Analysis of Waiting for the Barbarians
Constantine P. Cavafy 1863 (Alexandria) – 1933 (Alexandria)
What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
The barbarians are due here today.
Why isn't anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?
Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.
Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city's main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.
Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.
Why don't our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.
Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?
Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.
And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.
Scheme | a bxc Bxcdxx Bexfbffxxx Bgxb Bchadx abegh |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111010100010 0010011101 110101000010 1101001101100 010010011001 111010011 10010011110100 111010011110 011110101011 111011001 010010011001 00100110101110 11100101111 0111010101 111011011101 1010101101 111111011101 01101010010 1111001001 100101001 010010011001 01111000100 11100101001101100 11110111111 010010011001 011110001010 11101001010 11001010101 1101011001100 101011101 011110000100111 011110110101 11101001010 0111011011010100 10110011010 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,586 |
Words | 273 |
Sentences | 24 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 3, 6, 10, 4, 6, 5 |
Lines Amount | 35 |
Letters per line (avg) | 37 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 185 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 39 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 04, 2023
- 1:24 min read
- 258 Views
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"Waiting for the Barbarians" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 12 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/7282/waiting-for-the-barbarians>.
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