Narcisse parle. Narcissus speaks

NARCISSUS SPEAKS

Narcissae placandis manibus.

O BROTHERS! sad lilies, I languish with beauty For desiring myself in your fair nudity, And towards you, Nymph, Nymph, O Nymph of the fountains, I come to offer pure silence my vain tears.

A great calm attends me, where I listen for hope. The waters' voice changes and speaks of the evening; I hear silver grass grow in the holy shadow, And the deceitful moon elevates her mirror Even to the secrets of the dried up fountain.

And me! Having plunged wholeheartedly in the reeds, I languish, O sapphire, for my sad beauty! I know no more love but for magical waters Where I forget the laughter and the ancient rose.

How I lament your fatal and pure splendour, O fountain so languidly by me surrounded, Where my eyes have drawn up from a mortal azure My image with a wreath of humid flowers crowned!

Alas! The image is vain and the tears eternal! Over the bluish woods with their brotherly arms, An ambiguous hour's tender glow exists, And the last of the day forms for me a bridegroom Nude, on the pale place where the sad water lures... Delicious demon, desirable and icy!

Here in the water my flesh is moonlight and dew, O form obedient and opposite my eyes! Here are my silver arms with their pure gestures!... My lingering hands in lovely gold grow weary Of calling this captive whom the leaves interlace, And I cry to the echoes the names of dark gods!...

Farewell, reflection lost on the calm enclosed wave, Narcissus... the very name a tender perfume For the soft heart. Scatter for the shades of the dead The funerary rose upon this empty tomb.

Be then, my lip, the rose distributing the kiss Which makes a dear spectre gradually appeased, For the night speaks softly, nearby and faraway, To calyxes full of shade and of light slumbers. But the moon is at play with recumbent myrtles.

I adore you, under these myrtles, O doubtful Flesh sorrowfully budding for the solitude And mirrored by the mirror sleeping in the wood. I free myself in vain from your gentle presence, The false hour slackens our members on the moss And with a sombre delight swells the profound wind.

Farewell, Narcissus... Die! The twilight has arrived. At the sigh of my heart my appearance trembles, The flute, buried deep in the azure modulates Regretfully for sonorous flocks departing. But on the mortal cold wherein the star is lit, Before a slow tomb is formed of nothing but mist, Take this kiss which breaks the calm of fatal water! Hope alone may suffice to shatter this crystal. The ripple ravishes me from my exile's breath So that my breath can animate a slender flute Whose nimble player may to me be indulgent!...

Fade vanishing away, perturbed divinity! And, you, pour out to the moon, humble lonely flute, The whole diversity of our tears of silver.