The 11 most inspiring poems by Garcilaso de la Vega

Garcilaso de la Vega is known for being one of the most important poets, being considered one of the greatest exponents of the lyric of the Golden Age and one of the greatest writers in history.

This writer and soldier of Toledo origin, probably born in 1501 (although others the specific year of his birth is uncertain, and he could have been born also in 1498) and died in 1536, he is known for being the pioneer in introducing Renaissance poetry and hendecasyllabic verses (of eleven syllables) in our country, as well as for using in his works an intimate, musical and emotionally expressive tone that tended to avoid the typical pomposity of those previous.

Despite its great importance, the work of this author was relatively short and would not be published for years. after his death: it consists of forty sonnets, three eclogues, one epistle, two elegies and five songs. All of them of great beauty and love being one of their main themes. In order to be able to admire his work, throughout this article we are going to expose some of the best known poems by Garcilaso de la Vega.

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A brief selection of poems by Garcilaso de la Vega

Below we offer you a series of examples of Garcilaso de la Vega's poetry, all of them part of his sonnets and mostly focused on aspects such as love and melancholy.

The main source of inspiration for him was probably his feelings towards Isabel Freyre., which would become his platonic love and who lived his marriage with another man and later his death (something that explains the hopelessness and melancholy that expresses much of the author's work), as well as the friendship of her

1. sonnet 1

When I stop to contemplate my 'state

and to see the steps where I have been brought,

I find, according to where I was lost,

that it could have come to a greater evil;

But when the road 'was forgotten,

I don't know why I came to so much evil;

I know that it's over, and more have I felt

See my care end with me.

I will finish, that I gave myself without art

who will know how to lose me and finish me off

if he wants to, and he will still know how to quarrel;

that my will can kill me,

yours, which is not so much from me,

being able, what will he do but do it?

• This first sonnet refers to the observation of our past, looking back and assessing what has been achieved in life and where it has come to, as well as the sadness generated by an unrequited love.

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2. Sonnet V

Your gesture is written in my soul,

and how much I want to write about you;

you alone wrote it, I read it

So alone, that even from you I keep myself in this.

In this I am and I will always be;

that although it does not fit in me how much in you I see,

of so much good what I do not understand I think,

already taking faith for budget.

I was not born except to love you;

my soul has cut you to its measure;

by habit of the soul itself I love you.

When I have I confess I owe you;

for you I was born, for you I have life,

for you I have to die, and for you I die.

*This fifth sonnet by Garcilaso expresses their sensations and feelings when seeing the loved one, the energy and desire to be with her that she generates and the memory of each of her gestures.

3. Sonnet XXVI

The foundation is thrown to the ground

that my tired life sustained.

Oh how much good ends in just one day!

Oh how many hopes the wind carries!

Oh how idle is my thought

when he takes care of my business!

To my hope, as well as waste,

A thousand times my torment punishes her.

The most times I surrender, others I resist

with such fury, with a new strength,

that a mountain placed on top would break.

This is the desire that drives me

that you want to see again one day

who it was better never to have seen.

• In this sonnet we note the pain caused by a love that has not been and cannot be again, as well as the suffering caused in the author by the death of what was his platonic love, Isabel Freire.

4. Sonnet XXXVIII

I am continuous in tears bathed,

always breaking the air with sighs,

and it hurts me not to dare to tell you

that I have reached such a state for you;

Seeing where I am and what I've been up to

by the narrow path of following you,

if I want to turn to flee,

faint, seeing behind what I have left;

And if I want to climb to the high summit,

at every step scare me on the road

sad examples of those who have fallen;

above all, I already lack the light

of hope, with which I used to walk

through the dark region of your oblivion.

• In this poem Garcilaso talks about a problem that still exists in many people today: the struggle between loving and wanting to stop loving someone who does not correspond to us.

5. Sonnet XXVIII

Boscán, you are avenged, with my waning,

of my past rigor and my harshness

with which you rebuke tenderness

of your soft heart used to

Now I punish myself every day

of such salvage and such clumsiness:

but it is time than my baseness

cum and punish me might as well.

Know that in my perfect age and armed,

With my eyes open I have given up

the child you know, blind and naked.

Of such a beautiful consumed fire

it was never heart: if asked

I am the rest, in the rest I am mute.

• In this poem the author refers to having reproached a friend for something that the same author is doing now: get carried away by passion and love for someone

6. Sonnet XXIX

Crossing the sea Leandro the courageous,

in loving fire all burning,

the wind strengthened, and it was raging

the water with a furious rush.

*Defeated from hasty work,

contrast to the waves not being able to,

and more of the good that there he lost dying

that of his own life distressing,

as best he could, he strained his tired voice

and to the airwaves he spoke thus,

but never was his voice heard:

"Waves, well, there is no excuse for me to die,

let me get there, and at the tornada

your fury escapes in my life»

• The author refers to the Greek myth of Leandro and Hero, in which two young lovers who each lived on one side of the Strait of the Dardanelles or Hellespont and separated by the opposition of their families they met every night, Hero leaving a light on in the tower where she lived so that Leandro could swim across the strait to be there. together. One night the wind blew out the light that guided Leandro, getting lost and drowning, and Hero committing suicide when he found out about the end of his love.

7. Sonnet XXXI

Within my soul was from me begotten

a sweet love, and of my feeling

so approved was his birth

as of a single desired child;

But after he was born, who has destroyed

of all the loving thought;

in harsh rigor and in great torment

the first delights he has taken.

Oh crude grandson, who gives life to the father

and you kill the grandfather!, why do you grow so dissatisfied

to the one from whom you were born?

Oh jealous fear, who do you look like?

who still envy her, your own fierce mother,

he is frightened to see the monster he has given birth to.

• Garcilaso talks to us here about jealousy, and how these are capable of transforming and destroying the very love that allowed its birth.

8. Sonnet XXIII

While rose and lily

The color is shown in your gesture,

and that your ardent, honest look,

with clear light the serene storm;

and as long as the hair, that in the vein

of gold was chosen, with swift flight

by the beautiful white neck, upright,

the wind moves, spreads and messes up:

take from your joyful spring

the sweet fruit before the angry weather

cover the beautiful summit with snow.

The icy wind will wither the rose,

Light age will change everything

for not making a change in his custom.

• The poetry reflected here tells us about the beauty of youth, as well as urges us to seize the moment before time passes and said youth ends up fading away.

9. Sonnet IV

For a while my hope rises,

more tired of having gotten up,

falls again, which leaves, to a bad degree,

Free the place to mistrust.

Who will suffer such a harsh change

from good to bad? Oh tired heart

strive in the misery of your state,

that after fortune there is usually bonanza!

I myself will undertake by force of arms

break a mountain that another would not break,

of a thousand inconveniences very thick;

death, imprisonment cannot, nor pregnancies,

take me away from going to see you as she wants,

naked spirit or man in flesh and blood.

• This sonnet is one of the few in which no reference is made to the figure of the beloved. In this case Garcilaso tells us about his stay in prison, in Tolosa, after having attended the wedding of his nephew. Said wedding did not have the permission of Emperor Carlos I, who ordered the poet and soldier to be imprisoned.

10. Sonnet VIII

Of that good and excellent sight

spirits come out alive and on fire,

and being received by my eyes,

They pass me to where the evil feels.

They get in the way easily,

with mine, moved by such heat,

they come out of me like lost,

calls of that good that is present.

Absent, in memory I imagine her;

my spirits, thinking that they saw her,

they move and light up without measure;

but not finding the way easy,

that his own, entering, melted,

They burst to get out where there is no way out.

• In this sonnet we are presented with a situation in which the author and the loved one look into each other's eyes, establishing a deep and even spiritual act of communication. We observe the sensations generated by the gaze of the loved one, as well as the melancholy caused by the memory of her.

11. If at your will I am made of wax

If at your will I am made of wax,

and for the sun I only have your sight,

which does not inflame or conquer

with his look, it is meaningless;

Where does a thing come from, which, if it were

fewer times of me tried and seen,

as it seems that reason resists,

my sense itself did not believe?

And it is that I am far inflamed

of your burning sight and burning

so much so that in life I barely support myself;

But if I'm attacked up close

of your eyes, then I feel frozen

my blood curdles through my veins.

• One of his most intimate poems.

Bibliographic references:

• Morros, B. (ed.). (2007). Garcilaso de la Vega: Poetic work and prose texts. Editorial Critic.