...."Do not go in a hurry, enjoy every moment, learn everything and never, never predispose" . It's been a long time since I left university and it's still good for me to remember the advice that an old poet friend gave me in those spaces. SheWafi Salih introduced me to Cavafis, when I was only 17 years old, and today she is still teaching me new Itacas
—Itaca
When you embark on your trip to Itaca
It asks for the path to be long,
full of adventures, full of experiences.
Do not fear the Lestrigones or the Cyclops
nor the choleric Poseidon,
Such beings you will never find in your way,
If your thinking is high, if you select
It is the emotion that touches your spirit and your body.
Neither the Lestrigones nor the Cyclops
nor the wild Poseidon will you find,
if you do not carry them inside your soul,
if your soul does not stand before you.
It asks for the path to be long.
May many be summer mornings
when you arrive - with what pleasure and joy! -
to ports never seen before.
Stop at the Phoenician emporiums
and get yourself beautiful merchandise,
nacre and coral, amber and ebony
and all kinds of sensual perfumes,
The more abundant sensual perfumes you can.
Go to many Egyptian cities
to learn, to learn from their sages.
Always have Ithaca in your mind.
Getting there is your destiny.
But do not hurry the trip.
Better that it lasts for many years
and dock, old man, on the island,
enriched by what you gained along the way
without enduring Itaca enrich you.
Ithaca gave you such a beautiful trip.
Without it you would not have started on the road.
But he has nothing left to give you.
Even if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
So, wise as you have become, with so much experience,
You will understand what the Itacas mean.
C. P. Cavafis. Poetic anthology.
Alianza Editorial, Madrid 1999.
Editing and translation, Pedro Bádenas de la Peña