iAy ojuelos verdes!  Ay los mis ojuelos!  Ay, hagan los cielos Que de mi te acuerdes!

THE DEATH OF ALIATAR.

  Say, Love—­for thou didst see her tears, &c.

The stanza beginning with this line stands thus in the original:—­

Dilo tu, amor, si lo viste; iMas ay! que de lastimado Diste otro nudo a la venda, Para no ver lo que ha pasado.

I am sorry to find so poor a conceit deforming so spirited a composition as this old ballad, but I have preserved it in the version.  It is one of those extravagances which afterward became so common in Spanish poetry, when Gongora introduced the estilo culto, as it was called.

LOVE IN THE AGE OF CHIVALRY.

This personification of the passion of Love, by Peyre Vidal, has been referred to as a proof of how little the Provencal poets were indebted to the authors of Greece and Rome for the imagery of their poems.

THE LOVE OF GOD.—­(FROM THE PROVENCAL OF BERNARD RASCAS.)

The original of these lines is thus given by John of Nostradamus, in his lives of the Troubadours, in a barbarous Frenchified orthography:—­

  Touta kausa mortala una fes perira,
  Fors que l’amour de Dieu, que tousiours durara. 
  Tous nostres cors vendran essuchs, coma fa l’eska,
  Lous Aubres leyssaran lour verdour tendra e fresca,
  Lous Auselets del bosc perdran lour kant subtyeu,
  E non s’auzira plus lou Rossignol gentyeu. 
  Lous Buols al Pastourgage, e las blankas fedettas
  Sent’ran lous agulhons de las mortals Sagettas,
  Lous crestas d’Arles fiers, Renards, e Loups espars,
  Kabrols, Cervys, Chamous, Senglars de toutes pars,
  Lous Ours hardys e forts, seran poudra, e Arena,
  Lou Daulphin en la Mar, lou Ton, e la Balena: 
  Monstres impetuous, Ryaumes, e Comtas,
  Lous Princes, e lous Reys, seran per mort domtas. 
  E nota ben eysso kascun:  la Terra granda,
  (Ou l’Escritura ment) lou fermament que branda,
  Prendra autra figura.  Enfin tout perira,
  Fors que l’Amour de Dieu, que touiours durara.

FROM THE SPANISH OF PEDRO DE CASTRO Y ANAYA.

Las Auroras de Diana, in which the original of these lines is contained, is, notwithstanding it was praised by Lope de Vega, one of the worst of the old Spanish Romances, being a tissue of riddles and affectations, with now and then a little poem of considerable beauty.

LIFE.

  Where Isar’s clay-white rivulets run
  Through the dark wood’s, like frighted deer.