Who we are: gods, wise men, men? Cavafy’s «But the wise men apprehend what is imminent» in the interpretation of Joseph Brodsky

The subject of the paper is Joseph Brodsky’s reception, perception and poetic interpretation of the Cavafy’s poem «But the wise men apprehend what is imminent». The comparative analysis of both poetic works is implemented on the basis of our own linear translation. The dynamics and the sequence of different oppositions such as gods / wise men / men; to perceive / to apprehend; future / what is imminent / things as they happen; ignorance-ill infinity / change of consciousness is observed. Cavafy’s Modernist hymn to the prophets, to which he related the figure of the Poet, is converted by Joseph Brodsky to another plane of impossibility to overcome the Time transcendentally. Cavafy’s wise men are given in the situation of the divine revelation whereas Brodsky’s sages do not reveal but call to the memory of once already known things. Thus, it can be suggested that Brodsky translates the metaphysical plan of Cavafy’s poem into the anthropological plan of the human history with its endless repetition. So, the image of «the forgotten motive» appears in the translation, intertwining with the Ancient Socratic idea of the «inherent» knowledge. For the men, the existence, listened-apprehended by the wise men, breaks up, and thus the Time breaks up but not into the past (the past in this hymn to the prophets is absent) and the future (it entirely belongs to gods) and not even the present as the present is hic et nunc in the Greek sense of the indivisibility and wholeness of existence also does not exist. However, there are only «the things as they happen», in other words, «bad infinity» as the repetition of the same mistakes without profiting from the unfortunate experience. That is the rhythm of the life of «street», «city», «satrapy» etc., where endless adhesion of causes-effects is incessantly recurring again and again, where the «happening» time and everyday life are reduplicating, tripling and multiplying without switching to the pattern in with once and forever the sense, the meaning is extracted.

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