How we got here; I am reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses (just finished book 9, 6 to go). At the end of book 9, Iphis and Ianthe, the translator I’m reading (Horace Gregory) mentions a poem by Constantine Cavafy.
Cavafy is perhaps best-remembered for his poem Waiting for the Barbarians, which provided the title for a slender and very powerful novel by J.M. Coetzee.
Anyways, the poem, called The Alexandrian Kings, is an absolute banger. Mark Anthony and Cleo are showing off her kids (some his, some not) to the throngs and the throngs are pretending to love it. Because they want to love it, it’s nice to love it.
They declared him greater than his little brothers,
they declared him King of Kings.The Alexandrians knew of course
that this was all mere words, all theatre.But the day was warm and poetic,
the sky a pale blue,
the Alexandrian Gymnasium
a complete artistic triumph,
And it concludes
“though they knew of course what all this was worth,
what empty words they really were, these kingships.”
And this, this is kayfabe – the pleasure in pretending.
marchudson.net 
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