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Motives of
death in art
Danse Macabre
Urszulka Kochanowska
Orpheus death
Jan Kochanowski
Tren X
My fair Orszula, where have you fled?
Are you above the celestial spheres, numbered
Among angelic hosts? Are you in Paradise?
Or are you taken to the Fortunate Isles?
Does Charon guide you over disconsolate lakes,
Offering draughts from the erasing stream,
So you can't know my tears?
Or, shedding human shape and youthful dreams,
Have you assumed a nightingale's form and wings?
Or are you being cleansed in purgatorial flames
Lest you carry still the marks of tainted flesh?
Or in death have you returned
To where you dwelt before you caused my pain?
Wherever you are, if you are, take pity on my grief,
And if you cannot in the flesh,
Console me and appear
As dream, shade or vision.
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