Live performance at Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels on 3 June 2012 orchestra: Le Concert d'Anvers conductor: Bart Van Reyn bass: Birger Radde more info: www.octopusensembles.be ARIA Simon (bass): Look on this, deluded Man, see here an image of your life! The blooms of your brief Spring are over, the power of your Summer is exhausted. Your Autumn soon fades into old age, soon comes the pallid Winter, pointing to an open grave. Where are they now, your lofty plans, your hopes of happiness, your search for empty fame, the cares that burdened you? Where are they now, the golden days squandered in self-indulgence? And where are the merry nights of drunken revelry? Where are they now? Where? All have vanished like a dream. Virtue alone remains. RECITATIVE Simon (bass): It survives alone and leads us, undeviatingly, through time and the rolling years, through sorrow and joy to the highest goal.