SONNET III

Boscán and Garcilaso having come
to that place where the troubadours reside,
who in our tongue and its exquisiteness
were in this century once recognized,

the two groups at each other in alarm
regard, the colors of their faces fade,
fearing that they might be foreign scouts
or spies or enemies gone renegade;

and judging them at first just by their clothes,
it seemed to them they were, as it should be,
two cultivated Spanish gentlemen;

and hearing the new language that they spoke,
all mixed with verse from lands across the sea,
they looked at them with eyes of aliens.