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Listen to the recording below:
Celebrate the 10 Poems in 10 Weeks Series!
Host: Roger Housden
Special Guests: Poets featured in his book “Ten Poems To Change Your Life Again and Again”
November 12, 2008
Noon Eastern Time
Host: Roger Housden , author of Ten Poems To Change Your Life Again and Again
Poem: Ithaka
by: C. P. Cavafy
This is the final call in our ten week series. The conversation will focus on the poem for the first thirty minutes followed by a discussion on how this poem relates to coaching.
The poem to be discussed is as follows:
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 are 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 would not 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.
Please join us for the finale to this wonderful series.
As always, please post your thoughts/questions below.
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