Garcilaso de la Vega

Egloga Tercera

Personas: Tirreno, Alzino

    Egloga Tercera 1-17

  1. Aquella voluntad honesta y pura,
  2. illustre y hermosíssima María,
  3. que'n mí de celebrar tu hermosura,
  4. tu ingenio y tu valor estar solía,
  5. a despecho y pesar de la ventura
  6. que por otro camino me desvía,
  7. está y estará en mi tanto clavada
  8. quanto del cuerpo el alma acompañada.
  9. Y aun no se me figura que me toca
  10. aqueste officio solamente en vida,
  11. mas con la lengua muerta y fría en la boca
  12. pienso mover la boz a ti devida;
  13. libre mi alma de su estrecha roca,
  14. por el Estygio lago conduzida,
  15. celebrando t'irá, y aquel sonido
  16. hará parar las aguas del olvido.

    Egloga Tercera 17-32

  1. Mas la fortuna, de mi mal no harta.
  2. me aflige y d'un trabajo en otro lleva;
  3. ya de la patria, ya del bien me aparta,
  4. ya mi paciencia en mil maneras prueva,
  5. y lo que siento más es que la carta
  6. donde mi pluma en tu alabanza mueva,
  7. poniendo en su lugar cuydados vanos,
  8. me quita y m'arrebata de las manos.
  9. Pero por más que'n mí su fuerza prueve,
  10. no tornará mi corazón mudable;
  11. nunca dirán jamás que me remueve
  12. fortuna d'un estudio tan loable;
  13. Apollo y las hermanas todas nueve
  14. me darán ocio y lengua con que hable
  15. lo menos de lo que'n tu ser cupiere,
  16. que'sto será lo más que yo pudiere.

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Notes

  • General information on Garcilaso's Egloga tercera

    Dating

    It is generally recognised that the poem was written late in Garcilaso's life. The characteristic tension that he expresses between the active life and the life of the poet, tomando ora la espada/ora la pluma, reminds us that he served in Carlos's campaign to capture La Goleta in North Africa of 1534; in 1536, he undertook his last campaign in the service of the Emperor, when Francis I of France occupied Turin. Garcilaso was commissioned captain of a troop. He was killed in a skirmish. It has been thought that the eclogue was written during that campaign.

  • ·María .... Identified with doña María Osorio de Pimentel, wife of don Pedro de Toledo, viceroy of the kingdom of Naples. But why not doña María de Cardona, whom Garcilaso calls his tenth Muse, décima moradora de Parnaso, and to whom he directs himself in Orphic terms (Sonnet XIII), as here?
  • ·con la lengua muerta y fría: This image and the idea of song that continues after death reinforce the power of poetry to overcome time and the erasure of memory. Garcilaso extends the cluster of references to include the Styx and las aguas del olvido. The water-course stands for communication, transmission beyond death. Also very evident in the references embedded in these lines is the myth of Orpheus and how his severed head continued to sing as it was carried down the Oegrus. For a close linguistic echo between Garcilaso and Virgil, see the final lines from the Virgil's Georgics
  • ·Estygio lago Garcilaso borrows from the classical myth of the underworld: the Styx is the river over which the souls of the dead are ferried.
  • ·trabajo used in the sense of labour, difficulty, travail.
  • ·carta used with the sense of paper
  • ·las hermanas todas nueve The reference is to the nine Muses of antiquity. The poet promises that the time will come when he has time and ability to write about María, at least about her person, this least being the most he could do. For more information on these classical figures for inspiration in the arts, see .