus
meandering through busy streets
to the Abu al-Abbas-Mursi Mosque.
Plazas, a memorial for an unknown soldier,
viewing the citadel of Quaitbay trying
to comprehend The Alexandria Quartet
and the singing of the blind muezzin:
“The perfection of God, the One, the Sole.”
For Durrell a town of sects or gospels.
Amr, the conqueror, poet and soldier,
rather a city to be invaded and destroyed.
But today I comprehend the life of astral bodies
still making contact in an invisible journey.
This city named after Alexander the Great
a beacon for true poets and Gnosticism:
living in the Pearl of the Mediterrean
amongst so many wonders of the world
in divine harmony.
© Joan Hambidge
Die Engelse weergawe het op AVBOB se poetry website verskyn en hier is die herdigting:
Alexandrië
الإسكندرية
Alexandria, the Capital of Memory
Lawrence Durrell
In die Hotel Cecil
bespreek die resepsionis ‘n stadsreis
ten einde die Pharos, die Groot Biblioteek
én die Katakombes van Kom El Shoqafa te besoek.
“Die stad is ‘n fuik.” ‘n Reël
van Kavafis het die dag gerig,
met tien Amerikaanse toeriste op die bus
wandelend deur besige strate
tot by die Abu al-Abbas-Mursi-moskee.
Plazas, ‘n gedenkteken vir ‘n soldaat onbekend;
ons besigtig vérder die sitadel van Quaitbay
om iets van The Alexandria Quartet
én die sang van die blinde muezzin te begryp:
“Die perfeksie van God, die Een, die Enigste.”
Vir Durrell, ‘n stad van sektes of evangelies.
Amr, die veroweraar, digter en soldaat;
eerder ‘n stad wat binnegeval en vernietig moes word.
Maar vandag begryp ek die bestaan van astrale liggame
wat steeds kontak bly maak in daardie onsigbare reis.
Hierdie stad, vernoem na Alexander die Grote,
’n baken vir ware digters én die Gnostiek:
woonagtig in die Pêrel van die Middellandse See
tesame met soveel wonders van die wêreld
in goddelike harmonie.
IV
As jong student het die belangrike spirituele aspekte van die roman my ontglip.
1977 teen 2025.
Harold Bloom wat meen daar is geen tekste nie; net onsself.
Joan Hambidge
Kaapstad 22 Desember 2025
Bronne:
Durrell, Lawrence. 1957. The Alexandria Quartet. Londen: Faber & Faber.
Ushabti
JdL
Vanoggend herdenk
ek jou eerste verjaarsdag
weg; verloor my pen bykans
in die wasmasjien.
Die tyd tik meedoën-
loos aan sonder jou
in nagte slaaploos:
dan sluwe, somber drome.
Al Pacino meen daar
is geen stut vir
die psige beseer
in Scent of a Woman.
Verlede jaar geskenke
geneem: blomme,
slaappille en ‘n stapel
boeke van skryfvriende.
Ek plaas ‘n ushabti
(gemaak van hout)
in jou grafkelder:
‘n Algebra van nood.
Die meeste sterre
is beslis nie dood.
Ek plaas daardie pen
langs al jou boeke
neffens Cavafy:
“I’ll go to another country,
go to another shore,
find another city better than this one.”
© Joan Hambidge