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JOHN CALVIN
(1509-1564)
BY ARTHUR CUSHMAN MCGIFFERT
OHN CALVIN was born in the village of Noyon, in northeastern
France, on the 10th of July, 1509. He was intended by his
parents for the priesthood, for which he seemed to be pecul-
iarly fitted by his naturally austere disposition, averse to every form
of sport or frivolity, and he was given an excellent education with
that calling in view; but finally at the command of his father-
whose plans for his son had undergone a change - he gave up his
theological preparation and devoted himself to the study of law.
Gifted with an extraordinary memory, rare insight, and an uncom-
monly keen reasoning faculty, he speedily distinguished himself in his
new field, and a brilliant career was predicted for him by his teachers.
His tastes however were more literary than legal, and his first pub-
lished work, written at the age of twenty-three, was a commentary
on Seneca's 'De Clementia,' which brought him wide repute as a
classical scholar and as a clear and forceful writer.
Though he had apparently renounced forever all thoughts of a
clerical life, he retained, even while he was engaged in the study of
law and in the more congenial pursuit of literature, his early love for
theology; and in 1532, under the influence of some of Luther's writ-
ings which happened to fall into his hands, he was converted to the
Protestant faith and threw in his fortunes with the little evangelical
party in Paris. His intellectual attainments made him a marked man
wherever he went, and he speedily became the leading spirit in the
circle to which he had attached himself. Compelled soon afterward
by the persecuting measures of King Francis I. to flee the country,
he took up his residence at Basle and settled down, as he hoped, to
a quiet literary life. It was during his stay here that he published
in 1536 the first edition of his greatest work, The Christian Institutes,'
in which is contained the system of theology which has for centuries
borne his name, and by which he is best known to the world at large.
Probably no other work written by so young a man has ever pro-
duced such a wide-spread, profound, and lasting influence. In its
original form, it is true, the work was only a brief and simple intro-
duction to the study of the Scriptures, much less imposing and for-
bidding than the elaborate body of divinity which is now known to
theologians as 'Calvin's Institutes': but all the substance of the last


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JOHN CALVIN
edition is to be found in the first; the theology of the one is the
theology of the other-the Calvin of 1559 is the Calvin of 1536. The
fact that at the age of twenty-six Calvin could publish a system of
theology at once so original and so profound -a system, moreover,
which with all his activity of intellect and love of truth he never had
occasion to modify in any essential particular-is one of the most
striking phenomena in the history of the human mind; and yet it is
but one of many illustrations of the man's marvelous clearness and
comprehensiveness of vision, and of his force and decision of char-
acter. His life from beginning to end was the consistent unfolding
of a single dominant principle - the unwavering pursuit of a single
controlling purpose. From his earliest youth the sense of duty was
all-supreme with him; he lived under a constant imperative—in awe
of, and in reverent obedience to, the will of a sovereign God; and his
theology is but the translation into language of that experience; its
translation by one of the world's greatest masters of logical thought
and of clear speech.
Calvin's great work was accompanied by a dedicatory epistle
addressed to King Francis I. , which is by common consent one of the
finest specimens of courteous and convincing apology in existence.
A brief extract from it will be found in the selections given below.
Soon after the publication of the 'Institutes,' Calvin's plans for a
quiet literary career were interrupted by a peremptory call to assist
in the work of reforming the Church and State of Geneva; and the
remainder of his life, with the exception of a brief interval of exile,
was spent in that city, at the head of a religious movement whose
influence was ultimately felt throughout all Western Europe. It is
true that Calvin was not the originating genius of the Reformation —
that he belonged only to the second generation of reformers, and
that he learned the Protestant faith from Luther. But he became
for the peoples of Western Europe what Luther was for Germany,
and he gave his own peculiar type of Protestantism—that type
which was congenial to his disposition and experience - to Switzer-
land, to France, to the Netherlands, to Scotland, and through the
Dutch, the English Puritans, and the Scotch Presbyterians, to large
portions of the New World. Calvin, to be sure, is not widely popu-
lar to-day even in those lands which owe him most, for he had
little of that human sympathy which glorifies the best thought and
life of the present age; but for all that, he has left his mark upon
the world, and his influence is not likely ever to be wholly out-
grown. His emphasis upon God's holiness made his followers scrupu-
lously, even censoriously pure; his emphasis upon God's will made
them stern and unyielding in the performance of what they believed
to be their duty; his emphasis upon God's majesty, paradoxical


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though it may seem at first sight, promoted in no small degree the
growth of civil and religious liberty, for it dwarfed all mere human
authority and made men bold to withstand the unlawful encroach-
ments of their fellows. Thus Calvin became a mighty force in the
world, though he gave the world far more of law than of gospel,
far more of Moses than of Christ.
Calvin's career as a writer began at an early day and continued
until his death. His pen was a ready one and was seldom idle. In
the midst of the most engrossing cares and occupations-the cares
and occupations of a preacher, a pastor, a teacher of theology, a
statesman, and a reformer to whom the Protestants of many lands
looked for inspiration and for counsel-he found time, though he
died at the early age of fifty-four, to produce works that to-day fill
more than threescore volumes, and all of which bear the unmistak-
able impress of a great mind. In addition to his 'Institutes,' theo-
logical and ethical tracts, and treatises, sermons, and epistles without
number, he wrote commentaries upon almost all the books of the
Bible; which for lucidity, for wide and accurate learning, and for
sound and ripe judgment, have never been surpassed. Among the
most characteristic and important of his briefer works are his vigor-
ous and effective 'Reply to Cardinal Sadolet,' who had endeavored
after Calvin's exile from Geneva in 1539 to win back the Genevese
to the Roman Church; his tract on The Necessity of Reforming the
Church; presented to the Imperial Diet at Spires, A. D. 1544, in the
cause of all who wish with Christ to reign'—an admirable statement
of the conditions which had made a reformation of the Church impera-
tively necessary, and had led to the great religious and ecclesiastical
revolution; another tract on The True Method of Giving Peace to
Christendom and Reforming the Church,'. marked by a beautiful
Christian spirit and permeated with sound practical sense; still
another containing Articles Agreed Upon by the Faculty of Sacred
Theology at Paris, with the Antidote'; and finally an 'Admonition
Showing the Advantages which Christendom might Derive from an
Inventory of Relics. ' Though Calvin was from boyhood up of a most
serious turn of mind, and though his writings, in marked contrast to
the writings of Luther, exhibit few if any traces of genial sponta-
neous humor, the last two works show that he knew how to employ
satire on occasion in a very telling way for the overthrow of error
and for the discomfiture of his opponents.
In addition to the services which Calvin rendered by his writings
to the cause of Christianity and of sacred learning, must be recog-
nized the lasting obligation under which as an author he put his
mother tongue. Whether he wrote in Latin or in French, his style
was always chaste, elegant, clear, and vigorous. His Latin compares


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JOHN CALVIN
favorably with the best models of antiquity; his French is a new
creation. The latter language indeed owes almost as much to Calvin
as the German language owes to Luther. He was unquestionably its
greatest master in the sixteenth century, and he did more than any
one else to fix its permanent character-to give it that exactness,
that lucidity, that purity and harmony of which it justly boasts.
Calvin's writings bear throughout the imprint of his character.
There appears in all of them the same horror of impurity and dis-
honor, the same stern sense of duty, the same respect for the sov-
ereignty of the Almighty, the same severe judgment of human fail-
ings. To read them is to breathe the tonic air of snow-clad heights;
but they are seldom if ever touched with the tender glow of human
feeling or transfigured with the radiance of creative imagination.
There is that in David, in Isaiah, in Paul, in Luther, which appeals
to every heart and makes their words immortal; but Calvin was
neither poet nor prophet,—the divine afflatus was not his,- and it is
not without reason that his writings, vigorous, forceful, profound, as
is their context, and pure and elegant as is their style, are read
to-day only by theologians or historians.
Archer Cushman
Mut
PREFATORY ADDRESS TO THE INSTITUTES›
T
FRANCIS, KING OF THE FRENCH, the most Christian Majesty,
the most Mighty and Illustrious Monarch, his Sovereign,—
John Calvin prays peace and salvation in Christ.
Sire: When I first engaged in this work, nothing was fur-
ther from my thoughts than to write what should afterwards be
presented to your Majesty. My intention was only to furnish a
kind of rudiments, by which those who feel some interest in
religion might be trained to true godliness. And I toiled at the
task chiefly for the sake of my countrymen the French, multi-
tudes of whom I perceived to be hungering and thirsting after
Christ, while very few seemed to have been duly imbued with
even a slender knowledge of him. That this was the object
which I had in view is apparent from the work itself, which is
written in a simple and elementary form, adapted for instruc-
tion.
-


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But when I perceived that the fury of certain bad men had
risen to such a height in your realm that there was no place in
it for sound doctrine, I thought it might be of service if I were
in the same work both to give instruction to my countrymen,
and also lay before your Majesty a Confession, from which you
may learn what the doctrine is that so inflames the rage of
those madmen who are this day with fire and sword troubling
your kingdom. For I fear not to declare that what I have here
given may be regarded as a summary of the very doctrine
which, they vociferate, ought to be punished with confiscation,
exile, imprisonment, and flames, as well as exterminated by land
and sea.
I am aware indeed how, in order to render our cause as
hateful to your Majesty as possible, they have filled your ears
and mind with atrocious insinuations; but you will be pleased of
your clemency to reflect that neither in word nor deed could
there
be any innocence, were it sufficient merely to accuse.
When
any one, with the view of exciting prejudice, observes
that this doctrine of which I am endeavoring to give your
Majesty an account has been condemned by the suffrages of all
the estates, and was long ago stabbed again and again by par-
tial sentences of courts of law, he undoubtedly says nothing
more than that it has sometimes been violently oppressed by the
power and faction of adversaries, and sometimes fraudulently
and insidiously overwhelmed by lies, cavils, and calumny. While
a cause is unheard, it is violence to pass sanguinary sentences
against it; it is fraud to charge it, contrary to its deserts, with
sedition and mischief.
That no one may suppose we are unjust in thus com-
plaining, you yourself, most illustrious Sovereign, can bear us
witness with what lying calumnies it is daily traduced in your
presence; as aiming at nothing else than to wrest the sceptres of
kings out of their hands, to overturn all tribunals and seats of
justice, to subvert all order and government, to disturb the peace
and quiet of society, to abolish all laws, destroy the distinctions
of rank and property, and in short turn all things upside down.
And yet that which you hear is but the smallest portion of what
is said; for among the common people are disseminated certain
horrible insinuations-insinuations which, if well founded, would
justify the whole world in condemning the doctrine with its
authors to a thousand fires and gibbets. Who can wonder that
VI-196


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JOHN CALVIN
the popular hatred is inflamed against it, when credit is given to
those most iniquitous accusations? See why all ranks unite with.
one accord in condemning our persons and our doctrine!
Carried away by this feeling, those who sit in judgment
merely give utterance to the prejudices which they have imbibed
at home, and think they have duly performed their part if they
do not order punishment to be inflicted on any one until con-
victed, either on his own confession, or on legal evidence. But
of what crime convicted? "Of that condemned doctrine," is the
answer. But with what justice condemned? The very evidence
of the defense was not to abjure the doctrine itself, but to main-
tain its truth. On this subject, however, not a whisper is
allowed.
It is plain indeed that we fear God sincerely and worship him
in truth, since, whether by life or by death, we desire his name
to be hallowed; and hatred herself has been forced to bear testi-
mony to the innocence and civil integrity of some of our people,
on whom death was inflicted for the very thing which deserved
the highest praise. But if any, under pretext of the gospel,
excite tumults (none such have as yet been detected in your
realm), if any use the liberty of the grace of God as a cloak for
licentiousness (I know of numbers who do), there are laws and
legal punishments by which they may be punished up to the
measure of their deserts; only in the mean time let not the
gospel of God be evil spoken of because of the iniquities of evil
men.
Sire, that you may not lend too credulous an ear to the accu-
sations of our enemies, their virulent injustice has been set before
you at sufficient length: I fear even more than sufficient, since
this preface has grown almost to the bulk of a full apology. My
object however was not to frame a defense, but only with a
view to the hearing of our cause, to mollify your mind, now
indeed turned away and estranged from us, I add, even in-
flamed against us, but whose good will, we are confident, we
should regain, would you but once with calmness and composure
read this our Confession, which we desire your Majesty to accept.
instead of a defense. But if the whispers of the malevolent so
possess your ear that the accused are to have no opportunity of
pleading their cause; if those vindictive furies, with your con-
nivance, are always to rage with bonds, scourgings, tortures,
maimings, and burnings-we indeed, like sheep doomed to
―――
-


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slaughter, shall be reduced to every extremity; yet so that in
our patience we will possess our souls, and wait for the strong
hand of the Lord, which doubtless will appear in its own time,
and show itself armed, both to rescue the poor from affliction
and also take vengeance on the despisers, who are now exulting
so securely.
Most illustrious King, may the Lord, the King of kings, estab-
lish your throne in righteousness and your sceptre in equity.
BASLE, August 1st, 1536.
ELECTION AND PREDESTINATION
From the Institutes of the Christian Religion'
THE
HE human mind when it hears this doctrine of election can-
not restrain its petulance, but boils and rages as if aroused
by the sound of a trumpet. Many, professing a desire to
defend the Deity from an invidious charge, admit the doctrine
of election but deny that any one is reprobated (Bernard, in
'Die Ascensionis,' Serm. 2). This they do ignorantly and child-
ishly, since there could be no election without its opposite,
reprobation. God is said to set apart those whom he adopts for
salvation. It were most absurd to say that he admits others
fortuitously, or that they by their industry acquire what election
alone confers on a few. Those therefore whom God passes by
he reprobates, and that for no other cause but because he is
pleased to exclude them from the inheritance which he predes-
tines to his children. Nor is it possible to tolerate the petulance
of men in refusing to be restrained by the word of God, in
regard to his incomprehensible counsel, which even angels adore.
We have already been told that hardening is not less under
the immediate hand of God than mercy. Paul does not, after
the example of those whom I have mentioned, labor anxiously
to defend God by calling in the aid of falsehood; he only
reminds us that it is unlawful for the creature to quarrel with
its Creator. Then how will those who refuse to admit that any
are reprobated by God, explain the following words of Christ?
"Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall
be rooted up" (Matth. xv. 13). They are plainly told that all
whom the heavenly Father has not been pleased to plant as
sacred trees in his garden are doomed and devoted to destruc-


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JOHN CALVIN
tion. If they deny that this is a sign of reprobation, there is
nothing, however clear, that can be proved to them. But if
they will still murmur, let us in the soberness of faith rest con-
tented with the admonition of Paul, that it can be no ground of
complaint that God, "willing to show his wrath, and to make
his power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels
of wrath fitted for destruction: and that he might make known
the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had
afore prepared unto glory" (Rom. ix. 22, 23). Let my readers
observe that Paul, to cut off all handle for murmuring and
detraction, attributes supreme sovereignty to the wrath and
power of God; for it were unjust that those profound judgments
which transcend all our powers of discernment should be sub-
jected to our calculation.
It is frivolous in our opponents to reply that God does not
altogether reject those whom in lenity he tolerates, but remains.
in suspense with regard to them, if peradventure they may
repent; as if Paul were representing God as patiently waiting
for the conversion of those whom he describes as fitted for
destruction. For Augustine, rightly expounding this passage,
says that where power is united to endurance, God does not
permit, but rules (August. Cont. Julian. , Lib. v. , c. 5). They
add also, that it is not without cause the vessels of wrath
are said to be fitted for destruction, and that God is said to
have prepared the vessels of mercy, because in this way the
praise of salvation is claimed for God; whereas the blame of
perdition is thrown upon those who of their own accord
bring it upon themselves. But were I to concede that by
the different forms of expression Paul softens the harshness
of the former clause, it by no means follows that he trans-
fers the preparation for destruction to any other cause than
the secret counsel of God. This indeed is asserted in the pre-
ceding context, where God is said to have raised up Pharaoh,
and to harden whom he will. Hence it follows that the hidden
counsel of God is the cause of hardening. I at least hold with
Augustine, that when God makes sheep out of wolves he forms
them again by the powerful influence of grace, that their hard-
ness may thus be subdued; and that he does not convert the
obstinate, because he does not exert that more powerful grace, a
grace which he has at command if he were disposed to use it
(August. de Prædest. Sanct. , Lib. i. , c. 2).


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Accordingly, when we are accosted in such terms as these:
Why did God from the first predestine some to death, when as
they were not yet in existence, they could not have merited sen-
tence of death? -let us by way of reply ask in our turn, What
do you imagine that God owes to man, if he is pleased to esti-
mate him by his own nature ? As we are all vitiated by sin,
we cannot but be hateful to God, and that not from tyrannical
cruelty, but the strictest justice. But if all whom the Lord pre-
destines to death are naturally liable to sentence of death, of
what injustice, pray, do they complain? Should all the sons of
Adam come to dispute and contend with their Creator, because
by his eternal providence they were before their birth doomed
to perpetual destruction: when God comes to reckon with them,
what will they be able to mutter against this defense? If all
are taken from a corrupt mass, it is not strange that all are
subject to condemnation. Let them not therefore charge God
with injustice, if by his eternal judgment they are doomed to a
death to which they themselves feel that, whether they will or
not, they are drawn spontaneously by their own nature. Hence
it appears how perverse is this affectation of murmuring, when
of set purpose they suppress the cause of condemnation which
they are compelled to recognize in themselves, that they may lay
the blame upon God. But though I should confess a hundred
times that God is the author (and it is most certain that he is),
they do not however thereby efface their own guilt, which,
engraven on their own consciences, is ever and anon presenting
itself to their view.
If God merely foresaw human events, and did not also arrange
and dispose of them at his pleasure, there might be room for
agitating the question, how far his foreknowledge amounts to
necessity; but since he foresees the things which are to happen,
simply because he has decreed that they are so to happen, it is
vain to debate about prescience, while it is clear that all events
take place by his sovereign appointment.
They deny that it is ever said in distinct terms, God decreed
that Adam should perish by his revolt. As if the same God
who is declared in Scripture to do whatsoever he pleases could
have made the noblest of his creatures without any special pur-
pose. They say that, in accordance with free will, he was to be
the architect of his own fortune; that God had decreed nothing
but to treat him according to his desert. If this frigid fiction


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is received, where will be the omnipotence of God, by which,
according to his secret counsel on which everything depends, he
rules over all? But whether they will allow it or not, predesti-
nation is manifest in Adam's posterity. It was not owing to
nature that they all lost salvation by the fault of one parent.
Why should they refuse to admit with regard to one man that
which against their will they admit with regard to the whole
human race? Why should they in caviling lose their labor?
Scripture proclaims that all were, in the person of one, made
liable to eternal death. As this cannot be ascribed to nature, it
is plain that it is owing to the wonderful counsel of God. It is
very absurd in these worthy defenders of the justice of God to
strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. I again ask how it is
that the fall of Adam involves so many nations with their infant
children in eternal death without remedy, unless that it so
seemed meet to God? Here the most loquacious tongues must
be dumb. The decree, I admit, is dreadful; and yet it is im-
possible to deny that God foreknew what the end of man was to
be before he made him, and foreknew because he had SO
ordained by his decree. Should any one here inveigh against the
prescience of God, he does it rashly and unadvisedly. For why,
pray, should it be made a charge against the heavenly Judge,
that he was not ignorant of what was to happen? Thus, if
there is any just or plausible complaint, it must be directed
against predestination. Nor ought it to seem absurd when I say
that God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him
the ruin of his posterity, but also at his own pleasure arranged
it. For as it belongs to his wisdom to foreknow all future
events, so it belongs to his power to rule and govern them by
his hand.


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3127
FREEDOM OF THE WILL
From the Institutes of the Christian Religion'
OD has provided the soul of man with intellect, by which he
might discern good from evil, just from unjust, and might
know what to follow or to shun, reason going before with
her lamp; whence philosophers, in reference to her directing
power, have called her to ýɣepovizóv. To this he has joined will, to
which choice belongs. Man excelled in these noble endowments
in his primitive condition, when reason, intelligence, prudence,
and judgment not only sufficed for the government of his earthly
life, but also enabled him to rise up to God and eternal happi-
Thereafter choice was added to direct the appetites and
temper all the organic motions; the will being thus perfectly sub-
missive to the authority of reason. In this upright state, man
possessed freedom of will, by which if he chose he was able to
obtain eternal life. It were here unseasonable to introduce the
question concerning the secret predestination of God, because we
are not considering what might or might not happen, but what
the nature of man truly was. Adam, therefore, might have stood
if he chose, since it was only by his own will that he fell; but it
was because his will was pliable in either direction, and he had
not received constancy to persevere, that he so easily fell. Still
he had a free choice of good and evil; and not only so, but in
the mind and will there was the highest rectitude, and all the
organic parts were duly framed to obedience, until man corrupted
its good properties, and destroyed himself. Hence the great
darkness of philosophers who have looked for a complete building
in a ruin, and fit arrangement in disorder. The principle they
set out with was, that man could not be a rational animal unless
he had a free choice of good and evil. They also imagined that
the distinction between virtue and vice was destroyed, if man did
not of his own counsel arrange his life. So far well, had there
been no change in man.
This being unknown to them, it is not
But those
surprising that they throw everything into confusion.
who, while they profess to be the disciples of Christ, still seek
for free-will in man, notwithstanding of his being lost and
drowned in spiritual destruction, labor under manifold delusion,
making
a heterogeneous mixture of inspired doctrine and philo-
sophical opinions, and so erring as to both. But it will be better
1


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to leave these things to their own place. At present it is neces-
sary only to remember that man at his first creation was very
different from all his posterity; who, deriving their origin from
him after he was corrupted, received a hereditary taint. At first
every part of the soul was formed to rectitude. There was
soundness of mind and freedom of will to choose the good. If
any one objects that it was placed, as it were, in a slippery
position because its power was weak, I answer, that the degree
conferred was sufficient to take away every excuse. For surely
the Deity could not be tied down to this condition,- to make
man such that he either could not or would not sin. Such a
nature might have been more excellent; but to expostulate with
God as if he had been bound to confer this nature on man, is
more than unjust, seeing he had full right to determine how
much or how little he would give. Why he did not sustain him
by the virtue of perseverance is hidden in his counsel; it is ours
to keep within the bounds of soberness. Man had received the
power, if he had the will, but he had not the will which would
have given the power; for this will would have been followed by
perseverance. Still, after he had received so much, there is no
excuse for his having spontaneously brought death upon himself.
No necessity was laid upon God to give him more than that
intermediate and even transient will, that out of man's fall he
might extract materials for his own glory.


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1
1
SUSS
LUIS DE CAMOËNS.


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**!
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-
1.


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mon

LUIS DE CAMOËNS.


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3129
LUIZ VAZ DE CAMOENS
(1524? -1580)
BY HENRY R. LANG
ORTUGUESE literature is usually divided into six periods,
which correspond, in the main, to the successive literary
movements of the other Romance nations which it followed.
First Period (1200-1385), Provençal and French influences. Soon
after the founding of the Portuguese State by Henry of Burgundy
and his knights in the beginning of the twelfth century, the nobles
of Portugal and Galicia, which regions form a unit in race and
speech, began to imitate in their native idiom the art of the Pro-
vençal troubadours who visited the courts of Leon and Castile.
This courtly lyric poetry in the Gallego-Portuguese dialect, which
was also cultivated in the rest of the peninsula excepting the East,
reached its height under Alphonso X. of Castile (1252-84), himself a
noted poet and patron of this art, and under King Dionysius of
Portugal (1279–1325), the most gifted of all these troubadours. The
collections (cancioneiros) of the works of this school preserved to us
contain the names of one hundred and sixty-three poets and some
two thousand compositions (inclusive of the four hundred and one
spiritual songs of Alphonso X. ). Of this body of verse, two-thirds
affect the artificial style of Provençal lyrics, while one-third is de-
rived from the indigenous popular poetry. This latter part contains
the so-called cantigas de amigo, songs of charming simplicity of form
and naïveté of spirit in which a woman addresses her lover either
in a monologue or in a dialogue. It is this native poetry, still
echoed in the modern folk-song of Galicia and Portugal, that imparted
to the Gallego-Portuguese lyric school the decidedly original color-
ing and vigorous growth which assign it an independent position in
the mediæval literature of the Romance nations.
Composition in prose also began in this period, consisting chiefly
in genealogies, chronicles, and in translations from Latin and French
dealing with religious subjects and the romantic traditions of British
origin, such as the 'Demanda do Santo Graal. ' It is now almost
certain that the original of the Spanish version of the 'Amadis de
Gaula' (1480) was the work of a Portuguese troubadour of the thir-
teenth century, Joam de Lobeira.
Second Period (1385-1521), Spanish influence.
Instead of the Pro-
vençal style, the courtly circles now began to cultivate the native
popular forms, the copla and quadra, and to compose in the dialect


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3130
LUIZ VAZ DE CAMOENS
I
of Castile, which communicated to them the influence of the Italian
Renaissance, with the vision and allegory of Dante and a fuller
understanding of classical antiquity. These two literary currents
became the formative elements of the second poetic school of an
aristocratic character in Portugal, at the courts of Alphonse V. (1438-
1481), John II. (1481-95), and Emanuel (1495-1521), whose works were
collected by the poet Garcia de Resende in the 'Cancioneiro Geral'
(Lisbon, 1516).
The prose-literature of this period is rich in translations from the
Latin classics, and chiefly noteworthy for the great Portuguese chron-
icles which it produced. The most prominent writer was Fernam
Lopes (1454), the founder of Portuguese historiography and the
"father of Portuguese prose. "
Third Period (1521-1580), Italian influence. This is the classic
epoch of Portuguese literature, born of the powerful rise of the Portu-
guese State during its period of discovery and conquest, and of the
dominant influence of the Italian Renaissance. It opens with three
authors who were prominently active in the preceding literary school,
but whose principal influence lies in this. These are Christovam
Falcão and Bernardim Ribeiro, the founders of the bucolic poem and
the sentimental pastoral romance, and Gil Vicente, a comic writer of
superior talent, who is called the father of the Portuguese drama,
and who, next to Camoens, is the greatest figure of this period. Its
real initiator, however, was Francesco Sa' de Miranda (1495-1557) who,
on his return from a six-years' study in Italy in 1521, introduced the
lyric forms of Petrarch and his followers as the only true models for
composition. Besides giving by his example a classic form to lyrics,
especially to the sonnet, and cultivating the pastoral poem, Sa' de
Miranda, desirous of breaking the influence of Gil Vicente's dramas,
wrote two comedies of intrigue in the style of the Italians and of
Plautus and Terence. His attempts in this direction, however, found
no followers, the only exception being Ferreira's tragedy 'Ines de
Castro' in the antique style. The greatest poet of this period, and
indeed in the whole history of Portuguese literature, is Luiz de
Camoens, in whose works, epic, lyric, and dramatic, the cultivation
of the two literary currents of this epoch, the national and the Re-
naissance, attained to its highest perfection, and to whom Portuguese
literature chiefly owes its place in the literature of the world.
Among the works in prose produced during this time are of especial
importance the historical writings, such as the 'Décadas' of João de
Barros (1496-1570), the "Livy of Portugal," and the numerous ro-
mances of chivalry.
Fourth Period (1580-1700), Culteranistic influence. The political
decline of Portugal is accompanied by one in its literature. While
some lyric poetry is still written in the spirit of Camoens, and the


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pastoral romance in the national style is cultivated by some authors,
Portuguese literature on the whole is completely under the influence
of the Spanish, receiving from the latter the euphuistic movement,
known in Spain as culteranismo or Gongorismo. Many writers of
talent of this time used the Spanish language in preference to their
own. It is thus that the charming pastoral poem 'Diana,' by Jorge
de Montemor, though composed by a Portuguese and in a vein so
peculiar to his nation, is credited to Spanish literature.
Fifth Period (1700-1825), Pseudo-Classicism. The influence of the
French classic school, felt in all European literatures, became para-
mount in Portugal. Excepting the works of a few talented members
of the society called "Arcadia," little of literary interest was produced
until the appearance, at the end of the century, of Francisco Manoel
de Nascimento and Manoel Maria Barbosa du Bocage, two poets of
decided talent who connect this period with the following.
Sixth Period (since 1825), Romanticism. The initiator of this
movement in Portugal was Almeida-Garrett (1799-1854), with Gil
Vicente and Camoens one of the three great poets Portugal has pro-
duced, who revived and strengthened the sense of national life in
his country by his Camoens,' an epic of glowing patriotism pub-
lished during his exile in 1825, by his national dramas, and by the
collection of the popular traditions of his people, which he began
and which has since been zealously continued in all parts of the
country. The second influential leader of romanticism was Alexandre
Herculano (1810-1877), great especially as national historian, but also
a novelist and poet of superior merit. The labors of these two men
bore fruit, since the middle of the century, in what may be termed
an intellectual renovation of Portugal which first found expression in
the so-called Coimbra School, and has since been supported by such
men as Theophilo Braga, F. Adolpho Coelho, Joaquim de Vasconcel-
los, J. Leite de Vasconcellos, and others, whose life-work is devoted
to the conviction that only a thorough and critical study of their
country's past can inspire its literature with new life and vigor and
maintain the sense of national independence.
LUIZ VAZ DE CAMOENS, Portugal's greatest poet and patriot, was
born in 1524 or 1525, most probably at Coimbra, as the son of
Simão Vaz de Camoens and Donna Anna de Macedo of Santarem.
Through his father, a cavalleiro fidalgo, or untitled nobleman, who was
related with Vasco da Gama, Camoens descended from an ancient
and once influential noble family of Galician origin. He spent his
youth at Coimbra, and though his name is not found in the regis-
ters of the university, which had been removed to that city in 1537,
and of which his uncle, Bento de Camoens, prior of the monastery of


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3132
Santa Cruz, was made chancellor in 1539, it was presumably in that
institution, then justly famous, that the highly gifted youth acquired
his uncommon familiarity with the classics and with the literatures of
Spain, Italy, and that of his own country. In 1542 we find Camoens
exchanging his alma mater for the gay and brilliant court of John
III. , then at Lisbon, where his gentle birth, his poetic genius, and
his fine personal appearance brought him much favor, especially
with the fair sex, while his independent bearing and indiscreet
speech aroused the jealousy and enmity of his rivals. Here he woos
and wins the damsels of the palace until a high-born lady in attend-
ance upon the Queen, Donna Catharina de Athaide,-whom, like
Petrarch, he claims to have first seen on Good Friday in church, and
who is celebrated in his poems under the anagram of Natercia,—
inspires him with a deep and enduring passion. Irritated by the
intrigues employed by his enemies to mar his prospects, the impetu-
ous youth commits imprudent acts which lead to his banishment
from the city in 1546. For about a year he lives in enforced retire-
ment on the Upper Tagus (Ribatejo), pouring out his profound passion
and grief in a number of beautiful sonnets and elegies. Most likely
in consequence of some new offense, he is next exiled for two years
to Ceuta in Africa, where, in a fight with the Moors, he loses his
right eye by a chance splinter. Meeting on his return to Lisbon in
1547 neither with pardon for his indiscretions nor with recognition
for his services and poetic talent, he allows his keen resentment of
this unjust treatment to impel him into the reckless and turbulent
life of a bully. It was thus that during the festival of Corpus Christi
in 1552 he got into a quarrel with Gonçalo Borges, one of the King's
equerries, in which he wounded the latter. For this Camoens was
thrown into jail until March, 1553, when he was released only on
condition that he should embark to serve in India. Not quite two
weeks after leaving his prison, on March 24th, he sailed for India on
the flag-ship Sam Bento, bidding, as a true Renaissance poet, fare-
well to his native land in the words of Scipio which were to come
true: "Ingrata patria non possidebis ossa mea. " After a stormy pas-
sage of six months, the Sam Bento cast anchor in the bay of Goa.
Camoens first took part in an expedition against the King of Pimenta,
and in the following year (1554) he joined another directed against
the Moorish pirates on the coast of Africa. The scenes of drunken-
ness and dissoluteness which he witnessed in Goa inspired him with
a number of satirical poems, by which he drew upon himself much
enmity and persecution. In 1556 his three-years' term of service
expired; but though ardently longing for his beloved native land, he
remained in Goa, influenced either by his bent for the soldier's life
or by the sad news of the death of Donna Catharina de Athaide in


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3133
that year.
He was ordered to Macao in China, to the lucrative post
of commissary for the effects of deceased or absent Portuguese sub-
jects. There, in the quietude of a grotto near Macao, still called the
Grotto of Camoens, the exiled poet finished the first six cantos of his
great epic The Lusiads. ' Recalled from this post in 1558, before
the expiration of his term, on the charge of malversation of office,
Camoens on his return voyage to Goa was shipwrecked near the
mouth of the Me-Kong, saving nothing but his faithful Javanese slave
and the manuscript of his 'Lusiads' — which, swimming with one
hand, he held above the water with the other. In Cambodia, where
he remained several months, he wrote his marvelous paraphrase of
the 137th psalm, contrasting under the allegory of Babel (Babylon)
and Siam (Zion), Goa and Lisbon. Upon his return to Goa he was
cast into prison, but soon set free on proving his innocence by a
public trial. Though receiving, in 1557, another lucrative employ-
ment, Camoens finally resolved to go home, burning with the desire
to lay his patriotic song, now almost completed, before his nation,
and to cover with honor his injured name.
He accepted a passage to Sofala offered him by Pedro Barreto,
who had become viceroy of Mozambique in that year. Unable to
refund the amount of the passage, he was once more held for debt
and spent two years of misery and distress in Mozambique, complet-
ing and polishing during this time his great epic song and preparing
the collection of his lyrics, his 'Parnasso. ' In 1559 he was released
by the historian Diogo do Couto and other friends of his, visiting
Sofala with the expedition of Noronha, and embarked on the Santa
Clara for Lisbon.
On the 7th of April, 1570, Camoens once more set foot on his native
soil, only to find the city for which he had yearned, sadly changed.
The government was in the hands of a brave but harebrained and
fanatic young monarch, ruled by the Jesuits; the capital had been
ravaged by a terrible plague which had carried off fifty thousand
souls; and its society had no room for a man who brought with him
from the Indies, whence so many returned with great riches, nothing
but a manuscript, though in it was sung in classic verse the glory of
his people. Still, through the kind offices of his warm friend Dom
Manoel de Portugal, Camoens obtained, on the 25th of September, 1571,
the royal permission to print his epic. It was published in the spring
of the following year (March, 1572). Great as was the success of the
work, which marked a new epoch in Portuguese history, the reward
which the poet received for it was meagre. King Sebastian granted
him an annual pension of fifteen thousand reis (fifteen dollars, which
then had the purchasing value of about sixty dollars in our money),
which, after the poet's death, was ordered by Philip II. to be paid to


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3134
LUIZ VAZ DE CAMOENS
his aged mother.
Destitute and broken in spirit, Camoens lived for
the last eight years of his life with his mother in a humble house
near the convent of Santa Ana, "in the knowledge of many and in
the society of few. " Dom Sebastian's departure early in 1578 for the
conquest in Africa once more kindled patriotic hopes in his breast;
but the terrible defeat at Alcazarquivir (August 4th of the same year),
in which Portugal lost her king and her army, broke his heart. He
died on the 10th of June, 1580, at which time the army of Philip II. ,
under the command of the Duke of Alva, was marching upon Lisbon.
He was thus spared the cruel blow of seeing, though not of fore-
seeing, the national death of his country. The story that his Javanese
slave Antonio used to go out at night to beg of passers-by alms for
his master, is one of a number of touching legends which, as early
as 1572, popular fancy had begun to weave around the poet's life.
It is true, however, that Camoens breathed his last in dire distress
and isolation, and was buried "poorly and plebeianly" in the neigh-
boring convent of Santa Ana. It was not until sixteen years later
that a friend of his, Dom Gonçalo Coutinho, caused his grave to be
marked with a marble slab bearing the inscription:-"Here lies Luis
de Camoens, Prince of the Poets of his time. He died in the year
1579. This tomb was placed for him by order of D. Gonçalo Coutinho.
and none shall be buried in it. " The words "He lived poor and
neglected, and so died," which in the popular tradition form part of
this inscription, are apocryphal, though entirely in conformity with
the facts. The correctness of 1580 instead of 1579 as the year of the
poet's death is proven by an official document in the archives of
Philip II. Both the memorial slab and the convent-church of Santa
Ana were destroyed by the earthquake of 1755 and during the
rebuilding of the convent, and the identification of the remains of
the great man thus rendered well-nigh impossible. In 1854, however,
all the bones found under the floor of the convent-church were placed
in a coffin of Brazil-wood and solemnly deposited in the convent at
Belem, the Pantheon of King Emanuel. In 1867 a statue was erected
to Camoens by the city of Lisbon.
"The Lusiads (Portuguese, Os Lusíadas), a patronymic adopted by
Camoens in place of the usual term Lusitanos, the descendants of
Lusus (the mythical ancestor of the Portuguese), is an epic poem
which, as its name implies, has for its subject the heroic deeds not
of one hero, but of the whole Portuguese nation. Vasco da Gama's
discovery of the way to the East Indies forms, to be sure, the cen-
tral part of its action; but around it are grouped, with consummate
art, the heroic deeds and destinies of the other Lusitanians. In this,
Camoens' work stands alone among all poems of its kind. Originat-
ing under conditions similar to those which are indispensable to the


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3135
production of a true epic, in the heroic period of the Portuguese
people, when national sentiment had risen to its highest point, it is
the only one among the modern epopees which comes near to the
primitive character of epic poetry. A trait which distinguishes this
epic from all its predecessors is the historic truthfulness with which
Camoens confessedly-"A verdade que eu conto nua e pura Vence toda
a grandiloqua escriptura "— represents his heroic personages and their
exploits, tempering his praise with blame where blame is due, and
the unquestioned fidelity and exactness with which he depicts nat-
ural scenes. Lest, however, this adherence to historic truth should
impair the vivifying element of imagination indispensable to true
poetry, our bard, combining in the true spirit of the Renaissance
myth and miracle, threw around his narrative the allegorical dra-
pery of pagan mythology, introducing the gods and goddesses of
Olympus as siding with or against the Portuguese heroes, and thus
calling the imagination of the reader into more active play. Among
the many beautiful inventions of his own creative fancy with which
Camoens has adorned his poem, we shall only mention the powerful
impersonation of the Cape of Storms in the Giant Adamastor (c. v. ),
an episode used by Meyerbeer in his opera 'L'Africaine,' and the en-
chanting scene of the Isle of Love (c. ix. ), as characteristic of the
poet's delicacy of touch as it is of his Portuguese temperament, in
which Venus provides for the merited reward and the continuance of
the brave sons of Lusus. For the metric form of his verse, Camoens
adopted the octave rhyme of Ariosto, while for his epic style he fol-
lowed Virgil, from whom many a simile and phrase is directly bor-
rowed. His poem, justly admired for the elegant simplicity, the
purity and harmony of its diction, bears throughout the deep imprint
of his own powerful and noble personality, that independence and
magnanimity of spirit, that fortitude of soul, that genuine and glow-
ing patriotism which alone, amid all the disappointments and dan-
gers, the dire distress and the foibles and faults of his life, could
enable him to give his mind and heart steadfastly to the fulfillment
of the lofty patriotic task he had set his genius, - the creation of a
lasting monument to the heroic deeds of his race. It is thus that
through The Lusiads' Camoens became the moral bond of the
national individuality of his people, and inspired it with the energy
to rise free once more out of Spanish subjection.
Lyrics. Here, Camoens is hardly less great than as an epic poet,
whether we consider the nobility, depth, and fervor of the senti-
ments filling his songs, or the artistic perfection, the rich variety of
form, and the melody of his verse. His lyric works fall into two
main classes, those written in Italian metres and those in the tra-
ditional trochaic lines and strophic forms of the Spanish peninsula.
The first class is contained in the 'Parnasso,' which comprises 356


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3136
LUIZ VAZ DE CAMOENS
sonnets, 22 canzones, 27 elegies, 12 odes, 8 octaves, and 15 idyls, all
of which testify to the great influence of the Italian school, and
especially of Petrarch, on our poet. The second class is embodied
in the Cancioneiro,' or song-book, and embraces more than one
hundred and fifty compositions in the national peninsular manner.
Together, these two collections form a body of lyric verse of such
richness and variety as neither Petrarch and Tasso nor Garcilaso de
la Vega can offer. Unfortunately, Camoens never prepared an edition
of his Rimas; and the manuscript, which, as Diogo do Couto tells us,
he arranged during his sojourn in Mozambique from 1567 to 1569, is
said to have been stolen. It was not until 1595, fully fifteen years
after the poet's death, that one of his disciples and admirers, Fernão
Rodrigues Lobo Soropita, collected from Portugal, and even from
India, and published in Lisbon, a volume of one hundred and seventy-
two songs, four of which, however, are not by Camoens. The great
mass of verse we now possess has been gathered during the last
three centuries. More may still be discovered, while, on the other
hand, much of what is now attributed to Camoens does not belong
to him, and the question how much of the extant material is gen-
uine is yet to be definitely answered.
In his lyrics, Camoens has depicted, with all the passion and
power of his impressionable temperament, the varied experiences
and emotions of his eventful life. This variety and change of senti-
ments and situations, while greatly enhancing the value of his songs
by the impression of fuller truth and individuality which they pro-
duce, is in so far disadvantageous to a just appreciation of them, as
it naturally brings with it much verse of inferior poetic merit, and
lacks that harmony and unity of emotion which Petrarch was able
to effect in his Rime by confining himself to the portraiture of a
lover's soul.
Drama. In his youth, most likely during his life at court between
1542 and 1546, Camoens wrote three comedies of much freshness and
verve, in which he surpassed all the Portuguese plays in the national
taste produced up to his time. One, 'Filodemo,' derives its plot
from a medieval novel; the other two, 'Rei Seleuco' (King Seleucus)
and Amphitryões,' from antiquity. The last named, a free imitation
of Plautus's 'Amphitryo,' is by far the best play of the three.
these comedies we can recognize an attempt on the part of the author
to fuse the imperfect play in the national taste, such as it had been
cultivated by Gil Vicente, with the more regular but lifeless pieces
of the classicists, and thus to create a superior form of national
comedy. In this endeavor, however, Camoens found no followers.
In
Bibliography. The most complete edition of the works of Camoens
is that by the Viscount de Juromenha, Obras de Luiz de Camões,'
(6 vols. , Lisbon, 1860-70); a more convenient edition is the one by


## p. 3137 (#107) ###########################################

LUIZ VAZ DE CAMOENS
3137
Th. Braga (in 'Bibliotheca da Actualidade,' 3 vols. , Porto, 1874).
The best separate edition of the text of The Lusiads' is by F. A.
Coelho (Lisbon, 1880). Camoens' lyric and dramatic works are pub-
lished in his collected works, no separate editions of them existing
thus far. In regard to the life and works of Camoens in general cf.
Adamson, 'Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Camoens (2 vols. ,
London, 1820); Th. Braga, 'Historia de Camoens (3 vols. , Porto,
1873-75); Latino Coelho, 'Luiz de Camoens' (in the 'Galeria de varões
illustres, i. , Lisbon, 1880); J. de Vasconcellos, 'Bibliographia Camo-
niana (Porto, 1880); Brito Aranha, Estudos Bibliographicos' (Lisbon,
1887-8); W. Storck, 'Luis' de Camoens Leben' (Paderborn, 1890);
and especially the judicious and impartial article by Mrs. Carolina
Michaelis de Vasconcellos in Vol. ii. of Gröber's Grundriss der
romanischen Philologie' (Strassburg, 1894). The best translations of
Camoens' works are the one by W. Storck, Camoens' Sämmtliche
Gedichte, 6 vols. , Paderborn, 1880-85), into German, and the one by
R. F. Burton, who has also written on the life of the poet, The
Lusiads' (2 vols. , London, 1880), and 'The Lyricks' (3 vols. , London,
1884, containing only those in Italian metres), into English. The ex-
tracts given below are from Burton.
Henry R. Lang
THE LUSIADS
CANTO I
THE
HE feats of Arms, and famed heroick Host,
from occidental Lusitanian strand,
who o'er the waters ne'er by seaman crost,
farèd beyond the Taprobane-land,
forceful in. perils and in battle-post,
with more than promised force of mortal hand;
and in the regions of a distant race
rear'd a new throne so haught in Pride of Place:
And, eke, the Kings of mem'ory grand and glorious,
who hied them Holy Faith and Reign to spread,
converting, conquering, and in lands notorious,
Africk and Asia, devastation made;
nor less the Lieges who by deeds memorious
brake from the doom that binds the vulgar dead;
my song would sound o'er Earth's extremest part
were mine the genius, mine the Poet's art.
VI-197


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Cease the sage Grecian, and the man of Troy
to vaunt long voyage made in by-gone day:
Cease Alexander, Trojan cease to 'joy
the fame of vict'ories that have pass'd away:
The noble Lusian's stouter breast sing I,
whom Mars and Neptune dared not disobey:
Cease all that antique Muse hath sung, for now
a better Brav'ry rears its bolder brow.
And you, my Tagian Nymphs, who have create
in me new purpose with new genius firing;
if 'twas my joy whilere to celebrate
your founts and stream my humble song inspiring;
Oh! lend me here a noble strain elate,
a style grandiloquent that flows untiring;
so shall Apollo for your waves ordain ye
in name and fame ne'er envy Hippokréné.
Grant me sonorous accents, fire-abounding,
now serves ne peasant's pipe, ne rustick reed;
but blasts of trumpet, long and loud resounding,
that 'flameth heart and hue to fiery deed:
Grant me high strains to suit their Gestes astounding,
your Sons, who aided Mars in martial need;
that o'er the world he sung the glorious song,
if theme so lofty may to verse belong.
And Thou! O goodly omen'd trust, all-dear¹
to Lusitania's olden liberty,
whereon assurèd esperance we rear
enforced to see our frail Christianity:
Thou, O new terror to the Moorish spear,
the fated marvel of our century,
to govern worlds of men by God so given,
that the world's best be given to God and Heaven:
Thou young, thou tender, ever-flourishing bough,
true scion of tree by Christ belovèd more
than aught that Occident did ever know,
"Cæsarian" or "Most Christian" styled before:
Look on thy 'scutcheon, and behold it show
the present Vict'ory long past ages bore;
Arms which He gave and made thine own to be
by Him assurèd on the fatal tree:"
1 Invocation to Dom Sebastian.
2 The Arms of Portugal (Canto iii. , 53, 54).


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3139
Thou, mighty Sovran! o'er whose lofty reign
the rising Sun rains earliest smile of light;
sees it from middle firmamental plain;
And sights it sinking on the breast of Night:
Thou, whom we hope to hail the blight, the bane
of the dishonour'd Ishmaëlitish knight;
and Orient Turk, and Gentoo- misbeliever
that drinks the liquor of the Sacred River:¹
Incline awhile, I pray, that majesty
which in thy tender years I see thus ample,
E'en now prefiguring full maturity
that shall be shrined in Fame's eternal temple:
Those royal eyne that beam benignity
bend on low earth: Behold a new ensample
of hero hearts with patriot pride inflamèd,
in number'd verses manifold proclaimèd.
Thou shalt see Love of Land that ne'er shall own
lust of vile lucre; soaring towards th' Eternal:
For 'tis no light ambition to be known
th' acclaimèd herald of my nest paternal.
Hear; thou shalt see the great names greater grown
of Vavasors who hail the Lord Supernal:
So shalt thou judge which were the higher station,
King of the world or Lord of such a nation.
Hark, for with vauntings vain thou shalt not view
phantastical, fictitious, lying deed
of lieges lauded, as strange Muses do,
seeking their fond and foolish pride to feed
Thine acts so forceful are, told simply true,
all fabled, dreamy feats they far exceed;
exceeding Rodomont, and Ruggiero vain,
and Roland haply born of Poet's brain.
For these I give thee a Nuno, fierce in fight,
who for his King and Country freely bled;
an Egas and a Fuas; fain I might
for them my lay with harp Homeric wed!
For the twelve peerless Peers again I cite
the Twelve of England by Magriço led:
Nay, more, I give thee Gama's noble name,
who for himself claims all Eneas' fame.
The Ganges (not the Jordan).


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And if in change for royal Charles of France,
or rivalling Cæsar's mem'ories thou wouldst trow,
the first Afonso see, whose conquering lance
lays highest boast of stranger glories low:
See him who left his realm th' inheritance
fair Safety, born of wars that crusht the foe:
That other John, a knight no fear deter'd,
the fourth and fifth Afonso, and the third.
Nor shall they silent in my song remain,
they who in regions there where Dawns arise,
by Acts of Arms such glories toil'd to gain,
where thine unvanquisht flag for ever flies,
Pacheco, brave of braves; th' Almeidas twain,
whom Tagus mourns with ever-weeping eyes;
dread Albuquerque, Castro stark and brave,
with more, the victors of the very grave.
But, singing these, of thee I may not sing,
O King sublime! such theme I fain must fear.
Take of thy reign the reins, so shall my King
create a poesy new to mortal ear:
E'en now the mighty burthen here I ring
(and speed its terrors over all the sphere! )
of sing'ular prowess, War's own prodigies,
in Africk regions and on Orient seas.
Casteth on thee the Moor eyne cold with fright,
in whom his coming doom he views designed:
The barb'rous Gentoo, sole to see thy sight
yields to thy yoke the neck e'en now inclined;
Tethys, of azure seas the sovran right,
her realm, in dowry hath to thee resignèd;
and by thy noble tender beauty won,
would bribe and buy thee to become her son.
In thee from high Olympick halls behold
themselves, thy grandsires' sprites; far-famèd pair;1
this clad in Peacetide's angel-robe of gold,
that crimson-hued with paint of battle-glare:
By thee they hope to see their tale twice told,
their lofty mem'ries live again; and there,
when Time thy years shall end, for thee they 'sign
a seat where soareth Fame's eternal shrine.
¹ D. Joam III. and the Emperor Charles Quint.


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3141
But, sithence ancient Time slow minutes by
ere ruled the Peoples who desire such boon;
bend on my novel rashness favouring eye,
that these my verses may become thine own:
So shalt thou see thine Argonauts o'erfly
yon salty argent, when they see it shown
thou seest their labours on the raging sea:
Learn even now invok'd of man to be. ¹
CANTO III
Now, my Calliope! to teach incline
what speech great Gama for the king did frame:
Inspire immortal song, grant voice divine
unto this mortal who so loves thy name.
Thus may the God whose gift was Medicine,
to whom thou barest Orpheus, lovely Dame!
never for Daphne, Clytia, Leucothoë
due love deny thee or inconstant grow he.
Satisfy, Nymph! desires that in me teem,
to sing the merits of thy Lusians brave;
so worlds shall see and say that Tagus-stream
rolls Aganippe's liquor. Leave, I crave,
leave flow'ry Pindus-head; e'en now I deem
Apollo bathes me in that sovran wave;
else must I hold it, that thy gentle sprite,
fears thy dear Orpheus fade through me from sight.
All stood with open ears in long array
to hear what mighty Gama mote unfold;
when, past in thoughtful mood a brief delay,
began he thus with brow high-raised and bold:
"Thou biddest me, O King! to say my say
anent our grand genealogy of old:
Thou bidd'st me not relate an alien story;
Thou bidd'st me laud my brother Lusian's glory.
"That one praise others' exploits and renown
is honour'd custom which we all desire;
yet fear I 'tis unfit to praise mine own;
lest praise, like this suspect, no trust inspire;
nor may I hope to make all matters known
for Time however long were short; yet, sire!
'End of exordium: narrative begins.


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as thou commandest all is owed to thee;
maugre my will I speak and brief will be.
"Nay, more, what most obligeth me, in fine,
is that no leasing in my tale may dwell;
for of such Feats whatever boast be mine,
when most is told, remaineth much to tell:
But that due order wait on the design,
e'en as desirest thou to learn full well,
the wide-spread Continent first I'll briefly trace,
then the fierce bloody wars that waged my race.
"Lo! here her presence showeth noble Spain,
of Europe's body corporal the head;
o'er whose home-rule, and glorious foreign reign,
the fatal Wheel so many a whirl hath made;
Yet ne'er her Past or force or fraud shall stain,
nor restless Fortune shall her name degrade;
no bonds her bellic offspring bind so tight
but it shall burst them with its force of sprite.
"There, facing Tingitania's shore, she seemeth
to block and bar the Med'iterranean wave,
where the known Strait its name ennobled deemeth
by the last labour of the Theban Brave.
with the burthen of her tribes she teemeth,
circled by whelming waves that rage and rave;
all noble races of such valiant breast,
that each may justly boast itself the best.
"Hers the Tarragonese who, famed in war,
made aye-perturbed Parthenopé obey;
the twain Asturias, and the haught Navarre
twin Christian bulwarks on the Moslem way:
Hers the Gallego canny, and the rare
Castilian, whom his star raised high to sway
Spain as her saviour, and his seign'iory feel
Bætis, Leon, Granada, and Castile.