‘Todo poeta español, si de veras lo es, lleva su Garcilaso dentro’, Antonio Gallego Morell has observed. And not the least moving of the tributes which this scholar has included in his Antología poética en honor de Garcilaso de la Vega is the well-known passage from the idyll, Descripción y viaje del Tajo, in which Bances Candamo, long after the event, mourned the death of … el dulce pastor de estos contornos, tierno Salicio, heroico Garcilaso, and, in tender and melodious language, paid homage to his genius. This is a beguiling passage, in a fine lyrical poem. Nevertheless, it is not Bances's greatest tribute to Garcilaso. That tribute is contained in hitherto un-printed and unquoted parts of the epic El César africano, which appears to owe its very title to the poet of the Tagus, and in the action of which Garcilaso plays an important part.