Explore "The Man and his Image" by Jean de La Fontaine on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
To M. The Duke De La Rochefoucauld.
A man, who had no rivals in the love / Which to himself he bore, / Esteem'd his own dear beauty far above / What earth had seen before. / More than contented in his error, / He lived the foe of every mirror. / Officious fate, resolved our lover / From such an illness should recover, / Presented always to his eyes / The mute advisers which the ladies prize; -- / Mirrors in parlours, inns, and shops, -- / Mirrors the pocket furniture of fops, -- / Mirrors on every lady's zone,[1] / From which his face reflected shone. / What could our dear Narcissus do? / From haunts of men he now withdrew, / On purpose that his precious shape / From every mirror might escape. / But in his forest glen alone, / Apart from human trace, / A watercourse, / Of purest source, / While with unconscious gaze / He pierced its waveless face, / Reflected back his own. / Incensed with mingled rage and fright, / He seeks to shun the odious sight; / But yet that mirror sheet, so clear and still, / He cannot leave, do what he will.