The God Abandons Antony
When suddenly, at midnight, you hear an invisible procession going by with exquisite music, voices, don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now, work gone wrong, your plans all proving deceptive—don’t mourn them uselessly. As one long prepared, and graced with courage, say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving. Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say it was a dream, your ears deceived you: don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these. As one long prepared, and graced with courage, as is right for you who proved worthy of this kind of city, go firmly to the window and listen with deep emotion, but not with the whining, the pleas of a coward; listen—your final delectation—to the voices, to the exquisite music of that strange procession, and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing. - Constantine P. Kavafis
If a stoic were to visit us, he would fell represented by the previous poem. It is about Mark Antony, who has just lost the battle against octavius and was forsaken by Bacchus, the god who until then had proteced him. The poem addresses Antony, now defeated and betrayed (according to legend even his horse deserted him.I first leaned about this poem in the book "fooled by randomness" by Nassim Taleb
