Garcilaso de la Vega

Egloga Primera

    Egloga Primera 394-407

  1. Divina Elisa, pues agora el cielo
  2. con inmortales pies pisas y mides,
  3. y su mudanza ves, estando queda
  4. ¿por qué de mí te olvidas y no pides
  5. que se apresure el tiempo en que este velo
  6. rompa del cuerpo y verme libre pueda,
  7. y en la tercera rueda,
  8. contigo mano a mano,
  9. busquemos otro llano,
  10. busquemos otros montes y otros ros,
  11. otros valles floridos y sombros
  12. donde descanse y siempre pueda verte
  13. ante los ojos mos,
  14. sin miedo y sobresalto de perderte?

    Egloga Primera 408-421

  1. Nunca pusieran fin al triste lloro
  2. los pastores, ni fueran acabadas
  3. las canciones que solo el monte oía,
  4. si mirando las nubes coloradas,
  5. al tramontar del sol orladas d'oro,
  6. no vieran que era ya pasado el día;
  7. la sombre se veía
  8. venir corriendo apriesa
  9. ya por la falda espesa
  10. del altísimo monte, y recordando
  11. ambos como de sueño, y acabando
  12. el fugitive sol, de luz escaso,
  13. su ganado llevando,
  14. se fueron recogiendo paso a paso.

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Notes

  • ·mudanza ... The vision of an immortal Elisa, in a heaven which is still, and from which she can see the movements of the sky. Or so it would seem. Nemoroso yearns for release from a life subject to change and decay, and seems to borrow knowledge from the Ptolemaic cosmos, in which beyond the mobile spheres of planets there was a unmoving heaven, the firmament.
  • ·velo The image of the body as a veil which, on death, is withdrawn, leaving the soul free to escape is drawn from Petrarch, Canzoniere, CCCXIII.
  • ·tercera rueda ... The sphere of the planet Venus and hence of the Goddess Venus. Notice the counterbalance. The goodess of indifference to love (Diana) is here offset by Nemoroso's vision of a goddess devoted to love and in whose domain an eternal Arcadia is to be found, unperturbed by the dark reality of death that shadow Nemoroso's earthy pleasance.
  • ·busquemos otro llano What opens out here and is pitched against the desolation expressed so far by Nemeroso is a vision of a celestial Arcadia, a pastoral equivalent of a New Jerusalem. Yet, despite such an association, the echoes are with Virgil (Eglogae, V), Sannazzaro and with the poetry of Petrarch that deals with the dead Laura. There is little confirmation of a Christian mythology in Garcilaso.
  • ·tramontar del sol ... The conclusion of the eclogue at sunset is a firm feature of this kind of poetry. In the case, the verbal echoes with Sannazzaro are strong; Era gia per lo tramontare del sole tutti l'occidente sparso de mille varieta di nuvoli ... i duo amanti pusero fine a loro canzoni. The special pastoral clock deserves attention. In the Egloga tercera, it is conspicuous how Garcilaso breaks the convention at the end.