Selected Poems of Garcilaso de la Vega: A Bilingual Edition » (Bilingual)

John Dent-Young is a freelance editor and translator who has also translated from Chinese. He was a lecturer in English at the Chinese University of Hong Kong for nearly twenty years. He is the editor and translator of Selected Poems of Luis de Góngora, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Garcilaso de la Vega (ca. 1501–36), a Castilian nobleman and soldier at the court of Charles V, lived a short but glamorous life. As the first poet to make the Italian Renaissance lyric style at home in Spanish, he is credited with beginning the golden age of Spanish poetry. Known for his sonnets and pastorals, gracefully depicting beauty and love while soberly accepting their passing, he is shown here also as a calm student of love’s psychology and a critic of the savagery of war.

This bilingual volume is the first in nearly two hundred years to fully represent Garcilaso for an Anglophone readership. In facing-page translations that capture the music and skill of Garcilaso’s verse, John-Dent Young presents the sonnets, songs, elegies, and eclogues that came to influence generations of poets, including San Juan de la Cruz, Luis de Leon, Cervantes, and Góngora. The Selected Poems of Garcilaso de la Vega will help to explain to the English-speaking public this poet’s preeminence in the pantheon of Spanish letters.

Introduction

Chronology

SONNETS

Introduction

I                       Cuando me paro a contemplar mi estado::

When I stop to view my situation . . .

V                     Escrito está en mi alma vuestro gesto::

                        Your countenance is written in my soul . . .

X                     ¡Oh dulces prendas, por mi mal halladas::

O sweet mementoes, unfortunately found . . .

XI                    Hermosas ninfas, que en el río metidas::

Slender nymphs who dwell within the river . . .

XIII                  A Dafne ya los brazos le crecían::

Daphne’s arms were growing . . .

XVII                Pensando que el camino iba derecho::

                        Thinking that the road I took was straight . . .

XXIII               En tanto que de rosa y azucena::

While colors of the lily and the rose . . .

XXV                ¡Oh hado esecutivo en mis dolores::

O fate, so active to promote my troubles . . .

XXX                Sospechas, que en mi triste fantasía::

Suspicion, how you occupy my sad . . .

XXXII             Estoy contino en lágrimas bañado::

                        I am continually half drowned in tears . . .

XXXIII            Mario, el ingrato amor, como testigo::

Mario, Love the ingrate having observed . . .

XXXV             Boscán, las armas y el furor de Marte::

Arms, Boscán, and the fury of rampant Mars . . .

XXXVII           Mi lengua va por do el dolor la guía::

                        My tongue simply follows where pain leads . . .

SONGS

Introduction

III                    Con un manso ruido::

With the gentle lapping . . .

V                     Si de mi baja lira::

If the sound of my simple . . .

ELEGIES AND EPISTLE TO BOSCAN

Introduction

I                       Aunque este grave caso haya tocado::

Although this dread event has touched my soul . . .

II                      Aquí, Boscán, donde del buen troyano::

Here, Boscán, where the great Mantuan locates . . .

Epistle              Señor Boscán, quien tanto gusto tiene::

Señor Boscán, for one who takes such pleasure . . .

ECLOGUES

Introduction

I                       El dulce lamenter de dos pastores::

Of two shepherds’ melodious laments . . .

from II             En medio del invierno está templada::

Even in the depths of winter, the water . . .

III                    Aquella voluntad honesta y pura::

That pure and honorable sense of duty . . .

Appendix A: Two Coplas

Appendix B: Letter (as a prologue to Boscán’s translation of Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier)

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index of Titles and First Lines