We present this work in honor of the 480th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Juan Boscan Almogaver Spanish 1490 – 1542
I am like one who in a desert bides Forgotten by the world and its concerns, By chance encounter suddenly who learns A dear friend lives, whom he supposed had died.
He fears at first this doubtful apparition, But finding it then reliable and assured, Commences to recall his past condition By newly awakened sentiments allured
But when it’s time for friend and friend to part Since to be parted soon he must consent He finds old solitude stamped with new indent.
To mountain grass he must then reconcile, And barren wastes which lack a trace of art, Trembling each time he enters his cave the while.
Not of ladies, love, pageantry of enamored knights do I sing; nor the display, gifts and tenderness of loving affections and cares; but the valor, the deeds, the prowess of those valiant Spaniards who upond the untamed neck of the Araucanian with their sword placed their cruel yoke.
We present this work in honor of the 430th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Robert Greene English 1558 – 1592
Sweet are the thoughts that savour of content; The quiet mind is richer than a crown; Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent; The poor estate scorns fortune’s angry frown: Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss, Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss.
The homely house that harbours quiet rest; The cottage that affords no pride nor care; The mean that ‘grees with country music best; The sweet consort of mirth and music’s fare; Obscured life sets down a type of bliss: A mind content both crown and kingdom is.
I live, I die, I burn, I drown I endure at once chill and cold Life is at once too soft and too hard I have sore troubles mingled with joys
Suddenly I laugh and at the same time cry And in pleasure many a grief endure My happiness wanes and yet it lasts unchanged All at once I dry up and grow green
Thus I suffer love’s inconstancies And when I think the pain is most intense Without thinking, it is gone again.
Then when I feel my joys certain And my hour of greatest delight arrived I find my pain beginning all over once again.
Rain has come, and fields and fruit trees sing, Spring has come, and Love, the Lord of Spring, Dandelions have lifted up their faces, Cold has gone and every wintry thing! Forget-me-not the forest graces, Iris and the lily spring will bring. Gather violets, O Narcissus, Winter’s ashes from our door I fling! The water bird the lake embraces, How can frost upon your petals cling?
Angels, Thrones and Dominations, Principalities, Archangels, Cherubim, Bow to the lower regions With Virtues, Potestés, Seraphim, Fly through high crystalline skies To decorate the triumphant entrance And the most worthy adored birth, The holy concept by mysteres tres haults Of that Virgin, where all grace abounds, Decree by dits imperiaulx The most beautiful that ever was in the world.
Give sermons and sermons, Devout Carmelites, Cordeliers, Augustins; From the holy concept wear relationships, Caldeyens, Hebrieux and Latins; Romanians, sing on the Palatine Hills That Jouachim Saincte Anne met, And that by eulx is administered to us Ceste Virgo without love conjugaulx That God created of fruitful pleasure, Without feeling any original defects, The most beautiful that ever was in the world.
His honest beautiful receptions Of soul and body in the beautiful places of the intestines Have transcended all conceptions Personal, by divine mysteries. Because to feed Jesus with his painful breasts God always has him without a maculle monster, Declaring it by right and ultree law: All beautiful for the all beautiful of the beautiful, All clergy, nect, modest and world, All pure above all bladders, The most beautiful that ever was in the world.
Muses, come in jubilations And transmigrate your crystal-clear streams, Come, Aurora, by lucidations, Precursing the beautiful morning days; Come, Orpheus, sound harp and clarins, Come, Amphion, from the beautiful country, Come, Music, pleasantly acoustrée, Come on, Royne Hester, adorned with joyaulx, Come, Judith, Rachel and Florimonde, Accompanied by special honors The most beautiful that ever was in the world.
Tres doulx zephirs, by sibilations Sow roses and roumarins everywhere, Nimphes, stop your floods, Marine stigieulx and carybd places; Ring horns, viols, stools; May my mistress, the honored Virgin Either from everyone in all places decorated Come, Apolo, play the blowpipes, Ring, Panna, so hault that everything redundant, Collapse all in generaulx terms The most beautiful that ever was in the world.
Devoted spirits, faithful and loyal, In paradise, beautiful mansions and chasteins, To the pleasure God, the Virgin for us founds Or see her in her Royaulx palaces, The most beautiful that ever was in the world.
How often do we see a little stream That trickles from Alpine springs so meagerly Its scanty drops can scarcely slake at all A weary pilgrim’s parched and burning thirst,
Enriched with rain, grow suddenly so proud That nothing can restrain it in its course, For, grown imperious, it carries all In ample tribute to the mighty sea;
Likewise, at first, this tyrant love had but A weak ability to do me harm And begged in vain for victory o’er my thoughts.
But now, he overmasters so my heart That speedily his furor drives to death My Feelings, and my Reason, and my Soul.
Love is inaccessible, incomparable, immeasurable It is like the ocean – He who comes to its shore will not go back When he drank the wine of Love, Varuna became the Lord of the waters Because he drank poison out of Love, the Lord of the Mountain, Shiva, is worshipped.
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