Poetry Codex

Spanish & Portuguese

Garcilaso de la Vega

c. 1501–1536

Garcilaso de la Vega was a Spanish soldier and poet, born at Toledo around 1501 into a noble family. He served Emperor Charles V in his campaigns, fought in the expedition to Tunis in 1535, and was fatally wounded in 1536 while leading an assault at Le Muy in Provence.

Often called the prince of Castilian poets, he brought the Italian forms of Petrarch and Sannazaro into Spanish verse: the sonnet, the hendecasyllabic line, the eclogue and the elegy. His poems were published after his death alongside those of his friend Juan Boscán. This archive holds J. H. Wiffen's English verse translation of his works, published in London in 1823.

Poems (55)

  1. Eclogue I: To Don Pedro de Toledo, Viceroy of Naples
  2. Eclogue II
  3. Eclogue III: To the Lady Maria de la Cueva, Countess of Ureña
  4. Elegy I: To the Duke of Alva
  5. Elegy II: To Boscán
  6. Epistle to Boscán
  7. Ode I: To the Flower of Gnido
  8. Ode II: To his Lady
  9. Ode III: To his Lady
  10. Ode IV: Written in Exile
  11. Ode V: The Progress of Passion for his Lady
  12. Sonnet I: When I sit down to contemplate my case
  13. Sonnet II: At length into thy hands I come--to die
  14. Sonnet III: Awhile my hopes will tower aloft in air
  15. Sonnet IV: Lady, thy face is written in my soul
  16. Sonnet V: By rugged ways I reach towards a bourn
  17. Sonnet VI: He who has lost so much, stern Deity
  18. Sonnet VII: From that illumined face, pure, mild, and sweet
  19. Sonnet VIII: If I live on, dear Lady, in the void
  20. Sonnet IX: Oh lovely gifts, by me too fatal found
  21. Sonnet X: In order to restrain this mad desire
  22. Sonnet XI: Strange icy throes the arms of Daphne bind
  23. Sonnet XII: As a fond mother, whose sick infant lies
  24. Sonnet XIII: If lamentations and complaints could rein
  25. Sonnet XIV: Epitaph on his Brother, D. Fernando de Guzman
  26. Sonnet XV: Fate! in my griefs sole agent, how have I
  27. Sonnet XVI: Thinking the path I journeyed led me right
  28. Sonnet XVII: If I am wax to thy sweet will, and hence
  29. Sonnet XVIII: To Julio Cæsar Caracciola
  30. Sonnet XIX: So strongly are the cruel winds combined
  31. Sonnet XX: To D. Alonso de Avalo, Marquis del Vasto
  32. Sonnet XXI: With keen desire to see what the fine swell
  33. Sonnet XXII: As, love, the lily and purpureal rose
  34. Sonnet XXIII: Prostrate on earth the lofty column lies
  35. Sonnet XXIV: From Ausias March
  36. Sonnet XXV: To Boscán
  37. Sonnet XXVI: Wild doubts, that floating in my brain delight
  38. Sonnet XXVII: Within my spirit was conceived in train
  39. Sonnet XXVIII: I am for ever bathed in tears, I rend
  40. Sonnet XXIX: Past now the countries of the Midland Main
  41. Sonnet XXX: To Boscán, from Goletta
  42. Sonnet XXXI: I thank thee, Heaven, that I have snapt in twain
  43. Sonnet XXXII: To Mario Galeota
  44. Sonnet XXXIII: My tongue goes as grief guides it, and I stray
  45. Sonnet XXXIV: Entering a valley in a sandy waste
  46. Sonnet XXXV: Loud blew the winds in anger and disdain
  47. Sonnet XXXVI: To the Lady Donna Maria de Cardona, Marchioness of Padula
  48. Sonnet XXXVII: Fair Naiads of the river, that reside
  49. To his Lady, having Married Another
  50. To the Same
  51. On a Departure
  52. Impromptu to a Lady
  53. Translation from Ovid
  54. Comment on a Text
  55. To Fernando de Acuña

See Garcilaso de la Vega in the full archive →