And caught Alfonzo Guzman up tightly by the heels,
She tipped him in, and held him down, beneath the bubbling water,
“Now, take thou that for venturing to kiss Al Hamet’s daughter!”
A Christian maid is weeping in the town of Oviedo,
She waits the coming of her love, the Count of Desparedo.
I pray you all, in charity, that you will never tell
How he met the Moorish maiden beside the lonely well.
THE “BASIA” OF JOHANNES SECUNDUS.
The true name of the Dutch poet Johannes Secundus was Johannes Everard. He was born at the Hague in 1511, and died at Utrecht in 1536. His “Opera Poetica” consist of elegies, odes, epigrams, and other poems, written in purely classical Latin. Of these productions, the “Basia,” or “Kisses” (Utrecht, 1539), have been most admired, and have been ranked with the lyrics of Catullus. They have been repeatedly translated into the principal European languages, the English versions being by Nott and Stanley. We offer selections from the latter, for such of our readers as are unfamiliar with the rapturous Dutchman’s florid effusions.