[Ego, Orpheus, personam indui ut
ad inferos descenderem, ne mea facies amatam terreret.]
She touched the very center of
her mirror with shivering fingertips, and it dissolved into an icy mist where
she could see him as he were. Haunted by her yearning, which she could not
speak, she assumed her perfumed breath into the obscure aura of the glass set
in bluish moonstones.
Sometimes she saw the tormented faces
of the prisoners, a dissonance that led her to seek solace in the silver mask
of her lover, as if she wanted to touch it. Her quietness was carried like dewdrops
by the crystalline wings of the swans descending on the lake of tears, where
she would wait with his feverish name on her lips. Sometimes, she thought that
even the mirror should not hear her teary whispers, yet in the next pause of
her heartbeat, she would again seek his face.
Shanaya wondered why Orpheus wore the mask, as she did not want to understand why he would hide his face from
her. She tried to trace his bare skin, but was deterred by an infinite sadness
that seemed to lament, “Oh, the darkness; Oh, the sorrow!” She could feel that
he had lost the prime of his youth, and the mask concealed this emptiness like
a distant dream.
Shanaya tried to remember if she
had ever seen Orpheus before she took notice of the silver mask. She asked the ancient
trees whose branches were blackened by the fires of hell, and yet they were
cold to her touch. The trees responded in the poetry of death, a monologue
that she could perhaps read in those old woods.
In a quiet desire, she wished that
she would sit beside her lover when he played his flute, and implore him to
show his tears so she could kiss them. Yet, she would not come near him, for
their dream seemed so fragile that even a teardrop could break it into a
thousand moonstones. She wanted to let Orpheus know that he was beautiful, but
could not find the words to say it, fearing he would not believe it.
Thus was the solitude of the
woman by the lake, secretly writing his name in the dust, wishing
he would see how much she loved him.
Directis facsimilitudo est
iridescenti personae
Amore adamantino, si hic orbi
astiti
Umbra marcida, mihi aeternae
deprivatio animae
Est moriendum, est tremendum
dirigi animum
Tu es perilis, apricus somnus
mihi
Nihilum inferni, te solitum supra sanctum.
ऋजुरूपप्रतीकाशो विचित्रे प्रतिमुखे ।
दृढप्रेम्णा यद्यत्राहं तिष्ठामि जगता सह ॥
म्लाना छाया ममैवास्ति नित्यस्यात्मनो वियोगः ।
मर्तव्यमेव कम्पितव्यं येन चेतो नियच्छति ॥
त्वमसि भयावहो ममोपरि सनातपो निद्रा ।
पातालस्य च शून्यता त्वं देवः स्वर्गे प्रतिष्ठितः ॥
