SONNET
"Boscán, we're late arriving. Is there room?"
"Call to them from the gatepost, Garcilaso."
"Who's there?" "Two gentlemen from Mount Parnassus."
"There's no palaestra here to nocturnate."
"I cannot understand what the maid says.
Madame, what did you say?" "Effect retreat,
while dusk obstends its aformentioned limbos
and the sun distills its pink particulate."
"Have you gone crazy, Miss?" "The errant guest's
the one who's lost his way." "In what brief span
have Christians learned to speak such tongues, I ask!
Boscán, I'm sure that we have lost our way;
ask where's Castile, for either I've gone mad
or we've not left the country of the Basques."
Lope Félix de Vega y Carpio
Translation by Alix Ingber