by Juan Inoriza
May 9, 2020
Sixteen years ago in Berlin, I was preparing for a radical change in my life. After nearly seventeen years in Germany, I was leaving behind a stable and well-paid job to embark on a new, uncertain — yet deeply inspiring — path in Vietnam.
My boss, an exceptional and extraordinary person, supported my decision wholeheartedly. At the same time, he often reminded me of the poem Ithaka by the great Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy:
“As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.”
The Greeks believed that history was cyclical, composed of memory and myth, and our lives are indeed shaped by recurring feelings — nostalgia, the fear of the unknown — particularly in times of uncertainty, anxiety, and upheaval.
Ithaka — the legendary Greek island, home to Odysseus, Penelope, and Telemachus — is the perfect metaphor for life’s purpose, the ever-elusive destination we continually seek.
Our Ithakas can be almost anything: a goal we strive for, a place we long to return to, or a chapter we must first live through in order to understand. They may symbolise the journey of life itself, from beginning to end, and the cyclical return to our origins. Yet above all, Ithaka reminds us that the real treasure lies in the journey — in the detours, trials, discoveries and growth — not necessarily in the arrival.
The Cyclopes, the Laistrygonians, and the wrath of Poseidon will not appear on your path “unless you bring them along inside your soul,” says Cavafy. It is often our own inner demons that block the way toward what we desire most.
As for me, despite having visited many harbours, faced my share of Cyclopes and irate Poseidons, wandered the emporiums of Phoenicia and learned from wise men in distant cities, I am still, in many ways, on the journey to Ithaka.
Never forget your goals. Enjoy the journey — and set forth toward your own Ithaka.
Ithaka
By C. P. Cavafy
As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
Copyright Credit: C. P. Cavafy, “The City” from C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Translation Copyright © 1975, 1992 by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Reproduced with permission of Princeton University Press.
Source: C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems (Princeton University Press, 1975)