Mr. James Cleugh's rendering into English verse of the Odes
and Sonnets of Garcilaso de In Vega (The Aquila Press, limited edition, 28 3s.) is, if occasionally somewhat obscure, graceful and sympathetic. And, probably, he must not be blamed for obscurities which may well be due to the form of the original and unavoidable in translation. The pictures conveyed try such lines as—
With gentle murmur sounded Of lucid waters flowing
Danube eircleth an island, where repairing,
Though refuge had abounded, Repose one weary going Had sought were he not as I now am faring.
—are clear and beautiful enough, but the precise meaning of the whole sentence, with its parentheses and inversions, takes some discovering. De la Vega was a Spanish nobleman of the sixteenth century : a courtier, a diplomat, a soldier, a poet and, of course, a lover. His hopeless passion for Da. Isabel Freyre and her premature death inspired much of his poetry, which is thus in general imbued with the profoundest melan- choly. The poems are, above all things, musical and graceful, and, despite the conscious artistry of form, are real and vital in their thought and its expression. The book as a whole, both in content and in design, is a credit to its producers.
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