51 lines
1.6 KiB
Text
51 lines
1.6 KiB
Text
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Waiting for the Barbarians
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What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
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The barbarians are to arrive today.
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Why such inaction in the Senate?
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Why do the Senators sit and pass no laws?
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Because the barbarians are to arrive today.
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What laws can the Senators pass any more?
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When the barbarians come they will make the laws.
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Why did our emperor wake up so early,
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and sits at the greatest gate of the city,
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on the throne, solemn, wearing the crown?
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Because the barbarians are to arrive today.
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And the emperor waits to receive
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their chief. Indeed he has prepared
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to give him a scroll. Therein he inscribed
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many titles and names of honor.
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Why have our two consuls and the praetors come out
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today in their red, embroidered togas;
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why do they wear amethyst-studded bracelets,
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and rings with brilliant, glittering emeralds;
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why are they carrying costly canes today,
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wonderfully carved with silver and gold?
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Because the barbarians are to arrive today,
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and such things dazzle the barbarians.
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Why don't the worthy orators come as always
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to make their speeches, to have their say?
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Because the barbarians are to arrive today;
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and they get bored with eloquence and orations.
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Why all of a sudden this unrest
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and confusion. (How solemn the faces have become).
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Why are the streets and squares clearing quickly,
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and all return to their homes, so deep in thought?
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Because night is here but the barbarians have not come.
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And some people arrived from the borders,
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and said that there are no longer any barbarians.
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And now what shall become of us without any barbarians?
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Those people were some kind of solution.
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- Constantine P. Cavafy (1904)
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