ECHO AND NARCISSUSA 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 Narcisoof 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

Febo, a young shepherd

Silvio, a young shepherd

Anteo, a young shepherd

Sileno, an old shepherd

Bato, a commoner

Echo, a young woman

Liríope, a young woman

Laura, a young woman

Nise, a young woman

Libia, a young woman

Sirene, a commoner

Musicians

Accompaniment

Act I

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The curtain is raised to reveal a forest. Silvio enters from one side in shepherd’s clothing.

SILVIO: Woodlands of Arcadia, how prominently youraise up to the heavens your elevated brow,the great eminence of which reaches so highthat though it begins as a woods, it is crowned by

clouds,your forelock of hair and your footprints beinga 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 sphereand your season being year-round springtime…

SILVIO: Birds, that fleetingly paint the airwith 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 bleatingand on the bank of that little streamare 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 womanthat 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 condolencesthat the rare and unique beauty Echo,disabused of immortality,today has completed this circle of her yearssuch that, although filled with happiness,each added year is one less grace remaining.

Bato, a commoner, enters from the opposite side of the stage.

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BATO: Jungles of Arcadia, beautiful exalted forest,sheep and birds of this horizon,I come to ask your congratulationsand to give you today my fitting condolences.The congratulations, because to today’s floridcelebration of her birth Echo invites us 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 troublesomethat it is necessary for everyone to honor

themselves.

FEBO: Silvio, where are you coming from?

SILVIO: I come with pleasure and filled with great happinessto this pretty cabinthat, twice straw-colored, the sun bathes in light.

FEBO: I also come to it,and upon seeing you here, too, I am jealousthat already my love is disappointedthat 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!

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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 tonesuntil my confessions may speak more clearly.

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 condensedthe most outstanding beautythat Arcadia ever set eyes upon,the circle that dawn completes in your pretty lights is so superior to any other brilliance or radiance…

SILVIO ANDMUSICIANS: May gladly represents with flowers,

while the Sun proudly tells their story with the stars.

FEBO: May your florid springtimeignore cold Winter,ignore blazing Summer,in order that it may endure pleasantlyin its greenness, such thatthe marks of deathdo not change your pretty roses,but rather its clear daybreaks, that…

FEBO ANDMUSICIANS: May gladly represents with flowers,

while the Sun proudly tells their story with the stars.

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BATO: My tongue does not advise youto live long, for that is a mistake.To die young is better,than becoming an old woman,And so leave off agingthat, as it passes you by,the tinges and colors ofthat age of the greatest beauty…

BATO ANDMUSICIANS: May gladly represents with flowers,

while the Sun proudly tells their story with the stars.

ECHO: I am very pleased by thefestivities 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 complainat this time about he who,with the strangest style,has not offered me congratulationsat 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 deedswhat 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 concernhas me so paralyzed.Today also marks the anniversaryof my greatest grievances, and so in their devotionmy sufferings do not offer youflattery from my lips,but tears from my eyes.

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Twelve years has Liríope, my lovely daughter, been missingfrom these valleys, and all that time I have had no news of her. Today marks that anniversary.Therefore, do not beastonished to see in my sorrowssuch incongruous sentiments,this same day (if this luck lasts!) thatyour beauty turns a year older, my misfortune grows a year longer as well.

BATO: Today is not a day for tears.

SIRENE: May the surprise of your remarkable sorrownot rob us of our shared happiness.

NISE: Let sweet harmony returnto 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 alonewithout fearing the horrible, ferocious monster that hides within them.

FEBO: Even though I infer how much it is a serious afflictionto want to penetrate the mountaintopwhere 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 gowhere an enchanted monsterso many times surprised our men and our livestock.

SIRENE: May the music return, and let no shepherd remain in the meadowwho does not go along.

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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!

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 generatesuch strange and new music to my earsthat it carries me, fascinated, after its intonations?I never heard such tender voices, though I’ve listened countless timesto 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

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your greatest danger in them.

NARCISSUS: What danger is that, if the greatest dangerwould be to no longer hear them? Let mefollow them, to find out who so suavely breathes the intonations of their voice,uttering in tender clauses:

NARCISSUSAND MUSICIANS: The happy years of Echo,

divine and beautiful goddess of the jungle…

LIRÍOPE: Naturally carried along by affection,he mimics them.

NARCISSUS 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 cannotventure farther than this rock, which is the dark grey barrierthat conceals the threshold ofthis cave where the two of us live?How can you intend to break the code of my rules,the laws of my obedience?

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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 youordain that I may come,have seen the various effectsof this great nature.One day above that brown mountain rangeI 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 nestmade of straw and grass, some chicks that she fed with her own mouthwhile 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 teacherthroughout 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 cubsthat, bleeding her fierceness to themfrom her breasts, nourished them,until, they acquired strength,and she threw them from herself,caring for them with prideso that they would know wellwhat she gave them as their heritage.Now, if a lioness and a bird from their bed and the nestthrow out their children so that they learn to live without their mother,why, seeing as I already havethe wings that within me give rise tospeech (reason), and the vigor that my youthfulness flaunts, do you not send me off?Have you not told me yourself thatthere is more to the world than these mountains,

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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 givesto 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 youa 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 dangersthat threaten your beauty,and the reasons why I have raised you this way; that, in comingto 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 youdo not stray from hereuntil 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 sayin tones so suave and tender:

NARCISSUSAND 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

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of my life and of his star.Gods, bestow luck today on the points of my arrows,since it was never more important to meto 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 undergrowththat has never or not lately felt the tread of human feet.I shall not return homewithout bringing back some gamethat I would be able to give to Echo,since I came here in her name.

Liríope returns onstage.

LIRÍOPE: Scarcely a timid rabbit runs abouttoday, nor does a cowardly partridgefly. Never does game come slowerthan 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 beI shall leave the bladeof this spear bloody.

LIRÍOPE: In whatever it should be, I shall seestained the tips of my arrows.But it is a man i – oh dear!Don’t shoot! Hold on! Wait!

ANTEO: It has well been necessaryto hear your tongue pronouncea human voice in order tosuspend the action of my arm.

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LIRÍOPE: And well did I needto see you with all the markingsof a man in order for impulseto loosen the strings of my bow.

ANTEO: Human monster, who are you?

LIRÍOPE: I am an unknown wild animalof these forests. And now, beforeyou have more news of me, go back, because if you try totake another step, from my quiver of arrows to your chest you will see themfly so rapidly that they alonecan stop themselves.

ANTEO: If your physical markings do not deceive me, I have known by your markingsthat you are the wonder whomall of this region quakes in fear of.And as such, although my distrust fearstwo 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 undertakingto offer you at her feetin protection of the land.

LIRÍOPE: Do not desperately attemptso grand an act, for you risk your life.

ANTEO: It is already impossible to stop attempting it.

LIRÍOPE: Think before doing that whichyou dare.

ANTEO: There is nothing I do not

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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 desirethat I achievethis 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.

The two begin fighting.

ANTEO: You do not know at all who the youth is that fights with you, who willhumiliate your pride, though youmight be the lioness of these mountains.

LIRÍOPE: Oh, cruel world!Since I am already subject to yourvalor, 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.

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Narcissus enters.

NARCISSUS: I have heard the voice of my mothermoaning sorrowfully,calling to me. If she herself orderedthat I do not leave the cave,how is it that she calls me?

Liríope shouts from far away.

LIRÍOPE: Narcissus – oh, God! – my fatestake 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 outwho I am and how it is that you deny memy liberty, only your cries return, and even they are not complete,the wind usurps half of them from me.

LIRÍOPE,inside: Narcissus, oh God!

NARCISSUS: Oh, dear! What am I supposed to do without youalone in these woodlands, not knowing who I am and what manner of living men have, since you teach me nothingexcept how to speak?And even that I would pardon you fornow, so that my misfortunes might not havethe consolation of complaints in their payment.For my well-being, Mother, lady, come back, return to me. Do not beso 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

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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 doubtthat 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 knowif I guess the course correctly or if I errin the direction of my steps,since, as this is the first timethat 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, 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, whoseown 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.

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ECHO: Look, I am here.

SILVIO: May your beautypardon me and not prevent mefrom 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 creditorsin 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 fightfor a ribbon, when a yard of it costs twenty cents in a store?

SILENO: If you two blamedmy prolonged concernfor today reminding me of my grief,and telling me that the day you see is not one for tears, how is it that you want to convertinto sorrow the happinesswith which we return to the temple?

SILVIO: No matter what the occasion,jealousy excuses evengreater extremes.

ECHO: Listen to me, without havingmore 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

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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 thatI will later give it from my handto one whomever I wantto have it with my approval.

FEBO: Even though my fears prevent mefrom 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 believethat 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 itexcept for all the rest to agree on ittoday 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 beautygive us your word.Declare which of the two of usit is, as you offered to do.

FEBO: Do not give such a sentence and know that,if I returned it to you, it was onlyin order to obey you and not because I ever presumed to merit it.That being the case, I warn you

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not to bestow it, since I come to be so unhappyin loving and sufferingthat I even fear I will losethe hope that I do not even have.

SILVIO: I have not had it either,but rather more distrust,having wished to seemy suffering made known. But if I have to diesurrendered to doubt,it is better that my faith come strippedof its illusions to the harm (injury?),to die of disenchantmentif I must die of doubt

FEBO: I guess that both doubtand 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 doubtrather than disillusioned,that in my unhappy state it is a less painful occurrence to be blessed in doubtthan in certainty unfortunate.

SILVIO: He loves little who, consoled in his illusion, does not love the favors of his lady.

FEBO: He who has no fear of disillusionmentloves 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.

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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 waycan one judge both speaking and remaining silent. I will give the ribbon to the onewho gives me the greatest displayof 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.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 greaterthan what it has done thus far.

Anteo enters with Liríope.

ANTEO: Beautiful Echo, upon whom the heavensbestowed such favors, pretty damsels, shepherds, honor of the Arcadian soil,live, live without distrustof that monster that astounded youso painfully every time that

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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 haveI brought it here to you, nor to see how it is coveredin hair, nor must you admire how it walks, but insteadto hear it speak, for it is that it has a human voice like ours, thatmakes 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 an unfortunate woman.If the deception has not been very obvious, if you realize that it is only because I was bornto be a monster of fortune. These valleys, which are alwaysfilled with one shade of coloror another, since all year roundthey 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 scarcelybegun to discover

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in its first daybreakssome 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 breezeby 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 understandhis love, to which the carmineof my cheeks responded,not talkative, but silently.From then on he was my shadow,and I his light, althoughI did no more than scorch,and he did no more than follow.Oh, how many times, how many, I saw him give hundredsupon hundreds of sighs to the winds,thousands upon thousands of tears,with neither the chisel of perseverance nor the file of attendanceable to work its mark within my heart because in the end it was a diamondprotected even from the nicksof the chisel and the file!His love being in despairby not being able to winmy love, and driven to despairalso 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 himlike ivy to a wall,like a grapevine to an elm,said: “That which humble homagehas not been able to obtain,

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violence will now take.”And in that moment (dearest me!)the west wind seizedthe two of us with such a subtle movement that I found myself flyingtoward 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 oflove so novel? Well, while the two of uswere flying like this, like afrightened partridgein the talons of a falcon,like a heron in those of a hawk.Finding myself faintingto measure our distance from the earth,I shut my eyes and I held tightto 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 turquoiseglobe is overwhelming with its weight.There is a dark cave in its harsh interior. Here, in itsempty depths, docked the human ship, which an old mancame out to receive.I will tell you all who he was later because now it is only necessary to saythat he arrived, making the treachery honestwith the civil excuse of love, the notion that causing us anger is rendering us homage… understand, and cover my shame withthings that do not need to be heard.in order to be known, Who would believe that such a strangebeginning of love had an

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end so close that its being bornwas its dying?Believe it all, for another dawnhad scarcely arrived, crownedby 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 mewith more attention, because another case no less strange begins here. This was Tiresias, the clever magician,of whom you have heard it saidso many times that he amazed the gods with his science, such that he readthe secrets of that boundbook 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 equalof Jupiter, Jupiter had him madeblind 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 whichI 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

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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 skeletonspoke to me in this way:“I have found through my studiesthat I am close to drawing my lastbreath. Today is when I have to die.I have nothing to leave you, oh gentle companion of my fate, except that which I am nowgoing 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 signsof 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 himto stray from that cave,I lived protecting Narcissus from his dangers,raising him without letting himcome 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 whyI was taken to be your monster,the shepherds perhaps seeing mefleeing through the forest.But, since the heavens have wantedmy 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,

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and I do not doubt that his misfortunewill kill him, seeing himself without me.And in order for you to believe mein everything that I repeated to you,that if you have heard my lifesometimes referred to,and there is at least one among youwho now remembers me,I, who ran through such grave storms in the restless seas of fortune, I who gave so many storiesto the never-silent bugle of the fleeting fame,I who was a laughable tragedyto 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 youa thousand and one times.I am Sileno. And I well deservedthat the dead girl for whom I criedlives on to be embraced, to see and hear,let death come, as nowI have nothing more to live for.

LIRÍOPE: I am humbly at your feet , though my shame hereweighs a great deal on the happiness there is within me.

ECHO: Let my embrace be congratulationsfor such a happy event.

FEBO: Here silence says more than speech is able to say.

SILVIO: Until I see you all strippedof the skin that you wear,I do not dare to hug you.

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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 allsee my son, in whom clevernature invests its perfections. Comewith me to the cave where he awaits me. You will find therethe 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 behindrather than see the end of this adventure?

BATO: Me: if one must not trusta 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.

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.

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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 fromthe 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 havingbeen so late in coming here.Oh, caution, kill me!

ANTEO: Do not fret, since as he hasto 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 completehappiness occur (or – be complete)?

SILVIO: Let’s go roaming through this forest,calling for him, as he will besure to respond.

LIRÍOPE: He will not because, if we search for him in this way,

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he, who has never seen people,is more likely to hide than to respond to the voices.But listen to what my wit hasthought up. In order for him to come in search of us, a ploymust be had.

ALL: What must it be?

LIRÍOPE: There is nothing that has morepower 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 climbthe mountain’s peak in little time.

SILENO: And I, with Echo, have to measureher greatest source of pain, not pleasure.

BATO: And I, with Nise, must as wellenter 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 hillsidestrums the tune of my cries,speak to me of Narcissus,oh fountains and flowers.

NISE (singing): As the happy foresthums my song,

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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 thatthat I hear the smooth voice of my mother, it is but a shadowthat the lively breeze offers mewithout her body, since I have not been able to find her however far I have 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.

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For this reason I follow the soundof 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 directionswant 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 allcall to me, rich and beautifulvoices, you return from whenceyou came fleeing so rapidly?And not only do you not giverelief to my emotions,

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but, turning them into insults,you hamper my speechbecause I follow my hearing?And as I cannot discernfrom which directions you speak,may the sound that the crystallinewater makes among these rocks,no less sweet, give me its relief,this being the first timethat to find water has caused me effort, since I never left the caveuntil today, where a cork oakwas a less flattering basinthan the one I am looking at,garnished by grassesand 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 chantingat one time.Hear all the men and women calling:

LIRÍOPE, MUSICIANS,AND ALL: Narcissus!

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NARCISSUS: Well, as I hear them all and see no one,I am returning to the water. But how can I, if I still hearthis voice?

LAURA (singing): The illusion is a traitorand the disillusionment true.One is pain without sickness, the other sickness without pain.

NARCISSUS: That voice alone would be ableto 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 sufferingerase 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 meout of my mind, because it hasmore sweetness and gives me more pleasure.Searching for it in this green densenesssuits me.

SIRENE (singing): Come, Death, so hidden, that no one may feel you coming,so the pleasure of dyingdoes not bring me back to life.

NARCISSUS: Upon the highest of those rocks,another sweet voice rang out that erased anewall traces of those past.

ECHO (singing): Only the silence must bearwitness to my torment.And yet all that I feel does not fit within all that I do not say.

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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 eartwo 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 illnessquench the horror of it being mine.

NARCISSUS: I would not want to see my lifeexhausted by such emotion…

SIRENE (singing): So that the pleasure of dyingmight not bring me back to life

NARCISSUS: The suffering I feel, I forcemyself 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 spoilsof the wind. See something, eyes,or do not hear so much, ears.

Each one sings her verse againand Echo enters.

ECHO: Going in this direction, Iwill enter the pleasantest partof this tangled growth, saying time and time again:

(singing) Only the silence must bearwitness to my torment.

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NARCISSUS: Bird of these mountains,that with your smooth intonationsare 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 drinkthirstily calls to me as well.How have you altered so myaffects for the one thirst and the otherthat, 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, poorlypolished, 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

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ECHO (singing): Only the silence must bearwitness 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 fireas your voice and your appearancehave 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 becausetoday 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 searchfor 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!

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NARCISSUS: You want to kill me, 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 rangeof 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.

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FEBO: Pardon my impudence, Sileno, and give me permission,to give to the lad,while you are making clothes for him, an animal hide that since it is newwill 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 affectionto perform for your lovely lady.

Febo exits.

SILVIO (aside): Oh Desires, give me lessonson 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 bethe latest of the world’s great stories.

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Echo exits.

BATO: Sirene!

SIRENE: What do you want from me?

BATO: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 thingsthat they are things that I am seeingwithout understanding them, Sirene.

SIRENE: What things?

BATO: Well, is there an occurrenceso strange as my master Silenohaving today found his savage daughterwith a savage little grandson,and me having to go home nowto live with them?

SIRENE: Well, what does that matter? Tell.

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BATO: From this reaction, you clearly do not knowwhat it is like to deal with savages.

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 lifea more handsome and beautiful young man than Narcissus?

BATO: You are already enamored of him,but it is nothing new for womento be pleased by savages.

SIRENE: Oh, an evil fire on your tongue! What kind of womanhas come to be pleased by them?

BATO: What kind of woman? All of theseSirene, that I will go about saying:There is a woman who falls in lovewith a self-flagellator, seeing that he is such a savage that he inflicts violence on himself.There is a woman who falls in lovewith an acrobat, not caring thathe is such a savage that hewalks on air, despite the ground.There is a woman who falls in lovewith a bullfighter, realizing that he is such a savage that he seeks out body-to-body contact.There is a woman who falls in lovewith 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…

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SIRENE: Hold your tongue. I do not wantto know any more.

BATO: But I was only just beginning.

SIRENE: Entertained, in effect, by your lunacies, we have arrived in the valley.

BATO And having left the two of them(looking inside): 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 valleyknows not of the fervorwith which my attentions adoreEcho’s rare beauty,I will not need to repeat it now.And since you were here when – oh, goodness! –she placed a request for ademonstration 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

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be able to most please her,since the best way to measuredemonstrations of love are notby their size, Sirene, butby the occasion on which they are made.

SIRENE: You need not say more.Whatever I may learn, you will seethat 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 tormentthan he who hopelessly adoresa beauty with no faith in love?

Scarcely has grey and frozen Winterturned these woodlands grey with snowwhen Springtime blooms, and what was frozen is now seen to be cheerful.

Spring passes, and Summersuffers and endures the sun’s severity.Fertile Autumn arrives and enrichesthe woodlands with its greenness, the plains with its fruit.

All lives subject to change.The illusions of one day after anothercomplete a year, and this year stretches to another.

A woodland endures disillusionmentsthat, 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?

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NARCISSUS: Yes, and all you have told meI have written in my memoryand on my heart.And just so you know, Mother,having been born in the wildernessand having grown up in such seclusion,all of it relates to my having foretold in the starsthat a voice and a beautywith 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 permissionto go see in the valleythat which I have seen on other occasions.I could learn from the shepherdssuch 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 getall 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 servantsto go with you that will keep you informedand give you advice on everything. Bato!

Bato enters.

BATO: Ma’am?

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LIRÍOPE: Today my fears place their trust in your clear-sightedness. Narcissus wants to go to see all the common pasturesand meet the shepherds who are residents of this valley.Take him to and from there.

(Aside to Bato) Do not leave him. Listen and be advised, Bato, of what I amtelling 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 betterthe menaces of destiny!

Liríope exits.

BATO: Your mother has given me a good commission. Who would have guessed thatthe 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: What buildingis that over there?

BATO: There? A temple of Apollo,eminent and rich.

NARCISSUS: It is very fair for the godsto have their sacred space elevated,

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since even in the material worldthey should have preference over men.I will not know how to tell you how muchI value having seen this golden buildingamidst all the other ones of straw.

Anteo, within.

ANTEO: I will put you all at peace, I swearto 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 tobe 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 betterto just take that knife and slit my throat with itrather than bore me to death with such nonsense?

NARCISSUS: I promise thatI will not ask you any more.Whose flock is that one there,That from those woodlands to this valley descends in so excessivea number that it drives the verycliffs insane?

BATO: It belongs to Febo, the most discreet and learned man as has ever been seen

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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.

NARCISSUS: And that flock arriving there,menacingly, to the riverthat will exhaust its flow?

BATO: Who has joined me up with you?It belongs to Silvio, the mosthandsome 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 yearand ankles the next.And this is nothing, since in the endI recall that the dresses were what mattered,more so than faces,women having such diverse styles.

NARCISSUS: Fashions, in the faces thatnature made?

BATO: During a time that the fasion was sleepy eyes,there was no beauty in wakefulnessand everything was looking as if cross-eyed.Almond-shaped eyes were later the style,and they used to open them so wide that theymade even themselves afraid.Little mouths then

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were of highest value,and all lips would walk through the streets puckered.Then big ones became in fashionand in that same instantmouths spread wide open,and leaving what was attractivein smallness, they placedtheir perfection in the cleanlinessof greatness, even to showingteeth, molars, and canines.

Echo is heard within.

ECHO (singing): The sun and the airstir up my color;they do it from envy,,the air and the sun.

NARCISSUS: Who is this (girl), who bringsa flock of little white lambs,that give the impression thatthey are letting ermines graze?

BATO: This is Echo, the most beautiful womanthat the sun has ever seen.

NARCISSUS: What is this, that in seeing herI lose all of my senses,and this grief, which I take pleasure inand 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 airstir up my color,they do it from envy,the air and the sun.

NARCISSUS: If a voice and a beautythreaten me with punishment,let us flee from

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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 placethan 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 leavingso quickly?

NARCISSUS: I imagine that it is importantfor me to make my exit.

ECHO: How so?

NARCISSUS: It seems that, a voice and a beautyhaving been my two greatest dangers,and finding that bothcoexist in you,it is necessary that I flee from you;your voice is a charmand 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,

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fleeing from our conversation?And no, it is not even as strangethat 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 myselfidolized by so man men,with all of the arrogance I have cut down, and all the vanities with which I prostrate so many,at the snub of a young boy as coarse as he is handsomedo 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 destroyedthe slavelike passion of all;because, in effect, it is necessary thatthe style be surprisingwhen 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 theseextreme 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?

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SILVIO: You, feeling?

FEBO: You, tears?

SILVIO: You, sighs?

ECHO: This is the only thing I was missing.

SILVIO: Seeing that your divine eyescollect more pearlsthan does the dew at daybreak, I will ask the heavens for their reward.

FEBO: I, seeing that in two beautiful strings of pearlsall 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 itstenderness, 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 suitorshas not managed to satisfy you to give me a lover!

SILVIO: Oh Febo, if I compete with youin 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 woesI will necessarily have to hear it.

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SILVIO: So rare, so unusual is the proud beauty of Echothat, 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 shouldso esteem her afflictionsince my hope is born from it.

FEBO: I, from the moment I first sawEcho, always loved her as thoughshe were divine. And even thoughtoday I witnessed her crying, 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 dieof her affliction.

SILVIO: That which is common in sicknessis common also in love.Hence he feels no painwho 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 feelswill be able to oblige her more compassionatelyto have pity on me.

FEBO: I concede that only he whosuffers pain may feel pityfor another’s pain. And in this waymy love for her feels her anguish.If her pain offers you reliefbecause she may take pity on you, I it was the opposite..Because it is more right that I feel her pain than thatshe feel pain for me.

SILVIO: If I were able to remedy

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her anguish with my anguish,it would be wrong not to do it.

FEBO: I would want to feel her painno matter what.

SILVIO: Doing it for your own benefitis not against decorum.

FEBO: I do not know that.What would show greater carelessnessthan 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,yet neither dedicates himself to my care.Neither in you nor in you have I gatheredany 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 ofthe 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 outthat could give me some relief in this sea of my misfortunes?

SIRENE: Just one thing.

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FEBO: What is it?

SIRENE: Forgetting about it.

FEBO: Without a doubt you have seenmy 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 haveconfided your pain to my heart.Echo cannot love you.And her disdain has not been so general that she has notprostrated herself before…

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 havetold it to me all the same, sincewhatever the jealous man wantedto 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 hiddenfrom a woman, if you must regret hearing it.

Sirene exits.

FEBO: Flowers of this pleasant valley,

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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 witnessesto my unfortunate jealousy.

Bato and Narcissus enter.

BATO: Where are you going?

NARCISSUS: I do not know what it is,but no matter how hardI resist, I cannot any longer.I am going back to see that beautythat I left behind.

BATO: But she is no longer here.

NARCISSUS: Tell me, my shepherd friend,(to Febo) who rests upon your staff seeming

so arrested and confused,if you have seen Echo, the honorof these mountains, anywhere throughout these valleys?

FEBO: Answer to this staff of holly,(threatening him dyed in your purple hue.with his staff) Well, no, I ought not make

you unhappy because your lovemakes you glad. Live, arrogant and vain young man, as I do not want to takevengeance on anyone but myself.You are not to blame for lovingthe one who loved you,and I am for having loved the one who loathed me.

Febo exits.

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NARCISSUS: What is this, Bato?

BATO: What do you expect, if you inadvertently ask a manwho 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 onceI am scorched and I shiver, alternatingbetween 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 alwaysdetested him.

NARCISSUS: You have lifted half the weightfrom 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: Seeing that she comes looking for me,(aside) 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

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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 shameI come to speak with you, andI 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 whitenessalternating moment by moment,because in each breath,which are effectively only air,my face is changed like achameleon of love.Since the very first day I went looking for you in the wildernessand I was the first to find you in its lonely retreats,my life surrendered its libertiesto your beauty, your strangeness making a charmfor my arrogance, so that, even though the diamondof your heart was so coarsely uncut,it offered a glimpse of yourmany carats.I am Echo, the most sumptuousshepherdess of these valleys.Beautiful my misfortunescould say, because,in the worship of the altarsin the temple of Love,few lamps burn of those both beautiful and happy.That entire ocean of fleeces

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is mine which, with its woolen waves,ebbs and flowsfrom that tall rock to this green riverbank, grazing among emeralds anddrinking crystals.It is all mine.No shepherds tend to itwho do not live on my wages bothattentively and loyally. I offer all of it at your feet;and do not imagine becausemy affections come to beg you todaythat 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 someonealways firm and steadfast,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 submissionscannot oblige you,sorrowful, confused, blind,mute, captivated, cowardly,unhappy, afflictedyou will see devote myselfto my feelings so much that my lamenting complaints.the air mingled with my criesmay boast because the enamored Echo has been transformed into air,

NARCISSUS: Your intensity had createdexperiences within my heart,all the more to your advantage.

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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 ofmy own love for you if you had kept silent about yours.In searching for you my vexed sorrowbrings 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 favoris 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 thatyour light has scorched me, since with the knowledge that you love me.I will live happily.

ECHO: Listen, wait, pause, takea 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?

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NARCISSUS: Yes.

SILVIO: Who ever saw greater misfortune?

ECHO: May the heavens avenge me on you.

SILVIO: If you ask that the heavensavenge you, – how cruel! – my torment can request with greater sorrow thatthey 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 faultthat Echo comes to love you but rather hers, and even thoughI 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 isthat the laws of jealousy must orderthat he who is beloved dies and not the one who loves.Without any doubt it was a womanwho 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 usbe avenged on men,I am forced to avenge myself on youeven though it must pain me that you are such a tender young manthat in vanquishing you I do nothing.

ECHO: Silvio, look…! I am dead!

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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 loversto 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!

SILVIO: You will stop it?

FEBO: It is only because you do nothave 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 himknowing 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 deathson 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 errorsuffered on that part.

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Wanting what I want, almost coming to be flattery, since it proves my good taste.Being fortunate in being lovedis a boon of good luck.Why must I make unfortunatehe 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 sorrowof 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 himbecause she favors him,even though I may have to appreciatethe fact that he scorns Echo.

FEBO: He scorns Echo?

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 loveis 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 herof this rebuff.

SILVIO: I must keep it by him.

FEBO: Let he who wins followhis own opinion.

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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 fightin the valley?

NARCISSUS: I have two, as two enemies hereare trying to kill me.

LIRÍOPE: With what hurry the fates do declare to us that you haveyour risk in a beauty!

BATO: I, without being an astrologer, said it, because “Who does notalways have his risk in a beautya 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?

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FEBO: I don’t know. Narcissus can explain it.

Febo exits.

SILENO: Narcissus, what is all this about?

NARCISSUS: I don’t know what’shappening to me.

Narcissus exits.

ANTEO: Bato, since you went to call for us,tell us as clearly as you canwhat this is all about.

BATO: Being unfortunate. That’swhat those people will tell you.

Bato exits.

SILENO: Let us follow them, so that theymay not come see each other againbefore they are made to be friends.

Sileno exits.

ANTEO: Let us go, even though it appearsto me that it will be impossibleto be friends when a lady intervenes:friendships that survive jealousieshave rarely been seen.

Anteo exits.

LIRÍOPE: Heavens, since you are already giving me such clear indicationsthat the danger that your stars predicted for Narcisso lies in Echo’s beauty,give me the courage to remedythe threats before the executions begin.Make useful that which I have learnedso that the harm is corrected:before it happens, I must puta thousand obstacles in its path,

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if – arrogant, daring, and intense – I know how to disrupt all of the orbsof 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 isto love deeply, since you say that the two of us have no reasonnot to be friends when we both love the same scornful woman.

SILVIO: How is it possible for a man tobe friends with one who loveswho he loves, his jealousy filled with rage over it?

ANTEO: Although I understand little of love’sheartache, it seems to me that when you see that both of you are equallydetested and neither is preferred, you can be friends, since that whichobliges such jealous feelings in any lover is the fact that he wins the hope or desire that you lose. With neither of you havingmore 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 reasonnot to quarrel with him,but not enough to be his friend.

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SILVIO: Febo has answered wellin that friendship is one thing, but competition is another.

ANTEO: Well, according to that distinction,I am content with you not beingenemies, 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 largerquarrel 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 avengemyself 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 badlythe one I love the most.

ANTEO: Before talking to the two of you,I spoke with the same young man you speak of,and he offered to prevent any further occasionsin which he displeases one of you, either by scorning her or loving her.And since the three of you are ageed onthis count, note that your competitionis 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 misfortunethan the handsome youth whocame face to face with disappointment?

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FEBO: Who ever arrived at greater happinessthan the lover who came to havea failed love affair?

SILVIO: Well, he who was deceived lived happily, becauseit is one thing to not to knowand another to suffer.

FEBO: Well, as much as the deceived one loved, he was unfortunate, because there is no evil like he who killsin secret without being known.

SILVIO: Oh, he who, being deceived, lovedall his life…

FEBO: Oh, he who had this same disappointmentthat 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!

FEBO: There is nothing like knowing it!

Echo enters.

ECHO: Silvio and Febo are here.How much I regret that I musthear once moretheir tiring competition!

FEBO: Echo is what my eyes see.

SILVIO: Echo is what I see.

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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, withoutspeaking to me, walk away in this fashion?Who will believe that I regretted finding themhere when I arrived, since I was just afraid that they would talk to meof their love, and now afterwards I feel bad thatthey absented themselves without mentioning it?But what a thing, what a thing if in effectthe woman who has forgotten the most suitorshas most loathed them, even the complaints of that which she disdainssound good, which is a ceremonious vanityto see oneself wanted, one that is not appreciated, annd later, it is missed.

Bato and Narcissus enter.

BATO: Where are you going?

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 tolisten 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 beforeshe comes to speak with me.

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ECHO: But what is this? Do I doubtwhat I have to do? Do I not herecome to feel that the two I detestedleft just now without speaking to me?Well, that which was venom in themshall 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 sayinganything 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 Narcissus also judges that Ifeel nothing for him, in singingI want to undo him. If she who singsscares away all her evils, how is itthat I frighten away what I most want?

Echo exits.

NARCISSUS: But what does it matterthat she leaves like this?

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BATO: Nothing, if you look hard at it.

NARCISSUS: It doesn’t matter, except it matters very much.

BATO: Mind it, and (Narcissus control your hand.hitting him)

ECHO: If all is suffering for (singing within) those who deeply love,

and if there is no happinessin 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 againit will carry me to it.

BATO: You speak beautifully.Let us go to the woodlands.

ECHO (inside): Lovers be damned!

NARCISSUS: Amen!

BATO: Amen!

NARCISSUS: Hold a moment. That voiceis a bugle of love that has collected all my desires in my ear.Leaving me behind without payingattention to me, so ferocious and so cruel, yet singing so happily and

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freely…it is necessary that one feels it.Come with me, I want to make youa 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 followeven 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 ANDNARCISSUS: If all is suffering for

those who deeply love,and if there is no happinessin loving deeply,lovers be damned!Amen! Amen!

LIRÍOPE: Is it possible that, knowing how the influence of your fate, which so cruelly threatens you,is written in that blue canopywith golden pens and rosy letters,you still want to open its pagesand read from its chapters?Don’t you know that that beauty and that voice at some point began to declare themselvesyour enemy when on the heels of

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two jealous lovers you arrivedto defend one danger in the other?Well, believe the warning there, thanking the heavens that are so muchon your side as to make sure you listen to the voice of thunderbefore it strikes you with lightening.

NARCISSUS: I confess to you that you are rightto 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 valleyuntil I can return having forgotten this dubious faith,that one day is all lovingand the next, all loathing.And so, in another sense,I will go with her saying…

ECHO ANDNARCISSUS: If all is suffering for

those who deeply love,and if there is no happinessin loving deeply,lovers be damned!Amen! Amen!

Narcissus exits.

LIRÍOPE: Even in this todday the heavensgive you a most loyal warning,that in loathing and lovingDestiny is yours also.Go with him, Bato.

BATO: I am going.A bad commission it is of following around a masterwho hands out sorrow and loves deeply.

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Bato exits.

LIRÍOPE: Heavens, his fortune has alreadybeen 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 aboutand studied in solitude?Let us take advantage of the knowledge for knowledge, if left unused, serves nothing. His two great dangers areseen in Echo’s voice and beauty.Let us destroy one of them in order that to leave the otherimperfect. Among the things I knowabout the great natural world, I know a venom, the most cruel that any infinite abundance of powerever produced. This hinders the tongue in such a way thatit 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 andpart venomous flower, is so powerfulthat it must produce lethargy in Echo.So efficiently does it do its harmthat it will not be necessary that she drink it, it will be enough that she step on some in order for itto 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 isher 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 producethe effect that I want, I will leavebehind the secrets produced by the earth,

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and my miracles will rise to this clear canopy of the heavens.I will unfasten the stars from their epicycle, and this great loyal hordeof 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 otherso much so that the globe of the earthmay fear whether it will fall or not fallto 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 wingas 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 nowthat it must the truth…

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

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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 placeinvites us to. And since we see ourselveswith 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 ofkilling it is what is valued here.

BATO: I thought the pleasure was inbroiling it or breading it.

NARCISSUS: Listening to you I think offends a noble exercise such as this.

BATO: Just imagine that there is noforest 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,has returned this way.

NARCISSUS: You collect it, as I am soexhausted that I cannot.

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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 banksof this spring. Will I dare to drinkthe crystals of its fountain,without distrusting or fearing that my feelings will perhaps be arrested for a second timeby the nymph of these waters?But it will not happen, andit cannot be an insult for meto 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 anyonewhether 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 consolationand relief, do not take offense now thatI 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 distrustdo my fears come to see in another world of ice,other trees and flowers,other woodlands and other heavens.

(He shows As she heard my voice, himself at the she came out in order to respond to me.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

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you are guarding. She says yes, nowthough only with gestures.although my speech and my willunderstand 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 onone’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 waterhere ignites the fire?From the moment I saw you,oh beauty, I felt that I had died.This praise alone comes well herethat 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 voiceI infer a second kind of good fortune,because, if my harsh fate in voice and beauty seeksan 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 vainthat achieve such a prize, because – oh, incomparable sorrow! – in going to grasp it, mad with love,

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her celestial light is unsettled;And I touch only the crystaland 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 playsgolden frets and ambar bows.Many times I came hereto 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 soullike the blows within my chest are tearing out my heart.But, what do I see? Narcissusarrested by it with such rapt attentionthat 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 youand remain silent. But this is enough,because, since I can see you,what greater happiness could I want?

ECHO: Who is he talking to,and telling such loving things?Were the rebuffs not enough,

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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 mebefore I saw you.But since I’ve seen you,she is not even your shadow.

ECHO: What does my suffering awaitthat isn’t already cried aloud,

seeing how he showersanother with praise at my cost?But I see no one.And since I cannot see from here,I must attempt to see her frombehind 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 aboutmy offense, because she deceives youin everything she tells you.

ECHO: She does not deceive, Narcissus.

NARCISSUS: Heavens! Who has been seen insuch doubt! How is it that, if her body is over there, her voice sounds as if it is here? What the

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soul endures is a strange confusionin this case. How are you here ifyou are in the crystalline palace of these waters? Have you two bodiesat once? My sight, shocked to see youin two places, is frightened with wonder.

He looks again at Echo, and leaves the spring.

ECHO: Listen!

NARCISSUS: Leave me. But my voiceinsults 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 greatdemonstrations of love in telling mehow 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 thinginside it is a false shadow, the reflection that the water offers to our eyes, since it is a crystalthat draws a portrait of our bodies feigns that object of sight?

NARCISSUS: I know, Echo, that you deceive me, because you intend to dissuade mefrom my love and my hope.I have seen the gorgeous nymphof these waters, whose rare perfectiongave snow to the woodlands, purple dyeto 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.

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It is no pretend shadow, no, buther 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 ignorancein order to once and for all take revenge on your vanity!But the pain itself may give me the strengthto 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 yourfantasy vainly presumes is the nymphthat 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 youare 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?

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What were you saying?

ECHO: Saying?

NARCISSUS: Yes. Don’t keep anything silent.

ECHO: Silent.

(aside) But I am lying, since I am going to say a thousand thingsand 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, sinceshe wanted to offend the sovereigndeity of these waters, the nymphhas taken this vengeance, seizingher voice from her. It already astonishes me to see her. I will fleefrom 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!

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NARCISSUS: Enough!

ECHO: Enough!

Bato enters.

BATO: I have not been able to return earlier, because … but I won’t have beenmissed 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. Perhapsshe will here be able to talk to you in a less baffled manner than with me. And keep herfrom following after me, as I am going throughout all of those mountains in search ofmusicians, who can come to singfor the sovereign nymph of these waters, to whom I gave overmy 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.

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BATO: Do not follow him, and your soul, which I must keep with me,a bit must wait.

ECHO: Wait.

BATO: I said, what is it, my lady?

ECHO: My lady?

BATO: Me a lady? She must be drunk.(aside) 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. Fearof her already pushes me away.

ECHO: Away.

(aside) On the inside,to myself,I can speak without articulatinga single word, my vocal organlacking the ability to pronouncethem, even though I haveno 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 mountainsand, hidden in the deepest caverns, within them, sad and confused,repeating to those who pass byonly 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

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is already departed from you.Do not look for her, for she goesto live somewhere hidden in the harsh depths of the woodlands,hopelessly enamored of Narcissus.But if you want to know about her,speak to her from the valleys,and I here give my wordto respond to all,crying with those who cry, andsinging with those who sing.

Echo exits.

BATO: Men, what is this that has struckEcho, that she does not speak anything except what she hears?Oh, would that I might know the causeto sell it! Because think how many menwould pay me their weight in goldso that their women and ladies,no matter how much they talk to them,might never respond with even a single word all day! Andhow many women, how many would also pay for the cure, that their men would not sayanything but what they wanted them to!

Sirene enters.

SIRENE: They said that Echo was here,and I’ve come looking for her.

BATO: Oh, if misfortune today had such (aside) good taste that it had stolen

speech from Sirene too!

What is it, Sirene?

SIRENE: Oh, how this stupid fool (aside) 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?

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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 worldare quieted! A general plague has come to carry off all their speech.

SIRENE: A pox on you,since I will say, everyafternoon and morning anything that comes into my noggin.

BATO: I was already frightened of beingso fortunate.

Febo enters.

FEBO: Where do my anxieties carry meafter a divine impossibility,lacking both good fortune and hope?Bato!

BATO: What is it, Febo?

FEBO: By any stroke of luck, in the midstof this intricate denseness,which diverse Nature coarsely knittedknowing that sometimes what iswithout 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 happento a lass, Febo.

FEBO: How? Was there some tyrannoushorror of a beast that bled out her life?

BATO: Worse.

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FEBO: Did she fall from one of thesemighty cliffs?

BATO: Worse.

FEBO: Did the torrent of this riverbecome her silver sepulcher?

BATO: Worse.

FEBO: Worse than drowning, fallingfrom 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 saymore than a single word.

FEBO: Her sorrowsmay have been the reason for that.

BATO: But do not be too distressed,as Sirene was silent here also,and in an instant she saidmore than four thousand magpies.It will be the same with Echo,because if speech is a defect in females, such a bad habit isnot lost so quickly.

FEBO: I don’t believe you, andI’m going into these woodlandsin search of her.

(Music is heardwithin, far away) But what is this?

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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,singers make me even sadder.

Febo exits.

SIRENE: What reason is there today, Bato, for such a celebration?

BATO: In congratulation for silencinga woman. What more is needed?

Narcissus enters, with the musicians.

NARCISSUS: Here, friends, the music must be, as this clear spring is the sphereof 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 goodif she is not there to hear it.

BATO: Narcissus, what is this?

NARCISSUS: Did I not already tell you in passingwhen you stayed here with Echo?

BATO: Well, tell me now in staying.

NARCISSUS: My conquered heart lovesthe 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 withinthe 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

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nymphs and elves,I have not seen a single nymph or elf.

NARCISSUS: Wait here, as it could anger herif you come to see her,and she might not even come out.Let me draw closer alone.And if at the sound of my voicethat calls to her she comes out,you will secretly come to look at her.Crystalline deity whommy heart idolizes, come out at the sound of my voice.

BATO: Did she emerge?

NARCISSUS: Yes. I do not know how to sayhow great is my happiness at seeing how quickly you come to the sound of my voice.I bring you music, and to find outwhat pleases you, I would bring youall 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. Butmake sure you come so quietly,that she does not hear you.Splendid beauty, I am going to tell the musicians they maycome closer. Wait here.

(to Bato) Come, as she is staying here.

Narcissus exits.

BATO: I approach with so much fearand so much shame, since thisis the first time that I’ve cometo the spring, so great has beenthe dislike I have had for water

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and the faith I have had in wine.

(looking at What a most grotesque face himself in the for a nymph! My own face couldspring) surely be no worse, nor even

quite as bad.

Narcissus enters.

NARCISSUS: Come. Speak your praises to my darling(offstage to the from right here.musicians)

(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 isshe 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: Love.

MUSICIANS: Have in jealousy…

ECHO: Jealousy.

MUSICIANS: Freed the sorrows…

ECHO: Sorrows.

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MUSICIANS: That, in my soul, I feel.

ECHO: I feel.

MUSICIANS: Oh, I die of jealousies and loves!Oh, I die!

ECHO: Oh, I die!

NARCISSUS: Listen to that. What second voice,repeated on the winds, duplicatesyour intonations, swiftlycutting through the air?

BATO: I don’t know. Astonished,I heard it with great fear.

NARCISSUS: What were the lyrics sayingthat your tune sang?

MUSICIANS: The pleasures of love…

ECHO: Love.

MUSICIANS: Have in jealousy…

ECHO: Jealousy.

MUSICIANS: Freed the sorrows…

ECHO: Sorrows.

MUSICIANS: That, in my soul, I feel.

ECHO: I feel.

MUSICIANS: Oh, I die of jealousies and loves!Oh, I die!

ECHO: Oh, I die!

NARCISSUS: It seems that, in repeatingthe ends of these verses,someone is lamenting their ownmisfortunes, saying in so many words:“I feel love, jealousy, sorrow! Oh, I die!”

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BATO: Who could it be?

SIRENE: Some deity, because it would not speak without being seenunless it was a deity.

NARCISSUS: May we see you all singa second time…

Liríope enters.

LIRÍOPE: Sing no more. I say, to whom, Narcissus, do you give this musicin this ever balmy grove?

NARCISSUS: To the greatest beautythe heavens ever saw,in whom I have my lifesecured from the fatessince, if my atrocious endlies in a voice and a beauty,here the heavens bestow upon mea 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 noblyappreciate 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.

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LIRÍOPE: Your ignorance has, from the indicationsyou have given me, had youenamored of your own reflection.

NARCISSUS: How can that be?

LIRÍOPE: Come to the crystal so that you will see it and, thoughdisappointed, you will stop fooling yourself and leading yourself astray with your own caution.

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 desireconstrues strange reasoningswhen 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.

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NARCISSUS: Who responds to my voice?

LIRÍOPE: Echo, whom the wilderness hides,responds with what she hears.

NARCISSUS: And she pardons me not?

ECHO: Not.

NARCISSUS: Well, listen, Echo, even thoughyou die…

ECHO: You die.

NARCISSUS: Jealously, of me enamored…

ECHO: Enamored.

NARCISSUS: I will not remind myself of you.

ECHO: Of you.

NARCISSUS: 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.

ECHO: Heaven.

NARCISSUS: Since it is necessary that heaven gives me…

ECHO: Gives me.

NARCISSUS: On myself, my vengeance…

ECHO: Vengeance.

NARCISSUS: And now, increasing my distrusteven more, the repeated lastsyllables are now saying:“Heaven gives me vengeance.”This impossible beauty…

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ECHO: Beauty.

NARCISSUS: And that beauty and voice…

ECHO: And voice.

NARCISSUS: Simultaneously have killed me.

ECHO: Have killed me.

NARCISSUS: As the oracle of the desert so clearly warned me they would. As my sorrows compete with each other, indeed Echo repeats with me: “Beauty and voice have killed me.”Oh, what unhappiness – I am dying!

ECHO: I am dying.

NARCISSUS: My very own reflection, loving…

ECHO: Loving.

NARCISSUS: And a voice, loathing…

ECHO: Loathing.

NARCISSUS: By which it is made clear that fate has executed its threats.I want to flee from myself, but alreadyI 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 whichI today tried to hinder the determinationof his destiny have only made itcome about all the easier;since Echo’s voice afflicts him

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and coming here to flee from her,his beauty gives him death,with which I see it fulfilledthat 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…

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 Narcissusnot to suffer the same fate.Since he dies of a love no lessunusual, it is certain that neither has been my effect.

FEBO: Yes, it has been, since this effect is the vengeance of the gods onNarcissus, who have punished your audacity through him.

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SILVIO: And I must avenge her on you,and on them.

FEBO: She will be the victimof my cruel justice first.

As the two of them attack her, Anteo enters and stops them.

ANTEO: Stop! He who brought her hereis 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,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 hidefrom my own loathsome selfif 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 vengeancethan to her cure. It will give death to

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she who caused Echo’s misfortunes.

LIRÍOPE: Oh Fortune, when will my magictake effect? Let the charm disruptthe intentions of my son’s actions.

FEBO: Pretty Echo…(taking holdof her)

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?

NARCISSUS: You arrive late, since my misfortunes have already killed me.

ECHO: And in order for you not tosucceed, in desperation, I willthrow 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, willtry to avenge myself on myself.

NARCISSUS: I, in love with myself, willdie of my own self-love.

FEBO: I will stop you.

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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.

FEBO: What a marvel!

LIRÍOPE: What a wonder!

ANTEO: What a miracle!

It thunders.

ALL: What has happened here?

FEBO: Echo has turned into airin 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.

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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.

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