If my poor lyre
could play so powerfully
that it assuage awhile
the wrath of angry wind,
the stomp and fury of the sea;

and in harsh mountains
could tame wild game
with gentle air,
stir the trees
and sway them all with sound;

do not think, fair flower of Nido,
that wild and angered Mars,
intent on death, stained
with dust and blood and sweat,
would be what I would sing.

Nor yet those captains,
set on lofty wheels,
past whom the French
and Germans walk subdued,
their savage necks in bonds.

Your beauty's force
alone would be sung,
and with it also
sometimes would be heard
your harshness of defence;

and how alone through you
and your great worth and fairness,
changed into a violet,
the wretched lover moans
his misery in its guise.

I mean that captive
owed more care
in that he dies while living,
condemned to the oar,
bound to Venus' shell.

Because of you he does not check,
as he was wont, the stubborn
horse's rage and grit,
nor rule him with the bit
nor grieve him with sharp spurs.

Because of you he waves
no more the hasty sword,
and on the doubtful field
he flees, like a venomous
snake, the dusty lists.

Because of you his gentle muse
instead of vibrant cither
rehearses sad complaints
which bathe the lover's face
with copious tears.

Because of you the greatest
friend's a burden, pest and bore;
I speak as witness,
for I have been the port
and haven of his dangerous wreck.

And now his grief
so overwhelms his lost reason,
a venomous creature
never was so loathed
or feared as I of him.

From out hard earth
you neither came nor sprang;
no one should censure her
that she, ungrateful, errs
who bans all other errors from herself.

Let Anaxarete's fate
cower and frighten you;
she showed too late
repentance for her scorn,
for which her soul and marble burn.

With obdurate heart
she was delighting in the other's pain,
when looking down she saw
her wretched lover's
dead body sprawled below.

And tied around his neck
the noose he'd used to free
from bondage his troubled heart,
and bought with his brief pain
another's lasting punishment.

She felt her harshness then
to loving pity turn.
O late repentance!
O final tenderness!
How did such sternness take hold on you?

Her eyes transfixed
the corpse she saw lie there;
her bones grew harder
and grew until
they'd taken over all her flesh.

Bit by bit her frozen entrails
changed to solid stone;
through wretched veins
her blood became
oblivious of its proper form;

until at length, changed
and turned to solid marble,
she left the people
not so much astonished
as avenged of her ingratitude.

For God's sake, Madam,
do not choose to test
the darts of outraged Nemesis;
for it is fit your perfect deeds
and beauty should supply

the poets with immortal stuff
without the need to sing
as well in plaintive verse
some notable event,
sad, pathetic, that struck you.

 

Notes on Garcilaso's 'Flower of Nido'

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