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XXVII. CHANDELIER. CAVAFY'S POEMS REWRITTEN. Nos. 41 - 46.
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Stone, bricks and mortar, shaped and built, provide us with interiors in which to comfortably shelter from the occasionally violent elements; and the same ingredients could be used to form the mausolea in which the dead were previously entombed. With Cavafy, the one habitation can sometimes turn terrifyingly into the other.
Cavafy's poems contain a great many tombs and many funerary inscriptions. With his pinched spinsterish look (not unlike an earlier version of the Carry-On actor Charles Hawtrey) as in that photograph where he is gazing dolefully at the floor, seated on the chaise-longue before the silk Chinese embroidery hanging in his saloon - he reminds me of that wonderful character from Huckleberry Finn, Emmeline Grangerford who 'Every time a man died, or a woman died, or a child died, she would be on hand with her "tribute" before he was cold. She called them tributes. The neighbours said it was the doctor first, them Emmeline, then the undertaker.'
Dear Huck, soft-hearted youngster that he was, grieved that 'Poor Emmeline made poetry about all the dead people when she was alive, and it didn't seem right that there wasn't nobody to make some about her, now she was gone.'
Some of Cavafy's interiors can be alarmingly stifling. In Windows (11) he is feeling his way around a windowless room in complete darnkess. In Walls (15) he has been entombed alive behind thick walls. In Chandelier (45) we have another windowless room this time with a large chandelier hanging from the ceiling, brilliantly alive with heat and light, full of sensuality such that no human could withstand its burning presence. In my rewriting of the poem I have interpreted this chandelier as 'this hugely magnified libido' - a Jungian term to be sure but for me it fits the bill entirely.
These three poems, Windows, Walls and Chandelier, give us a very interesting and revealing insight into a mysterious part of Cavafy's psyche, something which I imagine filled even himself with terror. It seems a big leap, but I do not think it would be going too far to equate the burning chandelier with a vision of godhead. Visions of this sort happen to many people with a predisposition not towards religion necessarily but to a naturally strong imaginative impulse. To the non-religious these images can appear just as strongly imbued with power as does the image of God to the pious. And it is doubly interesting that Cavafy thinks of light and heat, which impressions often strike mystics with a similar force. God is a burning fire, etc.
I would not describe Cavafy as being in any way a religious poet, and his In the Church (36) gives us an idea that his liking for things ecclesiastical was based on superficial appearance and ritual more than on any deep spirituality. When he was dying he did receive the Last Rites, but it was not he who had asked for the priest to come.
Despite this there remains the impression of a visionary experience in Chandelier and it points to depths that the poet may have been content not to dwell upon since they were certainly not pleasant; and I don't think anyone has ever suggested that these glimpses of the ultimate could ever be reassuring. Religion, indeed, is a way of shielding people from the burning light of the All. But for many artists there is no method of avoidance since creativity is dependant upon active use of imagination; and the imagination has a nasty proclivity to unearth the unspeakable and to force us to drop our guard against it. (I would refer you to poem 27, Endings.) We find ourselves in the presence of a force beyond human comprehension; and when we realise that it is in fact part of our hidden selves, the very basis of our being, the shock is for a time completely unnerving.
Cavafy, in Chandelier, has entered the inner chamber, the holy of holies of his own psyche which is equivalent to the transpersonal psyche. Like Newman's Gerontius, he has come into the presence of the unveiled God. I would suggest that Cavafy has stumbled upon this place almost by accident. His surprising strength is that he calmly lays before our gaze the thing in itself, omitting his personal reactions, except to say that no timid body could humanly withstand this conflagration, this hugely magnified libido.
- Charles Bryant, 3 April 2005.
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41. FOR THE SHOP
some things he saves for himself
and puts aside
wrapped in precious green silks
roses redolent with rubies
lilies shaped from pearls
amethyst violets
not slavish copies of nature
but fruitful mindforms to his purpose
patterns of creativity
he keeps these locked in his safe
glistering in darkness
not on public display
definitely not for sale
prime works of art, not baubles
for his customers other pretty things
are ranged about: trinketed
bracelets chains necklaces rings
his jewelled flowers are for him alone
all the while burning in the dark
42. GRAVE OF THE GRAMMARIAN LYSIUS
in the library at Beirut
as you go in, just on your right
we buried sage Lysius, grammarian.
there he lies
in his very proper place
beside what, even in death
may be still dear -
meticulous minute jottings
straight-margined texts
beautiful scriptures
sumptuous idiomatic lexicons.
situated thus
on our way to the wonderful books
we’ll stop and see his grave
and honour him, the great grammarian.
43. ACROSS THE DISTANCE
that magical memory
so distant now
half faded in the lapse
of many years
the whisper of a ghost
the echoed rustling of gaunt leaves
so long ago
the colour of his skin was just like jasmine
flowering in the night
and it was August - was it August?
i still recall his eyes
those brilliant eyes
their blazing sapphire light
that spans the distance
yes i still remember his eyes
those brilliant eyes
a crystalline blue
44. EURION’S TOMB
a somewhat elaborate tomb of syenite
(a crystalline rock sparkling like granite)
covers the beautiful Eurion.
lilies and violets overgrow the stone.
Eurion the Alexandrian
died at twenty-five;
his father Macedonian;
magistrates on his mother’s side.
he read philosophy with Aristokleitos,
rhetoric with Paros;
at Thebes he studied scripture.
he wrote a provincial history,
extant still.
but we have lost and mourn
more precious than all else
his radiant human form -
so Apolline!
45. CHANDELIER
an empty room
four walls covered with
plain green cloth
in the midst
a burning chandelier
each brilliant flame
an intense sensual urge
in that vacant room
the heat and light
multiplied, reflected
flaring down
no timid body
could humanly withstand
this conflagration
this hugely magnified libido
46. THEODOTOS
(Theodotos, tutor to Ptolemy XIII the younger brother of Cleopatra, is reported to have brought the head of Pompey on a dish to Julius Caesar at Alexandria.)
if you Julius Caesar are of the chosen
like Crassus and Pompeius, fellow triumvirs,
take your place with care
and circumspection. beware of facile victory
in Italy and Thessaly.
however much people praise you
and heap honour upon you
neither attainment nor triumph will endure.
nor will you feel so special, so elect
and certainly not so safe
when at Alexandria Theodotos comes
with the bloody head of Pompey on a plate.
despite your carefully crafted plans
you cannot fundamentally ensure
something equally horrible
will not occur with you.
some premonitory spirit
passingly like Theodotos
might even now be crossing
the threshold of some seeming friend
with yet another head upon a dish.
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