<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=358837" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>To Have Taken The Trouble</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I'm practically broke and homeless.<br>This fatal city, Antioch,<br>has devoured all my money:<br>this fatal city with its extravagant life.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But I'm young and extremely healthy.<br>Prodigious master of Greek,<br>I know Aristotle and Plato through and through,<br>poets, orators, or anyone else you could mention.<br>I have some idea about military matters<br>and friends among the senior mercenaries.<br>I also have a foot in the administrative world;<br>I spent six months in Alexandria last year:<br>I know (and this is useful) something about what goes on there-<br>the scheming of Kakergetis, his dirty deals, and the rest of it.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So I consider myself completely qualified<br>to serve this country,<br>my beloved fatherland, Syria.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Whatever job they give me,<br>I'll try to be useful to the country. That's what I intend.<br>But if they frustrate me with their manoeuvres-<br>we know them, those smart operators: no need to say more here-<br>if they frustrate me, it's not my fault.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I'll approach Zabinas first,<br>and if that idiot doesn't appreciate me, <br>I'll go to his rival, Grypos.<br>And if that imbecile doesn't appoint me,<br>I'll go straight to Hyrkanos.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">One of the three will want me anyway.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And my conscience is quiet<br>about my not caring which one I choose:<br>the three of them are equally bad for Syria.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But, a ruined man, it's not my fault.<br>I'm only trying, poor devil, to make ends meet.<br>The almighty gods ought to have taken the trouble<br>to create a fourth, a decent man.<br>I would gladly have gone along with him.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Constantine+P.+Cavafy">Constantine P. Cavafy</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=358837" data-title="To Have Taken The Trouble de Constantine P. Cavafy" data-description="I'm practically broke and homeless. This fatal city, Antioch, has devoured all my money: this fatal city with its extravagant life. But I'm young and extremely healthy. Prodigious master of Greek, I know Aristotle and Plato through and through, p..."></div> </div> </div>

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