As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn’t have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
(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)
Hope, expectation, objectives in life, enjoying life’s journey. Cafafy was Greek, like Epicurus. Epicurus would nod and totally agree with the sentiments of this wonderful poem. Unfortunately, all too many people have nothing in their lives, no dreams, no objectives , nothing fulfilling that offers the excitement of a consuming activity. They have no journey, no vivid experiences, no passing triumphs or even tragedies . Nor do they have anything pleasurable, no Ithika, to look back on. Would that all the aggrieved and unhappy people in the world could have an objective that excites them.
My personal Ithika has been exploring the arts, most of them, finding out what I could do (or not), all most definitely for pleasure, not for money, which would have spoiled it. Ithika has given me a marvelous journey. If the world doesn’t care it really matters not a jot. This is very personal. I have had a wonderful time and quietly surprised myself.
This is a wonderful summary of The Odyssey, I highly recommend everyone reads the whole book. Even in translation, Homer is a prolific writer.
I think this poem also illustrates how the meaning of life is not universal. Rather, it is different for each person. For Odysseus, it was winning the war at Troy and then travelling home to overturn the Suitors and reinstate just rule, before dying at an old age. Each of us has our own Ithacas. We just have to discover for ourselves what it is.
Good observation!, Do you have one that you don’t mind sharing with the world?
If I’m completely honest, I’m really not sure what my Ithaka is. For now, I suppose it’s simply getting a 2:1 in my degree, before completing a masters and getting a job in the company I’ll be doing work experience with during the masters. But when there’s a lot of uncertainty about what my life will be like, even in just a year’s time, it’s impossible to plan ahead.
I’m absolutely determined to hang on to my university friends after graduation, in a similar way to how Odysseus wanted as many Greeks as possible to survive the Trojan war. But with people moving to various parts of the country in pursuit of jobs, it’s going to be difficult to stay in contact.
Alongside an enjoyable and reasonably successful career, I’d also like a relationship at some point. But that may not be likely to happen. I’m not Odysseus- I can’t woo goddesses and nymphs with my relentless charm. Sometimes in life you have to be realistic about what you can achieve.
I suppose as an Epicurean, I simply want to live a relaxing and painless life. I’m not Achilles, I don’t fancy glory in exchange for an abrupt death. In that respect I am a bit like Odysseus, I want to spend my life with the people I love in the place where I feel most at home. (Which unlike Odysseus, that place of belonging is definitely not my hometown.)
Thank you for this very personal and honest look at the future. For one thing, I think you have a very successful future ahead of you, but don’t be too negative about relationships . I think you’ll be fine.
From Carmen Grayson
I regularly return to Cavafy’s magnificent metaphor to give personal meaning to the last few words of his poem: “what these Ithacas mean.” The poet shifts from the singular of the title to the plural at the close.
My life, too, seems to be a series of small Ithacas –nursing school, college, graduate school, dissertations, a teaching career, a family. Yet the drive toward these limited goals is the same force which propels my quest for Cavafy’s ultimate, metaphorical Ithaca. I search for meanings in the beauty of the world itself–in the love encountered, in friendships, in art, scholarship, and science.
For me, Ithaca IS the joy of the never-ending search itself.