“[But] to sing of your face, a composition
in itself sublime and marvelous,
I lack knowledge, Lady, and wit and art.”

— Luís de Camões

Porém, pera cantar de vosso gesto
A composição alta e milagrosa
Aqui falta saber, engenho e arte.
The Collected Lyric Poems of Luis de Camoes (2016), trans. Landeg White, p. 25
Lyric poetry, Sonnets, Eu cantarei de amor tão docemente

Original

Porém, pera cantar de vosso gesto A composição alta e milagrosa Aqui falta saber, engenho e arte.

Lyric poetry, Sonnets, Eu cantarei de amor tão docemente

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "[But] to sing of your face, a composition in itself sublime and marvelous, I lack knowledge, Lady, and wit and art." by Luís de Camões?

Luís de Camões 69

Portuguese poet 1524–1580

Related quotes

“Faults in English prose derive not so much from lack of knowledge, intelligence or art as from lack of thought, patience or goodwill.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

Source: The Reader Over Your Shoulder (1943), Ch. 3: "Where Is Good English to Be Found?"

“Of ladies, knights, of passions and of wars,
of courtliness, and of valiant deeds I sing.”

Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso

Le donne i cavallier, l'arme, gli amori,
Le cortesie, l'audaci imprese io canto.
Canto I, stanza 1 (tr. David R. Slavitt)
Orlando Furioso (1532)

“If someone’s face lacks a smile, offer them yours.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy: Volume 2 (2022)

“Come, sing now, sing; for I know you sing well;
I see you have a singing face.”

John Fletcher The Wild Goose Chase

The Wild Goose Chase (c. 1621; published 1652), Act II. 2.

“Take playfulness seriously, and you will apprehend what is at the center and rediscover your revered art in a more sublime light.”

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) German poet, critic and scholar

Deute den lieblichen Schein und mache Ernst aus dem Spiel, so wirst du das Centrum fassen und die verehrte Kunst in höherm Lichte wieder finden.
“Ideas,” Lucinde and the Fragments, P. Firchow, trans. (1991), § 109

“So, ungentle reader, (as you and I value what we should ashamed—after witnessing a few minor circus-marvels—to call our "lives,") let us never be fooled into taking seriously that perfectly superficial distinction which is vulgarly drawn between the circus-show and "art" or "the arts." Let us not forget that every authentic "work of art" is in and of itself alive and that, however "the arts" may differ among themselves, their common function is the expression of that supreme alive-ness which is known as "beauty."”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

This being so, our three ring circus is art—for to contend that the spectacle in question is not an authentic manifestation of "beauty" is as childish, as to dismiss the circus on the ground that it is "childish," is idiotic.
"The Adult, the Artist and the Circus." Vanity Fair (October 1925)