As you set out for Ithaka hope the voyage is a
long one, full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops, angry
Poseidon - don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit
and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops, wild
Poseidon - you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy, you come into
harbours seen for the first time; may you stop at
Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfumes of every kind - as many
sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from
their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years, so you are old by
the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvellous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

C.P. Cavafy (1911)