This is the Spanish poem (and the English version) the students have been working on. It's called "Mediterranean", by the writer and singer Joan Manuel Serrat. It is actually a song, but its poetic strength makes it one of the most popular poems in our language in the second half of the 20th century. Indeed, the song was chosen as the best pop song in the history of Spanish music by a specialised magazine.

We chose to work on Constantin Cavafy's poem " Ithaca ".
We shall realize four small videos:
- A short biography of the poet
- A reading in English of an extract of the poem
- A reading in Greek of an extract of the poem

- Impressions of the students

Ithaka

(par Constantin Cavafy, traduit du grec
par Edmund Keeley et Philip Sherrard)

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, 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, 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 your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

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

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't 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’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

De: C. P. Cavafy, ‘The City’ from C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems (Princeton University Press, 1975)