’Twixt Bermeja and thy meadows
Perished many a cavalier.
Duke and count and valiant esquire
Fell upon thy fatal shore;
There died noble Urdiales
Who the stainless title bore.
I have translated these two verses chiefly for the purpose of showing how very freely those English authors who have attempted to render verse from the Castilian have dealt with the originals. And, as I have said before, I suspect that the principal reason for this looseness is a lack of idiomatic grasp. Indeed, it is obvious from most English translations that the sense of the original has been gathered rather than fully apprehended.
We can pass over “The Departure of King Sebastian,” with its daring rhythm of
It was a Lusitanian lady, and she was lofty in degree,
recalling in some measure the irregular lilt of the old Scots ballads, and enter the division entitled by Lockhart “Moorish Ballads.”