ECHO AND NARCISSUS
A Play by Pedro Calderón de la Barca
Translated by Bronwyn Lewis, Duke ‘08 in the spring semestre, 2006
in consultation with Margaret R. Greer
Translation based on the edition of Eco y Narciso
of Charles V. Aubrun
Paris: Centre de Recherches de l’Institut d’Étudies Hispaniques, 1963
Please send suggestions for corrections or improvements to:
bronwyn.lewis@duke.edu and mgreer@duke.edu
Characters
Narcissus
Bato, a commoner
Febo, a young shepherd
Echo, a young woman
Silvio, a young shepherd
Liríope, a young woman
Anteo, a young shepherd
Laura, a young woman
Sileno, an old shepherd
Nise, a young woman
Libia, a young woman
Sirene, a commoner
Musicians
Accompaniment
Act I
The curtain is raised to reveal a forest.
Silvio enters from one side in shepherd’s clothing.
SILVIO:
Woodlands of Arcadia, how prominently you
1
raise up to the heavens your elevated brow,
the great eminence of which reaches so high
that though it begins as a woods, it is crowned by clouds,
your forelock of hair and your footprints being
a carpet of roses and a canopy of stars…
Febo, another young shepherd, enters from the other side of the stage.
FEBO:
Beautiful Arcadian jungle, how floridly you are
always garnished by shades of color,
without your pomp, at all times green,
ever reminded of December nor June ,
May being the crown of your sphere
and your season being year-round springtime…
SILVIO:
Birds, that fleetingly paint the air
with the hues of a living bouquet,
and, adding colors to colors,
become the singing flowers of the trees…
FEBO:
Sheep, that scattered on the mountain
are music of shearing and bleating
and on the bank of that little stream
are white pieces of sculpted snow. . .…
SILVIO:
My happiness, in the the good fortune of this day,
comes to request your congratulations:
today Echo, the most beautiful young woman
that ever saw the light of the sun,
in completing this latest circle of her years,
evokes a flowery disenchantment of mortality.
FEBO:
My sorrow come to convey to you my condolences
that the rare and unique beauty Echo,
disabused of immortality,
today has completed this circle of her years
such that, although filled with happiness,
each added year is one less grace remaining.
Bato, a commoner, enters from the opposite side of the stage.
BATO:
Jungles of Arcadia, beautiful exalted forest,
sheep and birds of this horizon,
I come to ask your congratulations
and to give you today my fitting condolences.
The congratulations, because to today’s florid
celebration of her birth Echo invites us
2
and in her vanity promises
to all a sumptuous banquet.
The condolences, because – alas! –
she will promise us no other
until a year from now.
FEBO:
Oh, Silvio!
SILVIO:
Oh, Febo!
BATO:
Oh, Bato!
FEBO:
You name yourself, you crazy man?
BATO:
Well, if no one else mentions me,
what am I to do? And my style should not surprise you,
since the times are so foolish and troublesome
that it is necessary for everyone to honor themselves.
FEBO:
Silvio, where are you coming from?
SILVIO:
I come with pleasure and filled with great happiness
to this pretty cabin
that, twice straw-colored, the sun bathes in light.
FEBO:
I also come to it,
and upon seeing you here, too, I am jealous
that already my love is disappointed
that you also live in love with Echo.
SILVIO:
Oh, heavens, how much more quickly
am I met with Jealousy before I am met with my love!
BATO:
With such similar strategies, what hypocrites
lovers become in each others’ company!
FEBO:
Why do you say that?
BATO:
Even though I want
to say it, I cannot,
because all of this music, this noise,
tells me that Echo has come out,
celebrated by all the young men.
SILVIO:
I will offer my congratulations in troubled tones
until my confessions may speak more clearly.
3
FEBO:
Who ever saw such noble jealousy in a peasant’s love?
The musicians enter, singing and dancing,
followed by Sileno, Anteo, Nise, Sirene, and Eco.
MUSICIANS:
Each of the happy years of Echo’s life,
divine and beautiful goddess of the jungle,
May gladly represents with flowers,
while the Sun proudly tells their story with the stars.
SILVIO:
Gorgeous Echo, in wise nature condensed
the most outstanding beauty
that Arcadia ever set eyes upon,
the circle that dawn completes
in your pretty lights
is so superior to any
other brilliance or radiance…
SILVIO AND
MUSICIANS:
FEBO:
FEBO AND
MUSICIANS:
BATO:
BATO AND
MUSICIANS:
May gladly represents with flowers,
while the Sun proudly tells their story with the stars.
May your florid springtime
ignore cold Winter,
ignore blazing Summer,
in order that it may endure pleasantly
in its greenness, such that
the marks of death
do not change your pretty roses,
but rather its clear daybreaks, that…
May gladly represents with flowers,
while the Sun proudly tells their story with the stars.
My tongue does not advise you
to live long, for that is a mistake.
To die young is better,
than becoming an old woman,
And so leave off aging
that, as it passes you by,
the tinges and colors of
that age of the greatest beauty…
May gladly represents with flowers,
while the Sun proudly tells their story with the stars.
4
ECHO:
I am very pleased by the
festivities with which you honor me,
And to ensure that you are in charge of me
I will only laud that life
as you repeat it in song;
but I should also complain
at this time about he who,
with the strangest style,
has not offered me congratulations
at my birthday celebration.
ANTEO:
If what you say is about me,
I am a rustic shepherd.
I never learned how to speak about love,
but rather how to fight wild animals.
Since I have been quiet here,
I will go to the forest in your name.
I will bring back as much as I am able to hunt.
In this way, with noble actions,
I will communicate in deeds
what I cannot say in words.
SILVIO:
If I too have been the cause,
Echo, of the complaint you have made,
be not surprised that my concern
has me so paralyzed.
Today also marks the anniversary
of my greatest grievances,
and so in their devotion
my sufferings do not offer you
flattery from my lips,
but tears from my eyes.
Twelve years has Liríope,
my lovely daughter, been missing
from these valleys, and all that time
I have had no news of her. Today
marks that anniversary.
Therefore, do not be
astonished to see in my sorrows
such incongruous sentiments,
this same day (if this luck lasts!) that
your beauty turns a year older,
my misfortune grows a year longer as well.
BATO:
Today is not a day for tears.
5
SIRENE:
May the surprise of your remarkable sorrow
not rob us of our shared happiness.
NISE:
Let sweet harmony return
to inhabit the winds.
ECHO:
Today I am offered to Jupiter’s temple,
which lies hidden in the uncultivated
woods. Since I go accompanied by all,
I want to fulfill the offering now,
for I could hardly do it alone
without fearing the horrible, ferocious
monster that hides within them.
FEBO:
Even though I infer how much
it is a serious affliction
to want to penetrate the mountaintop
where this temple is nestled,
its opulent structure lifts its fire to the sun.
Let’s go, so that in going with you,
love will make easy the greatest difficulty.
SILVIO:
I say the same thing to you.
BATO:
I do not; I am not obliged to go
where an enchanted monster
so many times surprised
our men and our livestock.
SIRENE:
May the music return, and
let no shepherd remain in the meadow
who does not go along.
SILENO:
I also want to arrive at the temple,
Since in it I await pity.
NISE:
Let the congratulations continue.
FEBO:
Oh, divine Echo,
who could oblige your severity!
SILVIO:
Who could win your favor!
ECHO:
Who might not see herself loved!
SILENO:
Who might turn away his crying!
6
BATO:
Who might not have fears!
MUSIC:
The happy years of Echo,
divine and beautiful goddess of the jungle,
May gladly represents with flowers,
while the Sun proudly tells their story with the stars.
They exit.
Narciso enters dressed in animal skins, with Liríope,
also dressed in animal skins and bearing a bow and arrow,
trying to detain him.
LIRÍOPE:
You cannot pass beyond here.
NARCISSUS:
How is it that you wish to detain me,
when those birds that I hear generate
such strange and new music to my ears
that it carries me, fascinated, after its intonations?
I never heard such tender voices,
though I’ve listened countless times
to the birds that awaken with the sun.
LIRÍOPE:
Those voices that you have heard,
and that you take to be birds,
are not.
NARCISSUS:
Then what are they, Mother?
LIRÍOPE:
It is not advisable that you know,
because the fates have placed
your greatest danger in them.
NARCISSUS:
What danger is that, if the greatest danger
would be to no longer hear them? Let me
follow them, to find out who
so suavely breathes the intonations of their voice,
uttering in tender clauses:
NARCISSUS
AND MUSICIANS: The happy years of Echo,
divine and beautiful goddess of the jungle…
LIRÍOPE:
Naturally carried along by affection,
he mimics them.
NARCISSUS
7
AND MUSICIANS: May gladly represents with flowers,
while the Sun proudly tells their story with the stars.
LIRÍOPE:
That in so many years there was
no one who dared to pass through
this intricate denseness,
and today they come with such music!
NARCISSUS:
Mother of mine,
allow me to follow them.
LIRÍOPE:
Hold on!
NARCISSUS:
Let me go! How can I
hold myself back,
hearing them return to say…
NARCISSUS
AND MUSICIANS: May gladly represents with flowers,
while the Sun proudly tells their story with the stars?
LIRÍOPE:
Don’t you know that you cannot
venture farther than this rock,
which is the dark grey barrier
that conceals the threshold of
this cave where the two of us live?
How can you intend to break
the code of my rules,
the laws of my obedience?
NARCISSUS:
That novelty, Mother, has
given me license,
not merely to violate them and break them,
but to speak to you more clearly.
Listen to me carefully.
I, from this rock,
which is the line to which you
ordain that I may come,
have seen the various effects
of this great nature.
One day above that brown mountain range
I spied a bird that is doubtless the
queen of all the others,
judging from the pride with which she lives,
and the height at which she flies.
This bird had, on a green nest
made of straw and grass, some
8
chicks that she fed with her own mouth
while they remained naked of feathers.
She scarcely saw them dressed and with wings,
when, her mercies turned to rigors,
she threw them from the nest,
so that necessity would be their teacher
throughout the course of their lives.
Between those two rocks (the fault is still visible)
and on the skins of other wild animals,
a lioness raised some cubs
that, bleeding her fierceness to them
from her breasts, nourished them,
until, they acquired strength,
and she threw them from herself,
caring for them with pride
so that they would know well
what she gave them as their heritage.
Now, if a lioness and a bird
from their bed and the nest
throw out their children so that
they learn to live without their mother,
why, seeing as I already have
the wings that within me give rise to
speech (reason), and the vigor
that my youthfulness flaunts,
do you not send me off?
Have you not told me yourself that
there is more to the world than these mountains,
more houses than this cave,
more people than these brutes,
more population than these jungles?
Why then, Mother, do you rob me
of liberty and deny me the gift
that a bird and a lioness concede to their children,
the wealth which heaven gives
to those who have been born on the earth?
LIRÍOPE:
It pains me greatly, Narcissus, that
today you reason so resolutely,
because you force me to give you
a response to those questions.
I will do it, but not now,
since I want to leave before the sun is
too darkened for hunting to nourish you.
On returning,
I will tell you of the dangers
that threaten your beauty,
9
and the reasons why I have
raised you this way; that, in coming
to this understanding,
you will know ho to guard yourself against them.
The only thing that my voice, along with my tears,
begs of you now is that you
do not stray from here
until I return to see you.
NARCISSUS:
I offer it to you on one condition,
that that seductive voice I heard
does not come again to my ears,
because it will take much not to follow behind it,
if it once more returns to say
in tones so suave and tender:
NARCISSUS
AND MUSICIANS: The happy years of Echo,
divine and beautiful goddess of the jungle,
May gladly represents with flowers,
while the Sun proudly tells their story with the stars.
Narcissus exits.
LIRÍOPE:
The day that I always feared has come,
that forces me to relate
to Narcissus the events
of my life and of his star.
Gods, bestow luck today
on the points of my arrows,
since it was never more important to me
to return quickly to our resting place.
They enter from one side.
Anteo enters from another side with a javelin.
ANTEO:
The one day that I have
wanted to hunt with most diligence,
my desire has not found
any game, even though
penetrating the entrails
of this confusing undergrowth
that has never or not lately felt
the tread of human feet.
I shall not return home
without bringing back some game
that I would be able to give to Echo,
10
since I came here in her name.
Liríope returns onstage.
LIRÍOPE:
Scarcely a timid rabbit runs about
today, nor does a cowardly partridge
fly. Never does game come slower
than when it is hurriedly sought after.
ANTEO:
I sense a stirring among those branches.
LIRÍOPE:
I’ve heard a murmur among those leaves
ANTEO:
In whatever it may be
I shall leave the blade
of this spear bloody.
LIRÍOPE:
In whatever it should be, I shall see
stained the tips of my arrows.
But it is a man i – oh dear!
Don’t shoot! Hold on! Wait!
ANTEO:
It has well been necessary
to hear your tongue pronounce
a human voice in order to
suspend the action of my arm.
LIRÍOPE:
And well did I need
to see you with all the markings
of a man in order for impulse
to loosen the strings of my bow.
ANTEO:
Human monster, who are you?
LIRÍOPE:
I am an unknown wild animal
of these forests. And now, before
you have more news of me,
go back, because if you try to
take another step, from my quiver
of arrows to your chest you will see them
fly so rapidly that they alone
can stop themselves.
ANTEO:
If your physical markings do not deceive me,
I have known by your markings
that you are the wonder whom
all of this region quakes in fear of.
11
And as such, although my distrust fears
two deaths together here,
the first by your harpoons,
the other by your strangeness,
I shall knock down them both;
because my admiration of you does not
only intend to finish off, strange monster,
whoever you are, but to carry you off with me,
since I made the offer to a young lady of
that which I catch today on the mountain;
and it will be a noteworthy undertaking
to offer you at her feet
in protection of the land.
LIRÍOPE:
Do not desperately attempt
so grand an act, for you
risk your life.
ANTEO:
It is already impossible to
stop attempting it.
LIRÍOPE:
Think before doing that which
you dare.
ANTEO:
There is nothing I do not
dare to do.
LIRÍOPE:
It will be such a risk as
that of life and death.
ANTEO:
What are you waiting for?
Shoot!
LIRÍOPE:
Yes, I will. Heavens! But
with the excessive violence
with which I wanted to endow the shot,
I broke the string of the bow.
ANTEO:
Without a doubt, the gods desire
that I achieve
this victory.
LIRÍOPE:
Well if you have triumphed with
my misfortunes, not over all my strengths.
I will pummel you into a thousand pieces
before you defeat me a second time.
12
The two begin fighting.
ANTEO:
You do not know at all who the youth
is that fights with you, who will
humiliate your pride, though you
might be the lioness of these mountains.
LIRÍOPE:
Oh, cruel world!
Since I am already subject to your
valor, no not bring me with you alone,
let me carry with me the
other half of my life.
Narcissus!
ANTEO:
Close your lips, do not call out
to one who might protect you,
because, without them defending you,
I shall achieve this good fortune.
LIRÍOPE:
Narcissus!
ANTEO:
Silence your tongue.
They begin fighting again.
Narcissus enters.
NARCISSUS:
I have heard the voice of my mother
moaning sorrowfully,
calling to me. If she herself ordered
that I do not leave the cave,
how is it that she calls me?
Liríope shouts from far away.
LIRÍOPE:
Narcissus – oh, God! – my fates
take me away from you!
NARCISSUS:
What do I hear?
How is it, Mother, that you leave me,
telling me from afar,
without me knowing where you are,
that the fates have set out to
take you away from my love?
The day that my soul and my life
were most contentedly awaiting you,
because they were waiting to find out
who I am and how it is that you deny me
13
my liberty, only your cries return,
and even they are not complete,
the wind usurps half of them from me.
LIRÍOPE,
inside:
NARCISSUS:
Narcissus, oh God!
Oh, dear!
What am I supposed to do without you
alone in these woodlands, not knowing
who I am and what manner of living
men have, since you teach me nothing
except how to speak?
And even that I would pardon you for
now, so that my misfortunes might not have
the consolation of complaints in their payment.
For my well-being, Mother, lady,
come back, return to me. Do not be
so ungrateful that you leave me
to live among these rocks,
companion of the tree trunks,
of the brutes and the wild animals.
What anger have I given you
for you to flee from me in this manner?
Have I not always lived attentive to
your obedience?
Do I know any more than what you,
Mother, have wanted me to know?
Then why do you punish me
with such a strange sentence?
Oh, goodness! What will I do?
The voice was heard from over there.
After her I will go, since I do not doubt
that my tears give her pause.
Travel quickly, sighs!
Say that my crying is on its way,
that she wait a brief moment,
that only it is going to move her.
But how sad it is that I do not know
if I guess the course correctly or if I err
in the direction of my steps,
since, as this is the first time
that I have left the cave,
I don’t know if I guess wrongly or guess correctly.
Gods, guide my feet,
heavens, relieve my sorrows,
sun, illuminate my senses,
14
stars, bend my judgment,
beasts, grieve at my pain,
birds, echo my moaning,
mountains, give me passage,
trees, tell me the path,
that an unhappy youth, whose
own mother leaves him behind,
will be justly protected by
gods, heavens, sun, stars,
beasts, birds, mountains,
trees, rocks, and jungles.
He exits.
The theater is changed, now having in the foreground the door of the temple.
Febo and Silvio enter first, grasping a ribbon, with Echo detaining them.
Then Laura, Sirene, Libia, Sileno, and the musicians enter.
FEBO:
I will lose my life
before I hand over the ribbon.
ECHO:
Look, I am here.
SILVIO:
May your beauty
pardon me and not prevent me
from keeping this ribbon,
since, having fallen from
your hair, I have been
the one who arrived first
to pick it up on that occasion.
FEBO:
Love never ranks its creditors
in their favors;
and even though I arrive last,
I shall take it
BATO:
Don’t you realize..?
FEBO:
What?
BATO:
That it is very uncivilized to fight
for a ribbon, when a yard of it
costs twenty cents in a store?
SILENO:
If you two blamed
my prolonged concern
for today reminding me of my grief,
15
and telling me that the day you see
is not one for tears,
how is it that you want to convert
into sorrow the happiness
with which we return to the temple?
SILVIO:
No matter what the occasion,
jealousy excuses even
greater extremes.
ECHO:
Listen to me, without having
more quarreling or insisting.
If the ribbon, since it is mine,
is so admired by you two,
be advised that right now it
does not merit that appreication,
for the ribbon that the wind took
flying by chance from my hair is no favor,
since, even though I understand
nothing about love, the occasion
is supposed to be taken, and the favor given.
In this way, until I give it freely,
please do not hold it as a favor.
Returning it to me is better, so that
I will later give it from my hand
to one whomever I want
to have it with my approval.
FEBO:
Even though my fears prevent me
from ever hoping for such good fortune,
I return the ribbon to you.
He gives it back to her.
SILVIO:
I do as well, even though I do not believe
that my desire will ever again
be seen with your favor.
BATO:
If having returned it to you here
is so that you can give it to the one
who is handsomest, come then,
for it is clear that it is for me.
SILENO:
You the most handsome?
BATO:
Why not?
What more do I need to be it
16
except for all the rest to agree on it
today as I do?
SILVIO:
Since the two of us have restored to you
that iris of colors,
that with such glittering
has been the flattery of the wind,
I implore that today your beauty
give us your word.
Declare which of the two of us
it is, as you offered to do.
FEBO:
Do not give such a sentence
and know that,
if I returned it to you, it was only
in order to obey you and not
because I ever presumed to merit it.
That being the case, I warn you
not to bestow it,
since I come to be so unhappy
in loving and suffering
that I even fear I will lose
the hope that I do not even have.
SILVIO:
I have not had it either,
but rather more distrust,
having wished to see
my suffering made known.
But if I have to die
surrendered to doubt,
it is better that my faith come stripped
of its illusions to the harm (injury?),
to die of disenchantment
if I must die of doubt
FEBO:
I guess that both doubt
and disillusion are necessary today.
And since it is not possible for me
to have the happiness for which I do not hope,
I want to live today full of doubt
rather than disillusioned,
that in my unhappy state
it is a less painful occurrence
to be blessed in doubt
than in certainty unfortunate.
SILVIO:
He loves little who, consoled in his
17
illusion, does not love the
favors of his lady.
FEBO:
He who has no fear of disillusionment
loves even less.
SILVIO:
Doubt is a strange sort of pain.
FEBO:
I want to suffer it.
SILVIO:
To want to doubt is not to love.
FEBO:
To want to know is not to love.
SILVIO:
Well, I do not want to doubt.
FEBO:
And I do not want to know.
ECHO:
You declare your love for me,
and you request my silence,
and I will equalize the two
of the doubt that you are in.
May the blind god here give me
the ability both to speak and
remain silent. Only this way
can one judge both speaking
and remaining silent.
I will give the ribbon to the one
who gives me the greatest display
of his love.
FEBO:
I accept the condition,
and only that condition could
manage to be the thing that
gave wings to my boasting.
I base it on this reason:
it is not within me to deserve it,
but it is within me to serve,
and so I am able to have hope,
that it is not within me to deserve it,
but it is within me to make
demonstrations of my love.
SILVIO:
I do not accept the condition,
because, if I were so happy
to be able to make displays of my love,
I would not save them for this purpose.
18
A perfect love never reserved them.
This being the case,
I fear the condition,
that my steadfast heart
will not be able to make one greater
than what it has done thus far.
Anteo enters with Liríope.
ANTEO:
Beautiful Echo, upon whom the heavens
bestowed such favors,
pretty damsels, shepherds,
honor of the Arcadian soil,
live, live without distrust
of that monster that astounded you
so painfully every time that
you saw it, as it is now
humble and defeated,
kissing Echo’s feet.
In your name I went into the wilderness,
and in the wilderness I found it.
Not for its admiration have
I brought it here to you,
nor to see how it is covered
in hair, nor must you admire
how it walks, but instead
to hear it speak, for it is that it has
a human voice like ours, that
makes it so singular.
Ask it questions, talk with it,
and it will respond to everything.
ECHO:
If you know how to speak, tell us now,
who are you, cruel monster?
FEBO:
Let your horror speak to us truthfully,
how much it feels its captivity.
SILVIO:
Of what different species are you?
SILENO:
Do you know where you are?
LIRÍOPE:
As I can remain silent no longer,
listen to me attentively:
I, shepherds of Arcadia,
am not, as you all presume,
an irrational monster, but
19
an unfortunate woman.
If the deception has not been
very obvious, if you realize that
it is only because I was born
to be a monster of fortune.
These valleys, which are always
filled with one shade of color
or another, since all year round
they know no month but April,
were my first cradle.
Would that this crystalline blueness,
had then been my tomb and my cradle.
I was young, and my beauty had scarcely
begun to discover
in its first daybreaks
some pleasing charm,
(permit me to say this)
that the sun never saw
a happy beauty.
when Céfiro also began to discover it.
Céfiro, a handsome young man,
a son of the subtle breeze
by name, because his father
must have called this too,
saw me in the meadow one afternoon,
and, having fallen in love with me,
courteously gave me to understand
his love, to which the carmine
of my cheeks responded,
not talkative, but silently.
From then on he was my shadow,
and I his light, although
I did no more than scorch,
and he did no more than follow.
Oh, how many times, how many,
I saw him give hundreds
upon hundreds of sighs to the winds,
thousands upon thousands of tears,
with neither the chisel of perseverance
nor the file of attendance
able to work its mark within my heart
because in the end it was a diamond
protected even from the nicks
of the chisel and the file!
His love being in despair
20
by not being able to win
my love, and driven to despair
also by suffering and emoting,
one afternoon that I went out
to the pasture to feed
a herd little white lambs,
which in frolicking celebrated
freedom from the fold,
Céfiro approached me,
and, hugging me to him
like ivy to a wall,
like a grapevine to an elm,
said: “That which humble homage
has not been able to obtain,
violence will now take.”
And in that moment (dearest me!)
the west wind seized
the two of us with such a subtle movement
that I found myself flying
toward the clouds without wings;
since it was his father,
he lent him his wings so that
he would not watch his son die of love.
Look, what despicable devotion!
Who ever saw a campaign of
love so novel? Well, while the two of us
were flying like this, like a
frightened partridge
in the talons of a falcon,
like a heron in those of a hawk.
Finding myself fainting
to measure our distance
from the earth,
I shut my eyes and I held tight
to the traitorous son of the wind
Oh, what embrace is as despicable
as that which necessity makes
one give but that one does not feel!
With this fate the commanding ship
of the air arrived with me
to this haughty peak,
the neck of which that entire turquoise
globe is overwhelming with its weight.
There is a dark cave
in its harsh interior. Here, in its
empty depths, docked the
human ship, which an old man
21
came out to receive.
I will tell you all who he was later
because now it is only necessary to say
that he arrived, making the treachery honest
with the civil excuse of love,
the notion that causing us anger
is rendering us homage… understand,
and cover my shame with
things that do not need to be heard.
in order to be known,
Who would believe that such a strange
beginning of love had an
end so close that its being born
was its dying?
Believe it all, for another dawn
had scarcely arrived, crowned
by jasmine – I don’t know
whether to cry or to smile –
when, absent from my arms,
I saw Céfiro no longer.
Why must one trust he who pretends,
if he who loves proceeds this way?
In the power of that failing old man,
I remained. Now listen to me
with more attention, because
another case no less strange
begins here. This was
Tiresias, the clever magician,
of whom you have heard it said
so many times that
he amazed the gods with his
science, such that he read
the secrets of that bound
book of eleven sapphire pages,
and many times I saw him
announce and warn of
contingent futures.
How many times did he the
sun, placed on its zenith, eclipse?
And how many times did he make it
shine radiantly from its nadir?
How many times did he dresst
in crimson the white moon?
And how many times did he dress
the stars in the gold of Ofir?
Because he wanted to be the equal
22
of Jupiter, Jupiter had him made
blind and imprisoned him there.
Consider me now as a captive there,
and blind as well,
loathing my life;
and you will see the tears with which
I felt my sorrows.
Only one utility could
my solitude procure;
which was to learn his science,
of events, principally by
their causes in nature, to which I was
more inclined. There is not
a stone, a flower, a blade of glass, or a leaf,
in the end, who denies its nature …
but this is not for here.
One day, then, that failing skeleton
spoke to me in this way:
“I have found through my studies
that I am close to drawing my last
breath. Today is
when I have to die.
I have nothing to leave you,
oh gentle companion of my
fate, except that which I am now
going to tell you.
You are pregnant. You will
give birth to a gorgeously
handsome young man.
A voice and a beauty
will seek his end,
loving and loathing.
Guard what he sees and hears.”
I, already seeing the first signs
of the prediction fulfilled
in my childbirth and my son’s great beauty,
I feared all the rest of it.
In this way, without ever wanting him
to stray from that cave,
I lived protecting Narcissus
from his dangers,
raising him without letting him
come to know or surmise
more than I wanted him to, and in the end,
without ever seeing another
human being aside from me.
This is the reason why
23
I was taken to be your monster,
the shepherds perhaps seeing me
fleeing through the forest.
But, since the heavens have wanted
my secrets to be discovered,
conquered as I have been by that young man,
come all of you with me
after my son, as it is necessary
for him to live among you;
aside from that fact, his reason
already begins to affect him,
and I do not doubt that his misfortune
will kill him, seeing himself without me.
And in order for you to believe me
in everything that I repeated to you,
that if you have heard my life
sometimes referred to,
and there is at least one among you
who now remembers me,
I, who ran through
such grave storms in
the restless seas of fortune, I
who gave so many stories
to the never-silent bugle of
the fleeting fame,
I who was a laughable tragedy
to the theater of the world,
I, paragon of suffering,
I, epilogue of tormented emotion,
I, figure of sighing,
of crying and moaning,
I am the daughter of Sileno,
the unfortunate Liríope.
SILENO:
Oh, daughter of my soul!
Let me embrace you
a thousand and one times.
I am Sileno. And I well deserved
that the dead girl for whom I cried
lives on to be embraced, to see and hear,
let death come, as now
I have nothing more to live for.
LIRÍOPE:
I am humbly at your feet ,
though my shame here
weighs a great deal
on the happiness there is within me.
24
ECHO:
Let my embrace be congratulations
for such a happy event.
FEBO:
Here silence says more
than speech is able to say.
SILVIO:
Until I see you all stripped
of the skin that you wear,
I do not dare to hug you.
ANTEO:
I was fortunate a thousand times over,
that I managed to bring
such happiness to the valley.
LIRÍOPE:
It will be better when you all
see my son, in whom clever
nature invests its perfections. Come
with me to the cave where
he awaits me. You will find there
the most beautiful diamond yet uncut,
the greatest ruby not yet polished.
They exit.
SILENO:
Guide the way, my Liríope.
ECHO:
All of us will go
together.
FEBO:
Who would stay behind
rather than see the end of this adventure?
BATO:
Me: if one must not trust
a docile woman, I say,
than who would trust that one,
who is so untamed and animal-like?
SILVIO:
We are all going.
ALL:
We are all going.
LIRÍOPE:
Let’s go then. Follow my steps.
Narcissus, do not despair of
my absence. I am already coming for you.
25
Act II
Liríope, Sileno, Echo, Febo, Anteo, Bato, and Sirene enter,
along with all the others present at the end of the first act.
LIRÍOPE:
I was unhappy a thousand times over.
FEBO:
Listen.
SILENO:
Wait.
ECHO:
Take note.
SILVIO:
Take a moment.
NISE:
Look.
ANTEO:
Notice.
SIRENE:
Consider.
LIRÍOPE:
There is no consolation for me,
with such a new misfortune
having followed the last,
that Narcissus is missing from
the cave. He has never left it
except for today alone,
and already I suspect his death.
Narcissus! Narcissus!
I shout out to the heavens in vain.
Without a doubt he struck out
from the cave in light of me having
been so late in coming here.
Oh, caution, kill me!
ANTEO:
Do not fret, since as he has
to be on this mountain,
I will know how to search for him for you.
ALL:
We will all go.
LIRÍOPE:
Mine has been a cruel fortune.
Narcissus! I’m nearly dying!
SILENO:
Oh, gods! When will complete
happiness occur (or – be complete)?
26
SILVIO:
Let’s go roaming through this forest,
calling for him, as he will be
sure to respond.
LIRÍOPE:
He will not because,
if we search for him in this way,
he, who has never seen people,
is more likely to hide
than to respond to the voices.
But listen to what my wit has
thought up. In order for him
to come in search of us, a ploy
must be had.
ALL:
What must it be?
LIRÍOPE:
There is nothing that has more
power to attract him
than to hear music, and this being the case,
dividing up, from here,
singing in order to move him;
let’s all go.
FEBO:
With Laura along for the ride,
I’ll run throughout this mountainside.
SILVIO:
And with Sirene I will go,
penetrating that lush grove.
ANTEO:
And I with Libia will climb
the mountain’s peak in little time.
SILENO:
And I, with Echo, have to measure
her greatest source of pain, not pleasure.
BATO:
And I, with Nise, must as well
enter in that leafy hell.
And if our song is liked the least,
we’ll howl for Echo like a beast.
LIRÍOPE:
Lacking law, without advice,
I will search all over twice.
Each one sings what he knows best.
Narcissus! Oh, Narcissus!
LAURA (singing): As this mountain’s hillside
27
strums the tune of my cries,
speak to me of Narcissus,
oh fountains and flowers.
NISE (singing):
As the happy forest
hums my song,
of Narcissus speak to me,
oh flowers and fountains.
SIRENE (singing): As the mountain’s summit plays
to measure my intonation,
speak to me of Narcissus,
oh shadows and sunshine.
ECHO (singing):
And as the cliffs
fiddle my affection,
of Narcissus speak to me,
oh sunshine and shadows.
LAURA:
To the hillside!
NISE:
To the forest!
SIRENE:
To the summit!
ECHO:
To the cliff!
LIRÍOPE:
Hear all the men and women
say it:
LIRÍOPE,
MUSICIANS,
AND ALL:
Narcissus!
To the hillside, to the jungle,
to the summit, to the cliff!
All exit.
Narcissus enters.
NARCISSUS:
Although it seems to me that
that I hear the smooth voice
of my mother, it is but a shadow
that the lively breeze offers me
without her body,
since I have not been able to
find her however far I have
28
descended the mountain,
and I am already out of breath.
I will die here defeated by
Weariness, though it is not he who
fatigues me most, but rather Thirst.
For this reason I follow the sound
of the water in order for it to give me
relief, which runs while saying…
Music is heard within.
LAURA (singing): Speak to me of Narcissus,
oh fountains and flowers.
NARCISSUS:
But what voice is this,
that so arrests me?
NISE (singing):
Speak to me of Narcissus,
oh flowers and fountains.
NARCISSUS:
How does it now,from two directions
want me to listen?
SIRENE (singing): Of Narcissus speak to me,
oh shadows and sunshine.
NARCISSUS:
And even three, since
this other says…
ECHO (singing):
Speak to me of Narcissus,
oh sunshine and shadows.
NARCISSUS:
In following after all,
I follow after none.
ALL:
To the hillside, to the forest,
to the summit, to the cliff!
LIRÍOPE:
Hear all the men and women
calling:
LIRÍOPE,
MUSICIANS,
AND ALL:
NARCISSUS:
Narcissus!
How is it that, if you all
call to me, rich and beautiful
29
voices, you return from whence
you came fleeing so rapidly?
And not only do you not give
relief to my emotions,
but, turning them into insults,
you hamper my speech
because I follow my hearing?
And as I cannot discern
from which directions you speak,
may the sound that the crystalline
water makes among these rocks,
no less sweet, give me its relief,
this being the first time
that to find water has caused me
effort, since I never left the cave
until today, where a cork oak
was a less flattering basin
than the one I am looking at,
garnished by grasses
and branches, where…
LAURA (singing):
Speak to me of Narcissus,
oh fountains and flowers.
NARCISSUS:
The voice returns, speaking,
to stop me…
NISE (singing):
Of Narcissus, speak to me,
oh flowers and fountains.
NARCISSUS:
If it is me that you search for,
why do you run from me?
SIRENE (singing): Speak to me of Narcissus,
oh shadows and sunshine.
NARCISSUS:
Since you do not give me relief,
why do you block my way?
ECHO (singing):
Speak to me of Narcissus,
oh sunshine and shadows.
LIRÍOPE:
Different tones chanting
at one time.
Hear all the men and women
calling:
30
LIRÍOPE,
MUSICIANS,
AND ALL:
NARCISSUS:
Narcissus!
Well, as I hear them all
and see no one,
I am returning to the water.
But how can I, if I still hear
this voice?
LAURA (singing): The illusion is a traitor
and the disillusionment true.
One is pain without sickness,
the other sickness without pain.
NARCISSUS:
That voice alone would be able
to hold back a thirsty man.
I want to follow after the
flattering music of its intonation.
NISE (singing):
If my ravings perhaps
should reach your threshold,
may pity for their suffering
erase the horror of their being mine.
NARCISSUS:
But this one sounds closer,
though I love all of them,
and that one sings so sweetly.
But this other one drives me
out of my mind, because it has
more sweetness and gives me more pleasure.
Searching for it in this green denseness
suits me.
SIRENE (singing): Come, Death, so hidden,
that no one may feel you coming,
so the pleasure of dying
does not bring me back to life.
NARCISSUS:
Upon the highest of those rocks,
another sweet voice rang out
that erased anew
all traces of those past.
ECHO (singing):
Only the silence must bear
witness to my torment.
And yet all that I feel does not fit
31
within all that I do not say.
NARCISSUS:
Heaven help me! This voice is
the queen of them all,
that, though I judged those I heard
until now both sweet and beautiful,
I swear this one has arrested me with more force.
How gorgeous must be its owner,
who wins through the ear
two affect that are, strictly speaking,
unequal in potency…
LAURA (singing): One is pain without sickness,
the other sickness without pain.
NARCISSUS:
Voice, my spirit humbling,
you increase my mortal sickness…
NISE (singing):
May the shame of them being an illness
quench the horror of it being mine.
NARCISSUS:
I would not want to see my life
exhausted by such emotion…
SIRENE (singing): So that the pleasure of dying
might not bring me back to life
NARCISSUS:
The suffering I feel, I force
myself to say it with my breath…
ECHO (singing):
And yet all that I feel does not fit
within all that I am not saying.
NARCISSUS:
Divided into a thousand parts,
my cares are the spoils
of the wind. See something, eyes,
or do not hear so much, ears.
Each one sings her verse again
and Echo enters.
ECHO:
Going in this direction, I
will enter the pleasantest part
of this tangled growth,
saying time and time again:
(singing)
Only the silence must bear
32
witness to my torment.
NARCISSUS:
Bird of these mountains,
that with your smooth intonations
are so sonorously the
sweet confusion of the wind,
if, between the ear and the lips,
I am left, doubtful, captivated, and paralyzed,
without knowing for whom is
my strongest affect,
to hear the crystalline water
that thirstily called my name,
the tune that I return to drink
thirstily calls to me as well.
How have you altered so my
affects for the one thirst and the other
that, rather than lips and ears
drinking water and music, you have
made my eyes drink fire,
and so poisonous a fire that,
to explain it, one must
think that, in your own mode…
NARCISSUS AND
ECHO (singing): Only the silence must bear
witness to my torment?
ECHO:
Oh uncut diamond that, poorly
polished, you let shine through
the soul you hide within
this coarse, crude suit,
I was left no less arrested
upon seeing you, since,
captivated, frozen, and confused,
I only manage to respond to you
with the same line I was just singing…
(singing)
And yet all that I feel does not fit
within all that I am not saying.
NARCISSUS:
Similar, according to that,
is our enthrallment
so much that we both will say,
you, if you respond to me,
and I, if I resemble you…
NARCISSUS AND
33
ECHO (singing):
Only the silence must bear
witness to my torment.
NARCISSUS:
Who are you?
ECHO:
A woman.
NARCISSUS:
The second I have ever seen.
One could even say the first,
since, as I understand it,
the first that I saw
was no woman to me,
since she never ignited in my chest
such a raging fire
as your voice and your appearance
have ignited in my chest.
Where are passing through here to go?
ECHO:
I come only to look for you.
And in desiring to find you,
as I understand it, I would value
not having found you because
today in you, more than I find you, I lose.
NARCISSUS:
Did you know me?
ECHO:
Not I.
NARCISSUS:
Well how is it that you search in this
wasteland for someone you do not know?
It is normal in this world
for women to search
for someone they do not know?
ECHO:
Soon you will know
the cause that has brought me here.
NARCISSUS:
Well, say it.
ECHO:
Sileno!
NARCISSUS:
Who are you calling for?
What are you trying to do?
ECHO:
Febo! Bato! Silvio! Anteo!
NARCISSUS:
You want to kill me,
34
as if you had not already killed me.
ECHO:
Sirene! Liríope! Nise!
Come all of you to this spot,
as I have just found Narcissus!
All enter.
SILVIO:
Called by your voice, I come.
ANTEO:
I come, brought by your voice.
SILENO:
Your intonations have given me wings.
FEBO:
Here is where the beautiful Echo called out.
BATO AND
SIRENE:
As all the others arrive, let us arrive.
NARCISSUS:
There are so many people in the world?
LIRÍOPE:
It makes me happy to see you.
NARCISSUS:
But how is it, Mother, that you
come in search of me with all of these people?
SILENO:
Pieces of my heart,
embrace me.
NARCISSUS:
Hold it, all of you.
And if someone must embrace me,
may it be she who I am now looking at.
Tell me who she is, and what you intend,
Mother, because I am paralyzed,
seeing such a remarkable range
of faces and outfits.
LIRÍOPE:
Slowly you will come to know your story.
SILENO:
You speak well, since now is
no time to tarry here.
Together let us descend to the valley.
There you will change your garments
and hear of all the events that concern you,
my handsome Narcissus.
FEBO:
Pardon my impudence,
35
Sileno, and give me permission,
to give to the lad,
while you are making clothes for him,
an animal hide that since it is new
will be more suitable
SILENO:
I thank you very much for this courtesy.
FEBO:
I will go ahead to send it.
(aside)
And no longer busied with this,
oh Love, conjure demonstrations of affection
to perform for your lovely lady.
Febo exits.
SILVIO (aside):
Oh Desires, give me lessons
on how to oblige disdain.
Silvio exits.
SILENO:
Blessed I am
that I have lived to see this.
ANTEO:
I have had great fortune
to be the instrument of this fate.
Anteo exits.
LIRÍOPE:
Follow my steps, Narcissus,
as this wilderness is no longer our homeland.
Liríope exits.
NARCISSUS:
I have admired many things,
but only one has killed me.
Narcissus exits.
ECHO (aside):
But, judging from the sorrows
that I feel within my soul,
Narcissus and Echo come to be
the latest of the world’s great stories.
Echo exits.
BATO:
Sirene!
36
SIRENE:
BATO:
What do you want from me?
The fact that I love you,
in order that you may know
what bad taste I have.
SIRENE:
If I loved you back,
mine would be worse.
BATO:
I deny that,
with each thing in its proper amount,
all is bad and nothing is good.
But, this aside, as we meanwhile go about
following our masters and mistresses,
you will not tell me the truth?
SIRENE:
I am telling it.
BATO:
You will not keep to it,
since you are not taught to do so.
But let it go. I, Sirene,
am a very large fool.
SIRENE:
Very large indeed!
BATO:
I swear to the sun,
as I have now realized it,
since I am seeing things
that they are things that I am seeing
without understanding them, Sirene.
SIRENE:
What things?
BATO:
Well, is there an occurrence
so strange as my master Sileno
having today found his savage daughter
with a savage little grandson,
and me having to go home now
to live with them?
SIRENE:
Well, what does that matter? Tell.
BATO:
From this reaction, you clearly do not know
what it is like to deal with savages.
37
SIRENE:
Bato, they are not savages,
but a woman and a man.
BATO:
Those, as I understand it,
make the worst kinds of savages
once they become them.
SIRENE:
Have you ever seen in your life
a more handsome and beautiful
young man than Narcissus?
BATO:
You are already enamored of him,
but it is nothing new for women
to be pleased by savages.
SIRENE:
Oh, an evil fire
on your tongue! What kind of woman
has come to be pleased by them?
BATO:
What kind of woman? All of these
Sirene, that I will go about saying:
There is a woman who falls in love
with a self-flagellator, seeing that
he is such a savage that he
inflicts violence on himself.
There is a woman who falls in love
with an acrobat, not caring that
he is such a savage that he
walks on air, despite the ground.
There is a woman who falls in love
with a bullfighter, realizing that
he is such a savage that
he seeks out body-to-body contact.
There is a woman who falls in love
with a dancer, knowing that
he is such a savage that
he grinds his bones to a pulp…to a beat.
There is a woman who falls in love
with a fencer, knowing that
he is such a savage that
he puts his eyes at risk.
There is a woman who falls in love…
SIRENE:
Hold your tongue. I do not want
to know any more.
BATO:
But I was only just beginning.
38
SIRENE:
Entertained, in effect, by your
lunacies, we have arrived
in the valley.
BATO
(looking inside):
And having left the two of them
at home, our company departs.
SIRENE:
Each one will want to go to
tend to his flock.
BATO:
Except for Febo,
who returns only to solitude.
Febo enters.
FEBO:
Sirene, I’ve come in search of you.
SIRENE:
How can I be of service to you?
BATO:
I am leaving so as not to be in the way,
and also in order to go see
what our new guests are doing.
Bato exits.
FEBO:
Since nobody, Sirene, in all of the valley
knows not of the fervor
with which my attentions adore
Echo’s rare beauty,
I will not need to repeat it now.
And since you were
here when – oh, goodness! –
she placed a request for a
demonstration of love, I
am trying to win her through you.
Sirene, since you are
the lass whom Echo has loved the most,
and that you are the preferred onein her graces.
If you would like to give life to a corpse,
find out for me how I will
be able to most please her,
since the best way to measure
demonstrations of love are not
by their size, Sirene, but
by the occasion on which they are made.
39
SIRENE:
You need not say more.
Whatever I may learn, you will see
that my lips withhold nothing from you.
FEBO:
My longing begs this of you.
SIRENE:
I already told you that I will do it.
And I will keep nothing from you.
Sirene exits.
FEBO:
Who endures a greater torment
than he who hopelessly adores
a beauty with no faith in love?
Scarcely has grey and frozen Winter
turned these woodlands grey with snow
when Springtime blooms, and
what was frozen is now seen to be cheerful.
Spring passes, and Summer
suffers and endures the sun’s severity.
Fertile Autumn arrives and enriches
the woodlands with its greenness,
the plains with its fruit.
All lives subject to change.
The illusions of one day after another
complete a year, and this year stretches to another.
A woodland endures disillusionments
that, were it in lacking in hope,
would already have surrendered under the weight of the
years.
Febo exits.
Liríope and Narcissus enter.
LIRÍOPE:
Have you been paying attention?
NARCISSUS:
Yes, and all you have told me
I have written in my memory
and on my heart.
And just so you know, Mother,
having been born in the wilderness
and having grown up in such seclusion,
40
all of it relates to my
having foretold in the stars
that a voice and a beauty
with two distinct effects,
one enchanting me and one hating me,
are my greatest dangers.
LIRÍOPE:
Well try to save yourself from them,
Narcissus, considering…
NARCISSUS:
What?
LIRÍOPE:
That only you can protect yourself.
NARCISSUS;
Already warned of everything,
Mother, I ask of you permission
to go see in the valley
that which I have seen on other occasions.
I could learn from the shepherds
such diverse practices:
the way to feed the livestock,
the manner of farming the land.
And since I look at myself as free,
today let my natural instinct
owe something to my eyes,
so that I do not have to get
all news from my ears.
LIRÍOPE:
Although with some fear,
I grant you permission.
But, so that you may not go alone,
I want one of my father’s servants
to go with you that will keep you informed
and give you advice on everything. Bato!
Bato enters.
BATO:
Ma’am?
LIRÍOPE:
Today my fears place their trust
in your clear-sightedness. Narcissus wants to go
to see all the common pastures
and meet the shepherds who
are residents of this valley.
Take him to and from there.
41
(Aside to Bato)
Do not leave him. Listen and
be advised, Bato, of what I am
telling you only here.
Do not leave him alone
speaking with any girl.
BATO:
I do not expect myself to do that,
only because the role of the
“third wheel” is a very
unpleasant one, and I am
contrarily inclined to it.
But in the end it is making people happy,
And I die to be well-liked.
LIRÍOPE:
You will do what I have ordered you to do.
Divine gods, make better
the menaces of destiny!
Liríope exits.
BATO:
Your mother has given me
a good commission.
Who would have guessed that
the Batos of the world might be nannies?
NARCISSUS:
Let’s go, Bato my friend,
and walk throughout the entire valley.
BATO:
Let’s hit the town.
NARCISSUS:
is that over there?
What building
BATO:
There? A temple of Apollo,
eminent and rich.
NARCISSUS:
It is very fair for the gods
to have their sacred space elevated,
since even in the material world
they should have preference over men.
I will not know how to tell you how much
I value having seen this golden building
amidst all the other ones of straw.
Anteo, within.
ANTEO:
I will put you all at peace, I swear
42
to the sun, if I undo my sling.
NARCISSUS:
What is that?
BATO:
Two of Anteo’s strong young bulls
are fighting over there, and he
breaks them up with
the sling and the whistle.
NARCISSUS:
Who is Anteo?
BATO:
A young man, the most valiant
as has ever been seen in all of Arcadia.
NARCISSUS:
And what is it to
be valiant?
BATO:
His having said it.
NARCISSUS:
Who does that flock belong to?
BATO:
If you must kill me with questions,
Narcissus, would it not be better
to just take that knife
and slit my throat with it
rather than bore me to death with such nonsense?
NARCISSUS:
I promise that
I will not ask you any more.
Whose flock is that one there,
That from those woodlands
to this valley descends in so excessive
a number that it drives the very
cliffs insane?
BATO:
It belongs to Febo, the most discreet
and learned man as has ever been seen
in all of Arcadia.
NARCISSUS:
And, tell me, what does being a
learned man entail?
BATO:
In getting others to say it,
because the same piece of wisdom,
when said by two people,
is seen as wit in one,
and nonsense in the other.
43
NARCISSUS:
And that flock arriving there,
menacingly, to the river
that will exhaust its flow?
BATO:
Who has joined me up with you?
It belongs to Silvio, the most
handsome of the shepherds.
NARCISSUS:
And what does it mean
to be handsome?
BATO:
In seeming to be so,
a fine figure and spirit being in style.
NARCISSUS:
There are styles in figures?
BATO:
Yes. I remember having seen
chests to be in fashion one year
and ankles the next.
And this is nothing, since in the end
I recall that the dresses were what mattered,
more so than faces,
women having such diverse styles.
NARCISSUS:
Fashions, in the faces that
nature made?
BATO:
During a time that the fasion was sleepy eyes,
there was no beauty in wakefulness
and everything was looking as if cross-eyed.
Almond-shaped eyes were later the style,
and they used to open them so wide
that they
made even themselves afraid.
Little mouths then
were of highest value,
and all lips would walk
through the streets puckered.
Then big ones became in fashion
and in that same instant
mouths spread wide open,
and leaving what was attractive
in smallness, they placed
their perfection in the cleanliness
of greatness, even to showing
teeth, molars, and canines.
44
Echo is heard within.
ECHO (singing):
The sun and the air
stir up my color;
they do it from envy,,
the air and the sun.
NARCISSUS:
Who is this (girl), who brings
a flock of little white lambs,
that give the impression that
they are letting ermines graze?
BATO:
This is Echo, the most beautiful woman
that the sun has ever seen.
NARCISSUS:
What is this, that in seeing her
I lose all of my senses,
and this grief, which I take pleasure in
and value, descends on me,
leaving me deceived by it,
believing that it is happiness?
BATO:
Look there! those are extreme expressions of love!
Try to resist them at the beginning,
because you will only be able to in the beginning.
ECHO (singing):
The sun and the air
stir up my color,
they do it from envy,
the air and the sun.
NARCISSUS:
If a voice and a beauty
threaten me with punishment,
let us flee from
that voice and that beauty, Bato.
Echo and Sirene enter.
ECHO:
Narcissus!
NARCISSUS:
Yes, lovely lady?
ECHO:
I much appreciate
seeing you in this outfit.
How do you come to be in the valley?
Is this not a more pleasant place
45
than the woodlands where you were born?
NARCISSUS:
If in it I may admire your beauty,
not only is it better than the woodlands,
but it is better than the Elysium.
May God keep you.
ECHO:
Why are you leaving
so quickly?
NARCISSUS:
I imagine that it is important
for me to make my exit.
ECHO:
How so?
NARCISSUS:
It seems that, a voice and a beauty
having been my two greatest dangers,
and finding that both
coexist in you,
it is necessary that I flee from you;
your voice is a charm
and your beauty a spell.
Narcissus exits.
BATO:
The young man wants
to take care of himself.
Bato exits.
ECHO:
Sirene, what is this that I see?
There is a young man that, when
I give him occasion to speak with me,
– I tremble to say it! – he leaves me there,
fleeing from our conversation?
And no, it is not even as strange
that he is able to – I am losing all sense –
force himself away, but that I,
seeing him depart from me,
cannot help but feel it.
Me, the most celebrated
shepherdess that Arcadia has
ever seen! I who have seen myself
idolized by so man men,
with all of the arrogance I have
cut down, and all the vanities
with which I prostrate so many,
46
at the snub of a young boy
as coarse as he is handsome
do I really confess that I feel it?
But alas, what has afflicted me?
No one feels more acutely
the rebuffs of another than
she who has arrogantly destroyed
the slavelike passion of all;
because, in effect, it is necessary that
the style be surprising
when the style is another’s.
SIRENE:
Do not feel so much for
an incident that may have happened by chance.
ECHO:
If you only knew what I feel
within my heart – oh, Sirene! –
you would not blame these
extreme emotions you have seen.
From the instant I laid eyes
on Narcissus’ beauty,
I have lived judging that I have died,
and have died judging that I live.
Silvio and Febo enter on either end of the stage.
FEBO:
What do I hear, heavens? Is it you,
moaning?
SILVIO:
Is it your emoting? Heavens, what do I see?
FEBO:
You, crying?
SILVIO:
You, feeling?
FEBO:
You, tears?
SILVIO:
You, sighs?
ECHO:
This is the only thing I was missing.
SILVIO:
Seeing that your divine eyes
collect more pearls
than does the dew at daybreak,
I will ask the heavens for their reward.
FEBO:
I, seeing that in two beautiful
47
strings of pearls
all the Olympian lands are today undone,
I will give the heavens our condolences.
SILVIO:
I surrender happily to your voice,
because this mild crying, in its
tenderness, has told me that
your heart knows how to feel.
FEBO:
Today I humble myself sadly
at your feet, because this crying has
told me that there is something
that you have felt.
ECHO:
Oh, how cruel you are, Love,
that having two loathsome suitors
has not managed to satisfy you
to give me a lover!
SILVIO:
Oh Febo, if I compete with you
in the desire to make demonstrations
of love, in this activity
Echo has been more inclined to me.
FEBO:
In what way?
SILVIO:
In this way:
(to Echo)
Listen, and the judgment is yours to make.
ECHO (aside):
To hide my woes
I will necessarily have to hear it.
SILVIO:
So rare, so unusual is
the proud beauty of Echo
that, not believing her to be human,
I adored her as though she were divine.
Today, in being inclined to cry,
she raises my love’s greatest hopes:
therefore, with confidence, my thoughts should
so esteem her affliction
since my hope is born from it.
FEBO:
I, from the moment I first saw
Echo, always loved her as though
she were divine. And even though
today I witnessed her crying,
48
I still did not believe she was human.
In order to persuade me,
I regret my audacity
because to be divine is sufficient:
my hope should therefore die
of her affliction.
SILVIO:
That which is common in sickness
is common also in love.
Hence he feels no pain
who knows not what pain is.
Therefore, feeling that seeing her
here so moved with emotion was an error,
since seeing that she is indeed so moved,
what she feels
will be able to oblige her
more compassionately
to have pity on me.
FEBO:
I concede that only he who
suffers pain may feel pity
for another’s pain. And in this way
my love for her feels her anguish.
If her pain offers you relief
because she may take pity on you, I
it was the opposite..
Because it is more right that I
feel her pain than that
she feel pain for me.
SILVIO:
If I were able to remedy
her anguish with my anguish,
it would be wrong not to do it.
FEBO:
I would want to feel her pain
no matter what.
SILVIO:
Doing it for your own benefit
is not against decorum.
FEBO:
I do not know that.
What would show greater carelessness
than my profiting
from the pain of the woman I love?
ECHO:
I have listened attentively
to the tiresome competition of one and then the other,
49
yet neither
dedicates himself to my care.
Neither in you nor in you have I gathered
any consolation or compassion;
and since the affections of
one who lauds and one who cries are equals,
as of now the ribbon belongs to neither.
Echo exits.
SILVIO:
May it please Love, since in being
offended you employ yourself in insulting me,
that whoever you may love, might see you as
whiny and loathsome.
Silvio exits.
FEBO:
This my voice shall not ask of
the heavens. It is better that
you loathe in this way, as it is
here what my fierce sorrows want most,
that in exchange for you loving no one,
you might abhor me.
Oh, Sirene! Tell me, what will I do,
if there is something you have found out
that could give me some relief in this
sea of my misfortunes?
SIRENE:
Just one thing.
FEBO:
What is it?
SIRENE:
Forgetting about it.
FEBO:
Without a doubt you have seen
my desires to be hopeless,
since the prescription is forgetting,
which is love’s sepulcher.
SIRENE:
I would do wrong if I did not
tell you what I know, since you have
confided your pain to my heart.
Echo cannot love you.
And her disdain has not been
so general that she has not
prostrated herself before…
50
FEBO:
Whom?
SIRENE:
…Narcissus.
FEBO:
Oh, Sirene! You have done a bad thing…
SIRENE:
In doing what?
FEBO:
In having told me that.
SIRENE:
Haven’t you asked me for it?
FEBO:
Yes. But you should not have
told it to me all the same, since
whatever the jealous man wanted
to know, he really did not want to know.
And since it was not in my power to
not ask you, it was in yours not to tell me.
SIRENE:
Even though, Febo, you give me
this lesson too late, I propose that I
repay you for it with another.
Never desire to learn what is hidden
from a woman, if you must regret hearing it.
Sirene exits.
FEBO:
Flowers of this pleasant valley,
trunks of these tall cliffs,
birds of this gentle wind,
brutes of these haughty woodlands,
shepherds of these fertile shores,
flocks of these ? folds,
beauties of this rolling countryside,
crystals of these flowing rivers,
all of you were witnesses
to my fortunate love,
may you now also be witnesses
to my unfortunate jealousy.
Bato and Narcissus enter.
BATO:
Where are you going?
NARCISSUS:
I do not know what it is,
but no matter how hard
I resist, I cannot any longer.
51
I am going back to see that beauty
that I left behind.
BATO:
But she is no longer here.
NARCISSUS:
(to Febo)
Tell me, my shepherd friend,
who rests upon your staff seeming
so arrested and confused,
if you have seen Echo, the honor
of these mountains, anywhere
throughout these valleys?
FEBO:
(threatening him
with his staff)
Answer to this staff of holly,
dyed in your purple hue.
Well, no, I ought not make
you unhappy because your love
makes you glad. Live, arrogant
and vain young man,
as I do not want to take
vengeance on anyone but myself.
You are not to blame for loving
the one who loved you,
and I am for having loved
the one who loathed me.
Febo exits.
NARCISSUS:
What is this, Bato?
BATO:
What do you expect, if
you inadvertently ask a man
who adores Echo about her?
NARCISSUS:
What a cold venom have you given me in
that word running straight from
my ear to my heart,
so varied that at once
I am scorched and I shiver, alternating
between burning ice and freezing fire?
BATO:
You gave as much to Febo.
NARCISSUS:
And tell me, Bato my friend,
is Febo loved by Echo?
BATO:
No, she has always
detested him.
52
NARCISSUS:
You have lifted half the weight
from my senses, so that
though the ice burns, it is made tepid,
and though the fire freezes, it is made warm.
Echo enters.
ECHO:
It is better that my pain
be professed at once.
Narcissus, I come in search of you.
NARCISSUS:
(aside)
Seeing that she comes looking for me,
took away the other half,
since had she not come in search of me,
I would have gone for her.
How can I serve you?
ECHO:
By listening to me.
(aside)
I will sing it to him,
the better to oblige him with my voice.
BATO:
I want
to give Liríope warning
of these extreme expressions of love,
since I am not strong enough to resist them.
Bato exits.
ECHO (singing):
Most handsome Narcissus,
who brings harshness to
these pleasant valleys of the
woodlands in which you were born,
listen to my sorrows,
as they should oblige you –
not because they are mine,
but only because they are sorrows.
Love knows with how much shame
I come to speak with you, and
I neither doubt nor fear
that you also know it,
if you pay attention to the color
rising in my cheeks to give me away,
the violet blush and the pale whiteness
alternating moment by moment,
53
because in each breath,
which are effectively only air,
my face is changed like a
chameleon of love.
Since the very first day
I went looking for you in the wilderness
and I was the first to find you
in its lonely retreats,
my life surrendered its liberties
to your beauty,
your strangeness making a charm
for my arrogance,
so that, even though the diamond
of your heart was so coarsely uncut,
it offered a glimpse of your
many carats.
I am Echo, the most sumptuous
shepherdess of these valleys.
Beautiful my misfortunes
could say, because,
in the worship of the altars
in the temple of Love,
few lamps burn of those
both beautiful and happy.
That entire ocean of fleeces
is mine which, with its woolen waves,
ebbs and flows
from that tall rock to
this green riverbank,
grazing among emeralds and
drinking crystals.
It is all mine.
No shepherds tend to it
who do not live on my wages both
attentively and loyally.
I offer all of it at your feet;
and do not imagine because
my affections come to beg you today
that they are born,
in my practice,
of any habit of frivolity:
knowing, handsome youth,
that nothing can oblige me
except to be your wife,
but rather to declare my love,
so that you have in me someone
always firm and steadfast,
54
a soul that would adore you,
a heart that would love you,
a faith that would laud you,
a knot that would wrap around you,
attention that would serve you,
love that would shower you with gifts,
desire that would oblige you,
concern that would please you.
And if these submissions
cannot oblige you,
sorrowful, confused, blind,
mute, captivated, cowardly,
unhappy, afflicted
you will see devote myself
to my feelings so much
that my lamenting complaints.
the air mingled with my cries
may boast
because the enamored Echo
has been transformed into air,
NARCISSUS:
Your intensity had created
experiences within my heart,
all the more to your advantage.
It is bad, divine Echo, that you have
declared to me your love,
since I so clearly deduce that,
my free will laid before you,
I now would have told you of
my own love for you
if you had kept silent about yours.
In searching for you my vexed sorrow
brings you grief comparable to your own,
with which, the tables already turned,
you may see the distance that exists between
begging and being begged.
Without taking notice of fate,
my love came to you already conquered.
What I see in good favor
is so much more than I used to see despised.
In this way, do not tell me of your love,
nor hope in your lifetime to see that
your light has scorched me, since with
the knowledge that you love me.
I will live happily.
ECHO:
Listen, wait, pause, take
55
a moment.
NARCISSUS:
Let go of my hand.
As she grasps his hand, Silvio enters.
SILVIO:
What is it that my eyes see here?
ECHO:
Listen to me.
NARCISSUS:
It will be in vain.
ECHO:
Oh, Narcissus, my love, my treasure!
NARCISSUS:
I will not hear you.
SILVIO:
How is it that I suffer my
offenses in this way?
NARCISSUS:
Leave me be.
ECHO:
Do you run from me?
NARCISSUS:
Yes.
SILVIO:
Who ever saw greater misfortune?
ECHO:
May the heavens avenge me
on you.
SILVIO:
If you ask that the heavens
avenge you, – how cruel! –
my torment can request
with greater sorrow that
they avenge me on both you and him.
I suppose, vixen, that
he offended you here,
and since both of you together offended me,
I will avenge myself on him, since
I cannot avenge myself on you.
Upstart of a young man,
who alone from this eminent
wilderness increases my rage,
son of the wind, you descend,
and even though it is not your fault
that Echo comes to love you
56
but rather hers, and even though
I have to partly be grateful to you,
seeing how much good fortune
you spurn as your own master,
how far outside the realm of reason it is
that the laws of jealousy must order
that he who is beloved dies and
not the one who loves.
Without any doubt it was a woman
who first introduced those laws,
since they condemn the instrument
and not the one who does the offending.
In this way, having already been accepted,
that the grievances that women cause us
be avenged on men,
I am forced to avenge myself on you
even though it must pain me
that you are such a tender young man
that in vanquishing you I do nothing.
ECHO:
Silvio, look…! I am dead!
NARCISSUS:
Oh, my unhappiness!
ECHO:
I warned you…!
She puts herself in front of him.
SILVIO:
However much you defend him,
you irritate me to kill him all the more.
NARCISSUS:
Do not defend me anymore.
Leave it so that he meet my arms,
since what valor there is in my arms
that will know, Echo, how to defeat him.
The two men fight, and Narcissus falls.
SILVIO:
How is that, since you are already
at my feet? Die happily,
since it is the crime for lovers
to be happy.
He goes to take the dagger in hand and finish him.
Febo enters and intervenes, stopping him.
FEBO:
Hold it! Do not kill him!
57
SILVIO:
You will stop it?
FEBO:
It is only because you do not
have news of my cause for doing so.
Febo, if you had them,
you would help me kill him.
FEBO:
I would not, since I save him
knowing rather than not knowing.
Being loved by someone
does not merit dying.
SILVIO:
Oh, what pitiful jealousy you have,
that you do not desire a million deaths
on the man whom your lady loves!
FEBO:
On the contrary, my jealousy is noble,
as it today seeks to open
the world’s eyes to the error
suffered on that part.
Wanting what I want,
almost coming to be flattery,
since it proves my good taste.
Being fortunate in being loved
is a boon of good luck.
Why must I make unfortunate
he whom the heavens made more fortunate?
Aside from that, all that is the pleasure
of my lady is always so sacred to me
(although my taste seem strange,
whether I err in this or get it right),
that I have to defend it,
in order to not give her the sorrow
of offending that which she loves.
SILVIO:
In love, Febo, there is no
sophistry. And be warned that
in jealousy there is never nobility.
A man feels what he feels.
And so I must kill him
because she favors him,
even though I may have to appreciate
the fact that he scorns Echo.
FEBO:
He scorns Echo?
58
SILVIO:
Yes.
FEBO:
Now I too will give him his death,
because she whom I love
must not be a man who despises her.
SILVIO:
Now I will defend him,
being aware that my love
is thus obliged.
FEBO:
Oh, what a despicable love you have,
that you want to kill him who Echo loves,
and save him who despises her!
And thus I am obliged to avenge her
of this rebuff.
SILVIO:
I must keep it by him.
FEBO:
Let he who wins follow
his own opinion.
Febo and Silvio begin to fight.
ECHO:
What great disorder do I see?
Shepherds of this mountain,
come bestow your help on me,
halting the misfortune that
now transpires before my eyes.
Anteo, Sileno, Bato, Liríope, and the others enter.
ANTEO:
What is this? Silvio, Febo,
control yourselves now that I am here.
SILENO:
Narcissus, you already have a fight
in the valley?
NARCISSUS:
I have two, as two enemies here
are trying to kill me.
LIRÍOPE:
With what hurry the fates
do declare to us that you have
your risk in a beauty!
BATO:
I, without being an astrologer,
said it, because “Who does not
always have his risk in a beauty
59
a thousand times over, or even
in a hag?
SILENO:
What is all this about,
pretty Echo?
ECHO:
Only about being unfortunate.
Echo exits.
ANTEO:
What is all this about, Silvio?
SILVIO:
It’s me being unhappy. Febo,
you tell them about it.
Silvio exits.
LIRÍOPE:
What is all this about, Febo?
FEBO:
I don’t know. Narcissus can
explain it.
Febo exits.
SILENO:
Narcissus, what is all this about?
NARCISSUS:
I don’t know what’s
happening to me.
Narcissus exits.
ANTEO:
Bato, since you went to call for us,
tell us as clearly as you can
what this is all about.
BATO:
Being unfortunate. That’s
what those people will tell you.
Bato exits.
SILENO:
Let us follow them, so that they
may not come see each other again
before they are made to be friends.
Sileno exits.
ANTEO:
Let us go, even though it appears
60
to me that it will be impossible
to be friends when a lady intervenes:
friendships that survive jealousies
have rarely been seen.
Anteo exits.
LIRÍOPE:
Heavens, since you are already
giving me such clear indications
that the danger that your stars
predicted for Narcisso
lies in Echo’s beauty,
give me the courage to remedy
the threats before the executions begin.
Make useful that which I have learned
so that the harm is corrected:
before it happens, I must put
a thousand obstacles in its path,
if – arrogant, daring, and intense –
I know how to disrupt all of the orbs
of that celestial machine,
my prodigies seeing it
fall from its regular axes.
Liríope exits.
Act III
Febo, Silvio, and Anteo enter.
ANTEO:
You all must do this for me,
since you have no reason
not to be friends.
FEBO:
Little do you know what it is
to love deeply, since you say
that the two of us have no reason
not to be friends when we both
love the same scornful woman.
SILVIO:
How is it possible for a man to
be friends with one who loves
who he loves, his jealousy filled
with rage over it?
61
ANTEO:
Although I understand little of love’s
heartache, it seems to me that when
you see that both of you are equally
detested and neither is preferred,
you can be friends, since that which
obliges such jealous feelings in any lover
is the fact that he wins the hope or desire
that you lose. With neither of you having
more favor or hope than the other,
to want to work out the duel is
more than what the law commands.
FEBO:
That is a good enough reason
not to quarrel with him,
but not enough to be his friend.
SILVIO:
Febo has answered well
in that friendship is one thing,
but competition is another.
ANTEO:
Well, according to that distinction,
I am content with you not being
enemies, if you do not want to be
friends.
FEBO:
I regretfully give you my word.
SILVIO:
I do as well.
But I warn that the larger
quarrel remains;
just because, Anteo, I give my word
with respect to Febo, who is
equal with me in my sorrows,
I do not with respect to Narcissus.
If Echo loves him, I have to avenge
myself of her on him.
FEBO:
And I, but not because she appears to adore him,
which is his good fortune and not his fault;
instead, because he disdains her,
since I have to see that no one treats badly
the one I love the most.
ANTEO:
Before talking to the two of you,
I spoke with the same young man you speak of,
62
and he offered to prevent any further occasions
in which he displeases one of you,
either by scorning her or loving her.
And since the three of you are ageed on
this count, note that your competition
is now my charge, and see that
he who breaks their word will
have to quarrel with me later.
Anteo exits.
SILVIO:
Who ever arrived at greater misfortune
than the handsome youth who
came face to face with disappointment?
FEBO:
Who ever arrived at greater happiness
than the lover who came to have
a failed love affair?
SILVIO:
Well, he who was deceived
lived happily, because
it is one thing to not to know
and another to suffer.
FEBO:
Well, as much as the deceived one
loved, he was unfortunate, because
there is no evil like he who kills
in secret without being known.
SILVIO:
Oh, he who, being deceived, loved
all his life…
FEBO:
Oh, he who had this same disappointment
that he had before…
SILVIO:
So that the pain is
never felt…
FEBO:
So that the cruel pain had
always been felt…
SILVIO:
That in a love…
FEBO:
A faith…
SILVIO:
There is nothing like not knowing it!
63
FEBO:
There is nothing like knowing it!
Echo enters.
ECHO:
Silvio and Febo are here.
How much I regret that I must
hear once more
their tiring competition!
FEBO:
Echo is what my eyes see.
SILVIO:
Echo is what I see.
FEBO:
Give me the courage, feelings,
to stop seeing her.
SILVIO:
So as not to talk to her,
moans, make an effort.
FEBO:
Echo, may the gods
watch over you.
Febo exits.
SILVIO:
May the heavens give you life.
Silvio exits.
ECHO:
How is it that the two of them, without
speaking to me, walk away in this fashion?
Who will believe that I regretted finding them
here when I arrived, since
I was just afraid that they would talk to me
of their love, and now afterwards I feel bad that
they absented themselves without mentioning it?
But what a thing, what a thing if in effect
the woman who has forgotten the most suitors
has most loathed them,
even the complaints of that which she disdains
sound good, which is a ceremonious vanity
to see oneself wanted, one that is not appreciated,
annd later, it is missed.
Bato and Narcissus enter.
BATO:
Where are you going?
64
NARCISSUS:
I am going hunting in the woodlands,
Bato, since I want to see if with
absence I can better defeat this cruel passion,
because in all my life I am not to
listen to her nor talk to her,
since my danger resided within her.
ECHO:
Here he comes. What will I do?
NARCISSUS:
She is here. Let us flee before
she comes to speak with me.
ECHO:
But what is this? Do I doubt
what I have to do? Do I not here
come to feel that the two I detested
left just now without speaking to me?
Well, that which was venom in them
shall be medicine for him.
Take courage, heart.
Prevail at least once.
Narcissus!
NARCISSUS:
What is you want, Echo?
ECHO:
That the heavens give you life.
Echo exits.
NARCISSUS:
How do you leave without saying
anything more to me?
BATO:
By walking on her feet.
NARCISSUS:
Does she already not feel the
disappointments I handed her, Bato,
since she gives me no complaints?
BATO:
It seems to me that she does not.
NARCISSUS:
Who would come to sorry about
the one she came to woo?
BATO:
She who courted one who she
was to regret.
ECHO:
Is this being in love? Yes.
But, by hiding it and because
65
Narcissus also judges that I
feel nothing for him, in singing
I want to undo him. If she who sings
scares away all her evils, how is it
that I frighten away what I most want?
Echo exits.
NARCISSUS:
But what does it matter
that she leaves like this?
BATO:
Nothing, if you look
hard at it.
NARCISSUS:
It doesn’t matter,
except it matters very much.
BATO:
(Narcissus
hitting him)
Mind it, and
control your hand.
ECHO:
(singing within)
If all is suffering for
those who deeply love,
and if there is no happiness
in loving deeply,
loving be damned!
NARCISSUS:
Amen!
BATO:
Amen! But what are you
so annoyed by?
NARCISSUS:
By the song.
BATO:
You speak well,
that singing is very bad form
for a spurned woman.
NARCISSUS:
Let us flee from here, Bato,
since if I hear it again
it will carry me to it.
BATO:
You speak beautifully.
Let us go to the woodlands.
ECHO (inside):
Lovers be damned!
66
NARCISSUS:
Amen!
BATO:
Amen!
NARCISSUS:
Hold a moment. That voice
is a bugle of love that has
collected all my desires in my ear.
Leaving me behind without paying
attention to me, so ferocious and
so cruel, yet singing so happily and
freely…it is necessary that one feels it.
Come with me, I want to make you
a witness to my protests.
BATO:
Well, where must we go?
NARCISSUS:
Following her.
BATO:
She obliges you now?
NARCISSUS:
I don’t know;
but, I am sad to see
that she is happy,
just because she sings I would follow
even if she did not sing well.
Pretty Echo, wait, listen…
Liríope enters and stops him.
LIRÍOPE:
Hold your tongue and your step,
Narcissus.
NARCISSUS:
How is that possible,
when I heard her say…
Echo, inside, and Narcissus, outside, repeat the verse:
ECHO AND
NARCISSUS:
LIRÍOPE:
If all is suffering for
those who deeply love,
and if there is no happiness
in loving deeply,
lovers be damned!
Amen! Amen!
Is it possible that, knowing
how the influence of your fate,
67
which so cruelly threatens you,
is written in that blue canopy
with golden pens and rosy letters,
you still want to open its pages
and read from its chapters?
Don’t you know that
that beauty and that voice
at some point began to declare themselves
your enemy when on the heels of
two jealous lovers you arrived
to defend one danger in the other?
Well, believe the warning there,
thanking the heavens that are so much
on your side as to make sure you
listen to the voice of thunder
before it strikes you with lightening.
NARCISSUS:
I confess to you that you are right
to distrust and to fear.
But to conquer oneself,
I ask, “Who could have managed it?”
LIRÍOPE:
He who, seeing the harm in advance,
fled from it.
NARCISSUS:
If that is enough, I will flee.
I am going to the woodlands to hunt,
and I will not return to the valley
until I can return having forgotten
this dubious faith,
that one day is all loving
and the next, all loathing.
And so, in another sense,
I will go with her saying…
ECHO AND
NARCISSUS:
If all is suffering for
those who deeply love,
and if there is no happiness
in loving deeply,
lovers be damned!
Amen! Amen!
Narcissus exits.
LIRÍOPE:
Even in this todday the heavens
give you a most loyal warning,
68
that in loathing and loving
Destiny is yours also.
Go with him, Bato.
BATO:
I am going.
A bad commission it is
of following around a master
who hands out sorrow and loves deeply.
Bato exits.
LIRÍOPE:
Heavens, his fortune has already
been declared. And since I came to
recognize the cause of Narcissus’
endangerment, how will it have served
me if I cannot remedy that cause, how
will it have served me how much I learned
from Tiresias, how much I read about
and studied in solitude?
Let us take advantage of the knowledge
for knowledge, if left unused, serves
nothing. His two great dangers are
seen in Echo’s voice and beauty.
Let us destroy one of them
in order that to leave the other
imperfect. Among the things I know
about the great natural world,
I know a venom, the most cruel
that any infinite abundance of power
ever produced. This hinders
the tongue in such a way that
it renders its victim incapable of speech,
for the reason that it uses neither
pronouncing nor learning
anything but the last thing she hears.
This powerful, crude venom, part opiate and
part venomous flower, is so powerful
that it must produce lethargy in Echo.
So efficiently does it do its harm
that it will not be necessary
that she drink it, it will be enough
that she step on some in order for it
to run quickly to the heart
through its contact with her foot.
I have it concocted, and I will
put it on the path she walks upon.
Let Echo’s voice die, but it is
69
her voice that could so move Narcissus,
which, since I could not manage to
raise him without his seeing a woman,
I must save him in some other way,
and if this is not enough to produce
the effect that I want, I will leave
behind the secrets produced by the earth,
and my miracles will rise to this
clear canopy of the heavens.
I will unfasten the stars from their
epicycle, and this great loyal horde
of celestial bodies will lose its rosiness.
I will stain the face of the moon,
I will disorder the sun’s complexion and,
the heavens growing tongue-tied,
I will cause ruin to threaten
the grand, pretty republic
from one end to the other
so much so that the globe of the earth
may fear whether it will fall or not fall
to one movement or another.
Liríope exits.
Narcissus and Bato enter.
BATO:
Follow that deer that still flies
like the wind, though struck by an arrow.
NARCISSUS:
How, transformed into a bird,
flying today with only one wing
as flawlessly as you are,
oh deer, and with your back so
mortally wounded, do you return with
equal promptness, when you go about
leaving coral in how many emerald footsteps?
BATO:
It has entered into the denseness,
to die by bleeding out in the stream.
NARCISSUS:
You go. Finish it off, because I,
exhausted and fatigued,
can go no further than here.
BATO:
I can’t either. And I believe now
that it must the truth…
70
NARCISSUS:
That says what?
BATO:
That running makes you tired,
because it has surely tired me out.
NARCISSUS:
Let’s stay among those pretty branches
a little while, since impede the red glow
of the sun, while the
Dog Star of the heavens barks at the sun.
BATO:
You speak very well. Let us rest
here a short while, as the place
invites us to. And since we see ourselves
with no other thing to talk about,
why don’t we talk about hunting?
Is there any greater foolishness
than following a buck in this heat, sir,
if the hunt in the shade of a dispensary
hunt is much better and less tiring
NARCISSUS:
No, because the pleasure of
killing it is what is valued here.
BATO:
I thought the pleasure was in
broiling it or breading it.
NARCISSUS:
Listening to you I think
offends a noble exercise such as this.
BATO:
Just imagine that there is no
forest like a kitchen,
or woods like a pantry.
NARCISSUS:
Leave the subject of the hunt alone.
BATO:
What, then, if this so pains you,
will you talk about?
NARCISSUS:
About Echo I would like…
BATO:
Well, that is also a kind of hunt,
though it’s a hunt of large game.
NARCISSUS:
Forever…But what noise is this?
BATO:
The wounded deer
bathed in foam and blood,
71
has returned this way.
NARCISSUS:
You collect it, as I am so
exhausted that I cannot.
BATO:
I will do it, sir,
and as I will go to collect it,
provided he wants to pay himself to me.
Bato exits, and Narcissus discovers the spring.
NARCISSUS:
I will wait on the gratifying banks
of this spring. Will I dare to drink
the crystals of its fountain,
without distrusting or fearing
that my feelings will perhaps
be arrested for a second time
by the nymph of these waters?
But it will not happen, and
it cannot be an insult for me
to come to her for a drink,
if she is offfering it to me.
Oh, I was born such a naïve boy!
Oh, what a stupid fool I was raised to be!
I never heard from anyone
whether he who dared to drink
their crystal insulted the nymphs or flattered them.
But, if it is a flattering deity,
to relieve my suffering,
it must necessarily be generous.
Oh you, the first water nymph whom
I thirstily came to asking for consolation
and relief, do not take offense now that
I dare to come to you myself!
Who ever saw a beauty equal
to the one I now see?
Her arrow-wielding nymph
(how fortunate!) is a living fire
within the pure snow.
Not without fright and distrust
do my fears come to see
in another world of ice,
other trees and flowers,
other woodlands and other heavens.
(He shows
himself at the
As she heard my voice,
she came out in order to respond to me.
72
fountain)
A beautiful surprise, for whom it
is right that I now sacrifice my life and soul,
tell me if I will be able to – oh, goodness! –
quench my thirst in the crystal waters
you are guarding. She says yes, now
though only with gestures.
although my speech and my will
understand them, I trust,,
there is no doubt in them,
since, although on speaking to her,
she is silent, she laughs when I laugh.
I never saw such divine beauty.
I will drink, since you give me your permission.
As I drew nearer to the crystal,
she drew closer as well.
Her beauty (how admired!)
is dressed like me.
Two trees rightly dress in the same
bark if they have a single heart.
I will drink, then. But, annoyances,
why do I find contrary insults
in your clear remains?
How is it that what is ice on
one’s lips is fire in their eyes?
How is such fire set upon me
when I come to the water?
How (I am mute, I am blind),
if fire kills water, does water
here ignites the fire?
From the moment I saw you,
oh beauty, I felt that I had died.
This praise alone comes well here
that I love you as I love myself,
and since I do not love myself more
than you, I would die for you.
Why do you neither talk nor respond?
But from you hiding your voice
I infer a second kind of good fortune,
because, if my harsh fate
in voice and beauty seeks
an atrocious end of my life,
your not having a voice
results in you having another kind of beauty.
Do you want to give me your hand?
Love lives, she brings it near!
Today I win great favor.
But – oh, goodness! – it is in vain
73
that achieve such a prize,
because – oh, incomparable sorrow! –
in going to grasp it, mad with love,
her celestial light is unsettled;
And I touch only the crystal
and not the crystal’s soul.
Narcissus remains distracted by the brook.
Echo enters.
ECHO:
From the company of the valley,
that is more tiring than amusing,
my anxieties come fleeing.
to the solitude of the woodlands,
I come crying to this brook,
in whose calm surroundings
my melancholy is in the habit of’
amusing itself, because,
the water is an instrument
of sorrows, and this, in sweet accord,
with string of glass plays
golden frets and ambar bows.
Many times I came here
to distract myself from my misfortunes,
but of all of them – oh, heavens! –
none with greater cause,
such that, restlessly confused,
I don’t know what I feel in my soul
like the blows within my chest
are tearing out my heart.
But, what do I see? Narcissus
arrested by it with such rapt attention
that I believe he is actually the spring’s statue
I do not want him to be persuaded
that I have followed him,
so I must hide myself
among these green branches.
NARCISSUS:
As you, beautiful prodigy,
only look at me and remain silent,
I do no more than look at you
and remain silent. But this is enough,
because, since I can see you,
what greater happiness could I want?
ECHO:
Who is he talking to,
74
and telling such loving things?
Were the rebuffs not enough,
but now I must endure jealousy too?
But what instance of love lacks jealousy?
I want to get closer, since he has
his back to me and will not see me.
My foolish distrust has no doubt
that on the other side there is
some beautiful lass that he is talking to.
NARCISSUS:
What a divinity you are,
what a sovereign deity!
Echo seemed pretty to me
before I saw you.
But since I’ve seen you,
she is not even your shadow.
ECHO:
What does my suffering await
that isn’t already cried aloud,
seeing how he showers
another with praise at my cost?
But I see no one.
And since I cannot see from here,
I must attempt to see her from
behind him, if he who slowly kills me
also leaves me the courage.
Echo appears behind Narcissus at the spring.
NARCISSUS:
Echo is lovely, but you…
Oh, how terrible! In naming her,
she set herself beside the
one I adore. Echo is within the
water. How is it possible?
But – oh, what a shame! – my
misfortunes will have facilitated
Echo’s entrance, or her jealousy,
in my nymph’s crystal palace.
Do not believe what she says to you about
my offense, because she deceives you
in everything she tells you.
ECHO:
She does not deceive, Narcissus.
NARCISSUS:
Heavens! Who has been seen in
such doubt! How is it that, if
her body is over there, her voice
75
sounds as if it is here? What the
soul endures is a strange confusion
in this case. How are you here if
you are in the crystalline palace
of these waters? Have you two bodies
at once? My sight, shocked to see you
in two places, is frightened with wonder.
He looks again at Echo, and leaves the spring.
ECHO:
Listen!
NARCISSUS:
Leave me. But my voice
insults you in vain.
Pretty Echo of my eyes,
if you want me, if you love me,
if you come to look for me
in the woodlands, make your great
demonstrations of love in telling me
how you entered this silver palace,
and how you left it so quickly,
so that I may go where you departed
from to see the sovereign deity
of these waters.
ECHO:
Wait, Narcissus, pause, stop,
since as great as my sorrow is,
your ignorance is even greater.
Who do you see in this spring,
and with whom in this spring
are you speaking, if the only thing
inside it is a false shadow, the
reflection that the water offers
to our eyes, since it is a crystal
that draws a portrait of our bodies
feigns that object of sight?
NARCISSUS:
I know, Echo, that you deceive me,
because you intend to dissuade me
from my love and my hope.
I have seen the gorgeous nymph
of these waters, whose rare perfection
gave snow to the woodlands, purple dye
to the carnation, mother-of-pearl to the rose,
candor to the jasmine, rosiness to the dawn,
golden plaits to the sun itself, and
silver hands to the crystal.
76
It is no pretend shadow, no, but
her in her considerable estate,
among other forests and heavens,
other woodlands and other plants,
which she has left in order to see me.
Come, come to see her,
since she is here even now.
ECHO:
Oh, if the pain would give me relief
so that I could dispel your ignorance
in order to once and for all
take revenge on your vanity!
But the pain itself may give me the strength
to do it, so that I, in spite of his cruelty,
will know how to defeat him.
Narcissus, that deity in the water
that you see… Oh! I don’t know what
I was about to say. What strange sorrow!
To carry on, remind me of what
I was talking about.
NARCISSUS:
The deity in these waters.
ECHO:
Yes, that. That shadow, that your
fantasy vainly presumes is the nymph
that guards this place, is …
How will I tell you this?
I lack even an explanation.
I so readily doubt what I am at the
same time saying truthfully,
and not only the concept,
but also the words…
Who are you that is here with me?
NARCISSUS:
Why do ask that if you
are talking to me?
I am Narcissus.
ECHO:
Narcissus.
NARCISSUS:
Why are you frightened?
ECHO:
Frightened?
NARCISSUS:
Well, mustn’t I be frightened to
see in you such a change?
What were you saying?
77
ECHO:
Saying?
NARCISSUS:
Yes. Don’t keep anything silent.
ECHO:
Silent.
(aside)
But I am lying, since I am
going to say a thousand things
and my baffled tongue will
pronounce only what it hears.
NARCISSUS:
What strange confusion! Echo!
ECHO:
Echo!
NARCISSUS:
What is this?
ECHO:
This?
NARICISSUS:
What do you feel? Speak.
ECHO:
Speak.
NARCISSUS:
There is no doubt that, since
she wanted to offend the sovereign
deity of these waters, the nymph
has taken this vengeance, seizing
her voice from her. It already
astonishes me to see her. I will flee
from her. She holds me back, and
can only profess her pain in signs.
She tears at her heart with her own hands.
What is it that you want?
ECHO:
You want?
NARCISSUS:
You detain me and call out to me?
You tell me.
ECHO:
You tell me.
NARCISSUS:
Let go!
ECHO:
Let go!
NARCISSUS:
Enough!
78
ECHO:
Enough!
Bato enters.
BATO:
I have not been able to return
earlier, because … but I won’t have been
missed if you have been so
well entertained, sir.
NARCISSUS:
I have not, but very poorly,
because I do not know what
is happening to my life.
Speak with Echo. Perhaps
she will here be able to talk
to you in a less baffled manner
than with me. And keep her
from following after me, as I
am going throughout all of
those mountains in search of
musicians, who can come to sing
for the sovereign nymph of
these waters, to whom I gave over
my being, my life, and my soul.
Narcissus exits.
BATO:
Now we have another story!
What nymph or what gourd,
my lady, is this?
ECHO:
This?
BATO:
Yes.
ECHO:
Yes.
BATO:
What lovely coolness you use .
Do not follow him.
ECHO:
Do not follow him.
Echo wants to go after Narcissus, and Bato detains her.
BATO:
Do not follow him, and your
soul, which I must keep with me,
a bit must wait.
79
ECHO:
Wait.
BATO:
I said, what is it, my lady?
ECHO:
My lady?
BATO:
(aside)
Me a lady? She must be drunk.
I just said what you were thinking.
ECHO:
You were thinking?
BATO:
I wasn’t thinking anything.
ECHO:
Anything.
BATO:
You say what you hear?
Since when are you a parrot?
She makes desperate gestures.
Filled with mortal anxieties,
she beats her breast. Fear
of her already pushes me away.
ECHO:
Away.
(aside)
On the inside,to myself,
I can speak without articulating
a single word, my vocal organ
lacking the ability to pronounce
them, even though I have
no idea why.
For the rest of my life,
no human being will see my face.
Fleeing from populated areas,
I will go to the harsh mountains
and, hidden in the deepest caverns,
within them, sad and confused,
repeating to those who pass by
only the last syllable of what they say.
Harsh mountains of Arcadia,
noble shepherds, pretty lasses,
white flocks of sheep, green tree trunks,
clear fountains, Echo your friend
is already departed from you.
Do not look for her, for she goes
to live somewhere hidden in the
harsh depths of the woodlands,
80
hopelessly enamored of Narcissus.
But if you want to know about her,
speak to her from the valleys,
and I here give my word
to respond to all,
crying with those who cry, and
singing with those who sing.
Echo exits.
BATO:
Men, what is this that has struck
Echo, that she does not speak
anything except what she hears?
Oh, would that I might know the cause
to sell it! Because think how many men
would pay me their weight in gold
so that their women and ladies,
no matter how much they talk to them,
might never respond with even
a single word all day! And
how many women, how many
would also pay for the cure,
that their men would not say
anything but what they wanted them to!
Sirene enters.
SIRENE:
They said that Echo was here,
and I’ve come looking for her.
BATO:
(aside)
Oh, if misfortune today had such
good taste that it had stolen
speech from Sirene too!
What is it, Sirene?
SIRENE:
(aside)
Oh, how this stupid fool
fatigues me! I do not want
to speak to him so that he
will leave me be and go elsewhere.
BATO:
What, you don’t respond to me either?
And what, you speak in signs, also?
You don’t talk? What a beautiful thing!
Congratulations, gentlemen! From
today onward, all the women of the world
are quieted! A general plague
81
has come to carry off all their speech.
SIRENE:
A pox on you,
since I will say, every
afternoon and morning
anything that comes into my noggin.
BATO:
I was already frightened of being
so fortunate.
Febo enters.
FEBO:
Where do my anxieties carry me
after a divine impossibility,
lacking both good fortune and hope?
Bato!
BATO:
What is it, Febo?
FEBO:
By any stroke of luck, in the midst
of this intricate denseness,
which diverse Nature coarsely knitted
knowing that sometimes what is
without art is most wise, have
did you see the divine Echo?
BATO:
I didn’t see her, but I saw
Echo the human, because
if she were divine she wouldn’t
have suffered such misfortunes.
FEBO:
What misfortunes?
BATO:
The greatest that could happen
to a lass, Febo.
FEBO:
How? Was there some tyrannous
horror of a beast that bled out her life?
BATO:
Worse.
FEBO:
Did she fall from one of these
mighty cliffs?
BATO:
Worse.
FEBO:
Did the torrent of this river
82
become her silver sepulcher?
BATO:
Worse.
FEBO:
Worse than drowning, falling
from a cliff, and being mauled?
BATO:
Yes.
FEBO:
What was it?
BATO:
She lost her ability to speak,
which for a woman is the worst of all.
FEBO:
A thousand and one curses on you,
for now speaking to me in jest!
BATO:
I was speaking truthfully just now,
because I saw her here
lacking the ability to say
more than a single word.
FEBO:
Her sorrows
may have been the reason for that.
BATO:
But do not be too distressed,
as Sirene was silent here also,
and in an instant she said
more than four thousand magpies.
It will be the same with Echo,
because if speech is a defect in
females, such a bad habit is
not lost so quickly.
FEBO:
I don’t believe you, and
I’m going into these woodlands
in search of her.
(Music is heard
within, far away)
But what is this?
SIRENE:
The remarkable sound of
diverse sorts of music
is coming this way.
FEBO:
I don’t want to stop to know the reason,
because when I cry,
83
singers make me even sadder.
Febo exits.
SIRENE:
What reason is there today,
Bato, for such a celebration?
BATO:
In congratulation for silencing
a woman. What more is needed?
Narcissus enters, with the musicians.
NARCISSUS:
Here, friends, the music must be,
as this clear spring is the sphere
of a sun that scorches with its ice-filled light.
Do not approach it until I first go call to her,
because the music is no good
if she is not there to hear it.
BATO:
Narcissus, what is this?
NARCISSUS:
Did I not already tell you in passing
when you stayed here with Echo?
BATO:
Well, tell me now in staying.
NARCISSUS:
My conquered heart loves
the nymph of these waters.
I saw her as I was coming for a drink.
With gestures she gave me
permission to love her, because
her voice makes no sound within
the water. I bring her music,
Bato, to entertain her, and
I am going to see if she is there.
BATO:
How I would enjoy seeing her,
because even though I have
heard him say that there are
nymphs and elves,
I have not seen a single nymph or elf.
NARCISSUS:
Wait here, as it could anger her
if you come to see her,
and she might not even come out.
Let me draw closer alone.
And if at the sound of my voice
84
that calls to her she comes out,
you will secretly come to look at her.
Crystalline deity whom
my heart idolizes,
come out at the sound of my voice.
BATO:
Did she emerge?
NARCISSUS:
Yes. I do not know how to say
how great is my happiness
at seeing how quickly you come to
the sound of my voice.
I bring you music, and to find out
what pleases you, I would bring you
all the gifts that these fields produce.
Doesn’t that desire please you?
Say yes. That sign was enough.
BATO:
Can I come closer now?
NARCISSUS:
While I go to tell the musicians
to sing, you will be
able to see her, Bato. But
make sure you come so quietly,
that she does not hear you.
Splendid beauty, I am going to
tell the musicians they may
come closer. Wait here.
(to Bato)
Come, as she is staying here.
Narcissus exits.
BATO:
I approach with so much fear
and so much shame, since this
is the first time that I’ve come
to the spring, so great has been
the dislike I have had for water
and the faith I have had in wine.
(looking at
himself in the
spring)
What a most grotesque face
for a nymph! My own face could
surely be no worse, nor even
quite as bad.
Narcissus enters.
85
NARCISSUS:
(offstage to the
musicians)
Come. Speak your praises to my darling
from right here.
(to Bato)
Have you seen her?
BATO:
I have seen her.
NARCISSUS:
Is her beauty not extraordinary?
BATO:
Very much so, sir, if she had…
NARCISSUS:
Go on, what?
BATO:
Her beard done, because as it is
she has more than I must have.
NARCISSUS:
How strange is your simple-mindedness!
Sing, men.
They sing, and Echo responds from within.
Listen, my darling, to what they sing
to you.
MUSICIANS:
The pleasures of love…
ECHO:
MUSICIANS:
Love.
Have in jealousy…
ECHO:
MUSICIANS:
ECHO:
MUSICIANS:
ECHO:
MUSICIANS:
ECHO:
NARCISSUS:
Jealousy.
Freed the sorrows…
Sorrows.
That, in my soul, I feel.
I feel.
Oh, I die of jealousies and loves!
Oh, I die!
Oh, I die!
Listen to that. What second voice,
86
repeated on the winds, duplicates
your intonations, swiftly
cutting through the air?
BATO:
I don’t know. Astonished,
I heard it with great fear.
NARCISSUS:
What were the lyrics saying
that your tune sang?
MUSICIANS:
The pleasures of love…
ECHO:
MUSICIANS:
Love.
Have in jealousy…
ECHO:
MUSICIANS:
Jealousy.
Freed the sorrows…
ECHO:
MUSICIANS:
Sorrows.
That, in my soul, I feel.
ECHO:
MUSICIANS:
I feel.
Oh, I die of jealousies and loves!
Oh, I die!
ECHO:
Oh, I die!
NARCISSUS:
It seems that, in repeating
the ends of these verses,
someone is lamenting their own
misfortunes, saying in so many words:
“I feel love, jealousy, sorrow! Oh, I die!”
BATO:
Who could it be?
SIRENE:
Some deity, because it would
not speak without being seen
unless it was a deity.
NARCISSUS:
May we see you all sing
a second time…
Liríope enters.
87
LIRÍOPE:
Sing no more. I say, to whom,
Narcissus, do you give this music
in this ever balmy grove?
NARCISSUS:
To the greatest beauty
the heavens ever saw,
in whom I have my life
secured from the fates
since, if my atrocious end
lies in a voice and a beauty,
here the heavens bestow upon me
a beauty without a voice.
LIRÍOPE (aside):
There is no doubt that he seeks
to love Echo, since the
unhappy Echo now can
only say what she hears spoken,
and so is a beauty without a voice.
NARCISSUS:
The deity of this spring, mother,
is the one I adore. She is
inside it, and I know you will nobly
appreciate such lofty devotion.
LIRÍOPE:
But when did you see the deity?
NARCISSUS:
As I was drinking her crystal,
I was able to see her scorching
within the water, and she so
favored me upon learning of my
love for her that she laughs
when I laugh, and if I cry
she too is filled with sorrow.
LIRÍOPE:
Your ignorance has, from the indications
you have given me, had you
enamored of your own reflection.
NARCISSUS:
How can that be?
LIRÍOPE:
Come to the crystal so that
you will see it and, though
disappointed, you will stop fooling
yourself and leading yourself
astray with your own caution.
88
Narcissus approaches the fountain.
NARCISSUS:
You come here. She is inside.
LIRÍOPE:
Am I in the water right now, Narcissus?
NARCISSUS:
No.
Liríope now arrives at the fountain.
LIRÍOPE:
And am I now in it?
NARCISSUS:
Yes. And my equivocal desire
construes strange reasonings
when I see you on land and
in the water at the same time.
LIRÍOPE:
Well, in the same way that you
see me there, you see yourself.
That which you take to be a
deity is only your reflection.
Acknowledge that your love
has been madness, that it was
you yourself whom you loved.
NARCISSUS:
Heaven forbid! I, then,
have such exquisite beauty?
And I cannot – oh, how terrible! –
be the one who can possess it, or who
aspires to merit it? Heavens,
is this how it is?
ECHO (within):
It is.
NARCISSUS:
Who responds to my voice?
LIRÍOPE:
Echo, whom the wilderness hides,
responds with what she hears.
NARCISSUS:
And she pardons me not?
ECHO:
NARCISSUS:
ECHO:
Not.
Well, listen, Echo, even though
you die…
You die.
89
NARCISSUS:
ECHO:
NARCISSUS:
ECHO:
NARCISSUS:
ECHO:
NARCISSUS:
ECHO:
NARCISSUS:
ECHO:
NARCISSUS:
ECHO:
NARCISSUS:
ECHO:
NARCISSUS:
ECHO:
NARCISSUS:
Jealously, of me enamored…
Enamored.
I will not remind myself of you.
Of you.
But – oh, heavens! – if I
join together the syllables
just heard, Mother, and you
consider them, the last three said:
“You die enamored of you.”
And I fear it was heard by heaven.
Heaven.
Since it is necessary that
heaven gives me…
Gives me.
On myself, my vengeance…
Vengeance.
And now, increasing my distrust
even more, the repeated last
syllables are now saying:
“Heaven gives me vengeance.”
This impossible beauty…
Beauty.
And that beauty and voice…
And voice.
Simultaneously have killed me.
Have killed me.
As the oracle of the desert
so clearly warned me they would.
As my sorrows compete with each other,
indeed Echo repeats with me:
90
“Beauty and voice have killed me.”
Oh, what unhappiness – I am dying!
ECHO:
NARCISSUS:
ECHO:
NARCISSUS:
ECHO:
NARCISSUS:
I am dying.
My very own reflection, loving…
Loving.
And a voice, loathing…
Loathing.
By which it is made clear
that fate has executed its threats.
I want to flee from myself, but already
I am dying loving and loathing.
Narcissus exits.
LIRÍOPE:
Listen, Narcissus, wait.
BATO:
He has entered the wilderness,
fleeing.
LIRÍOPE:
Oh, how mortals wish in vain
to understand the heavens!
All of the methods with which
I today tried to hinder the determination
of his destiny have only made it
come about all the easier;
since Echo’s voice afflicts him
and coming here to flee from her,
his beauty gives him death,
with which I see it fulfilled
that beauty and voice are killing him,
loving and loathing.
Febo and Silvio enter.
FEBO:
Amazement of these valleys…
SILVIO:
Wonder of these woodlands…
FEBO:
Having come here a beast…
SILVIO:
You have returned to your beginnings…
91
FEBO:
What spell have you cast on Echo…
SILVIO:
What anguish, what venom…
FEBO:
That, fleeing from other people, she dies…
SILVIO:
Completely mad, in those wastelands?
LIRÍOPE:
No anguish, no spell, no venom
more fierce than her own love!
That, gentlemen, is what has killed her.
FEBO:
You lie, since your magical sciences…
SILVIO:
With their noxious fumes…
FEBO Y SILVIO:
Have stolen her sanity and her life.
LIRÍOPE:
If they were strong enough to do that,
they would be strong enough for Narcissus
not to suffer the same fate.
Since he dies of a love no less
unusual, it is certain that neither
has been my effect.
FEBO:
Yes, it has been, since this effect
is the vengeance of the gods on
Narcissus, who have punished
your audacity through him.
SILVIO:
And I must avenge her on you,
and on them.
FEBO:
She will be the victim
of my cruel justice first.
As the two of them attack her, Anteo enters and stops them.
ANTEO:
Stop! He who brought her here
is responsible for her life.
FEBO:
Anteo, do not defend her
when you see the reasons we have
for attacking her.
SILVIO:
And because you said it best,
92
look again at Echo, raving mad,
how she goes fleeing into the
wilderness in search of caves.
LIRÍOPE:
To see how little blame I have,
see how Narcissus returns to
the woodlands also, and no less mad than she.
Echo enters, raving.
ECHO:
Where can I try to hide
from my own loathsome self
if I come with myself no matter where I go?
Narcissus enters.
NARCISSUS:
In love with myself,
I return to gaze at my reflection in the spring.
ANTEO:
Were they yours,
such feelings would not be equal to one another.
FEBO:
Having already defended her life,
you will see that I defend another’s.
I intend to cure Echo, the nobility
of my love coming to the aid of her health.
SILVIO:
I dedicate the arrogance of my love,
cruel and fierce, more to her vengeance
than to her cure. It will give death to
she who caused Echo’s misfortunes.
LIRÍOPE:
Oh Fortune, when will my magic
take effect? Let the charm disrupt
the intentions of my son’s actions.
FEBO:
(taking hold
of her)
Pretty Echo…
SILVIO:
Unhappy youth…
FEBO:
I will try to give you life.
SILVIO:
And I will give you death.
ECHO:
What for, if I hate it?
93
NARCISSUS:
You arrive late, since
my misfortunes have already killed me.
ECHO:
And in order for you not to
succeed, in desperation, I will
throw myself into that abyss.
NARCISSUS:
And that I may never be your trophy,
I will throw myself
into those waters.
FEBO:
Come with me.
ECHO:
It is a vain attempt…
SILVIO:
Die by my steel.
NARCISSUS:
It is in vain…
LIRÍOPE:
What are the elements waiting for?
ECHO:
I, abhorred by myself, will
try to avenge myself on myself.
NARCISSUS:
I, in love with myself, will
die of my own self-love.
FEBO:
I will stop you.
SILVIO:
I will give you death.
With Febo taking hold of Echo, and Silvio of Narcissus, Echo flies above
everyone and Narcissus falls on the stage as though dead. The sound of an
earthquake is heard, the theater is darkened, and as it ends, a flower arises
from the ground that suggests that of Narcissus, hiding the body that fell on the
stage.
ALL:
But what is this?
ANTEO:
The sun, dimming the day,
has become dark shadows.
SILVIO:
What amazement!
It thunders.
94
FEBO:
What a marvel!
LIRÍOPE:
What a wonder!
ANTEO:
What a miracle!
It thunders.
ALL:
What has happened here?
FEBO:
Echo has turned into air
in my arms.
SILVIO:
And Narcissus, in his waters and
before my rage could reach him, has died.
ALL:
In their funeral rites,,
Heaven and earth mourn them.
The theater is cleared, and the flower appears.
LIRÍOPE:
Fate followed through on its threats,
availing itself of the instruments
that I put in its path to prevent it,
so that a voice and a beauty were,
were the ruin of both of them,
both of them now being air and flower.
BATO:
And there will be fools
who believe it.
But, whether it be true or not,
such is the fable of Narcissus and Echo.
Pardon the many faults,
of him who, kneeling at your feet,
will reminds you of the excuse
that his errors are in obedience.
95