Tamino
Of what there was before I cannot say;
They talk to me of twelve-foot snakes! I may
Have had a life, that life may have had saved
By witches, or the birdman they’d enslaved,
Or any other fool who’d happened by;
Why wonder? Even truth is learned of lie,
And I had naught of either when I woke.
So there was I. But what? And where? Who spoke?
Was I a prince? I said so then, so she…
I do not know. I thought I ought to be,
Somehow, something more than strange; royal-green ring
Plucked like an apple from some bandit-king,
Regent of the summer, Dauphin of spring,
Whiteness of winter, august of the bold!
But I have sat and seen this story told,
And grown no more the wise as it grows old,
Older yet than I. Oh! And all the stuff
They ask me to recall! One word’s enough.
Yet still the mincing minstrels sing our fame
For food and fare, and soon so oft our name
Is strummed that they its hero have mistook
Me; but the lone letter knows not the book.
Well. Every day the cough of dusty boots
That come to talk of Moors and magic flutes
And silver bells. What will they not believe!
They nod agape at genies, quite conceive
Of fiery mountains and rivers ran,
Or a feathered girl for a feathered man,
And all things else, save that I have lived since,
And live still; that they leave their long-dead prince
To creep a-bed at night where fancy sleeps,
Cape her with kisses, touch the tender sweeps
That even greatness gently clings upon,
Murmur my Mina, faint as the fawn,
And here the only wonder worth with dwell;
Which truth, when told, is all my truth to tell.