Waiting for the Barbarians

Philosophy is sometimes better expressed through the arts than through philosophy. With that in mind, I will present some important poem, work of prose, or piece of music each friday, so long as my knowledge of important or enjoyable works that a traditionalist might value does not run out.

The following poem was alluded to by Alasdair MacIntyre at the end of After Virtue, as he admitted in the third edition. I copied it from here.

And I realize my formatting isn't uniform; blogger is being a pain.  I'll settle on uniform formatting sometime soon, I hope.

Waiting for the Barbarians

--by C.P. Cavafy

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.

Why isn’t anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?

Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.

Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city’s main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.

Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.

Why don’t our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people’s faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.

And now, what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.

----

For this and more poems (for whose content I do not vouch--Cavafy was a sensualist, and this is the only poem by him that I know) see P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Edited by George Savidis. Revised Edition. Princeton University Press, 1992.