Narcissus

Woe is me,

Who mistook a shadow for reality,

My cursed search for you,

Is a tormented search for me,

Gazing out into clear waters,

Forgetting whose eyes they are from which I see,

O’ dreadful heart,

It is your solemn fate to ceaselessly chase after shadows,

Forgetting food and sleep,

To join in singing loves lament,

Which all must sing,

But none louder than mine,

I who am crying out to the ancient forest of lovers,

A cause as fruitless as demanding mortal life to be more than an instant,

A cruel fate it was which made me both the subject and object of my own desire,

O’ blind heart that thing which you are seeking does not exist,

The tighter you hold sand the quicker it eludes you,

Like the constricting snake who in his haste asphyxiates himself,

So too have you been cut down in the flower of your youth,

You cannot feed this ill-starred love with grief,

And so you must turn to hateful death for release,

In closing my eyes I lose sight of my love,

But grow ever closer to him,

Soon all will sing a refrain to my lament,

I who mistook a shadow for reality,

Died swimming in a pool of my vain misery.