Analysis of Julian at the Mysteries
Constantine P. Cavafy 1863 (Alexandria) – 1933 (Alexandria)
But when he found himself in darkness,
in the earth's awful depths,
with a group of unholy Greeks,
and bodiless figures appeared before him
with haloes of light,
the young Julian for a moment lost his nerve:
an impulse from his pious years came back
and he crossed himself.
The Figures vanished at once;
the haloes faded away, the lights went out.
The Greeks glanced at each other.
The young man said: 'Did you see the miracle?
I'm frightened, friends. I want to leave.
Didn't you see how the demons vanished
the second they saw me make the holy sign of the cross?'
The Greeks chuckled scornfully:
'Shame on you, shame, to talk that way
to us sophists and philosophers!
If you want to say things like that,
say them to the Bishop of Nicomedia and his priests.
The greatest gods of our glorious Greece
appeared before you.
And if they left, don't think for a minute
that they were frightened by a gesture.
It was just that when they saw you
making that vile, that crude sign,
their noble nature was disgusted
and they left you in contempt.'
This is what they said to him, and the fool
recovered from his holy, blessed fear,
convinced by the unholy words of the Greeks.
Scheme | ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOLPQRSTUVKUWXYZ1 C |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111101010 001101 10110101 011001011 1111 011001010111 1101110111 01101 0101011 0110010111 0111110 01111110100 11011111 1011101010 01011110101101 01101 11111111 11100100 11111111 11101011011 01011101001 01011 0111111010 110101010 11111111 1011111 110101010 0111001 1111111001 010111011 01100101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,145 |
Words | 217 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 31 |
Lines Amount | 31 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 915 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 213 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 14, 2023
- 1:05 min read
- 45 Views
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