Note D — Chapter II · OF SPANISH POETRY TO THE TIME OF GARCILASSO.
Jeremiah Holmes Wiffen translation
Macías was a gentleman of the Grand Master's, Don Enrique de Villena. Among the ladies who attended on this nobleman was one with whose beauty our poet became captivated; and neither the seeing her married to another, the reproofs of the Grand Master, nor, in fact, the prison into which he ordered him to be consigned, could conquer his fatal attachment. The husband, fired with wrath, concerted with the alcaide of the tower in which his rival was imprisoned, and found means to dart at him, through a window, the lance he bore, and with it pierced him to the heart. Macías was at that moment singing one of the songs he had composed upon his mistress, and thus expired with her name and love upon his lips. The two qualities of troubadour and lover united in him, made him an object of celebrity, and almost of reverence, with the poets of the age. Most of them celebrated him, and his name, to which was joined the title of Enamorado, is still proverbial, as a designation for devoted lovers. The reader will not be displeased to see the verses which Mena devoted to him in the Laberinto: they may serve to show the character of that poet's fancy.
"We in this radiant circle looked so long, That we found out Macías; in a bower Of cypress, was he weeping still the hour That ended his dark life and love in wrong. Nearer I drew, for sympathy was strong In me, when I perceived he was from Spain; And there I heard him sing the saddest strain That e'er was tuned in elegiac song. 'Love crowned me with his myrtle crown; my name Will be pronounced by many, but, alas, When his pangs caused me bliss, not slighter was The mournful suffering that consumed my frame! His sweet snares conquer the lorn mind they tame, But do not always then continue sweet; And since they caused me ruin so complete, Turn, lovers, turn, and disesteem his flame: Danger so passionate be glad to miss; Learn to be gay; flee, flee from sorrow's touch; Learn to disserve him you have served so much, Your devoirs pay at any shrine but his: If the short joy that in his service is, Were but proportioned to the long, long pain, Neither would he that once has loved, complain, Nor he that ne'er has loved despair of bliss. But even as some assassin or night-rover, Seeing his fellow wound upon the wheel, Awed by the agony, resolves with zeal His life to' amend, and character recover; But when the fearful spectacle is over, Reacts his crimes with easy unconcern: So my amours on my despair return, That I should die, as I have lived, a lover!'"