Garcilaso is always represented as the model of a young and gallant soldier, adorning his knightly accomplishments with the softer graces of a poet; as an imaginative enthusiast, joining sentiment to passion, and softening both by the elegancies of refinement. His tall figure was symmetrical in its proportions, and his mien was dignified. There was a mingled seriousness and mildness in the expression of his face, enlivened by sparkling eyes, and dignified by an expansive forehead. He was a favourite with the ladies, while he enjoyed the friendship and esteem of many excellent men. Wiffen takes pleasure in adopting the idea of doctor Nott, and likening him to our noble poet, lord Surrey. He left, orphaned by his death, three sons and a daughter. His eldest son incurred a similar fate with himself. He enjoyed the favour of the emperor, but fell at the battle of Ulpiano, at the early age of twenty-four. His second son, Francisco de Guzman, became a monk, and enjoyed a reputation as a great theologian. The youngest Lorenzo de Guzman, inherited a portion of his father's genius, and was esteemed for his talent. He scarcely made a good use of it, since he was banished to Oran for a lampoon, and died on the passage. The only daughter of the poet, donna Sancha de Guzman, married D. Antonio Portocarrero de Vega.
We turn, however, to Garcilaso's poetry as his best memorial and highest merit, at least that merit which gives him a place in these pages. When we remember that he died at thirty-three, we must regard his productions rather in the light of promise, than of performance. His muse might have soared higher, and taken some new path: as it is, he ranks high as an elegiac poet, and the first that Spain has produced. The most perfect of his poems is his second eclogue. Mr. Wiffen has succeeded admirably in transfusing, in some of the stanzas, a portion of the pathos and softness of the original. Emulating Virgil in his refinement and dignity, Garcilaso surpassed him in tenderness; and certainly the expression of regret and grief was never more affectingly and sweetly expressed than in the laments that compose this eclogue.
The poem commences with the poet speaking in his own person. He introduces the personages of the eclogue: Salicio, who laments the infidelity of his lady; and Nemeroso, who mourns the death of his. It is supposed that, under the name of Salicio, Garcilaso personifies himself, and commemorates the feelings which he experienced, when suffering from the inconstancy of a lady whom he loved in his youth.
Nothing can exceed the living tenderness of the deserted shepherd's complaints; and we feel as if the tone of fond grief could go no further, till the interest becomes heightened by the more touching nature of Nemoroso's laments: under this name it is said that Garcilaso introduced Boscan. Boscan was a happy husband and father. In his epistle to Mendoza, he mentions his former passions as a troubled dream, where all seemed love, but was really hate; and he does not allude to the death of any object of his affections. Mr. Wiffen, with the natural fondness of a translator and an antiquarian, delights in putting together the scattered and half lost fragments of his poet's life, and to eke out the history of his mind by probable conjecture, and is inclined to believe that Boscan was intended, and that being dear friends, Garcilaso pleased his imagination and heart, in making them brother shepherds in his verses. It is an agreeable idea, and not improbable: the reader may believe according as his inclinations leads him.
But not to linger longer on preliminary matter, we select the most beautiful stanzas of the eclogue, which will confirm to the Spanish reader the opinion that Garcilaso is the most harmonious, easy, elegant, and tender poet Spain ever produced: soft and melancholy, he never errs, except in sometimes following the fashion of his country in reasoning on his feelings, instead of simply declaring them. Such fault, however, is not to be found in the following verses, wherein Salicio complains of his Galatea's inconstancy, recalling the while the dear images of her former tenderness.
"Through thee the silence of the shaded glen,[18]
Through thee the horror of the lonely mountain,
Pleased me no less than the resort of men:
The breeze, the summer wood, the lucid fountain,
The purple rose, white lily of the lake,
Were sweet for thy sweet sake;
For thee, the fragrant primrose, dropt with dew,
Was wished when first it blew.
O how completely was I in all this
Myself deceiving! O the different part
That thou wert acting, covering with a kiss
Of seeming love, the traitor in thy heart!
This my severe misfortune, long ago,
Did the soothsaying raven, sailing by
On the black-storm, with hoarse sinister cry,
Clearly presage: in gentleness of woe
Flow forth, my tears! 't is meet that ye should flow.
How oft when slumbering in the forest brown,
(Deeming it fancy's mystical deceit)
Have I beheld my fate in dreams foreshown!
One day, methought that from the noontide heat
I drove my flocks to drink of Tagus' flood,
And, under the curtain of its bordering wood
Take my cool siesta; but, arrived, the stream,
I know not by what magic, changed its track,
And in new channels, by an unused way,
Rolled its warped waters back;
Whilst I, scorched, melting with the heat extreme,
Went ever following in their flight astray,
The wizard waves: in gentleness of woe,
Flow forth, my tears!'t is meet that ye should flow.
In the charmed ear of what beloved youth,
Sounds thy sweet voice? On whom revolvest thou
Thy beautiful blue eyes? On whose proved truth
Anchors thy broken faith? Who presses now
Thy laughing lip, and takes thy heaven of charms
Locked in the embraces of thy two white arms?
Say thou, for whom hast thou so rudely left
My love, or stolen, who triumphs in the theft?
I have not got a bosom so untrue
To feeling, nor a heart of stone, to view
My darling ivy, torn from me, take root
Against another wall, or prosperous pine,—
To see my virgin vine
Around another elm in marriage hang
Its curling tendrils and empurpled fruit,
Without the torture of a jealous pang,
Ev'n to the loss of life: in gentle woe,
Flow forth, my tears; 't is meet that ye should flow.
* * * *
Over my griefs the mossy stones relent
Their natural durity, and break; the trees
Bend down their weeping boughs without a breeze;
And full of tenderness the listening birds,
Warbling in different notes, with me lament.
And warbling prophesy my death; the herds
That in the green meads hang their heads at eve,
Wearied, and worn, and faint,
The necessary sweets of slumber leave,
And low, and listen to my wild complaint.
Thou only steel'st thy bosom to my cries,
Not even once turning thy angelic eyes
On him thy harshness kills: in gentle woe
Flow forth, my tears! 'tis meet that ye should flow.
But though thou wilt not come for my sad sake,
Leave not the landscape thou hast held so dear,
Thou may'st come freely now, without the fear
Of meeting me, for though my heart should break,
Where late forsaken, I will now forsake.
Come then, if this alone detain thee, here
Are meadows full of verdure, myrtles, bays,
Woodlands and lawns, and running waters clear,
Beloved in other days,
To which, bedewed with many a bitter tear,
I sing my last of lays.
These scenes, perhaps, when I am far removed,
At ease thou wilt frequent
With him who rifled me of all I loved:
Enough, my strength is spent;
And leaving thee in his desired embrace,
It is not much to leave him this sweet place."
The impatience natural to the resentment of inconstancy ruffles though it does not distort these sweet stanzas. But there is more of soft melancholy in Nemoroso, more of the entire melting of the heart in sad unavailing regret.
"Smooth, sliding waters, pure and crystalline,[19]
Trees that reflect your image in their breast
Green pastures, full of fountains and fresh shades,
Birds, that here scatter your sweet serenades;
Mosses and reverend ivies serpentine,
That wreath your verdurous arms round beech and pine,
And, climbing, crown their crest!
Can I forget, ere grief my spirit changed,
With what delicious ease and pure content,
Your peace I wooed, your solitudes I ranged,
Enchanted and refreshed where'er I went!
How many blissful noons here I have spent
In luxury of slumber, couched on flowers,
And with my own fond fancies, from a boy,
Discoursed away the hours,
Discovering nought in your delightful bowers,
But golden dreams, and memories fraught with joy.
* * * *
Where are those eloquent mild eyes, which drew
My heart where'er it wandered? where the hand,
White, delicate, and pure as melting dew,
Filled with the spoils, that proud of thy command,
My feelings paid in tribute? the bright hair
That paled the shining gold, that did contemn
The glorious opal as a meaner gem,
The bosom's ivory apples, where, ah! where?
Where now the neck to whiteness overwrought,
That like a column with genteelest scorn
Sustained the golden dome of virtuous thought?
Gone! ah, for ever gone,
To the chill desolate and dreary pall,
And mine the grief—the wormwood and the gall!
* * * *
Poor, lost Eliza! of thy locks of gold,
One treasured ringlet in white silk I keep
For ever at my heart, which, when unrolled,
Fresh grief and pity o'er my spirit creep;
And my insatiate eyes, for hours untold.
O'er the dear pledge, will like an infant's, weep.
With sighs more warm than fire anon I dry
The tears from off it, number one by one
The radiant hairs, and with a love-knot tie;
Mine eyes, this duty done,
Give over weeping, and with slight relief
I taste a short forgetfulness of grief."
Although this quotation has run to a great lengthy I cannot refrain from adding the ode to the Flower of Gnido. It is more fanciful and airy, more original, yet more classic. Mr. Wiffen's translation also is very correct and beautiful, failing only in not preserving all the exquisite simplicity of the original; but that is a charm difficult indeed to transfer from one language to another. Of the subject of the ode we receive the following account from the commentators. "The title of this ode is derived from a quarter of a city of Naples called Il Seggio di Gnido, or the seat of Gnido, the favourite abode then of the people of fashion, in which also the lady lived, to whom the ode was addressed. This lady. Violante San Severino, a daughter of the duke of Soma, was courted by Fabio Galeota, a friend of Garcilaso in whose behalf the poem was written."