Brecht and Cavafy

Abstract

The poem's title hints, of course, at a literary model stemming from a poet of the third or second century B.C. Yet one searches in vain through the extant poetry of that period for a source for Brecht's short poem, because the late Greek poet that Brecht had in mind was his near contemporary Constantin Cavafy (1863-1933). The question that immediately comes to mind is, why then does Brecht use the adjective spatgriechisch rather than the expected neugriechisch? Was it perhaps to befuddle some would-be literary historian or to throw a pack of copyright holders off his trail? Though either possibility may well have amused Brecht-he was taken to court in the 1920s for plagiarizing a translation of Rimbaud-the solution to the riddle lies elsewhere. At a superficial level at least, Brecht simply took