Although it has become generally accepted by critics that Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933) was influenced greatly by the Hellenistic epigram ‘in attitude, subject matter, and technique’,¹ a close comparison of that poetic tradition and Cavafy's poems reveals interesting differences as well as similarities. We know that Cavafy was familiar with Hellenistic literature and that he had a copy of J. W. Mackail's Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology² in his personal library. His reading, however, ‘was much more extensive than his library’.³ More significant than this is the evidence to be found in his poems, which range from an actual mention of ancient epigrams⁴ to obvious imitations of them.⁵ Cavafy's poems for the most part, however, are quite original in their tone and erotic stance when compared directly to the Alexandrian epigrams.

It is of course impossible, within the restrictions of a brief study, to examine the entire Greek Anthology,⁶ some 4, 180 poems, while comparing Cavafy's work to it.⁷ Although not all the epigrams in the Anthology date from the Hellenistic period or originate from Alexandria, for the sake of convenience they will be referred to as ‘Hellenistic’ or ‘Alexandrian’ because the later epigrams were modelled upon the earlier ones. Cavafy had access to the entire corpus, though he did not necessarily pay special attention to those poems which were actually written in Alexandria. In fact the six epigrams cited in this paper as examples of the tradition are not Alexandrian (with the possible exception of XII.17), and only two (possibly three) date from the Hellenistic period. These terms thus refer to a certain ethos, or tradition in writing, rather than to a specific time or place. Even though one cannot be sure that Cavafy had in mind a particular epigram while writing any of his poems, through a careful juxtaposition of representative poems from both bodies of work some comparisons may be made and reasonable conclusions drawn. Some similarities are obvious. With the Hellenistic poets, Cavafy shared a concern about unfulfilled or ruined hopes (especially in reference to love). His epitaphs or laments over the dead and his erotic poems are those most frequently cited as tinged with the Hellenistic spirit. Then, too, Cavafy's ability to depict a scene and his careful, considered choice of words are techniques readily to be found in Alexandrian literature.

The Greek Anthology, as it exists today, is divided into sixteen books of epigrams with the following subjects: I. Christian (123 poems); II. ecphrases of statues in a bath at Constantinople (65); III. ecphrases of relief sculptures in a temple at Cyzicus (19); IV. prefaces of various epigram anthologies (4); V. erotic poems, primarily heterosexual (309); VI. dedicatory for votive offerings, real or pretended (359); VII. funeral epitaphs (755); VIII. poems by St. Gregory Nazianzus (257); IX. declamatory or epideictic (831); X. didactic (127); XI. convivial and satirical (442); XII. Strato's Musa Puerilis, homosexual love poems (259); XIII. poems with unusual meters (31); XIV. riddles and puzzles (151); XV. miscellaneous (52); XVI. poems from the Planudean Anthology (twelfth to thirteenth century a.d.) not found in the Palatine Manuscript (tenth century a.d.) (396).⁸ Of these, the funeral elegies (Book VII) and the homosexual erotic poems (Book XII) hold most interest for a discussion of Cavafy's poetry.

Sepulchral poems in the ancient and Hellenistic Greek traditions served a simple function: they formally remembered and mourned the dead. These epitaphs adhered to certain conventions, memorializing and honouring real as well as imagined deceased males and females of all ages. Some were honoured for their fame, courage, or accomplishments; others were anonymous corpses washed up by the sea: Common topoi are warnings about the dangers of the sea, sadness about the untimely deaths of the young, requests for the favour of a libation or a kind word, explanations of the emblems on a tomb, mention of the manner of death, descriptions of the sort of life lived, and complaints about being robbed after death. Some epitaphs are loquacious, others are brief, still others are even humorous, but common to almost all is a calm acceptance of the inevitability of death.

In Cavafy's corpus, there exist five poems with titles referring to someone's tomb, as well as twenty-seven others which deal with death, tombs, or epitaphs; however, only a few of the Hellenistic topoi are represented. A large number of Hellenistic epitaphs⁹ contain the common motive of the tomb or its occupant calling out to wayfarers. Interesting differences in tone and attitude are evident when we compare one of these epitaphs to Cavafy's ‘Tomb of Iasis’, which uses the same motive. In the older poem (VII. 260),¹⁰ there is a tone of thankfulness for having had a good life and death is quietly accepted:

… While passing my tomb, traveller, find no fault;
          I have nothing to lament about, not even in death.
I have left grandchildren behind me; I took pleasure in one wife
          who grew old with me; I married off my three children,
and often I lulled their children to sleep in my lap,
          never bewailing the illness or death of any of them.
They, lamenting me with tears, sent me to the place of the pious
          where I went without sorrow to sleep the sweet sleep.

The conventions here are the address, a description of the good, very family-oriented life he had led, and a calm mention of his death, properly mourned by his large, loving family. All is ordered, proper, and peaceful. In ‘Tomb of Iasis’ (1917), while the first line is very traditional and the deceased also calls out to a passer-by, the whole mood is different:

… I, Iasis, lie here—famous for my good looks
in this great city.
The wise admired me, so did common, superficial people.
I took equal pleasure in both.
But from being considered so often a Narcissus and Hermes,
excess wore me out, killed me. Traveller,
if you're an Alexandrian, you won't blame me.
You know the pace of our life—its fever, its absolute devotion to pleasure.

Although there is a superficial resemblance to the Hellenistic poem (the address and the description of past life), eroticism is dominant in Cavafy's epitaph; the pleasures of family life and the virtues of moderation are absent in favour of the excesses of sensual pleasure which eventually (and admittedly) destroy.¹¹ Iasis was very proud of being handsome, and he obviously accepted with pleasure his acclaimed likeness to Narcissus (who also came to a bad end) and Hermes.¹² But it is in the appeal to the traveller that the most significant difference is evident: it raises the possibility of criticism or censure. None of the older poems comes even close to expressing an apology,¹³ and the speaker's facile rationalization about the sensuality of life in Alexandria does not prevent the tone in Cavafy's poem from containing a hint of uneasiness that such behaviour might be judged negatively, for ‘Alexandrian’ is virtually synonymous with ‘homosexual’ in Cavafy's poetic vocabulary.¹⁴

This intrusion of the erotic into an epitaph is not limited to ‘Tomb of Iasis’. In fact, Cavafy's poems about death tend to be fixed upon the deaths of beautiful young men, while the Hellenistic epitaphs treat every age and sex.¹⁵ Most of the older poems have the expression of sadness or restrained grief as their primary purpose, and the conventions of these epigrams generally exclude any sensual response to the deceased, young or old.¹⁶ The response to premature death in the Alexandrian sepulchral poems thus differs significantly from that found in Cavafy's work, as a close comparison will reveal. The following traditional epitaph (VII.343) laments the death of a brilliant young man:

… This tomb has obtained Paterius, clear-speaking and lovable,
dear son of Miltiades and unfortunate Atticia,
offspring of Athens, a member of the noble house of the Aeacidaei,
full of knowledge of Roman law and of all learning,
bearing all the radiance of the four virtues;
a charming young bachelor whom a fated destiny carried off,
just as a gale snatches a beautifully formed young shoot from the earth.
He was in his twenty-fourth year
and he left to his dear parents inconsolable wailing and mourning.

Evident in this lament for an untimely death are a concern with family status, respect for a fine education, praise of the four virtues (wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice), and the sorrow of the bereaved parents. The mention that Paterius is loveable …¹⁷ and a charming unmarried youth …¹⁸ does not lie within a sexual context. In fact, none of the Hellenistic epitaphs on the deaths of young men contains sexual allusions.¹⁹ Whenever a descriptive phrase is used such as ‘lovely youth’,²⁰ the context is that of someone who has been cut off at his prime, in his bloom of life, and who is frequently of marriageable age.²¹ There is never a hint of homosexual sensuality in these traditional epitaphs on youths. Cavafy's ‘Tomb of Evrion’ (1911), on the other hand, begins like a traditional epitaph, but ends with a difference in attitude:

… In this tomb—ornately designed,
the whole of syenite stone,
covered by so many violets, so many lilies—
lies handsome Evrion,
an Alexandrian, twenty-five years old.
On his father's side, he was of old Macedonian stock,
on his mother's side, descended from a line of magistrates.
He studied philosophy with Aristokleitos,
rhetoric with Paros, and at Thebes
the sacred scriptures. He wrote a history
of the province of Arsinoites. That at least will survive.
But we've lost what was really precious: his form—
like a vision of Apollo.

Despite the conventional description of the social standing of Evrion's family and the excellent education which he had enjoyed (given in greater detail by Cavafy, evidence of his knowledge of Hellenistic Alexandria), the grief of his parents is not mentioned, and the poem ends with the statement that Evrion's beautiful form was more valuable than everything else. This represents an inversion of values, since his social status and intellectual level are thus viewed as less important, and virtue is conspicuously absent. The emphasis on physical beauty as a good in itself is not part of the tradition, and the reference to Apollo's beauty has a parallel only in the erotic epigrams (XII.55).

Cavafy also links the two motives of death and youth together very clearly in his early poem ‘Longings’ (1904) where the speaker is saddened by young death. His point is not, however, the waste of young lives, but the expression of unsatisfied desire. He makes an analogy between premature death and disappointment in love in order to look back wistfully on a past which lacked all the pleasure longed for. Indeed this can be said about most of Cavafy's poems centred on death and youth: the importance of memory, of reliving past sensual pleasure and the joy of seeing and possessing beautiful young bodies, is ever present, or at least implied.

The Hellenistic poems, on the other hand, are focused upon grief and, even when they obviously deal with a deceased homosexual, their emphasis is not on sensuality.²² That the deceased loved boys is mentioned openly, but this fact is not central or stressed. Some mention is made of all aspects of such men's lives (talent in singing, pleasure in drinking, skill in battle) and, except for one mildly satirical poem (VII.222), no hint of censure is apparent. The beauty of the beloved boys is not alluded to in these epitaphs, although passions for them is. Only in the erotic epigrams which deal with homosexual love (Book XII) is this kind of sensuality made explicit.²³

When we compare the erotic poems of the Greek Anthology to those by Cavafy, the most obvious difference lies in choice of subject matter. While the poems in the Anthology are concerned with both heterosexual (Book V) and homosexual (Book XII) passions (as were individuals themselves during both the ancient and Hellenistic periods),²⁴ the poems that Cavafy circulated are restricted to homosexual love.²⁵ Even within the general category of homosexual poetry, however, the tone in Cavafy's poems varies significantly from that found in Book XII of the Anthology. I cannot, therefore, entirely agree with the following statement by Jane Lagoudis Pinchin:

It is of course a general similarity in tone, scope, and subject matter that makes the comparison [between the poems of the Greek Anthology and Cavafy's poems] important. As many have noted, except for its lack of concern with nature Cavafy's verse is remarkably like those educated small personal, often homosexual, poems of his predecessors.²⁶

There is an obvious contrast between the upper class would-be seducer of the Hellenistic epigrams²⁷ and the usually poverty-striken lovers in Cavafy's poems. The open expression of homosexual desire in literature, at least on the part of the active partner, was accepted by ancient and Hellenistic Greek culture.²⁸ The practice of homosexuality itself was condoned by society, if not by the parents of the boys involved,²⁹ although it was subject to rather strict conventions and expectations in regard to age limits and behaviour during and after courtship.³⁰ Cavafy's world did not accept his sexual predilections and, although he is franker about his erotic preferences in the poems written after 1915,³¹ the vast difference between ancient tolerance and modern rejection of homosexuality inevitably affects the tone and attitude found in Cavafy's poems.

As I have already stated, the Alexandrian erotic epigrams in Book XII spoke openly in favour of homosexuality with no apology, guilt, or hesitation, and this can be clearly seen in XII.17:³²

… Love for women is not in my heart, but male fires
          have placed me under inextinguishable hot embers.
This heat is greater: by as much as a male is stronger
          than a female, is this desire keener.

The narrative voices in Cavafy's poems never state openly that they prefer men to women. Even in the ‘franker’ poems, no such bald statement is made, although it is frequently clear in Cavafy's work that homosexual passions are being depicted, despite a lack of distinguishing pronouns at times.³³ ‘Theatre of Sidon (a.d. 400)’ (1923) offers an excellent example of Cavafy's approach to frankness about the subject of homosexuality:³⁴

… Son of an honourable citizen—most important of all, a good-looking
young man of the theatre, amiable in many ways,
I sometimes write highly audacious verses in Greek
and these I circulate—surreptitiously, of course.
O gods, may the gray ones who prattle about morals
never see those verses: all about a special kind of sexual pleasure [a pleasure of the ‘elect’],
the kind that leads toward a condemned [by those who are not ‘elect’], a barren love [which bears no children].

This practice of secretly circulating poems ‘about a special kind of sexual pleasure’ reflects Cavafy's own procedure of printing his poems privately and distributing them to his friends and admirers.³⁵ Implicit in this poem is Christianity's abhorrence of homosexuality and this, of course, is the primary limitation on both the narrator's and Cavafy's candour about their sexual preferences. Nevertheless, although the condemnation is acknowledged, there is a clear claim here that this sort of pleasure is not just for anyone, that it is exclusive.

There is a difference too in the erotic response to other males in these poems. In the Greek Anthology, the speakers are attracted to boys who are roughly between the ages of twelve and seventeen. Cavafy, on the other hand, is drawn to young men in their twenties. This, of course, reflects the fashions in sexuality in their respective societies. A more interesting divergence is evident in the various manners of viewing young males as sexual objects. Poems from both the Anthology and Cavafy's corpus describe young men as having been made by Eros. In the Hellenistic epigram (XII.56),³⁶ the response to the beauty of the boy is formal and constrained:

… Praxiteles the sculptor made a likeness of Eros
          out of Parian marble, forming the son of Aphrodite.
But now Eros, the most beautiful of the gods, depicting himself in sculpture
          has moulded Praxiteles, a living statue,
in order that the one among mortals, the other in heaven, may control love-charms,
          and Desire(s) may rule over earth and the gods at the same time.
The holy city of the Meropes [Cos] is most blessed, which reared
          a new Eros, son of a god, to be leader of the young men.

With its reference to the Olympian gods and the rule of Love on earth as well as in heaven, the epigram introduces a cosmic element and remains decorous and measured in its response to the beautiful boy. Cavafy's ‘At the Café Door’ (1915), however, is much more tactile in its response:

… Something they said beside me
made me look toward the café door,
and I saw that lovely body which seemed
as though Eros in his mastery had fashioned it,
joyfully shaping its well-formed limbs,
molding its tall build,
shaping its face tenderly,
and leaving, with a touch of the fingers,
a particular impression on the brow, the eyes, the lips.

The speaker's reaction is sensual, but not overly lascivious. He describes the young man as if he were truly a work of art, and the ecphrasis is almost tactile in its lingering over each loving detail. This difference between the two poems' response to beauty holds true generally for the other poems in the two bodies of work. In the Greek Anthology, the tendency is not towards ecphrasis (although it does occur in XII.93), but to remark with some emphasis upon the beauty of the lads (καλòς, κάλλος), to compare them to flowers, to make mythological allusions (such as to Eros or Ganymede), and to stress as well that a boy past his prime (i.e. with body hair) was no longer attractive. In addition there is some overt attraction to the buttocks of the boys in some of the more graphic epigrams.³⁷ Cavafy's poems, on the other hand, are not content with a simple statement about the beauty of the young men, nor are they sexually explicit. The appreciation of beauty falls somewhere in between: a delight in dwelling upon the details of lovely young male bodies, the pleasure of enjoying them, and the sensations evoked by memories. The sensuality of the response is real and overshadows the flatter, more conventional, and generally less tactile poems of the Anthology.

This phenomenon of a different sensual response can also be seen in two poems which have been compared before³⁸ and which share a similar subject: someone, while passing a shop, is attracted to the person he sees within and acts upon that attraction. In the Greek Anthology (XII.8), the passer-by stops and asks the boy's price in only slightly hidden language. The boy blushes and tells him to leave or his father will observe him. This is neither a yes nor a no answer, but may be interpreted as possibly tending towards the affirmative since the boy understands the question and wants to keep his father in the dark. The would-be lover buys some garlands to cover his wooing, and then uses them as offerings to the gods when he prays for success in his erotic venture:³⁹

… I saw a boy intertwining a cluster of flowers,
          just now, as I was passing by the places where garlands are sold.
And I did not pass by unscathed; but standing quietly near him
          I said, ‘For how much will you sell your garland to me?’
And he blushed more than his rosebuds, and bending down
          he said, ‘Get away lest my father notice you’.
I purchased some wreaths as a pretext, and after I went home
          I crowned the gods with the wreaths, praying [them to grant me] him.

The narrator's tone is cheerful and hopeful, for he probably expects quick success since the boy in whom he is interested is a worker, not a member of the leisured class who would expect a longer courtship and more subtlety in approach.⁴⁰ The desire, however, is one-sided, for the conventions of such relationships required that the boy (the pais or eromenos) be pursued by the one in love (the erastes); furthermore the eromenos, as the passive partner, was not supposed to experience any sexual pleasure.⁴¹

Cavafy sets a more elaborate scene in his version, ‘He Asked About the Quality’ (1930). We learn much more about the young man passing the shop: his job is insignificant and badly paid, he is handsome and sensual, twenty-nine years of age, and lives in a poor neighbourhood. The shop that he passes serves the working class and, while the poem is obviously derivative from the Anthology, the intrusion of poverty⁴² and of a tone quite heavy with mutual desire creates a distinctive contrast with the older poem. I quote only the part which deals with the shop:

… Passing in front of a small shop that sold
cheap and flimsy merchandise for workers,
he saw a face inside, a figure
that compelled him to go in, and he pretended
he wanted to look at some colored handkerchiefs.
He asked about the quality of the handkerchiefs
and how much they cost, his voice choking,
almost silenced by desire.
And the answers came back in the same mood,
distracted, the voice hushed,
offering hidden consent.
They kept on talking about the merchandise—
but the only purpose: that their hands might touch
over the handkerchiefs, that their faces, their lips,
might move close together as though by chance—
a moment's meeting of limb against limb.
Quickly, secretly, so the shopowner sitting at the back
wouldn't realize what was going on.

The two men share the desire; consent is hidden but obviously offered. The initiator's approach is less direct in Cavafy's poem than in its Hellenistic parallel, and the passion that hangs heavily in the air is all the more intense. … They understand each other without words: their communication is instinctive as is their secrecy, and their mutual response is totally physical and palpable. Despite the greater frankness about homosexuality evident in Cavafy's late period, the openness apparently does not represent a clear advancement towards freedom or happiness; the furtiveness and forbidden quality of this sort of liaison seem to be almost part of its attraction. In comparison, the Hellenistic epigram quoted above is decorous⁴³ and calm, although obviously sharing virtually the same motifs: the passer-by, the instant attraction, the merchandise used as a pretext, the necessity of keeping the encounter secret, and the distinct possibility that some erotic adventure will ensue.

Very often, courtships did not go smoothly and the boys turned down their would-be lovers.⁴⁴ This circumstance gave rise to the large body of Hellenistic homosexual epigrams which wail and complain about lack of success in pursuit of love. Cavafy also wrote about unfulfilled love affairs, but with less excess.

Love is viewed as sweet pain in several Hellenistic epigrams⁴⁵ because hopes were constantly dashed. For example, XII.22 laments an empty passion:

… There has come to me a great calamity, a great war, a great flame.
          Elissus, full of the years for love
is at that critical age of sixteen, and along with this
          he has every charm, both small and great:
a voice like honey for reading, lips like honey
          for kissing, and is completely perfect for penetration.
And what is to become of me? For he says that I can only look.
          In truth I shall lie awake at night often, fighting with my hands against this empty passion.

The suffering and agony in this epigram on love for a boy of sixteen is so full of hyperbole that it cannot be taken seriously. (Πhμα, for example, belongs to Homeric epic and Greek tragedy.) After the grand rhetoric of its beginning, the poem ends with a whimpered complaint about sleepless nights and the necessity for masturbation. Its tone is obviously light and playful, and this holds true for the other epigrams of Book XII which complain about or describe the trouble and suffering entailed in being in love.⁴⁶ Lovers are let down or disappointed continually, but they are never really totally lost, for they express more wit than feeling in these poems.

Cavafy's personae do not lament in grand style, but usually dwell wistfully or reflectively upon separations of lovers⁴⁷ or unfulfilled love affairs.⁴⁸ They do become intense about passion and separation on occasion,⁴⁹ but never to a point of exaggeration so as to strain belief in their sincere emotion. In Cavafy's ‘A Young Poet in His Twenty-Fourth Year’ (1928), we see described a current liaison which is not mutually intense and causes the young man real pain:

… Brain, work now as well as you can.
A one-sided passion [‘a half enjoyment’] is destroying him.
He's in a maddening situation.
Every day he kisses the face he worships,
his hands are on those exquisite limbs.
He's never loved before with this degree of passion.
But the beautiful fulfilment of love
is lacking: that fulfilment
which both of them have to want with the same intensity.
(They aren't equally given to the abnormal form of pleasure;
only he's completely possessed by it.)
And so he's wearing himself out, all on edge. …
He kisses those adored lips, excites himself
on that wonderful body—though he now feels
it only acquiesces. …

It is not clear (×δονίzεται is vague: ‘to take pleasure in sensuality’) whether or not actual intercourse has taken place, but probably not. What is obvious is that the great longing of the young poet for an intense erotic response on the part of his beloved is not being satisfied, although physical contact is certainly occurring. (This is in contrast to XII.22 where the frustration is of a different kind: the boy will not allow touching at all, and mutual pleasure is not the point.) The stress of his immediate and present situation is driving the young poet to drink, and wasting away his beauty (in the part of the poem not quoted). He apparently cannot even write poetry. The situation may be slightly exaggerated, but it is believable.

Theories about love and its effect upon the art of writing poetry differ from the one era to the other. It was conventionally held in the Greek Anthology that ‘the literary man or poet is proof against the torments of Love’;⁵⁰ he thus supposedly could continue writing. (In reality, of course, learning did not save the Hellenistic poets, or at least their personae, from the ‘suffering’ caused by their romantic attachments.) Cavafy's narrator in ‘Melancholy of Jason Kleander, Poet in Kommagini, A.D. 595’ (1918) also gets some consolation from poetry, for the ‘Art of Poetry’ is attributed the ability to relieve his pain. The wounds of the poet, however, are not caused by love (as occurs in the Anthology), but by his body ageing and his beauty fading, for he will no longer be able to attract young men.⁵¹

In several of Cavafy's poems, the narrators dwell upon their former sensual experiences from the vantage point of middle or old age, considering these memories and their own imaginations to be the essential source of their poetic creativity.⁵² The Alexandrian epigrams, on the other hand, are much more immediate: the action or pain they describe occurs primarily in the present or the immediate past. Their immediacy is especially evident in the poems where an erastes in pressing his eromenos to yield, employs carpe diem as his reason: time is of the essence because the boy will mature soon and be past the age of being an object of passion.⁵³ For Cavafy's personae, however, the chance of ‘seizing the day’ is essentially over. They can only remember their past, but they use these passionate memories creatively, as is well delineated in ‘Their Beginning’ (1921):

… Their illicit pleasure has been fulfilled.
They get up and dress quickly, without a word.
They come out of the house separately, furtively;
and as they move off down the street a bit unsettled,
it seems they sense that something about them betrays
what kind of bed they've just been lying on.
But what profit for the life of the artist:
tomorrow, the day after, or years later, he'll give voice
to the strong lines that had their beginning here.

Not only memory and poetry, but the illicit and furtive nature of the act destined to live in poetry, play a part in this poem. This is not an isolated instance, for several other of Cavafy's poems contain the same theme of poetry linked with erotic debauchery.⁵⁴ The poet can thus create art out of what the loaded language of this and other poems implies is sordid, at least in the eyes of others. Despite the apparent guilt, or at least awareness of social disapproval (which occurs even in poems written after the great watershed year of 1915, when he began to avow his sexuality more openly), Cavafy managed to find the means, in part by using Hellenistic motifs, to transcend the negative aspects of such subjects and to take pleasure in reliving his sensual memories in his erotic poems. The necessity for doing this does not exist in the Hellenistic poems where homosexual eroticism is straightforward, and the only need for furtiveness is in outwitting a watchful parent. The Hellenistic poets wrote their epigrams for pleasure and to demonstrate their literary ability within the conventions of the genre. Cavafy's poetry did not and could not participate in the cheerful attitudes and light ambiance of the Alexandrian epigrams, but he did create something new out of old motifs.

I believe that I have demonstrated Cavafy's originality in respect to the Alexandrian tradition of poetry, even though I have been forced, due to lack of space, to limit my remarks to the few poems which have been examined. It is clear that Cavafy makes poetic references to both the epitaphs and the erotic epigrams contained in the Greek Anthology; however, he uses the conventions he found there for his own purposes. He introduces an erotic element into his epitaphs which was not present in the older poems: Cavafy's poems on death are inescapably focused on the deaths of beautiful young men. In reference to his purely erotic poems, I have delineated the difference in the characters and attitudes depicted by the Alexandrian poets as compared to those presented by Cavafy in his poetry. I have mentioned the disparities in age and social class. Much more important are the contrasts between, on the one hand, in the Greek Anthology, acceptance of homosexuality, a simple uncomplicated response to beauty, a cheerful playful tone, ridiculously exaggerated complaints about the pain of love, and a tendency to live for now (or the immediate future), and, on the other hand, in Cavafy's poems, guilt, a tactile and sensual response to beauty, intense passion, real suffering, and a realization that pleasure is past and only memories remain.

Robert Liddell's placement of Cavafy in the ‘school’ of Alexandrian poets is, therefore, really too simplistic:

The Alexandrians are commonly called the most contemporary of the ancients, and Cavafy was a modern Alexandrian, the last, and perhaps the greatest of that school, whose poetry was decorative, allusive, and generally about love.⁵⁵

Cavafy's poetry is so much more than ‘merely’ decorative, although I will grant him his allusiveness and references to love. It is true that Cavafy turned to the past to find something to aid his creative expression (and this is especially true of his historical poems which I have not treated here). The Alexandrian poets also looked to past literary achievements in order to combine ‘an ancient tradition with entirely new aspirations’.⁵⁶ My thesis in this study is that Cavafy did exactly the same. The emphasis, mood, and tone of his poems differ radically from the Hellenistic epigrams of the Anthology despite a superficial resemblance of motifs and subjects. The Hellenistic poems are frequently free in their sexual explicitness, and this is one reason why Cavafy turned to them. Cavafy, however, achieved much more in his work than merely borrowing from the Alexandrians. His purpose was different, perhaps less frivolous than theirs, because he was primarily interested in his own ultimate problem: his response to the world and to its attitude towards his way of life. Cavafy's poems thus contain greater emotional intensity in their depiction of eroticism and passionate feelings. That he could create some beauty out of memories of erotic debauchery, under what were often sordid conditions, is his achievement.

Notes

1. P. Bien, Constantine Cavafy, Columbia Essays on Modern Writers, No. 5 (New York, 1964), p. 16. Cf. the similar attitudes of other critics: R. Liddell, ‘Cavafy’, in Personal Landscape: An Anthology of Exile (London, 1945), pp. 102, 104; R. Liddell, ‘Studies in Genius VII: Cavafy’, Horizon: A Review of Literature and Art, 18, No. 105 (September 1948), 189-90, 197, 199; K. Friar, trans. and intro., Modern Greek Poetry: From Cavafis to Elytis (New York, 1973), pp. 24, 26; E. Keeley, Cavafy's Alexandria: Study of a Myth in Progress (Cambridge, Mass., 1976), pp. 32, 68, 180 n. 15; Jane Lagoudis Pinchin, Alexandria Still: Forster, Durrell, Cavafy, Princeton Essays in Literature (Princeton, N.J., 1977), pp. 12-13, 42.

2. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1890). Other editions Cavafy may have had access to include: [Tauchnitz], Anthologia Graeca ad Palatini codicis fidem, 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1829); J. F. Dübner, ed., Anthologia Palatina, 3 vols. (Paris, 1864-90); H. Stadtmüller, ed., Anthologia Graeca, 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1894-1906); C. Preisendanz, ed., Anthologia Palatina, 2 vols. (Leyden, 1911). He may also have known of the Loeb edition, published 1916-19; see n. 6.

3. R. Liddell, Cavafy: A Critical Biography (London, 1974), p. 121.

4. See ‘Young Men of Sidon (A.D. 400)’.

5. Cf. ‘In the Harbour’, ‘Tomb of Iasis’, ‘Tomb of Evrion’, ‘He Asked About the Quality’, ‘Those Who Fought for the Achaian League’, ‘Epitaph of Antiochos, King of Kommagini’, ‘Epitaphion’.

6. For purposes of my personal convenience, and the reader's ease in reference, the Greek texts of the poems quoted in this study are from The Greek Anthology, trans. W. R. Paton, 5 vols., The Loeb Classical Library (London, 1916-19). The translations are my own, with some reference to those of the Loeb edition and to the notes in the Gow and Page editions cited below. Readers interested in further study of these epigrams should also consult the following editions (which do not, however, contain all the poems printed in the Loeb volumes): A. S. F. Gow and D. L. Page, eds., The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1965) and A. S. F. Gow and D. L. Page, eds., The Greek Anthology: The Garland of Philip and Some Contemporary Epigrams, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1968).

7. The Greek texts of Cavafy's poems are taken from C. P. Cavafy, Ποιήματα, ed G. P. Savidis, 2 vols. (Athens, 1963) and C. P. Cavafy, Αν¢κκδοτα Ποιήματα, 1882-1923, ed. G. P. Savidis (Athens, 1968). When I refer to Cavafy's ‘corpus’, it is to these texts that I refer. The translations, except for additions in brackets, are from C. P. Cavafy, Collected Poems, trans. E. Keeley and P. Sherrard, ed. G. Savidis (Princeton, N.J., 1975).

8. These numbers reflect my own count which includes those poems not in the official numbering (after XII.6, for example, comes XII.6a). In addition, it should be realized that there were errors made in these divisions, so not every one of the poems in each category actually belongs there.

9. Cf. VII.2, 2b, 6, 17, 26, 28, 71, 103, 163-5, 197-8, 212, 247, 249, 260, 268-9, 272, 282, 313-14, 316-18, 320, 337, 350, 355, 380, 405, 408, 414-17, 419, 423, 425, 445, 450, 452, 465, 495, 499, 500, 502, 520-1, 523, 525, 536, 540, 544, 552, 558, 569, 584, 589, 631, 656-8, 710, 712, 718, 739. I have listed only those epitaphs which explicitly call out. Many others give direct information, but do not use the vocative of such words as sένος or ÷δοιπόρος, or lack similar contexts.

10. This epigram is found in Mackail's Select Epigrams. See n. 2.

11. An unusual blend of the erotic and sepulchral is found in XII.74. It is not a true epitaph, however, but a conventional and rather light-hearted complaint of a worn-out lover of boys who ‘expects’ to die due to his great passion for boys, and composes his epitaph ahead of time: ‘Love's gift to Death’. Other love poems which stress Love's destructive tendencies are: V.215; XII.46-8, 71-3, 166.

12. Such mythological allusions to a young, attractive man (Narcissus) are not found in the sepulchral poems on young men of Book VII where the allusions are confined to Ares, Hades, Charon, Fate, and Hymen. They are found, however, in Book XII, with special reference to Ganymede (15 times), but no erotic references are made either to Narcissus or to Hermes. (Hermes' name is used for oaths or thanks for good luck in XII.77, 140, 143, 149.) Cavafy may have included Hermes in this analogy because he was the god of young athletes and was depicted in sculpture as a young man. (See N. G. L. Hammond and H. H. Scullard, eds., The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd ed. [Oxford, 1970], p. 503.)

13. The speaker in VII.260 (above) makes it clear that he has nothing to be ashamed of, and all other Hellenistic epitaphs that ask their readers to hold judgement, either refer to the fact that the size of the tomb does not reflect the importance of its occupant (VII.137, 198, 235, 380), or refute the accepted reputation of the deceased (VII.345, 450).

14. Cf. especially ‘For Ammonis, Who Died at 29, in 610’; also ‘Tomb of Evrion’, ‘Tomb of Lanis’, ‘In the Month of Athyr’, ‘Of the Jews (a.d. 50)’, and possibly ‘Tomb of Ignatius’. See also Keeley, pp. 82-4.

15. It is interesting to note that epitaphs in the Greek Anthology on males who might have been young enough to be homosexual love objects add up to only 25 out of 755 sepulchral poems (equal to 3·3 per cent, and five of these refer to dead soldiers; see n. 19), whereas 17 out of the 23 poems (73·9 per cent) which mention death in the poems circulated by Cavafy deal explicitly with the death of young men. In Cavafy's total corpus (including the ’Ανέκδοτα), the figures are 19 out of 32, or 59 per cent, still a significant percentage. Cf. Keeley, pp. 81, 82, 116-17; Liddell, ‘Studies in Genius’, p. 199; Liddell, Personal Landscape, p. 106.

16. There are some instances of heterosexual sensuality, all in reference to female prostitutes, but they are much more decorous than the erotic poems found in Book V. Cf. VII.217-21, 223.

17. ’Επήρατος (lovable) plays no part in the vocabulary of the homosexual erotic poems of Book XII, nor is it found in Book V.

18. This word contains overtones of both ‘accomplishment’ or ‘learnedness’ and ‘attractiveness’, but, although it is found in sexual contexts in Book XII which describe boys (cf. 67, 124, 130, 154), in this poem it is not an overtly erotic response (nor is ‘sapling’ which is also used in XII.91, 126), but an appreciation of the youthful beauty of someone who, at twenty-four, is long past the age of playing a homosexual passive role. (See K. J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality [London, 1978], pp. 15 n. 30, 49, 83.) It is not found in any other epitaph on a young man. I have chosen to discuss this poem, rather than one on a younger man, because its conventions are so close to the ones Cavafy uses in ‘Tomb of Evrion’.

19. Cf. VII.226, 231, 254, 258, 263, 300, 334, 427, 438-9, 466, 468, 495, 513, 515, 527, 558, 560-1, 574, 589, 602-3, 613, 671, which allude to young men who are probably not yet of marriageable age. (Dead young men who were old enough to be married are mourned in VII.298, 328, 343, 367, 475, 627.)

20. … These are conventional descriptions of young men. Similar ones are used by Christian epigrammatists such as Agathias Scholasticus to describe the youthful dead (cf. VII.589, 602, 613).

21. By that age, one was the pursuer, not the pursued, and even the pursuers were slowing down. See Dover, p. 171.

22. Cf. VII.24, 25, 27, 29, 30, 31, 143, 222, 449, 714.

23. My attention was called to Philip Sherrard's article, ‘Cavafy's Sensual City: A Question’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, IV (1978), 133-7, after I had completed this paper. In answer to his questions (pp. 136-7), I found no prototypes among the Alexandrian epitaphs for Cavafy's five erotic epitaphs. I have not placed any special emphasis on Cavafy's ‘myth’ of Alexandria in the discussion that follows, but examination of both the historical and literary evidence for the Hellenistic period indicates that Cavafy's presentation of ancient Alexandria in his poetry as a sexual paradise for homosexuals is not based on fact. Although homosexuality was neither condemned nor outlawed, society did not acknowledge it as the ‘best kind of love’ (although Cavafy tried to convince us that this is so), and it was apparently, for most young men at least, only a stage in life which one went through before marriage (see nn. 19, 20, 22, 29-31 and pp. 140-1 of this paper). See Dover's book for a complete discussion of this matter.

24. Dover, pp. 1, 66-7. Cf. V.6, 19, 116; XII.9, 86, 90, 109, where both sorts of eros are possible in the same person. Some, however, prefer only heterosexuality, (cf. V.116, 277-8; X.68; XII.41), others prefer homosexuality exclusively (cf. XII.17, 87, 192, 245).

25. There are some early heterosexual poems in his ’Ανέκδοτα. but we need not take them very seriously. In the first place, they are bad poems, and in the second place, as far as we know Cavafy never had any heterosexual interests, so these very conventional sentimental poems must have been written without sincerity as poetic exercises, or with the female figure masking a male one.

26. Pinchin, p. 42.

27. Dover, pp. 149-51.

28. On openness about homosexuality in literature, see Dover, pp. 1, 153; cf. XII.17, 87, 245. For details about society's acceptance of the erastes (the active partner), see Dover, pp. 67-8, 82, 84, 89-90, 135, 137. All the epigrams in Book XII are written from the viewpoint of the erastes and, while they are clearly about homosexual eros, their approach, for the most part, is decidedly more euphemistic and romantic than the overtly gross sexual humour to be found in Aristophanes. (Cf. Dover, pp. 11, 59, 90-91, but see also n. 43.)

29. Dover, pp. 82-3, 88-90. Cf. XII.8, 205, 253; but 231 appears to speak about parental restrictions on the active partner.

30. Dover, pp. 49, 55-6, 83, 89, 106, 150. Cf. XII.4, 14, 21-2, 102, 200, 228, 251, 255, on age limits and courtship conventions. Some epigrams, however, show deviations from these conventions: cf. XII.9, 10.

31. Keeley, p. 63; cf. Bien, pp. 38-9 and Liddell, ‘Studies in Genius’, pp. 198-9.

32. Cf. XII.87, 192, 245.

33. Cf. Keeley, p. 45; Bien, p. 4. Cf. also ‘The Next Table’, ‘Temethos, Antiochian, a.d. 400’, ‘The Twenty-Fifth Year of His Life’, ‘Days of 1896’, ‘Two Young Men, 23 to 24 Years Old’, and ‘Picture of a 23-Year-Old Painted by His Friend of the Same Age, An Amateur’.

34. Cf. also ‘Hidden Things’.

35. Cf. Bien, pp. 14, 38; Keeley, pp. 9-10.

36. Cf. XII.57, 110, for boys made by Eros; XII.54, 64, 75-8, 97, 111, 112, for boys like Eros in their beauty.

37. Cf. XII.6, 22, 30, 37-8, 97. XII.94, 213 refer to loins. See also n. 43.

38. Cf. Liddell, ‘Studies in Genius’, p. 197; Pinchin, p. 42.

39. This is a nice touch, because garlands are frequently depicted in the hands of both the wooers and the wooed on vase paintings in festive contexts (see Dover, pp. 92-3, 96).

40. Cf. Dover, pp. 49, 55-6, 83, 89, 106, 150; XII.211.

41. Cf. Dover, pp. 36 n. 18, 52, 96-7, 150. There was, however, probably a gulf between reality and convention here (see Dover, pp. 103, 125 n. 1, 204; cf. XII.3, 7, 183, 209). The eromenos was also subject to a certain amount of social disdain as the passive partner (Dover, pp. 67-8, 84, 135, 137), but submission to a worthy man for purposes of self-improvement of any kind was acceptable to Greek society (Dover, p. 91).

42. There is almost no mention of poverty in the Hellenistic erotic poems of Book XII. In 150, hunger is seen as a ‘charm’ to drive away the disease of love (but it is not specified whether it is effective against heterosexual or homosexual love, or both). In 148, a lover complains to his eromenos (passive partner) in regard to his mercenary attitude about the lover's empty hands.

43. This is not to imply that all the erotic poems in Book XII (or even Book V) of the Greek Anthology are filled with decorum. A few are so graphic and ‘obscene’ that the Loeb edition has seen fit to present their translations in Latin instead of in English! (All or part of 14 poems in Book XII [and 14 in Book V] are translated into Latin.) For their tendency to be euphemistic, however, see n. 28.

44. Dover, pp. 69, 83.

45. Cf. XII.22, 81, 84, 99, 126, 132a, 154.

46. Cf. XII.71, 81, 85, 89, 92, 99, 100, 126, 144-5, 166.

47. Cf. ‘Voices’, ‘In the Evening’, ‘Gray’, ‘Following the Recipe of Ancient Greco-Syrian Magicians’, ‘Before Time Altered Them’, ‘The Afternoon Sun’.

48. Cf. Longings', ‘I've Brought to Art’, ‘On the Stairs’, ‘Half An Hour’, ‘September, 1903’, ‘Body Remember …’.

49. Cf. ‘Days of 1903’, ‘One Night’, ‘In Despair’, ‘The Twenty-Fifth Year of His Life’.

50. Gow and Page, Hellenistic Epigrams, II, p. 486. Cf. XII.98 and 150 which describe how learning and poetry heal poets wounded by love and make it possible to ignore love's pain, and V.93 and XII.120 which use reason as a shield against love. But XII.117 throws logic to the winds in favour of loving, citing Zeus as an example.

51. The Greek Anthology manages to joke about old age and impotency (cf. XI.30; XII.240), but for Cavafy it is no laughing matter. Great unhappiness about old age is also expressed in ‘An Old Man’ and ‘The Souls of Old Men’, although another old man is consoled by knowing that young men respond to his poetry (Very Seldom’). See also Bien, pp. 9-10.

52. Cf. ‘Voices’, ‘When They Come Alive’, ‘I've Looked So Much. …’, ‘Comes To Rest’, ‘Understanding’, ‘Their Beginning’, ‘I've Brought to Art’, ‘December, 1903’, ‘Half An Hour’, ‘In the Same Space’, ‘On Hearing of Love’. See also Bien, pp. 14-15, 39.

53. Cf. XII.16, 21, 29-32, 197, 215, 234-5.

54. Cf. ‘Passing Through’, ‘The Photograph’, ‘And I Lounged and Lay on Their Beds’, ‘When They Come Alive’, ‘I've Looked So Much. …’, ‘Comes To Rest’, ‘Understanding’, ‘Their Beginning’, ‘Half An Hour’.

55. Liddell, Personal Landscape, p. 102.

56. A. Lesky, A History of Greek Literature, trans. J. Willis and C. de Heer (London, 1966), p. 717.