Vox Populi
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C.P. Kavafy: Che Fece… Il Gran Rifiuto
For some people the day comes
when they have to declare the great Yes
or the great No. It’s clear at once who has the Yes
ready within him; and saying it,
he goes from honor to honor, strong in his conviction.
He who refuses does not repent. Asked again,
he’d still say no. Yet that no—the right no—
drags him down all his life.
— C.P. Kavafy (tr. Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)
Note: The title is Italian for “What Did He Do?… The Great Refusal.” The ‘great refusal’ (il gran rifiuto) is the error attributed in Dante’s Inferno to one of the souls found trapped aimlessly at the Vestibule of Hell. The soul does not deserve the eternal torment of Hell, but has refused to accept the gift of faith.
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Or there are us souls trapped in our agnostic Maybe. Perhaps standing dumbstruck at the gates of Paradise, hesitating, wishing for a coin to flip, or a poem to turn our flickering into a lighted path.
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It’s interesting to me that Dante sees that being a good man, but not a spiritual man, as an offense that keeps us from bliss. I’m not really a Christian, but I do believe that refusing to embrace timeless principles is a serious mistake. Being indifferent to other people’s suffering, for example, even if you are not causing the suffering, is a sin against humanity.
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I agree. Timeless spiritual principles are too often left behind in our soul-less contemporary culture; and consequently, in our ignored human responsibilities to love our wide array of neighbors and just as importantly, our deep selves.
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Damn, you said it. When I read it this morning, it pulled that little agnostic thread, released the what ifs, caused the ants in my brain to continue their arguments. Then I looked at the picture, not a current depiction of eternity, which then began the echoes of religions tried and rejected, the no meat on Fridays, the keeping Kosher, the Bahai pilgrimage, my dream of my dead father telling me there was a hell. A poem that evokes such mental tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth is rare. I stopped and sat for my morning meditation. May all beings…. But of course I will read it again. The ants in my brain demand it.
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Thanks, Barbara!
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Absolutely agree with Margo, no wores to add.
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This is almost funny. Words, of course.
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Thank you for this necessary poem.
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Thanks, Phil. Kavafy is on the short list of great modern poets. Rilke, Yeats, Amichai, Akhmatova…
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No words to add, as Margo Berdeshevsky wrote. But there it is … that “NO” starting the sentence.
And then, in what I just replied: the last word being “SENTENCE”.
Oh dear!
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Rifiuto not refiuto
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Corrected. Thanks, Syd!
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No words to add.The Kavafy says it all,in my favored of translations. And as the illustration of Doré you have chosen…manages the impossible path of currents…saying its yes, and its no…I nod my yes..
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Thanks, Margo!
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