TRANSLATIONS. [Don Jorge Manrique, the author of the following poem, flourished in the last half of the fifteenth century. He followed the profession of arms, and died on the field of battle. Mariana, in his His. tory of Spain, makes honorable mention of him, as being present at the siege of Uclés; and speaks of him as a youth of estimable qualities, who in this war gave brilliant proofs of his valor. He died young; and was thus cut off from long exercising his great virtues, and exhibiting to the world the light of his genius, which was already known to fame." He was mortally wounded in a skirmish near Cañavete, in the year 1479. The name of Rodrigo Manrique, the father of the poet, Conde de Paredes and Maestre de Santiago, is well known in Spanish history and song. He died in 1476; according to Mariana, in the town of Uclés; but, according to the poem of his son, in Ocaña. It was his death that called forth the poem upon which rests the literary reputation of the younger Manrique. In the language of his historian, "Don Jorge Manrique, in an elegint Ode, full of poetic beauties, rich embellishments of genius, and high moral reflections, mourned the death of his father as with a funeral hymn." This praise is not exaggerated. The poem is a model in its kind. Its conception is solemn and beautiful; and, in accordance with it, the style moves on, calm, dignified, and majestic.] To its high state. TRANSLATIONS. Faith wings the soul beyond the sky, Yes, the glad messenger of love, Born amid mortal cares and fears, Behold of what delusive worth Amid a world of treachery! Time steals them from us, chances Disastrous accident, and change, Even in the most exalted state, Tell me, the charms that lovers seek O'er rosy lip and brow of snow, The cunning skill, the curious arts, These shall become a heavy weight, The noble blood of Gothic name, How, in the onward course of time, Some, the degraded slaves of lust, Others, by guilt and crime, maintain Wealth and the high estate of pride, Bid not the shadowy phantoms stay, These gifts in Fortune's hands are found; No rest the inconstant goddess knows, Even could the hand of avarice save Let none on such poor hopes rely; Earthly desires and sensual lust But, in the life beyond the tomb, The pleasures and delights, which mask But the fleet coursers of the chase, No foe, no dangerous pass, we heed, And, when the fatal snare is near, Could we new charms to age impart, As we can clothe the soul with light, How busily each passing hour To deck the sensual slave of sin, Monarchs, the powerful and the strong, |
