Alexandra Leaving: Issa's Sunday Service, #144

C. P. Cavafy

 

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This is, indeed, an interesting twist for this week's Sunday Service: one poet (Leonard Cohen) reworking the work of another poet (C. P. Cavay) into song.  First the song, then the poem.

"Alexandra Leaving"

Suddenly the night has grown colder.

The god of love preparing to depart.

Alexandra hoisted on his shoulder,

They slip between the sentries of the heart.

Upheld by the simplicities of pleasure,

They gain the light, they formlessly entwine;

And radiant beyond your widest measure

They fall among the voices and the wine.

It’s not a trick, your senses all deceiving,

A fitful dream, the morning will exhaust –

Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.

Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.

Even though she sleeps upon your satin;

Even though she wakes you with a kiss.

Do not say the moment was imagined;

Do not stoop to strategies like this.

As someone long prepared for this to happen,

Go firmly to the window. Drink it in.

Exquisite music. Alexandra laughing.

Your firm commitments tangible again.

And you who had the honor of her evening,

And by the honor had your own restored –

Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving;

Alexandra leaving with her lord.

Even though she sleeps upon your satin;

Even though she wakes you with a kiss.

Do not say the moment was imagined;

Do not stoop to strategies like this.

As someone long prepared for the occasion;

In full command of every plan you wrecked –

Do not choose a coward’s explanation

that hides behind the cause and the effect.

And you who were bewildered by a meaning;

Whose code was broken, crucifix uncrossed –

Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.

Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.

Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.

Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.

The god forsakes Antony

When suddenly, at midnight, you hear

an invisible procession going by

with exquisite music, voices,

don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now,

work gone wrong, your plans

all proving deceptive—don’t mourn them uselessly.

As one long prepared, and graced with courage,

say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.

Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say

it was a dream, your ears deceived you:

don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.

As one long prepared, and graced with courage,

as is right for you who were given this kind of city,

go firmly to the window

and listen with deep emotion, but not

with the whining, the pleas of a coward;

listen—your final delectation—to the voices,

to the exquisite music of that strange procession,

and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.

- Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)

Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard 

According to Leonard Cohen's website, here is what the poem is about:

Anthony, in Cavafy's poem is, of course, Marcus Antonius, Cleopatra's lover. The poem refers to Plutarch's story (Read it) that, when Anthony was besieged in Alexandria by Octavian, the night before the city fell into enemy hands, he heard an invisible troupe leaving the city. He heard the sounds of instruments and voices making their way through the city. Then, he passed out; the god Bacchus (Dionysus), Antony's protector, was deserting him. It is obviously a poem with many layers of meaning; but, I see it as a poem / lesson on how someone must face a great loss (Alexandria being a symbol for a beloved city, woman, past glory, but, above all else, life itself). It is a beautiful lesson on how to face death.

Now Mr.Cohen has changed Alexandria (a beloved city) to Alexandra (a beloved woman), thus giving a lesson on how to face a lost love.

Here is the video:

   

Cohen has appeared on the Sunday Service previously and, no doubt, will again in the future. He, and his work, are simply stunning.

------------

Woodblock by Utagawa Hiroshige

lazy--
leaving blossoms and moon
for tomorrow

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

One quick note before closing - the coffers at Wednesday Haiku are getting a little low. I'm thinking of going back to one poem per week if things get any thinner. So, now would be a great time to send in work. Here's the details on how:

Wednesday Haiku submissions

best,
Don 

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Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 143 songs