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The Trojans, CP Cavafy

Our efforts, those of the ill-fortuned;
Our efforts are the efforts of the Trojans.
We will make a bit of progress; we will start
to pick ourselves up a bit; and we will begin
to be intrepid, and to have some hope.

But something always comes up, and stops us cold.
In the trench in front of us Achilles
emerges, and arights us with his shouting.

Our efforts are the efforts of the Trojans.
We imagine that with resolve and daring
we will reverse the animosity of fortune,
and so we take our stand outside, to fight.

But whenever the crucial moment comes,
our boldness and our daring disappear;
our spirit is shattered, comes unstrung;
and we scramble all around the walls
seeking in our flight to save ourselves.

And yet our fall is certain. Up above,
on the walls, already the lament has begun.
They mourn the memory, the sensibility, of our days.
Bitterly Priam and Hecuba mourn for us.

(Translated by Daniel Mendelsohn)

What We Bring to Them

“That our opinion gives value to things is seen by the many things that we do not think about even to appraise them, preferring to think about ourselves instead. We consider neither their qualities not their uses, but only the cost of us getting them, as if that were some part of their substance; and we call value in them not what they bring, but what we bring to them. At which point I note that we are great economizers of our expenditure. According as it weighs, it serves by the very fact that it weighs. Our opinion never lets it run at a false valuation. Purchase gives value to the diamond, and difficulty to virtue, and pain to piety, and harshness to medicine.” (I:14, 43, Frame)