Fernando Pessoa ( ) That tragedy is yours alone

Free Verse Rendering from Fernando Pessoa's Prose in Livro do Desassossego, in Portuguese

In a chair I sit
And forget the life
That so oppresses me.
The only pain I feel
Is the pain
Of having felt it sometime.
To be free is
To withdraw from the world.
You seek no one,
No money, no glory
No love, no society, no curiosity.
They flourish not
In silence and solitude.

Unable to live alone
Is like being a slave.
Even if superior in soul,
You still are a serf--
A noble slave.

Woe betide you,
Weight of life makes you a slave.
Woe betide you,
Born free, yet you seek
Others’ company for need.
That tragedy is yours alone,
You alone must bear it.

~ Fernando Pessoa
Rendering by Ravi Kopra