have in hand those books that kill men." Another passage of especial moment, as reflecting his own methods, is his comment on the value of Boscán's translation. It is as hard, he believes, to translate a book well as to write a new book. Boscán has avoided the dangers, he has escaped affectation, without falling into dryness. His language is pure, his words are elegant, in good usage, and not new nor unfamiliar. If these are qualities of style which he admired in his friend, may we not suppose that they were also those which he sought himself to achieve? And in fact, are not these precisely the qualities which critics have found in his works? Continuing, he praises the translator for his skill in translating, not the words, but the spirit and ideas of the original, achieving the same effects of force or ornament by following different paths. Here once more we have a statement of his own practice, which he has so admirably illustrated in his translation of Sannazaro in the second Eclogue. His defense of Castiglione from the charge of inequality in the humor of the examples which he cites is not wholly convincing, but it does bespeak the writer of experience who knows the difficulty of maintaining the level of inspiration, and it does show a certain regard for a realistic presentation of life, which is banal as well as brilliant. The final reference to his own share in the work must certainly be taken literally. Garcilaso is in no wise responsible for the excellencies of the translation, as Navarrete suggested; it is the achievement of Boscán and it is unnecessary to seek in it the hand of his friend. Garcilaso was privileged to review it. As Menéndez y Pelayo has fitly remarked,2 few works have been honored with a prologue more subtly and discreetly phrased, nor more delicately fitted to their subject. Garcilaso's prose, like his verse, is polished and elegant; far more than his verse it shows the gracious dignity of old Castilian. If it lacks the simplicity of the prose of his great contemporary, Juan de Valdés, it must be attributed to the artificial atmosphere of the court in which he lived. The whole letter reflects that courtly life, with its elaborate compliments and tributes, often too overdrawn for the tastes of modern life. But the Garcilaso whom we see is quite the same gallant gentleman who moves through the verses he has left: polished and subtly wellbalanced, himself a model of the cortegiano. CHAPTER III THE LATIN POEMS In 1622 Tamayo de Vargas printed at the end of his edition of Garcilaso's works a Latin epigram "Garsiae Lassi de la Vega ad Ferdinandum de Acuña," which had first appeared in the 1553 edition of Acuña's translation of Le chevalier délibéré. This epigram was considered the only example of Garcilaso's Latin verse until the end of the last century. Apparently it has never occurred to anyone to question its authenticity, although the most cursory investigation would have led to a demonstration of the fact that this epigram could not have been the work of our poet. For Fernando de Acuña was born about 1520; he was, then, about sixteen years old when Garcilaso died. Surely, even if Garcilaso had chanced to meet him in those last days of the campaign in La Provence, where Acuña joined the Imperial forces a few days before the poet's death and this is highly improbable he could hardly have found in this lad a distinguished eulogist of the royal family. In fact, the first verses of Acuña to which it is possible to assign a date, and these are all amorous, belong to the period between 1537 and 1540. His famous sonnet to the king, Ya se acerca, señor, o es ya llegada la edad gloriosa, en que promete el cielo can hardly have been written before the battle of Mühlberg (1547). The translation of Le chevalier délibéré, undertaken at the request of Charles V, and dedicated to him, was certainly written long after Garcilaso's death. Under these circumstances, it is plain that the Garcilaso who wrote the epigram was not our poet but his son of the same name. This son enjoyed a reputation as |