Camoens - The Lyrics part 1 - Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890)

22 LYRICKS OF CAMOENS.many works were a poem on the Battle of Lepanto, Don Johnof Austria being one of his favourite heroes ; and an Ode onthe defeat and death of Dom Sebastiam. His unpublishedEclogues are lost ;his other writings were brought out (1619)by his friend Francisco Pacheco, the painter, with a preface byRioja. Pie was a lover of the (Petrarchian) "sonetto," whichhe declared to be " the most beautiful form of composition inSpanish and Italian poetry, and the one which demands the"most art in its construction and the greatest grace (Ticknor).15Petrarch wrote nothing which he entitled " Elegies/' orfuneral odes; but his Trwnfi, composed in terza lima, are purelyelegiac. In some editions of his works (e.g., that of Naples,1609, l6mo) a short poem in Tercets entitled Capitttlo^ possiblyby the printers, is also an elegy, beginning :Nel cor pint di amarissima dolcezza, etc.(Within a heart which brims with bitterest sweet.)17To Sannazaro and Rota the Prologist might have addedLoclovico Paterno in Italy, and the unrivalled GarciJasso inSpain. Rota (born in 1409 and died in 1575) was a Neapolitanof knightly family, who wrote much Latin verse and a Canzoniere(Song-book) of some celebrity. His fame rests uponhis "Egloghe Piscatorie," which number fourteen (i vol. I2mo,104 pp.): their nobility of style, harmonious proportions andgraceful execution have entitled their author the " Sannazaroof Halieutics." The favourite metre is the hendecasyllabic withhalf-lines, as in the Canzon. Camoens seems to have readRota, judging from such passages as :O Cimodoce, o Dcto, o Panopea18"Hispanha" here including Portugal. The " Grosa,"now written Glosa," means primarily a gloss proper,tsecondarily a short poetical composition after the manner ofimpromptus. The ( 'Volta," etymologically signifying a turn,a Ritornelle, a song with a "bob" or burden, will be noticedat full length in a future page. The author is hardly justifiedin saying that the Glosa is peculiar to the Iberian Peninsula :Italy knows nothing older than the popular Stornello. And heiscertainly incorrect when he makes the "Verso pequenho," or