ITHACA, ODYSSEY AND KAVAFIS, OR WHY OUR SCHOOL IS CALLED ÍES ÍTACA.

     Have you noticed the image that illustrates the upper part of this blog? Do you know the author or what represents? Do you find any connection between our school IES Ítaca and that painting? Obviously, it is not unintended.

   

  The painting is Ulysses and the Sirens by John William Waterhouse, who was an amazing painter included in the so-called Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. This was an artistic movement that was developed in Great Britain in the nineteenth century. 

Here Waterhouse depicts Ulysses tied to the mast of his ship listening to the sirens' chant. It is inspired by Homer's Odysssey, the epic poem written in the eighth century B.C. that narrates Ulysses' voyage back home from Troy to Ithaca.

That poem was also the source of inspiration for a poem entitled ITHACA, written by a Greek poet called Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis in 1911. The basic idea of this poem is that if you have to set out for a long travel you must be aware that the time you spend travelling must be enjoyed. It is a metaphor that can be applied to the process of learning and the time the students spend in the school.

The whole poem is as follows:

When you leave for Ithaca,
may your journey be long
and full of adventures and knowledge.

Do not be afraid of Laestrigones, Cyclopes
or furious Poseidon;
you won’t come across them on your way
if you don’t carry them in your soul,
if your soul does not put them in front of your steps.

I hope your road is long.
May there be many a summer morning,
and may ports for the first time seen
bring you great joy.

May you stop at Phoenician marts,
to purchase there the best of wares,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber, ebony,
hedonic perfumes of all sorts;
may you go to various Egyptian towns
and learn from a people with so much to teach.

Don’t lose sight of Ithaca,
for that’s your destination.
But take your time;
better that the journey lasts many a year
and that your boat only drops anchor on the island
when you have grown rich
with what you learned on the way.

Don’t expect Ithaca to give you many riches.
Ithaca has already given you a fine voyage;
without Ithaca you would never have parted.
Ithaca gave you everything and can give you no more.

If in the end you think that Ithaca is poor,
don’t think that she has cheated you.
Because you have grown wise and lived an intense life,
and that’s the meaning of Ithaca.