Elegy for a royal Ephebe

"I am a lover, but I am not loved;

I am a lover loving all the beauties,
I am a lover who dreams, but who never reached reality,
I am waiting for the royal ephebe who will fulfill my expectations,
The horizon of my dreams, the ocean of my desire,
A desert to walk through, an oasis I could drink from...

I am a lover, I dream so much about being loved,
I met you once, but you did not notice me...
You belong to another time, I am from another world.

I would have loved you so much in a palestra of Athens,
In the Lyceum or the Academia where you were studying philosophy,
I would have loved you so much in the Museum of Alexandria
Or just siting beside you, in the theater of Tauromenium...

I am lover, perhaps I will meet a special one who loves me,
I am dreaming about a soul as well as about a body,
The soul of a cute ephebe whose beauty will be my horizon,
My desert and my ocean, the sun who will burn my eyes.

I am such a lonely lover, I love images,
But the ephebe I am dreaming about will perhaps live again if I am going to the next page.

I love you in my dreams, I dream about you in my love stories,
My cute royal ephebe, who came from such a distant place just to inspire me desire.

Your smile and your gaze, the curves of your body and your walk,
Your youth and your maturity, and the fragile border between a man and a boy,
My cute royal ephebe, you are the desert and the ocean, you are the sky and the horizon.

I am waiting for you, I am dreaming about you, I remember you, since I met you so long ago,
So close, so far away, here, or there, yesterday, or such a long time ago...

I am a lover, but I will never be loved,
I am lover who loves shades, shade from the past,
But you are here, so close, so far away, you can hear me, I see you...

I am dreaming about a soul as well as about a body, I dream about your lips as well as about your voice,
I love you in my dreams, my cute royal Ephebes, you will never be mine,
I am in the desert, the desert of a desire where there are no oasis...

Perhaps one day in the future, in another life, perhaps in the future, in another horizon,
My cute royal Ephebe, I will loose myself into your eyes, as in an oasis of the desert,
And I will tell some loving words, so close to your lips, it will be a caress rather than words".

Philip,Elegy for an unknown ephebe, Archive von Gloeden, call number 1898/07/16/05.