# Glose

> Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Glose
> Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Glose.md
> Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glose
> Source revision: 1278082882
> License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

***Glosa*** (English: **Glose** or **Gloss**) is a [poetic form](/source/Poetic_form) that borrows lines from another, usually more famous poem and incorporates its text. The term originates from the practice of fifteenth century Spanish [courtiers](/source/Courtier) composing poems with a [quatrain](/source/Quatrain) from a better-known poem and the repetition of a line from that quatrain at the end of a newly composed [stanza](/source/Stanza). Most glosa contain an [epigraph](/source/Epigraph_(literature)) from the borrowed quatrain followed by four [decima](/source/D%C3%A9cima). Although it is no longer common in [Spain](/source/Spain), modern [English](/source/English_language) examples exist including [Marilyn Hacker](/source/Marilyn_Hacker)'s "Glose".[1][2]

## Examples

In the novel *[Don Quixote](/source/Don_Quixote)* by [Miguel de Cervantes](/source/Miguel_de_Cervantes), Don Lorenzo quotes the following Glose which is translated by John Ormsby:[3]

Could ‘was’ become an ‘is’ for me, Then would I ask no more than this; Or could, for me, the time that is Become the time that is to be!—

GLOSS

Dame Fortune once upon a day To me was bountiful and kind; But all things change; she changed her mind, And what she gave she took away. O Fortune, long I’ve sued to thee; The gifts thou gavest me restore, For, trust me, I would ask no more, Could ‘was’ become an ‘is’ for me. No other prize I seek to gain, No triumph, glory, or success, Only the long-lost happiness, The memory whereof is pain. One taste, methinks, of bygone bliss The heart-consuming fire might stay; And, so it come without delay, Then would I ask no more than this. I ask what cannot be, alas! That time should ever be, and then Come back to us, and be again, No power on earth can bring to pass; For fleet of foot is he, I wis, And idly, therefore, do we pray That what for aye hath left us may Become for us the time that is. Perplexed, uncertain, to remain ’Twixt hope and fear, is death, not life; ’Twere better, sure, to end the strife, And dying, seek release from pain. And yet, thought were the best for me. Anon the thought aside I fling, And to the present fondly cling, And dread the time that is to be.

## References

1. Baldick, Chris (2015). *The Oxford dictionary of literary terms*. Fourth ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-178323-4. [OCLC 915617546](https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/915617546)

1. Brewer, Robert Lee (15 February 2019). ["Glose or Glosa: Poetic Forms"](https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/glose-or-glosa-poetic-forms). *Writer's Digest*. Retrieved 2022-04-20.

1. Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. ["Don Quixote"](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/996/pg996-images.html). *www.gutenberg.org*. Retrieved 2023-11-17.

---
Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Glose](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glose) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glose?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.