Two versions of Narcissus

The Plot by Jorge Luis Borges (trans. by Boyer / Morland)

To make his horror complete, Caesar, pressed to the foot of a statue by the impatient daggers of his friends, discovers among the blades and faces the face of Marcus Junius Brutus, his protégé, perhaps his son, and ceasing to defend himself he exclaims: "You too, my son!" Shakespeare and Quevedo revive the pathetic cry.

Destiny takes pleasure in repetition, variants, symmetries: nineteen centuries later, in the south of the Province of Buenos Aires, a gaucho is attacked by other gauchos. As he falls he recognises an adopted son of his and says to him with gentle reproof and slow surprise (these words must be heard, not read), "Pero che!" He is being killed, and does not know he is dying so that a scene may be repeated.

- From Dreamtigers (1964)