I am like the king of a rainy land,
rich but sterile, young but with an old wolf's itch,
Naught can amuse him, falcon, steed, or chase:
No, not the mortal plight of his whole race
Dying before his balcony.
finding stale His favorite jester's quips, yawning at the droll tale.
his royal bed's a coffin drowned in care,
The lady's maids, to whom every prince is handsome,
No longer can find gowns shameless enough
To wring a smile from this young skeleton.
The alchemist who makes his gold was never able
To extract from him the tainted element,
even in baths of blood, Rome's legacy,
our tyrants' solace in senility,
he cannot warm up his shot corpse, whose food
is syrup-green Lethean ooze, not blood.

Wow. How sad.