Page:Modern poets and poetry of Spain.djvu/409

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
363
NOTES.
363

Sic cum transierint mei
Nullo cum strepitu dies,
Plebeius moriar senex.
Illi mors gravis incubat
Qui notus nimis omnibus
Ignotus moritur sibi.

Thyestes, Act II. The critical reader will observe, that the translation into English has been made from the Spanish rather than the Latin.

12. Page 53. "Fables."

The Fables translated are numbered respectively III., VIII., XI., LIII. and LIV., in the original collection. The two first, III. and VIII., having been given by Bouterwek as specimens of Iriarte's style, without any translation, I took them for my first essays, and had already versified them, before finding Roscoe had done the same also in his translation of Sismondi, and it was subsequently to that I became aware of other similar versions. Having, however, made those translations, I have, notwithstanding the others, allowed them to remain in this work. The fable of the Two Rabbits has been selected as particularly noticed by Martinez de la Rosa, and the others almost without cause of peculiar preference. The last one contains an old but good lesson, which cannot be too frequently and earnestly repeated:—

Ego nec studium sine divite venâ
Nec rude quid prosit video ingenium, alterius sic
Altera poscit opem res et conjurat amicè.

13. Page 64. "Iglesias and Gonzalez."

Diego Gonzalez was born at Ciudad Rodrigo in 1733, and died at Madrid, 1794. Josè Iglesias de la Casa was born at Salamanca in 1753, and died there in 1791. His poems were first published seven years after his death, and have been several times reprinted. The best edition is that of Barcelona, 1820, from which the one of Paris, 1821, was taken. The poems of Gonzalez also were first published after his death, and have been several times reprinted.