Ithaka

To take pleasure in the process is to understand what an Ithaka means.

Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka
home your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laisttrygomians, 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 as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laisttrygomians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon-- you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up infront 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 andebony,
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 ther is what you you're destined for,
But don't hurry the jouney at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you're old by the time you reach the island,
weathy 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 understand by then what these Ithakas mean.
--C. P. Kavafy






主要作者 Weick, Karl E 書名/作者 The social psychology of organizing / Karl E. Weick 出版項 New York : Random House, c1979 版本項 2nd ed