Gutierre de Cetina

Soneto

Para ver si sus ojos eran cuales
la fama entre pastores extendía,
en una fuente los miraba un día
Dórida, y dice así, viéndolos tales:

"Ojos, cuya beldad entre mortales
hace inmortal la hermosura mía,
¿cuáles bienes el mundo perdería
que a los males que dais fuesen iguales?

Tenía, antes de os ver, por atrevidos,
por locos temerarios los pastores
que se osaban llamar vuestros vencidos;

mas hora viendo en vos tantos primores,
por más locos los tengo y perdidos
los que os vieron si no mueren de amores."



Sonnet

To see if her eyes really did deserve
the reputation local shepherds spread,
regarding them in a clear pool one day
Dorida saw that it was true, and said:

"Oh eyes, whose beauty makes me confident
of deathless fame among our mortal kind,
what treasured good, if vanished from the world,
could match the grievious ills you leave behind?

I deemed, before I looked at you, how rash
those mad and love-struck shepherds all must be
who dared to to call themselves your vanquish'd slaves!

But, seeing now so many charms in you,
I deem those to be maddest and most lost
whom love did not at once drive to their graves."

                     (©David Hildner, 2000)



Revisions contributed by Alix Ingber.



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E-mail your comments and questions to:

Alix Ingber
Professor of Spanish
Sweet Briar College

ingber@sbc.edu



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