Orobouros
I am getting old, and I do not believe I will live to see my twenty-sixth birthday.
When I am gone, they will call me a madman, a visionary, or a sinner—but never a saint. They will never thank me.
They have never thanked my kind.
I have grown old in the sea of my men's blood.
Shall I list their names? I know them all, and tell them to myself like a nun tells her beads to her God: Ave Noventa, vire caese, ora pro meo, ora pro meos peccatoribus, nunc et hora mortis meae.
Hora mortis meae...
The phoenix lives five centuries, then lays her egg amid the flames of her funeral pyre. The egg hatches and she rises again from the flames of her demise.
Does the phoenix fear the fire? Does she glare at the flames with rheumy, hate-filled eyes? Or is there something in the tiny animal brain that accepts the pain in exchange for the rebirth?
History moves in cycles, with mature complacency following the vigor of youth, and age's stagnation following complacency. Youth rises from stagnation, when the men of my kind, the Caesars, tear down the old world to build the new.
They will not thank me. They will not understand me, but I am the fire that will destroy a decrepit society, and the reborn world will rise from my ashes.
Iuste Iudex ultionis,
Donum fac remissionis
Ante diem rationis.
end
Translations:
Ave Noventa, vire caese, ora pro meo, ora pro meos peccatoribus, nunc et hora mortis meae. – Hail Noventa, murdered man. Pray for me, [and] pray for my sins, now and in the hour of my death.
Hora mortis meae – In the hour of my death.
Iuste Iudex ultionis, donum fac remissionis ante diem rationis – Just Judge of vengeance, grant me the gift of pardon before the day of reckoning. From the Requiem mass.
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Gundam Wing created by: Sunrise Studios (anime). Anime licensed by: Bandai Entertainment. Further information.