Constantine P. Cavafy — Poems as Teachers | Ep 3

Poetry Unbound

On Being Studios

Relationships, Society & Culture, Spirituality, Arts, Religion & Spirituality, Books

4.9 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 14 May 2024

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We ask questions to find out the facts, but what if you can’t trust the answers, the questions, or the person who's asking the questions? In Constantine P. Cavafy’s “Waiting for the Barbarians,” translated by Evan Jones, leaders exercise a sinister kind of violence — they’ve taken over people’s imaginations with showy displays of wealth and privilege, time-wasting ceremony, and fear coursing beneath it all.

Transcript

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0:00.0	My name is Pardric Gertuma and one of the things that I think can be very helpful that occurs in a poem sometimes and it can also occur in good journalism is to ask the question of what else is happening?
0:15.0	So to take a big event and to look at it, but then also to look under the surface, to look
0:21.2	behind the curtain, to say, say yeah this has my attention but what
0:26.1	is it that is avoiding my attention that most needs it? Waiting for the Barbarians by Constantine Kavafi, translated by Evan Jones.
0:45.0	Why are we waiting in the Agora?
0:48.0	Because the barbarians arrive today.
0:51.0	Why is there such uncertainty in the Senate? Why do the senators sit there and not legislate?
1:00.0	Because the barbarians arrive today.
1:02.0	What laws can our senators act now? because the barbarians arrive today.
1:02.8	What laws can our senators enact now the barbarians will legislate when they arrive?
1:08.6	Why is our emperor awoken so early and seated himself before the city's main gate on his throne
1:17.3	solemn wearing his crown? Because the barbarians arrive today and the emperor wants to greet their leader, as is the custom,
1:27.0	he will present him with a parchment.
1:30.0	Many titles and names are written on it.
1:34.0	Why have our two councils and the praetors chosen today
1:38.0	to-dawn their red embroidered togas?
1:42.0	Why are they wearing bracelets adorned with amethyst and rings with shiny glistening
1:47.2	emeralds? Why do they carry expensive walking sticks gilded and inlaid with silver.
1:54.7	Because the barbarians arrive today and such things impress barbarians. And why have our outspoken orators not come as always to
2:07.2	spout their words to have their say? Because the barbarians arrive today and eloquence and speeches bore them.
2:17.0	Where is this anxiousness and confusion come from all of a sudden?
2:22.0	Look at the haunted faces. Why are the streets and squares
	...

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