Garcilaso de la Vega

Egloga Primera

    Egloga Primera 366-379

  1. Mas luego a la memoria se m'ofrece
  2. aquella noche tenebrosa, escura,
  3. que siempre aflige esta anima mezquina
  4. con la memoria de mi desventura.
  5. Verte presente agora me parece
  6. en aquel duro trance de Lucina;
  7. y aquella voz divina, con cuyo son y acentos
  8. a los airados vientos
  9. pudieron amansar, que agora es muda,
  10. me parece que oigo, que a la cruda,
  11. inexorable diosa demandabas
  12. en aquel paso ayuda;
  13. y tú, rústica diosa, ¿dónde estabas?

    Egloga Primera 380-393

  1. ¿Íbate tanto en perseguir las fieras?
  2. ¿Íbate tanto en un pastor dormido?
  3. ¿Cosa pudo bastar a tal crüeza,
  4. que, comovida a compasión,
  5. oído a los votos y lágrimas no dieras,
  6. por no ver hecha tierra tal belleza,
  7. o no ver la tristeza
  8. en que tu Nemoroso
  9. queda, que su reposo
  10. era seguir tu oficio, persiguiendo
  11. las fieras por los montes y ofreciendo
  12. a tus sagradas aras los despojos?
  13. ¡Y tú, ingrata, riendo
  14. dejas morir mi bien ante mis ojos!

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Notes

  • ·Lucina ... The reference is to Lucina the midwife. Elisa died in childbirth. There seem to be several literary recollections here, from Virgil's Aeneid, V, 49-50, Sannazzaro Arcadia, XI, Tibulus, Elegies, III, iv, 7. But of special note is that Lucina is associated with Diana, who is the object of Nemoroso's accusation of indifference in this stanza.
  • ·cruda, inexorable diosa This is Diana, the goodess associated with Arcadia, since she is the huntress. She was also the Virgin goddess, and her hostility to men figured prominently in her meaning for Renaissance art. Nemoroso directs his anger at Elisa's death towards the goddess who is aloof from love. But he remembers in the next stanza, the exception to this indifference.
  • ·rústica diosa .... a clear acknowledgement of Diana's special relationship with Arcadia as one of its presiding deities.
  • ·fieras ... In his series of questions raied against the goddess and her indifference, Nemoroso suggests how Diana may have been passionate, while failing to respond to the needs of Elisa and Nemoroso. In this line, the reference is to the hunt for which Diana was renowned, the passionate huntress, the destroyer.
  • ·pastor dormido ... Diana's chasteness had one excpetion, her love for Endymion, the shepherd whom Diana put to eternal sleep so that she could, each night, come and kiss him. Nemoroso cuttingly accuses her; her one act of love was unnatural.
  • ·riendo Diana is not only accused of indifference but of pleasure at the pain suffered by the lovers.