A household at war with a ratel
Installed iron bars on their cradle
But then left them unlatched
And the baby was snatched:
What was left they scooped up with a ladle.

--D. Capoda

Fragment of an unfinished libretto:

JIM WALKER:
Signori, ascoltate! Credimi, mio ben!
É un vil menzogno, bugiardi son tutti.
Io giuro, credimi, per carità,
Texano non son io!

FRA MARTINEZ (con l'ultimo velen):
Spergiurerai tu stesso davanti a Dio?
La verità io so, ai popoli la proclamo:
Texano voi siete!

GIUSEPPINA:
Vil traditor!

POPOLI:
Al patibolo! Al patibolo!

-from I Carnefici di Taos (Act II finale), dated January 1912, Prawne family archives

Further on my man Javier Fernando del Camarón y Gamba. I hadn't bothered to track down any of his work previously, but I found this in Fülg's Encyclopedia of Early Spanish Poets (I nearly used "i" instead of "em" there. How embarrassing). Sadly, the original Castilian is not given (not that it would do me any good. I have such Spanish as may be learned in a kitchen, and my profit on't is, I know how to curse). This is his own work, not a translation of a Greek.

The secret of love, how can it be contained
Like the unicorn it bursts all confinements.
But the heart is held back from what it seeks,
Confined into the space of a fist,
Unable to obtain its desire.
It tosses it head in pride, like thunder,
But drags its tail in the dust, brought low.
Beloved gazelle, more than a lion,
You may slay me out of hand,
I stretch my neck out to the knife.

Very nice. There are clearly influences from the early Hebrew poets of Spain.

I knew that Sappho poem sounded familiar, and I've finally tracked it down. It's from a collection of "Translations in Translation", poems that have been translated from their original language, and then again into another. It's quite instructive to note what is lost two steps out. In this case, the Greek was translated by the great 17th century Spanish poet, Javier Fernando del Camarón y Gamba, whose work then was translated into English by Thomas Bunt, a less-than-successful milliner.

Of Mr. Bunt's translation, one coeval commentator said, "This unlick'd Bear may speak the Spanish (I cannot know), but that he knows not Numbers, nor Taste, nor Poesy, any man may judge."

Youths pursue the clear, melodious Lyre,
Chase the sweet gifts of purple MUSES' Choir,
But my once soft body OLD AGE has racked;
And now I braid white hair that once was black.
My breath is lead, my knees now cannot bear
To dance over the earth like skipping deer.
Who would so age? Who may unaging rest?
Often I curse at this, man's Fate unblest.
Once rosy-armèd DAWN, struck down by Love,
To the World's End TITHONUS carried off.
Then lovely, young, he aged but never died,
The creaking Husband of an ageless Bride.

Stupid towel!
Dry me faster!
As wet as I am, how can I
greet my beloved?

--Ksenja Gregorjevna Prawne
translated from the Slovak

The motherly ICHNEUMON, big
With gravid belly, flies above
The reedy pond. Upon a twig
She lights. Her only thought her love
Unholy, parasitical.
She seeks her prey the CADDISFLY,
Within whose larva to install
Her famin'd brood. They feast, it dies.
Thus most maternal one may seem
Which yet most monstrous we esteem.

--Gregor Prawne

Ethics and morals and Puritan virtues
Are no recompense for a decent Sauterne.

--X[erxes] G[regorovich] Prawne (1821-1839)