The God Abandons Antony

"The God Abandons Antony" (Greek: Ἀπολείπειν ὁ θεὸς Ἀντώνιον; also translated as "The God Forsakes Antony") is a poem by Constantine P. Cavafy, published in 1911. The poem refers to Plutarch's story of how Antony, besieged in Alexandria by Octavian, heard the sounds of instruments and voices of a procession making its way through the city, then passing out; the god Bacchus (Dionysus), Antony's protector, was deserting him;[1] the poem's title itself is a verbatim quotation from Plutarch's text.[1]

Adaptations

Leonard Cohen freely adapted the poem for his song "Alexandra Leaving" (Ten New Songs, 2001).[2] Whereas Cavafy's theme was based around the city of Alexandria, Cohen's version builds around a woman named Alexandra.

gollark: Now to get an advanced monitor and put that in green text...
gollark: Amazingly, dumping the entirety of CC's environment works fine! Until serializing it crashes...
gollark: Is there a serialization library which does *not* do this?
gollark: I decided to copy that root table, and it works now. Thanks! I'll probably use something else to actually serialize when it's out of testing anyway.
gollark: So why does that preclude using the same table repeatedly?

References
  1. Plutarch (1920). "Antony 75.3–4". Plutarch's Lives. 9. With an English Translation by Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann Ltd. "Antony 75.3–4". Plutarch's Lives (in Greek). At the Perseus Project.
  2. "The god abandons Antony". Leonard Cohen: The Leonard Cohen Files.
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