"Lucanum potes imputare terris.
Hoc plus quam Senecam dedisse mundo,
Aut dulcem geuerasse Gallionem.
Ut tollat refluos in astra fontes
Grajo nobilior Melete Bætis."
_Genethliacon._
--_Retrospective Review_, vol. III.]
[Footnote 2: Retrospective Review, vol. III.]
[Footnote 3: Boutervek.]
[Footnote 4: "Through the decree of the fifth council of Toledo, each
Gothic king swore, before he was crowned, to extirpate the Jews.
Ferdinand and Isabella renewed the nefarious oath, and thus generated
the spirit which caused Lope de Vega to recur with satisfaction to the
old Gothic law:--
"The sceptre was denied of yore, "Vedando el consilio Toledano,
To the elected king, until he swore tomar el cetro al rey sinque primero
With his own royal hand limpiase el verdadero
To purge the fertile land trigo con propria mano,
Of the vile tares that choke the de la cizana vil que le suprime
genuine grain, la Santa Ley en la corona inprime."
And write the holy law upon the
crown of Spain."
_Retrospective Review_, vol. III.]
[Footnote 5: In the Retrospective Review, vol. III., in the article on
the poetical literature of Spain, the whole of Sant Jordi's Song of
Contraries (Cancion de Opositos), is given, from which Petrarch adopted,
it is alleged, whole lines. Nothing is less derogatory to a poet of the
highest genius than the fact that he picked up here and there lines and
ideas, amalgamating them with his own, and adorning them with alien
splendour. It is honourable, however, to Sant Jordi, to be stolen from
the spirit of the two poems is different and the lines scattered and
disconnected. Those of Petrarch are--and they are some of his finest--
"Pace non trovo e non ho da far guerra,
E volo sopra 'l cielo, e giaceio in terra,
E nulla stringo e tutto il mondo abraccio,
E ho in odio me stesso e amo altrui,
Se non e amor, cosé dunque ch'io sento?"
Sant Jordi, describing the struggles of his mind, has these
similar lines:--
"E no strench res, e tot lo mon abras,
vol sovel cel, e nom movi de terra."
And both Italian and Provençal bear the same translation.
I nothing grasp--and yet the world embrace:
I fly o'er highest heaven, though bound to earth.