Laudator Temporis Acti

A poem by Juan del Encina (1469-1529), tr. (with one stanza omitted) by John Bowring in Ancient Poetry and Romances of Spain (London: Taylor and Hessey, 1824), pp. 187-188, rpt. in John A. Crow, ed., An Anthology of Spanish Poetry: From the Beginnings to the Present Day, Including Both Spain and Spanish America (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979), p. 53:

Come, let's enjoy the passing hour;
For mournful thought
Will come unsought.

Come, let's enjoy the fleeting day,
And banish toil, and laugh at care;
For who would grief and sorrow bear
When he can throw his griefs away?
Away, away!—begone! I say;
For mournful thought
Will come unsought.

So let's come forth from misery's cell,
And bury all our whims and woes;
Wherever pleasure flits and goes,
O there we'll be! O there we'll dwell!
'Tis there we'll dwell! 'Tis wise and well;
For mournful thought
Will come unsought.

Yes, open all your heart; be glad,—
Glad as a linnet on the tree;
Laugh, laugh away,—and merrily
Drive every dream away that's sad.
Who sadness takes for joy is mad;
And mournful thought
Will come unsought.

In Spanish (from Crow's Anthology):

Gasajémonos de hucia,
que el pesar
viénese sin le buscar.

Gasajemos esta vida,
descruciemos del trabajo,
quien pudiere haber gasajo
del cordojo se despida:
déle, déle despedida,
que el pesar
viénese sin le buscar.

De los enojos huyamos
con todos nuestros poderes,
andemos tras los placeres,
los pesares aburramos:
tras los placeres corramos,
que el pesar
viénese sin le buscar.

Hagamos siempre por ser
alegres e gasajosos,
cuidados tristes pensosos
huyamos de los tener:
busquemos siempre el placer,
que el pesar
viénese sin le buscar.