even the nymphs have longed to possess me!… Your looks of affection

offer a grain of hope. When my arms reach out to embrace you,

you reach out too. I smile at you, and you smile at me back.

I weep and your tears flow fast. You nod when I show my approval.

When I read those exquisite lips, I can watch them gently repeating

my words – but I never can hear you repeat them!…..

I know you now and I know myself. Yes, I am the cause

of the fire inside me, the fuel that burns and the flame that lights it.

What can I do? Must I woo or be wooed? What else can I plead for?

All I desire I have. My wealth has left me a pauper.

Oh, how I wish that I and my body could now be parted,

I wish my love were not here! — a curious prayer for a lover.

Now my sorrow is sapping my strength. My life is almost

over. Its candle is guttering out in the prime of my manhood.

Death will be easy to bear, since dying will cure my heartache.

Better indeed if the one I love could have lived for longer,

but now, two soulmates in one, we shall face our ending together.’

With that he turned distractedly back to his own reflection;

his tears were troubling the limpid waters and blurring the picture

that showed in the ruffled pool. When he saw it fast disappearing,

‘Don’t hurry away, please stay! You cannot desert me so cruelly.

I love you!’ he shouted. ‘Please, if I’m not able to touch you,

I must be allowed to see you, to feed my unhappy passion!’

In wild distress he ripped the top of his tunic aside

and bared his breast to the blows he rained with his milk-white hand.

His fist brought up a crimson weal on his naked torso,

like apples tinted both white and red, or a multi-coloured

cluster of grapes just ripening into a blushing purple.

Once the water had cleared again and he saw what his hand

had done, the boy could bear it no longer. As yellow wax

melts in a gentle flame, or the frost on a winter morning

thaws in the rays of the sunshine, so Narcissus faded

away and melted, slowly consumed by the fire inside him.

His face had lost that wonderful blend of red and whiteness,

gone was the physical vigour and all he had looked at and longed for,

broken the godlike frame which once poor Echo had worshipped.

Echo had watched his decline, still filled with angry resentment

but moved to pity. Whenever the poor unhappy youth

uttered a pitiful sigh, her own voice uttered a pitiful

sigh in return. When he beat with his hand on his shoulders, she also

mimicked the sound of the blows. His final words, as he gazed

once more in the pool, rang back from the rocks: ‘Oh marvellous boy,