"Impossible Things": Editing and Translating C. P. Cavafy's Unfinished Poems

Abstract

"Impossible Things": Editing andTranslating C. P.Cavafy's Unfinished Poems1 KAREN EMMERICH -L>lo doubt it would have delighted C. P. Cavafy," writes EricOrmsby inhisNewCriterion review of DanielMendelsohn's translations, "toknowthatsomesixty years after hisdeath onApril 29,1933,thetwodozenorso poemshe leftunfinished wouldemerge intothelight, lovingly assembled from scattered drafts through thepainstaking efforts of his editors."2Ormsbyis referring to Mendelsohn's Unfinished Poems,* a slim companion volume tothemuch heftier Collected Poems.Around 1961,G.P.Savidis - thenjustbeginning a dissertation on Cavafy's handmadeeditions ofhispoems, butlater to become oneofthe mostinfluential scholars and editors of Cavafy as wellas many other modern Greek poets - found these drafts inwhat hascometobeknown as theCavafy Archive.3 Savidis subsequently purchased andphotographed theArchive, andpublishedsomeoftheseunfinished poemspiecemeal in essays andjournalarticles overthefollowing decades.Theywere first published as a group in1994,ina scholarly edition preparedbyRenataLavagnini . Mendelsohn's volume isthefirst authorized publication inEnglish ofthese thirty poemsand four fragments.4 This"delight," as Ormsby imagines it,is rooted inwhat wemight callCavafy's poetics ofthelostandfound, which *C. P.Cavafy, The Unfinished Poems: Thefirst Englishtranslation, withintroduction and commentary, Daniel Mendelsohn,ed. and trans.(New York:Alfred A. Knopf,2009). xviii+ 121 pages. $30. ARION I7.3 WINTER 2OIO 112 "IMPOSSIBLE THINGS" pervadesnotonlyhispoemsof remembered love,butthose involving therecovery ofneglected erasor historical figures, or,mostpertinently, effaced texts.ButOrmsby's playful tone also suggeststhat Cavafymighthave been pleased at the decades of scholarly contortions promptedby thedraftshe leftbehind:"Thisis justthesortoflong-drawn-out saga . . . whichthepoet himself mighthave teasedintowryelegiacs. ('WaitingfortheGrammarians' perhaps?)"Ormsbymaybe havinghisown bitofwryfunat all thisscholarship. Itseems to amusehimthatthenotesinMendelsohn's volume"occupy twiceas manypagesas thepoems,"and thatLavagnini's edition - that"marvelof preciseand ingeniousscholarship" has roughly a ten-to-one ratioofnotesand transcriptions per poem.Meanwhile,thoughOrmsbyclaimsto havecompared Mendelsohn's translations to thetextsLavagninipresents, he seemsto misunderstand thesignificance ofLavagnini's editorialapproach ,hermeticulous registering ofthetextualconditionof thesewritings: "It isn'talways obvious," he writes, "whyCavafyconsidered thesepoemsunfinished." This reactionisn'tunique:Publishers'Weekly was thefirst to notethat,"Most of thesepiecesseemas finished as anything intheCollected Poems."sAndforthereader withaccess onlyto theEnglish, theclassification "unfinished" might indeedseemstrange : apartfrom a lineinthepoem "Zenobia," wherean illegibleword is markedby two square crosses, Mendelsohn's translations offer no hintthattheseversedrafts containmultiple variants forwhichno priority can be established .Bycontrast, Lavagnini's edition, citedon Mendelsohn's title pageas thebasisforhisown,makesthisimmediately apparent . HereisMendelsohn's version ofthepoemCavafyprovisionally entitled "O rcaxpiápxnç" ("Patriarch"): The insolent, theungrateful John, who owed thefactthathe was Patriarch to thekindness thatwas shownto him byLordJohnCantacuzenus (theworthy manwhomourracethenpossessed, KarenEmmerich113 wise, forbearing, patriotic, brave, adroit), played thewiseman, theunscrupulous patriarch did,andsaidhewouldtakecare that theinjustice donelongagotoJohn Lascaris wouldnever berepeated (notrealizing, silly man, whata tremendous outrage hiswords were totheruleofthePaleologues). Ofcourse heknew, deplorable man, that from thehonorable, thefaithful, theunselfish LordJohn Cantacuzenus, LordAndronicus's boywasinnodanger whatsoever. He knew it,deplorable, disgraceful man,butsought inevery waytopander tothemob. Mendelsohn's notesto thispoemat thebackofthevolume areextensive: hebriefly describes thesevensheets contained in thedossierforthepoem,thenoffers several pagesofcommentaryon thepoem,and on Cavafy'sabidinginterest inthefigureofJohnCantacuzenus ; he evenrefers us to severalfurther pages ofcommentary on thesubjectin thenotesto theCollectedPoems . He also translates one variantpassage of nine lines.Butcomparethis,particularly thecleanvisualaspectof thepoem quoted above, to Lavagnini - fivepages of diplomatictranscription (ofwhichI show onlyone, fig.1); seven pagesofcommentary, including herunpacking oftheprocess ofcomposition; and finally an edited"lasttext,"a clearreadingcopywithfootnote markers referring thereaderto a numberofvariants below(fig.z).6 These"lasttexts"areintended torepresent the"lastform . . . thatthepoethadgiven"toeach ofthesepoems.?As we willsee,however, theyare arrived at througheditorialdecisionsthatmake them,in Lavagnini's view,inseparable from thepreceding transcriptions. Ormsby'smostpointedcriticism of Mendelsohn'svolume is that"theabsenceof theGreekseemsdownright inexcusable ... itwouldn'thaveadded muchto production coststo providethethirty or so pages of Cavafy'soriginaltexts.It would have beena serviceto scholarship, letalone a benefit to thosewho love the poet enoughto puzzle out what he 114 "IMPOSSIBLE THINGS" wrotein theactual words he used." Yet thistoo betraysa misunderstanding of Lavagnini's"last texts"and theirrelationto thecritical apparatusthatsurrounds them.In heredition ,the presentation of the poems takes up nearlythree hundredpages.This "thirty or so pages of Cavafy'soriginal texts"clearlyrefers to theeditedtextsthatservedas thebasisforMendelsohn 'stranslations. Butto whatextent can we really call these editorial constructs"Cavafy's original texts"?Can we divorcetheclearreading textatthetopofthe page from thefootnoted variantsbelow?To whatextentare theeditedtexts,variantsand all, separablefromtheprecedingpagesofdiplomatic transcription, whichallow thereader to trackLavagnini'sdecisionsand interventions? How much of thismaterialoughtthetranslator transmit, and in what editorial formshouldthattransmission takeplace? Let me first givea basic accountof what Lavagninidoes and herreasonsforchoosingtheparticular methodology she does. Then,I willshowhow Mendelsohnrelieson butdeviatesfromherwork .Finally, I willbriefly touchon a specific example, the poem "Zqiíoi) Emx...