It sounded better when Sean Connery read it.

I was so inspired by the reading by Sean Connery that I decided to track down the poem and take a closer look. I know Spesh missed out because driving to West Point and all so I threw in some notes especially for him about Hork and Adorno and how they might interpret this.

Ithaca

When you set out for Ithaka
ask that your way be long,
full of adventure, full of instruction.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - do not fear them:
such as these you will never find
as long as your thought is lofty, as long as a rare
emotion touch your spirit and your body.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - you will not meet them
unless you carry them in your soul,
unless your soul raise them up before you.

• "Do not fear them: such as these you will never find as long as your thought is lofty," Lofty thought would be enlightened thought, free from myth. If you are free from myth you no longer believe in these mythical beings and they cannot harm you. If you "carry them in your soul" they retain their power over you and you are not free.
  
• Hork would also mention that you shouldn't fear them because you also have some control over them (sacrifice and such)
  

Ask that your way be long.
At many a Summer dawn to enter
with what gratitude, what joy -
ports seen for the first time;
to stop at Phoenician trading centres,
and to buy good merchandise,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensuous perfumes of every kind,
sensuous perfumes as lavishly as you can;
to visit many Egyptian cities,
to gather stores of knowledge from the learned.

• Cavafy is saying here to live your live for means rather than ends. Focus on subjective rather than objective.
• Hork and Adorno would be critical of this and point how this entire section describes fulfilling the commodity fetish. Because people have allowed their lives to become governed by subjective reason rather than objective reason and live for means rather than ends, they must create false needs to temporarily satisfy (by shopping) to ignore the fact that their larger needs, such as purpose, are not being met.

Have Ithaka always in your mind.
Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
But don't in the least hurry the journey.
Better it last for years,
so that when you reach the island you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to give you wealth.
Ithaka gave you a splendid journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She hasn't anything else to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka hasn't deceived you.
So wise you have become, of such experience,
that already you'll have understood what these Ithakas mean.

Constantine P Cavafy

• This last bit that Cavafy is saying is pretty interesting and coincides with what Horkheimer wrote about in the Eclipse of Reason. Cavafy is saying that in the end, your end should coincide and be complimented and enhanced by the means you took to achieve it. Horkheimer talks about in the Eclipse of Reason how ideally, subjective reason and the scientific method would compliment and "prove" the validity of objective reasoning. Unfortunately we're not quite there yet and it's all pretty hopeless and depressing right now.