Fighting the good fight

Cavafy's Thermopylae

I decided to translate this powerful sonnet by the great Greek poet Cavafy into rhyming English. Cavafy himself uses only rhythmical verse (I retain his iambic pulse), but the free translations I’ve read seem unduly awkward, and often fail to get across the point of choosing one’s ‘own Thermopylae’.

In 480 BCE, King Leonidas and his 300 Spartan warriors made their legendary stand at the narrow coastal pass of Thermopylae against the vast Persian army of Xerxes. They were defeated when the Greek traitor Ephialtes showed the Persian forces (‘the Medes’) a hidden path that allowed them to break through and encircle the Greek defenders.

The thrust of the poem is that good people who (as the current phrase goes) “choose a hill to die on” (i.e. ‘their own Thermopylae’) and conduct themselves honourably throughout are praiseworthy. And even more so when they have an inkling (as many do) that there are traitors like Ephialtes who will one day seek to undermine and destroy them.

Honour to all people who in life
defend and guard their own Thermopylae,
who don't desert their post in times of strife 
and act at all times fair and honestly;
with pity and compassion in their heart,
through wealth or want, no favour they deny, 
but, bound to truth, their utmost help impart,
yet harbour no ill will for those who lie.

And greater honour yet belongs to those
who can foresee (since often things portend)
that Ephialtes will their flank expose,
and that the Medes will break through in the end.