As you set out for Ithaka
Hope your road is a long one
Full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistygonians, Cyclops,
Angry Posiedon- 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 sensation touches your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
Wild Posiedon- you won’t encounter them
Unless you bring them inside your soul,
Unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many mornings when
With what pleasure, what joy,
You enter harbours 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 those who know.
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 are old by the time you reach the island,
Wealthy with all that you have gained on the way,
Not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvellous 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 Ithaka’s mean.