June 14, 2003

And I Lounged and Lay on Their Beds
By: C. P. Cavafy

When I went to that house of pleasure I didn’t stay in the front rooms where they celebrate, with some decorum, the accepted modes of love. I went into the secret rooms and lounged and lay on their beds. 5 I went into the secret rooms considered shameful even to name. But not shameful to me — because if they were, what kind of poet, what kind of artist would I be? I’d rather be an ascetic. That would be more in keeping, 10 much more in keeping with my poetry, than for me to find pleasure in the commonplace rooms.