But the
particulars
of the amours of Camoens rest
unknown.
unknown.
Camoes - Lusiades
?
The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lusiad, by Luis de Camoes
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Title: The Lusiad
or The Discovery of India, an Epic Poem
Author: Luis de Camoes
Editor: E. Richmond Hodges
Translator: William Julius Mickle
Release Date: May 26, 2010 [EBook #32528]
Language: English
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THE LUSIAD.
[Illustration: Image of Camoens]
THE LUSIAD;
OR,
THE DISCOVERY OF INDIA.
_AN EPIC POEM. _
TRANSLATED FROM THE PORTUGUESE OF LUIS DE CAMOENS.
WITH A LIFE OF THE POET.
BY WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE.
_FIFTH EDITION, REVISED,_
BY E. RICHMOND HODGES, M. C. P. ,
HON. LIBRARIAN TO THE SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY,
_Editor of "Cory's Ancient Fragments," "The Principia Hebraica," etc. , etc. _
LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET,
COVENT GARDEN.
1877.
"As the mirror of a heart so full of love, courage, generosity, and
patriotism as that of Camoens, The Lusaid can never fail to please us,
whatever place we may assign to it in the records of poetical
genius. "--HALLAM.
[ORIGINAL DEDICATION, 1776. ]
TO THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUGH.
MY LORD,
The first idea of offering my LUSIAD to some distinguished personage,
inspired the earnest wish, that it might be accepted by the illustrious
representative of that family under which my father, for many years,
discharged the duties of a clergyman.
Both the late Duke of BUCCLEUGH, and the Earl of DALKEITH, distinguished
him by particular marks of their favour; and I must have forgotten him,
if I could have wished to offer the first Dedication of my literary
labours to any other than the Duke of BUCCLEUGH.
I am, with the greatest respect,
My Lord,
Your Grace's most devoted
And most obedient humble servant,
WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE.
EDITOR'S PREFACE.
In undertaking, at the publishers' request, the function of editor of
Mickle's Lusiad, I have compared the translation with the original, and,
in some places, where another translation seemed preferable to, or more
literal than, Mickle's, I have, in addition, given that rendering in a
foot-note. Moreover, I have supplied the arguments to the several
cantos, given a few more explanatory notes, and added a table of
contents.
"The late ingenious translator of the Lusiad," says Lord Strangford,[1]
"has portrayed the character, and narrated the misfortunes of our poet,
in a manner more honourable to his feelings as a man than to his
accuracy in point of biographical detail. It is with diffidence that the
present writer essays to correct his errors; but, as the real
circumstances of the life of Camoens are mostly to be found in his own
minor compositions, with which Mr. Mickle was unacquainted, he trusts
that certain information will atone for his presumption. "
As Lord Strangford professes to have better and more recent sources of
information regarding the illustrious, but unfortunate, bard of
Portugal, I make no apology for presenting to the reader an abstract of
his lordship's memoir. Much further information will be found, however,
in an able article contained in No. 53 of the _Quarterly Review_ for
July, 1822, from the pen, I believe, of the poet Southey. "The family of
Camoens was illustrious," says Lord Strangford, "and originally Spanish.
They were long settled at Cadmon, a castle in Galicia, from which they
probably derived their patronymic appellation. However, there are some
who maintain that their name alluded to a certain wonderful bird,[2]
whose mischievous sagacity discovered and punished the smallest
deviation from conjugal fidelity. A lady of the house of Cadmon, whose
conduct had been rather indiscreet, demanded to be tried by this
extraordinary judge. Her innocence was proved, and, in gratitude to the
being who had restored him to matrimonial felicity, the contented
husband adopted his name. " It would appear that in a dispute between the
families of Cadmon and De Castera, a cavalier of the latter family was
slain. This happened in the fourteenth century. A long train of
persecution followed, to escape which, Ruy de Camoens, having embraced
the cause of Ferdinand, removed with his family into Portugal, about
A. D. 1370. His son, Vasco de Camoens, was highly distinguished by royal
favour, and had the honour of being the ancestor of our poet, who
descended from him in the fourth generation. Luia de Camoens, the author
of the Lusiad, was born at Lisbon about A. D. 1524. His misfortunes began
with his birth--he never saw a father's smile--for Simon Vasco de
Camoens perished by shipwreck in the very year which gave being to his
illustrious son. The future poet was sent to the university of
Coimbra--then at the height of its fame,--"and maintained there by the
provident care of his surviving parent. "
"Love," says Lord Strangford, "is very nearly allied to devotion, and it
was in the exercise of the latter, that Camoens was introduced to the
knowledge of the former. In the Church of Christ's Wounds at Lisbon, on
11th April, 1542, Camoens first beheld Dona Caterina de Atayde, the
object of his purest and earliest attachment . . . and it was not long
before Camoens enjoyed an opportunity of declaring his affection, with
all the romantic ardour of eighteen and of a poet. " The peculiar
situation of the lady, as one of the maids of honour to the queen,
imposed a restraint upon her admirer which soon became intolerable; and
he, for having violated the sanctity of the royal precincts, was in
consequence banished from the court. Whatever may have been the nature
of his offence, "it furnished a pretext to the young lady's relations
for terminating an intercourse which worldly considerations rendered
highly imprudent. "
But Love consoled his votary: his mistress, on the morning of his
departure, confessed the secret of her long-concealed affection, and the
sighs of grief were soon lost in those of mutual delight. The hour of
parting was, perhaps, the sweetest of our poet's existence.
Camoens removed to Santarem, but speedily returned to Lisbon, was a
second time detected, and again driven into exile. [3]
The voice of Love inspired our poet "with the glorious resolution of
conquering the obstacles which fortune had placed between him and
felicity. " He obtained permission, therefore, to accompany King John
III. in an expedition then fitting out against the Moors in Africa. In
one of the engagements with the enemy our hero had the misfortune to
lose "his right eye, by some splinters from the deck of the vessel in
which he was stationed. Many of his most pathetic compositions were
written during this campaign, and the toils of a martial life were
sweetened by the recollection of her for whose sake they were endured.
His heroic conduct at length procured his recall to court," but to find,
alas, that his mistress was no more.
Disappointed in his hope of obtaining any recognition of his valiant
deeds, he now resolved, under the burning sun of India, to seek that
independence which his own country denied. "The last words I uttered,"
says Camoens, "on board the vessel before leaving, were those of Scipio:
'Ungrateful country! thou shalt not even possess my bones. '" "Some,"
says Lord Strangford, "attribute his departure to a very different
cause, and assert that he quitted his native shores on account of an
intrigue in which he was detected with the beautiful wife of a
Portuguese gentleman. Perhaps," says Lord Strangford, "this story may
not be wholly unfounded. " On his arrival in India he contributed by his
bravery to the success of an expedition carried on by the King of
Cochin, and his allies, the Portuguese, against the Pimento Islands; and
in the following year (1555) he accompanied Manuel de Vasconcelos in an
expedition to the Red Sea. Here he explored the wild regions of East
Africa, and stored his mind with ideas of scenery, which afterwards
formed some of the most finished pictures of the Lusiad.
On his return to Goa, Camoens devoted his whole attention to the
completion of his poem; but an unfortunate satire which, under the title
of _Disparates na India_, or Follies in India, he wrote against the
vices and corruptions of the Portuguese authorities in Goa, so roused
the indignation of the viceroy that the poet was banished to China.
Of his adventures in China, and the temporary prosperity he enjoyed
there, while he held the somewhat uncongenial office of _Provedor dos
defuntos_, i. e. , Trustee for deceased persons, Mickle has given an ample
account in the introduction to the Lusiad. During those years Camoens
completed his poem, about half of which was written before he left
Europe. According to a tradition, not improbable in itself, he composed
great part of it in a natural grotto which commands a splendid view of
the city and harbour of Macao. An engraving of it may be seen in
Onseley's Oriental Collections, and another will be found in Sir G.
Staunton's Account of the Embassy to China.
A little temple, in the Chinese style, has been erected upon the rock,
and the ground around it has been ornamented by Mr. Fitzhugh, one of our
countrymen, from respect to the memory of the poet. The years that he
passed in Macao were probably the happiest of his life. Of his departure
for Europe, and his unfortunate shipwreck at the mouth of the river
Meekhaun,[4] in Cochin China, Mickle has also given a sufficient
account.
Lord Strangford has related, on the authority of Sousa, that while our
poet was languishing in poverty at Lisbon, "a cavalier, named Ruy de
Camera, called on him one day, asking him to finish for him a poetical
version of the seven penitential psalms. Raising his head from his
wretched pallet, and pointing to his faithful Javanese attendant, he
exclaimed, 'Alas, when I was a poet, I was young, and happy, and blest
with the love of ladies; but now I am a forlorn, deserted wretch.
See--there stands my poor Antonio, vainly supplicating fourpence to
purchase a little coals--I have them not to give him. ' The cavalier, as
Sousa relates, closed both his heart and his purse, and quitted the
room. Such were the grandees of Portugal. " Camoens sank under the
pressure of penury and disease, and died in an alms-house, early in
1579, and was buried in the church of Sta. Anna of the Franciscan
Friars. Over his grave Gonzalo Coutinho placed the following
inscription:--
"HERE LIES LUIS DE CAMOENS.
HE EXCELLED ALL THE POETS OF HIS TIME.
HE LIVED POOR AND MISERABLE, AND HE DIED SO.
MDLXXIX. "
The translator of the Lusiad was born, in 1734, at Langholm, in
Dumfriesshire, where his father, a good French scholar, was the
Presbyterian minister. At the age of sixteen William Julius Mickle was
removed, to his great dislike, from school, and sent into the
counting-house of a relation of his mother's, a brewer, where, against
his inclination, he remained five years. He subsequently, for family
reasons, became the head of the firm, and carried on the business. It is
not to be wondered at, however, that with his dislike to business in
general and to this one in particular, he did not succeed; and it is
quite reasonable to suppose that the cause of his failure, and
subsequent pecuniary embarrassments, arose from his having devoted those
hours to his poetical studies which should have been dedicated to
business. Mickle obtained afterwards the appointment of corrector of the
Clarendon Press in Oxford, and died at Wheatly, in Oxfordshire, in 1789.
Southey speaks of Mickle (_Quarterly Review_, liii. p. 29) as a man of
genius who had ventured upon the chance of living by his literary
labours, and says that he "did not over-rate the powers which he was
conscious of possessing, knew that he could rely upon himself for their
due exertion, and had sufficient worldly prudence to look out for a
subject which was likely to obtain notice and patronage. " His other
poems, Pollio, Sir Martyn, etc. , with the exception of his Cumnor Hall,
are not held in high estimation.
Describing the several poetic versions of the Lusiad, Mr. Musgrave
says,[5] of Fanshaw's version, that "its language is antiquated, and in
many instances it travesties the original, and seldom long sustains the
tone of epic gravity suited to the poem. It is, however," says he, "more
faithful than the translation of Mickle, but it would be ungenerous," he
adds, "to dwell on the paraphrastic licences which abound in Mickle's
performance, and on its many interpolations and omissions. Mr. Mickle
thought, no doubt," says Musgrave, "that by this process he should
produce a poem which in its perusal might afford a higher gratification.
Nor am I prepared to say that by all readers this would be deemed a
miscalculation. Let it not be supposed, however, that I wish to detract
from the intrinsic merit of his translation. It is but an act of justice
to admit, that it contains many passages of exquisite beauty, and that
it is a performance which discovers much genius, a cultivated taste, and
a brilliant imagination. Many parts of the original are rendered with
great facility, elegance, and fidelity. In poetical elegance I presume
not to enter into competition with him. "
For his own performance Musgrave claims the merit of greater fidelity to
the original; but in respect of harmony, in true poetic grace, and
sublimity of diction, his translation will bear no comparison with
Mickle's version; for even Southey, in the article before quoted, though
very hard upon his interpolations, admits that, "Mickle was a man of
genius . . . a man whom we admire and respect; whose memory is without a
spot, and whose name will live among the English poets. " (_Quarterly
Review_, liii. p. 29. )
It only remains for me to say, that in order to place the reader in a
position to judge of the merits of this sublime effort of genius, I have
distinguished Mickle's longer interpolations by printing them in Bk. i.
p. 24, in _Italics_, and in the first 300 lines of Bk. ix. by calling
the attention of the reader to the interpolation by means of a
foot-note. The notes are, in general, left as written by the translator,
except in some cases where it seemed advisable to curtail them. Original
notes are indicated by the abbreviation "_Ed. _"
THE EDITOR.
LONDON, 1877.
THE LIFE OF CAMOENS,
BY WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE.
When the glory of the arms of Portugal had reached its meridian
splendour, Nature, as if in pity of the literary rudeness of that
nation, produced a great poet to record the numberless actions of high
spirit performed by his countrymen. Except Osorius, the historians of
Portugal are little better than dry journalists. But it is not their
inelegance which rendered the poet necessary. It is the peculiar nature
of poetry to give a colouring to heroic actions, and to express
indignation against breaches of honour, in a spirit which at once seizes
the heart of the man of feeling, and carries with it instantaneous
conviction. The brilliant actions of the Portuguese form the great hinge
which opened the door to the most important alterations in the civil
history of mankind. And to place these actions in the light and
enthusiasm of poetry--that enthusiasm which particularly assimilates the
youthful breast to its own fires--was Luis de Camoens the poet of
Portugal, born.
Different cities have claimed the honour of his birth. But according to
N. Antonio, and Manuel Correa, his intimate friend, this event happened
at Lisbon in 1517. [6] His family was of considerable note, and
originally Spanish. In 1370 Vasco Perez de Caamans, disgusted at the
court of Castile, fled to that of Lisbon, where King Ferdinand
immediately admitted him into his council, and gave him the lordships of
Sardoal, Punnete, Marano, Amendo, and other considerable lands; a
certain proof of the eminence of his rank and abilities. In the war for
the succession, which broke out on the death of Ferdinand, Caamans
sided with the King of Castile, and was killed in the battle of
Aljabarota. But though John I. , the victor, seized a great part of his
estate, his widow, the daughter of Gonsalo Tereyro, grand master of the
Order of Christ, and general of the Portuguese army, was not reduced
beneath her rank. She had three sons, who took the name of Camoens. The
family of the eldest intermarried with the first nobility of Portugal,
and even, according to Castera, with the blood royal. But the family of
the second brother, whose fortune was slender, had the superior honour
to produce the author of the Lusiad.
Early in life the misfortunes of the poet began. In his infancy, Simon
Vaz de Camoens, his father, commander of a vessel, was shipwrecked at
Goa, where, with his life, the greatest part of his fortune was lost.
His mother, however, Anne de Macedo of Santarem, provided for the
education of her son Luis, at the University of Coimbra. What he
acquired there his works discover; an intimacy with the classics, equal
to that of a Scaliger, but directed by the taste of a Milton or a Pope.
When he left the university he appeared at court. He was a polished
scholar and very handsome,[7] possessing a most engaging mien and
address, with the finest complexion, which, added to the natural ardour
and gay vivacity of his deposition, rendered him an accomplished
gentleman. Courts are the scenes of intrigue, and intrigue was
fashionable at Lisbon. But the particulars of the amours of Camoens rest
unknown. This only appears: he had aspired above his rank, for he was
banished from the court; and in several of his sonnets he ascribes this
misfortune to love.
He now retired to his mother's friends at Santarem. Here he renewed his
studies, and began his poem on the discovery of India. John III. at this
time prepared an armament against Africa. Camoens, tired of his
inactive, obscure life, went to Ceuta in this expedition, and greatly
distinguished his valour in several _rencontres_. In a naval engagement
with the Moors in the Straits of Gibraltar, Camoens, in the conflict of
boarding, where he was among the foremost, lost his right eye. Yet
neither the hurry of actual service, nor the dissipation of the camp,
could stifle his genius. He continued his _Lusiadas_; and several of his
most beautiful sonnets were written in Africa, while, as he expresses
it,
"One hand the pen, and ant the sword employ'd. "
The fame of his valour had now reached the Court, and he obtained
permission to return to Lisbon. But while he solicited an establishment
which he had merited in the ranks of battle, the malignity of evil
tongues (as he calls it in one of his letters) was injuriously poured
upon him. Though the bloom of his early youth was effaced by several
years residence under the scorching sky of Africa, and though altered by
the loss of an eye, his presence gave uneasiness to the gentlemen of
some families of the first rank where he had formerly visited. Jealousy
is the characteristic of the Spanish and Portuguese; its resentment
knows no bounds, and Camoens now found it prudent to banish himself from
his native country. Accordingly, in 1553 he hailed for India, with a
resolution never to return. As the ship left the Tagus he exclaimed, in
the words of the sepulchral monument of Scipio Africanus, "_Ingrata
patria, non possidebis ossa mea! _" (Ungrateful country, thou shalt not
possess my bones! ) But he knew not what evils in the East would awaken
the remembrance of his native fields.
When Camoens arrived in India, an expedition was ready to sail to
revenge the King of Cochin on the King of Pimenta. Without any rest on
shore after his long voyage, he joined this armament, and, in the
conquest of the Alagada Islands, displayed his usual bravery. But his
modesty, perhaps, is his greatest praise. In a sonnet he mentions this
expedition: "We went to punish the King of Pimenta," says he, "_e
succedeones bem_" (and we succeeded well). When it is considered that
the poet bore no inconsiderable share in the victory, no ode can
conclude more elegantly, more happily than this.
In the year following, he attended Manuel de Vasconcello in an
expedition to the Red Sea. Here, says Faria, as Camoens had no use for
his sword, he employed his pen. Nor was his activity confined to the
fleet or camp. He visited Mount Felix, and the adjacent inhospitable
regions of Africa, which he so strongly pictures in the Lusiad, and in
one of his little pieces, where he laments the absence of his mistress.
When he returned to Goa, he enjoyed a tranquility which enabled him to
bestow his attention on his epic poem. But this serenity was
interrupted, perhaps by his own imprudence. He wrote some satires which
gave offence, and by order of the viceroy, Francisco Barreto, he was
banished to China.
Men of poor abilities are more conscious of their embarrassment and
errors than is commonly believed. When men of this kind are in power,
they affect great solemnity; and every expression of the most distant
tendency to lessen their dignity is held as the greatest of crimes.
Conscious, also, how severely the man of genius can hurt their interest,
they bear an instinctive antipathy against him, are uneasy even in his
company, and, on the slightest pretence, are happy to drive him from
them. Camoens was thus situated at Goa; and never was there a fairer
field for satire than the rulers of India at that time afforded. Yet,
whatever esteem the prudence of Camoens may lose in our idea, the
nobleness of his disposition will doubly gain. And, so conscious was he
of his real integrity and innocence, that in one of his sonnets he
wishes no other revenge on Barreto than that the cruelty of his exile
should ever be remembered. [8]
The accomplishments and manners of Camoens soon found him friends,
though under the disgrace of banishment.
But the particulars of the amours of Camoens rest
unknown. This only appears: he had aspired above his rank, for he was
banished from the court; and in several of his sonnets he ascribes this
misfortune to love.
He now retired to his mother's friends at Santarem. Here he renewed his
studies, and began his poem on the discovery of India. John III. at this
time prepared an armament against Africa. Camoens, tired of his
inactive, obscure life, went to Ceuta in this expedition, and greatly
distinguished his valour in several _rencontres_. In a naval engagement
with the Moors in the Straits of Gibraltar, Camoens, in the conflict of
boarding, where he was among the foremost, lost his right eye. Yet
neither the hurry of actual service, nor the dissipation of the camp,
could stifle his genius. He continued his _Lusiadas_; and several of his
most beautiful sonnets were written in Africa, while, as he expresses
it,
"One hand the pen, and ant the sword employ'd. "
The fame of his valour had now reached the Court, and he obtained
permission to return to Lisbon. But while he solicited an establishment
which he had merited in the ranks of battle, the malignity of evil
tongues (as he calls it in one of his letters) was injuriously poured
upon him. Though the bloom of his early youth was effaced by several
years residence under the scorching sky of Africa, and though altered by
the loss of an eye, his presence gave uneasiness to the gentlemen of
some families of the first rank where he had formerly visited. Jealousy
is the characteristic of the Spanish and Portuguese; its resentment
knows no bounds, and Camoens now found it prudent to banish himself from
his native country. Accordingly, in 1553 he hailed for India, with a
resolution never to return. As the ship left the Tagus he exclaimed, in
the words of the sepulchral monument of Scipio Africanus, "_Ingrata
patria, non possidebis ossa mea! _" (Ungrateful country, thou shalt not
possess my bones! ) But he knew not what evils in the East would awaken
the remembrance of his native fields.
When Camoens arrived in India, an expedition was ready to sail to
revenge the King of Cochin on the King of Pimenta. Without any rest on
shore after his long voyage, he joined this armament, and, in the
conquest of the Alagada Islands, displayed his usual bravery. But his
modesty, perhaps, is his greatest praise. In a sonnet he mentions this
expedition: "We went to punish the King of Pimenta," says he, "_e
succedeones bem_" (and we succeeded well). When it is considered that
the poet bore no inconsiderable share in the victory, no ode can
conclude more elegantly, more happily than this.
In the year following, he attended Manuel de Vasconcello in an
expedition to the Red Sea. Here, says Faria, as Camoens had no use for
his sword, he employed his pen. Nor was his activity confined to the
fleet or camp. He visited Mount Felix, and the adjacent inhospitable
regions of Africa, which he so strongly pictures in the Lusiad, and in
one of his little pieces, where he laments the absence of his mistress.
When he returned to Goa, he enjoyed a tranquility which enabled him to
bestow his attention on his epic poem. But this serenity was
interrupted, perhaps by his own imprudence. He wrote some satires which
gave offence, and by order of the viceroy, Francisco Barreto, he was
banished to China.
Men of poor abilities are more conscious of their embarrassment and
errors than is commonly believed. When men of this kind are in power,
they affect great solemnity; and every expression of the most distant
tendency to lessen their dignity is held as the greatest of crimes.
Conscious, also, how severely the man of genius can hurt their interest,
they bear an instinctive antipathy against him, are uneasy even in his
company, and, on the slightest pretence, are happy to drive him from
them. Camoens was thus situated at Goa; and never was there a fairer
field for satire than the rulers of India at that time afforded. Yet,
whatever esteem the prudence of Camoens may lose in our idea, the
nobleness of his disposition will doubly gain. And, so conscious was he
of his real integrity and innocence, that in one of his sonnets he
wishes no other revenge on Barreto than that the cruelty of his exile
should ever be remembered. [8]
The accomplishments and manners of Camoens soon found him friends,
though under the disgrace of banishment. He was appointed Commissary of
the estates of deceased persons, in the island of Macao, a Portuguese
settlement on the coast of China. Here he continued his Lusiad; and
here, also, after five years residence, he acquired a fortune, though
small, yet equal to his wishes. Don Constantine de Braganza was now
Viceroy of India; and Camoens, desirous to return to Goa, resigned his
charge. In a ship, freighted by himself, he set sail, but was
shipwrecked in the gulf near the mouth of the river Meekhaun, in Cochin
China. All he had acquired was lost in the waves: his poems, which he
held in one hand, while he swam with the other, were all he found
himself possessed of when he stood friendless on the unknown shore. But
the natives gave him a most humane reception; this he has immortalized
in the prophetic song in the tenth Lusiad;[9] and in the seventh he
tells us that here he lost the wealth which satisfied his wishes.
_Agora da esperanca ja adquirida, etc. _
"Now blest with all the wealth fond hope could crave,
Soon I beheld that wealth beneath the wave
For ever lost;----
My life like Judah's Heaven-doom'd king of yore
By miracle prolong'd. "
On the banks of the Meekhaun, he wrote his beautiful paraphrase of the
137th Psalm, where the Jews, in the finest strain of poetry, are
represented as hanging their harps on the willows by the rivers of
Babylon, and weeping their exile from their native country. Here Camoens
continued some time, till an opportunity offered to carry him to Goa.
When he arrived at that city, Don Constantine de Braganza, the viceroy,
whose characteristic was politeness, admitted him into intimate
friendship, and Camoens was happy till Count Redondo assumed the
government. Those who had formerly procured the banishment of the
satirist were silent while Constantine was in power. But now they
exerted all their arts against him. Redondo, when he entered on office,
pretended to be the friend of Camoens; yet, with the most unfeeling
indifference, he suffered the innocent man to be thrown into the common
prison. After all the delay of bringing witnesses, Camoens, in a public
trial, fully refuted every accusation against his conduct while
commissary at Macao, and his enemies were loaded with ignominy and
reproach. But Camoens had some creditors; and these detained him in
prison a considerable time, till the gentlemen of Goa began to be
ashamed that a man of his singular merit should experience such
treatment among them. He was set at liberty; and again he assumed the
profession of arms, and received the allowance of a
gentleman-volunteer, a character at that time common in Portuguese
India. Soon after, Pedro Barreto (appointed governor of the fort of
Sofala), by high promises, allured the poet to attend him thither. The
governor of a distant fort, in a barbarous country, shares in some
measure the fate of an exile. Yet, though the only motive of Barreto
was, in this unpleasant situation, to retain the conversation of Camoens
at his table, it was his least care to render the life of his guest
agreeable. Chagrined with his treatment, and a considerable time having
elapsed in vain dependence upon Barreto, Camoens resolved to return to
his native country. A ship, on the homeward voyage, at this time touched
at Sofala, and several gentlemen[10] who were on board were desirous
that Camoens should accompany them. But this the governor ungenerously
endeavoured to prevent, and charged him with a debt for board. Anthony
de Cabral, however, and Hector de Sylveyra, paid the demand, and
Camoens, says Faria, and the honour of Barreto were sold together.
After an absence of sixteen years, Camoens, in 1569, returned to Lisbon,
unhappy even in his arrival, for the pestilence then raged in that city,
and prevented his publishing for three years. At last, in 1572, he
printed his Lusiad, which, in the opening of the first book, in a most
elegant turn of compliment, he addressed to his prince, King Sebastian,
then in his eighteenth year. The king, says the French translator, was
so pleased with his merit, that he gave the author a pension of 4000
reals, on condition that he should reside at court. But this salary,
says the same writer, was withdrawn by Cardinal Henry, who succeeded to
the crown of Portugal, lost by Sebastian at the battle of Alcazar.
But this story of the pension is very doubtful. Correa and other
contemporary authors do not mention it, though some late writers have
given credit to it. If Camoens, however, had a pension, it is highly
probable that Henry deprived him of it. While Sebastian was devoted to
the chase, his grand-uncle, the cardinal, presided at the council board,
and Camoens, in his address to the king, which closes the Lusiad,
advises him to exclude the clergy from State affairs. It was easy to see
that the cardinal was here intended. And Henry, besides, was one of
those statesmen who can perceive no benefit resulting to the public
from elegant literature. But it ought also to be added in completion of
his character, that under the narrow views and weak hands of this Henry,
the kingdom of Portugal fell into utter ruin; and on his death, which
closed a short inglorious reign, the crown of Lisbon, after a faint
struggle, was annexed to that of Spain. Such was the degeneracy of the
Portuguese, a degeneracy lamented in vain by Camoens, whose observation
of it was imputed to him as a crime.
Though the great[11] patron of theological literature--a species the
reverse of that of Camoens--certain it is, that the author of the Lusiad
was utterly neglected by Henry, under whose inglorious reign he died in
all the misery of poverty. By some, it is said, he died in an
almshouse. It appears, however, that he had not even the certainty of
subsistence which these houses provide. He had a black servant, who had
grown old with him, and who had long experienced his master's humanity.
This grateful dependant, a native of Java, who, according to some
writers, saved his master's life in the unhappy shipwreck where he lost
his effects, begged in the streets of Lisbon for the only man in
Portugal on whom God had bestowed those talents which have a tendency to
erect the spirit of a downward age. To the eye of a careful observer,
the fate of Camoens throws great light on that of his country, and will
appear strictly connected with it. The same ignorance, the same
degenerate spirit, which suffered Camoens to depend on his share of the
alms begged in the streets by his old hoary servant--the same spirit
which caused this, sank the kingdom of Portugal into the most abject
vassalage ever experienced by a conquered nation. While the grandees of
Portugal were blind to the ruin which impended over them, Camoens beheld
it with a pungency of grief which hastened his end. In one of his
letters he has these remarkable words, "_Em fim accaberey a vida, e
verram todos que fuy afeicoada a minho patria_," etc. --"I am ending the
course of my life, the world will witness how I have loved my country. I
have returned, not only to die in her bosom, but to die with her. " In
another letter, written a little before his death, he thus, yet with
dignity, complains, "Who has seen on so small a theatre as my poor bed,
such a representation of the disappointments of Fortune. And I, as if
she could not herself subdue me, I have yielded and become of her party;
for it were wild audacity to hope to surmount such accumulated evils. "
In this unhappy situation, in 1579, in his sixty-second year, the year
after the fatal defeat of Don Sebastian, died Luis de Camoens, the
greatest literary genius ever produced by Portugal; in martial courage
and spirit of honour nothing inferior to her greatest heroes. And in a
manner suitable to the poverty in which he died was he buried. Soon
after, however, many epitaphs honoured his memory; the greatness of his
merit was universally confessed, and his Lusiad was translated into
various languages. [12] Nor ought it to be omitted, that the man so
miserably neglected by the weak king Henry, was earnestly enquired after
by Philip of Spain when he assumed the crown of Lisbon. When Philip
heard that Camoens was dead, both his words and his countenance
expressed his disappointment and grief.
From the whole tenor of his life, and from that spirit which glows
throughout the Lusiad, it evidently appears that the courage and manners
of Camoens flowed from true greatness and dignity of soul. Though his
polished conversation was often courted by the great, he appears so
distant from servility that his imprudence in this respect is by some
highly blamed. Yet the instances of it by no means deserve that severity
of censure with which some writers have condemned him. Unconscious of
the feelings of a Camoens, they knew not that a carelessness in securing
the smiles of fortune, and an open honesty of indignation, are almost
inseparable from the enthusiasm of fine imagination. The truth is, the
man possessed of true genius feels his greatest happiness in the
pursuits and excursions of the mind, and therefore makes an estimate of
things very different from that of him whose unremitting attention is
devoted to his external interest. The profusion of Camoens is also
censured. Had he dissipated the wealth he acquired at Macao, his
profusion indeed had been criminal; but it does not appear that he ever
enjoyed any other opportunity of acquiring independence. But Camoens was
unfortunate, and the unfortunate man is viewed--
"Through the dim shade his fate casts o'er him:
A shade that spreads its evening darkness o'er
His brightest virtues, while it shows his foibles
Crowding and obvious as the midnight stars,
Which, in the sunshine of prosperity
Never had been descried. "
Yet, after the strictest discussion, when all the causes are weighed
together, the misfortunes of Camoens will appear the fault and disgrace
of his age and country, and not of the man. His talents would have
secured him an apartment in the palace of Augustus, but such talents are
a curse to their possessor in an illiterate nation. In a beautiful,
digressive exclamation at the end of the Lusiad, he affords us a
striking view of the neglect which he experienced. Having mentioned how
the greatest heroes of antiquity revered and cherished the muse, he thus
characterizes the nobility of his own age and country.
"Alas! on Tago's hapless shore alone
The muse is slighted, and her charms unknown;
For this, no Virgil here attunes the lyre,
No Homer here awakes the hero's fire;
Unheard, in vain their native poet sings,
And cold neglect weighs dawn the muse's wings. "
In such an age, and among such a barbarous nobility, what but wretched
neglect could be the fate of a Camoens! After all, however, if he was
imprudent on his first appearance at the court of John III. ; if the
honesty of his indignation led him into great imprudence, as certainly
it did, when at Goa he satirised the viceroy and the first persons in
power; yet let it also be remembered, that "The gifts of imagination
bring the heaviest task upon the vigilance of reason; and to bear those
faculties with unerring rectitude, or invariable propriety, requires a
degree of firmness and of cool attention, which doth not always attend
the higher gifts of the mind. Yet, difficult as nature herself seems to
have rendered the task of regularity to genius, it is the supreme
consolation of dullness and of folly to point with Gothic triumph to
those excesses which are the overflowings of faculties they never
enjoyed. Perfectly unconscious that they are indebted to their stupidity
for the consistency of their conduct, they plume themselves on an
imaginary virtue which has its origin in what is really their
disgrace. --Let such, if such dare approach the shrine of Camoens,
withdraw to a respectful distance; and should they behold the ruins of
genius, or the weakness of an exalted mind, let them be taught to lament
that nature has left the noblest of her works imperfect. "[13]
DISSERTATION ON THE LUSIAD, AND ON EPIC POETRY,
BY THE TRANSLATOR.
When Voltaire was in England, previous to his publication of his
Henriade, he published in English an essay on the epic poetry of the
European nations. In this he both highly praised, and severely attacked,
the Lusiad. In his French editions of this essay, he has made various
alterations, at different times, in the article on Camoens. It is not,
however, improper to premise, that some most amazing falsities will be
here detected; the gross misrepresentation of every objection refuted;
and demonstration brought, that when Voltaire wrote his English essay,
his knowledge of the Lusiad was entirely borrowed from the bold, harsh,
unpoetical version of Fanshaw.
"While Trissino," says Voltaire, "was clearing away the rubbish in
Italy, which barbarity and ignorance had heaped up for ten centuries in
the way of the arts and sciences, Camoens, in Portugal, steered a new
course, and acquired a reputation which lasts still among his countrymen
who pay as much respect to his memory as the English to Milton. "
Among other passages of the Lusiad which he criticises is that where
"Adamastor, the giant of the Cape of Storms, appears to them, walking in
the depth of the sea; his head reaches to the clouds; the storms, the
winds, the thunders, and the lightnings hang about him; his arms are
extended over the waves. It is the guardian of that foreign ocean,
unploughed before by any ship. He complains of being obliged to submit
to fate, and to the audacious undertaking of the Portuguese, and
foretells them all the misfortunes they must undergo in the Indies. I
believe that such a fiction would be thought noble and proper in all
ages, and in all nations.
"There is another, which perhaps would have pleased the Italians as well
as the Portuguese, but no other nation besides: it is the enchanted
island, called the Island of Bliss, which the fleet finds in its way
home, just rising from the sea, for their comfort, and for their reward.
Camoens describes that place, as Tasso some years after depicted his
island of Armida. There a supernatural power brings in all the beauties,
and presents all the pleasures which nature can afford, and the heart
may wish for; a goddess, enamoured with Vasco de Gama, carries him to
the top of a high mountain, from whence she shows him all the kingdoms
of the earth, and foretells the fate of Portugal.
"After Camoens hath given loose to his fancy, in the description of the
pleasures which Gama and his crew enjoyed in the island, he takes care
to inform the reader that he ought to understand by this fiction nothing
but the satisfaction which the virtuous man feels, and the glory which
accrues to him, by the practice of virtue; but the best excuse for such
an invention is the charming style in which it is delivered (if we may
believe the Portuguese), for the beauty of the elocution sometimes makes
amends for the faults of the poet, as the colouring of Rubens makes some
defects in his figures pass unregarded.
"There is _another_ kind of machinery continued throughout all the poem,
which nothing can excuse; that is, an injudicious mixture of the heathen
gods with our religion. Gama in a storm addresses his prayers to Christ,
but it is Venus who comes to his relief; the heroes are Christians, and
the poet heathen. The main design which the Portuguese are supposed to
have (next to promoting their trade) is to propagate Christianity; yet
Jupiter, Bacchus, and Venus, have in their hands all the management of
the voyage. So incongruous a machinery casts a blemish upon the whole
poem; yet it shows at the same time how prevailing are its beauties
since the Portuguese like it with all its faults. "
The Lusiad, says Voltaire, contains "a sort of epic poetry unheard of
before. No heroes are wounded a thousand different ways; no woman
enticed away, and the world overturned for her cause. " But the very want
of these, in place of supporting the objection intended by Voltaire,
points out the happy judgment and peculiar excellence of Camoens. If
Homer has given us all the fire and hurry of battles, he has also given
us all the uninteresting, tiresome detail. What reader but must be
tired with the deaths of a thousand heroes, who are never mentioned
before, nor afterwards, in the poem. Yet, in every battle we are wearied
out with such _Gazette_-returns of the slain and wounded as--
"Hector Priamides when Zeus him glory gave,
Assaeus first, Autonous, he slew;
Ophites, Dolops, Klytis' son beside;
Opheltius also, Agelaus too,
AEsymnus, and the battle-bide
Hipponous, chiefs on Danaian side,
And then, the multitude. "
HOMER'S Iliad, bk. xi. 299, et seq. ,
(W. G. T. BARTER'S translation. )
And corresponding to it is Virgil's AEneid, bk. x. line 747, et seq. :--
"By Caedicus Alcathous was slain;
Sacrator laid Hydaspes on the plain;
Orses the strong to greater strength must yield,
He, with Parthenius, were by Rapo killed.
Then brave Messapus Ericetes slew,
Who from Lycaon's blood his lineage drew. "
DRYDEN'S version.
With, such catalogues is every battle extended; and what can be more
tiresome than such uninteresting descriptions, and their imitations! If
the idea of the battle be raised by such enumeration, still the copy and
original are so near each other that they can never please in two
separate poems. Nor are the greater part of the battles of the AEneid
much more distant than those of the Iliad. Though Virgil with great art
has introduced a Camilla, a Pallas, and a Lausus, still, in many
particulars, and in the action upon the whole, there is such a sameness
with the Iliad, that the learned reader of the AEneid is deprived of the
pleasure inspired by originality. If the man of taste, however, will be
pleased to mark how the genius of a Virgil has managed a war after
Homer, he will certainly be tired with a dozen epic poems in the same
style. Where the siege of a town and battles are the subject of an epic,
there will, of necessity, in the characters and circumstances, be a
resemblance to Homer; and such poem must therefore want originality.
Happily for Tasso, the variation of manners, and his masterly
superiority over Homer in describing his duels, has given to his
Jerusalem an air of novelty. Yet, with all the difference between
Christian and pagan heroes, we have a Priam, an Agamemnon, an Achilles,
etc. , armies slaughtered, and a city besieged. In a word, we have a
handsome copy of the Iliad in the Jerusalem Delivered. If some
imitations, however, have been successful, how many other epics of
ancient and modern times have hurried down the stream of oblivion! Some
of their authors had poetical merit, but the fault was in the choice of
their subjects. So fully is the strife of war exhausted by Homer, that
Virgil and Tasso could add to it but little novelty; no wonder,
therefore, that so many epics on battles and sieges have been suffered
to sink into utter neglect. Camoens, perhaps, did not weigh these
circumstances, but the strength of his poetical genius directed him. He
could not but feel what it was to read Virgil after Homer; and the
original turn and force of his mind led him from the beaten track of
Helen's and Lavinia's, Achilles's and Hector's sieges and slaughters,
where the hero hews down, and drives to flight, whole armies with his
own sword. Camoens was the first who wooed the modern Epic Muse, and she
gave him the wreath of a first lover; a sort of epic poetry unheard of
before; or, as Voltaire calls it, _une nouvelle espece d'epopee_; and
the grandest subject it is (of profane history) which the world has ever
beheld. [14] A voyage esteemed too great for man to dare; the adventures
of this voyage through unknown oceans deemed unnavigable; the eastern
world happily discovered, and for ever indissolubly joined and given to
the western; the grand Portuguese empire in the East founded; the
humanization of mankind, and universal commerce the consequence! What
are the adventures of an old, fabulous hero's arrival in Britain, what
are Greece and Latium in arms for a woman compared to this! Troy is in
ashes, and even the Roman empire is no more. But the effects of the
voyage, adventures, and bravery of the hero of the Lusiad will be felt
and beheld, and perhaps increase in importance, while the world shall
remain.
Happy in his choice, happy also was the genius of Camoens in the method
of pursuing his subject. He has not, like Tasso, given it a total
appearance of fiction; nor has he, like Lucan, excluded allegory and
poetical machinery. Whether he intended it or not (for his genius was
sufficient to suggest its propriety), the judicious precept of
Petronius[15] is the model of the Lusiad. That elegant writer proposes a
poem on the civil war, and no poem, ancient or modern, merits the
character there sketched out in any degree comparative to the Lusiad. A
truth of history is preserved; yet, what is improper for the historian,
the ministry of Heaven is employed, and the free spirit of poetry throws
itself into fictions which makes the whole appear as an effusion of
prophetic fury, and not like a rigid detail of facts, given under the
sanction of witnesses. Contrary to Lucan, who, in the above rules, drawn
from the nature of poetry, is severely condemned by Petronius, Camoens
conducts his poem _per ambages Deorumque ministeria_. The apparition,
which in the night hovers athwart the fleet near the Cape of Good Hope,
is the grandest fiction in human composition; the invention his own! In
the Island of Venus, the use of which fiction in an epic poem is also
his own, he has given the completest assemblage of all the flowers which
have ever adorned the bowers of love. And, never was the _furentis animi
vaticinatio_ more conspicuously displayed than in the prophetic song,
the view of the spheres, and the globe of the earth. Tasso's imitation
of the Island of Venus is not equal to the original; and, though
"Virgil's myrtles[16] dropping blood are nothing to Tasso's enchanted
forest," what are all Ismeno's enchantments to the grandeur and horror
of the appearance, prophecy, and vanishment of the spectre of
Camoens! [17] It has long been agreed among critics, that the solemnity
of religious observances gives great dignity to the historical narrative
of epic poetry. Camoens, in the embarkation of the fleet, and in several
other places, is peculiarly happy in the dignity of religious
allusions. Manners and character are also required in the epic poem. But
all the epics which have appeared are, except two, mere copies of the
Iliad in these respects. Every one has its Agamemnon, Achilles, Ajax,
and Ulysses; its calm, furious, gross, and intelligent hero. Camoens and
Milton happily left this beaten track, this exhausted field, and have
given us pictures of manners unknown in the Iliad, the AEneid, and all
those poems which may be classed with the Thebaid. The Lusiad abounds
with pictures of manners, from those of the highest chivalry to those of
the rudest, fiercest, and most innocent barbarism. In the fifth, sixth,
and ninth books, Leonardo and Veloso are painted in stronger colours
than any of the inferior characters in Virgil. But _character_, indeed,
is not the excellence of the AEneid. That of Monzaida, the friend of
Gama, is much superior to that of Achates. The base, selfish, perfidious
and cruel character of the Zamorim and the Moors, are painted in the
strongest colours; and the character of Gama himself is that of the
finished hero. His cool command of his passions, his deep sagacity, his
fixed intrepidity, his tenderness of heart, his manly piety, and his
high enthusiasm in the love of his country are all displayed in the
superlative degree. Let him who objects the want of character to the
Lusiad, beware lest he stumble upon its praise; lest he only say, it
wants an Achilles, a Hector, and a Priam. And, to the novelty of the
manners of the Lusiad let the novelty of fire-arms also be added. It has
been said that the buckler, the bow, and the spear, must continue the
arms of poetry. Yet, however unsuccessful others may have been, Camoens
has proved that fire-arms may be introduced with the greatest dignity,
and the finest effect in the epic poem.
As the grand interest of commerce and of mankind forms the subject of
the Lusiad, so, with great propriety, as necessary accompaniments to the
voyage of his hero, the author has given poetical pictures of the four
parts of the world--in the third book a view of Europe; in the fifth, a
view of Africa; and in the tenth, a picture of Asia and America. Homer
and Virgil have been highly praised for their judgment in the choice of
subjects which interested their countrymen, and Statius has been as
severely condemned for his uninteresting choice. But, though the subject
of Camoens be particularly interesting to his own countrymen, it has
also the peculiar happiness to be the poem of every trading nation. It
is the epic poem of the birth of commerce, and, in a particular manner,
the epic poem of whatever country has the control and possession of the
commerce of India. [18]
An unexhausted fertility and variety of poetical description, an
unexhausted elevation of sentiment, and a constant tenor of the grand
simplicity of diction, complete the character of the Lusiad of Camoens:
a poem which, though it has hitherto received from the public most
unmerited neglect, and from the critics most flagrant injustice, was yet
better understood by the greatest poet of Italy. Tasso never did his
judgment more credit than when he confessed that he dreaded Camoens as a
rival; or his generosity more honour than when he addressed the elegant
sonnet to the hero of the Lusiad, commencing--
"Vasco, le cui felici, ardite antenne
In contro al sol, che ne riporta il giorno. "
It only remains to give some account of the version of the Lusiad which
is now offered to the public.
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www. gutenberg. org
Title: The Lusiad
or The Discovery of India, an Epic Poem
Author: Luis de Camoes
Editor: E. Richmond Hodges
Translator: William Julius Mickle
Release Date: May 26, 2010 [EBook #32528]
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LUSIAD ***
Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www. pgdp. net (This book was
produced from scanned images of public domain material
from the Google Print project. )
THE LUSIAD.
[Illustration: Image of Camoens]
THE LUSIAD;
OR,
THE DISCOVERY OF INDIA.
_AN EPIC POEM. _
TRANSLATED FROM THE PORTUGUESE OF LUIS DE CAMOENS.
WITH A LIFE OF THE POET.
BY WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE.
_FIFTH EDITION, REVISED,_
BY E. RICHMOND HODGES, M. C. P. ,
HON. LIBRARIAN TO THE SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY,
_Editor of "Cory's Ancient Fragments," "The Principia Hebraica," etc. , etc. _
LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET,
COVENT GARDEN.
1877.
"As the mirror of a heart so full of love, courage, generosity, and
patriotism as that of Camoens, The Lusaid can never fail to please us,
whatever place we may assign to it in the records of poetical
genius. "--HALLAM.
[ORIGINAL DEDICATION, 1776. ]
TO THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUGH.
MY LORD,
The first idea of offering my LUSIAD to some distinguished personage,
inspired the earnest wish, that it might be accepted by the illustrious
representative of that family under which my father, for many years,
discharged the duties of a clergyman.
Both the late Duke of BUCCLEUGH, and the Earl of DALKEITH, distinguished
him by particular marks of their favour; and I must have forgotten him,
if I could have wished to offer the first Dedication of my literary
labours to any other than the Duke of BUCCLEUGH.
I am, with the greatest respect,
My Lord,
Your Grace's most devoted
And most obedient humble servant,
WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE.
EDITOR'S PREFACE.
In undertaking, at the publishers' request, the function of editor of
Mickle's Lusiad, I have compared the translation with the original, and,
in some places, where another translation seemed preferable to, or more
literal than, Mickle's, I have, in addition, given that rendering in a
foot-note. Moreover, I have supplied the arguments to the several
cantos, given a few more explanatory notes, and added a table of
contents.
"The late ingenious translator of the Lusiad," says Lord Strangford,[1]
"has portrayed the character, and narrated the misfortunes of our poet,
in a manner more honourable to his feelings as a man than to his
accuracy in point of biographical detail. It is with diffidence that the
present writer essays to correct his errors; but, as the real
circumstances of the life of Camoens are mostly to be found in his own
minor compositions, with which Mr. Mickle was unacquainted, he trusts
that certain information will atone for his presumption. "
As Lord Strangford professes to have better and more recent sources of
information regarding the illustrious, but unfortunate, bard of
Portugal, I make no apology for presenting to the reader an abstract of
his lordship's memoir. Much further information will be found, however,
in an able article contained in No. 53 of the _Quarterly Review_ for
July, 1822, from the pen, I believe, of the poet Southey. "The family of
Camoens was illustrious," says Lord Strangford, "and originally Spanish.
They were long settled at Cadmon, a castle in Galicia, from which they
probably derived their patronymic appellation. However, there are some
who maintain that their name alluded to a certain wonderful bird,[2]
whose mischievous sagacity discovered and punished the smallest
deviation from conjugal fidelity. A lady of the house of Cadmon, whose
conduct had been rather indiscreet, demanded to be tried by this
extraordinary judge. Her innocence was proved, and, in gratitude to the
being who had restored him to matrimonial felicity, the contented
husband adopted his name. " It would appear that in a dispute between the
families of Cadmon and De Castera, a cavalier of the latter family was
slain. This happened in the fourteenth century. A long train of
persecution followed, to escape which, Ruy de Camoens, having embraced
the cause of Ferdinand, removed with his family into Portugal, about
A. D. 1370. His son, Vasco de Camoens, was highly distinguished by royal
favour, and had the honour of being the ancestor of our poet, who
descended from him in the fourth generation. Luia de Camoens, the author
of the Lusiad, was born at Lisbon about A. D. 1524. His misfortunes began
with his birth--he never saw a father's smile--for Simon Vasco de
Camoens perished by shipwreck in the very year which gave being to his
illustrious son. The future poet was sent to the university of
Coimbra--then at the height of its fame,--"and maintained there by the
provident care of his surviving parent. "
"Love," says Lord Strangford, "is very nearly allied to devotion, and it
was in the exercise of the latter, that Camoens was introduced to the
knowledge of the former. In the Church of Christ's Wounds at Lisbon, on
11th April, 1542, Camoens first beheld Dona Caterina de Atayde, the
object of his purest and earliest attachment . . . and it was not long
before Camoens enjoyed an opportunity of declaring his affection, with
all the romantic ardour of eighteen and of a poet. " The peculiar
situation of the lady, as one of the maids of honour to the queen,
imposed a restraint upon her admirer which soon became intolerable; and
he, for having violated the sanctity of the royal precincts, was in
consequence banished from the court. Whatever may have been the nature
of his offence, "it furnished a pretext to the young lady's relations
for terminating an intercourse which worldly considerations rendered
highly imprudent. "
But Love consoled his votary: his mistress, on the morning of his
departure, confessed the secret of her long-concealed affection, and the
sighs of grief were soon lost in those of mutual delight. The hour of
parting was, perhaps, the sweetest of our poet's existence.
Camoens removed to Santarem, but speedily returned to Lisbon, was a
second time detected, and again driven into exile. [3]
The voice of Love inspired our poet "with the glorious resolution of
conquering the obstacles which fortune had placed between him and
felicity. " He obtained permission, therefore, to accompany King John
III. in an expedition then fitting out against the Moors in Africa. In
one of the engagements with the enemy our hero had the misfortune to
lose "his right eye, by some splinters from the deck of the vessel in
which he was stationed. Many of his most pathetic compositions were
written during this campaign, and the toils of a martial life were
sweetened by the recollection of her for whose sake they were endured.
His heroic conduct at length procured his recall to court," but to find,
alas, that his mistress was no more.
Disappointed in his hope of obtaining any recognition of his valiant
deeds, he now resolved, under the burning sun of India, to seek that
independence which his own country denied. "The last words I uttered,"
says Camoens, "on board the vessel before leaving, were those of Scipio:
'Ungrateful country! thou shalt not even possess my bones. '" "Some,"
says Lord Strangford, "attribute his departure to a very different
cause, and assert that he quitted his native shores on account of an
intrigue in which he was detected with the beautiful wife of a
Portuguese gentleman. Perhaps," says Lord Strangford, "this story may
not be wholly unfounded. " On his arrival in India he contributed by his
bravery to the success of an expedition carried on by the King of
Cochin, and his allies, the Portuguese, against the Pimento Islands; and
in the following year (1555) he accompanied Manuel de Vasconcelos in an
expedition to the Red Sea. Here he explored the wild regions of East
Africa, and stored his mind with ideas of scenery, which afterwards
formed some of the most finished pictures of the Lusiad.
On his return to Goa, Camoens devoted his whole attention to the
completion of his poem; but an unfortunate satire which, under the title
of _Disparates na India_, or Follies in India, he wrote against the
vices and corruptions of the Portuguese authorities in Goa, so roused
the indignation of the viceroy that the poet was banished to China.
Of his adventures in China, and the temporary prosperity he enjoyed
there, while he held the somewhat uncongenial office of _Provedor dos
defuntos_, i. e. , Trustee for deceased persons, Mickle has given an ample
account in the introduction to the Lusiad. During those years Camoens
completed his poem, about half of which was written before he left
Europe. According to a tradition, not improbable in itself, he composed
great part of it in a natural grotto which commands a splendid view of
the city and harbour of Macao. An engraving of it may be seen in
Onseley's Oriental Collections, and another will be found in Sir G.
Staunton's Account of the Embassy to China.
A little temple, in the Chinese style, has been erected upon the rock,
and the ground around it has been ornamented by Mr. Fitzhugh, one of our
countrymen, from respect to the memory of the poet. The years that he
passed in Macao were probably the happiest of his life. Of his departure
for Europe, and his unfortunate shipwreck at the mouth of the river
Meekhaun,[4] in Cochin China, Mickle has also given a sufficient
account.
Lord Strangford has related, on the authority of Sousa, that while our
poet was languishing in poverty at Lisbon, "a cavalier, named Ruy de
Camera, called on him one day, asking him to finish for him a poetical
version of the seven penitential psalms. Raising his head from his
wretched pallet, and pointing to his faithful Javanese attendant, he
exclaimed, 'Alas, when I was a poet, I was young, and happy, and blest
with the love of ladies; but now I am a forlorn, deserted wretch.
See--there stands my poor Antonio, vainly supplicating fourpence to
purchase a little coals--I have them not to give him. ' The cavalier, as
Sousa relates, closed both his heart and his purse, and quitted the
room. Such were the grandees of Portugal. " Camoens sank under the
pressure of penury and disease, and died in an alms-house, early in
1579, and was buried in the church of Sta. Anna of the Franciscan
Friars. Over his grave Gonzalo Coutinho placed the following
inscription:--
"HERE LIES LUIS DE CAMOENS.
HE EXCELLED ALL THE POETS OF HIS TIME.
HE LIVED POOR AND MISERABLE, AND HE DIED SO.
MDLXXIX. "
The translator of the Lusiad was born, in 1734, at Langholm, in
Dumfriesshire, where his father, a good French scholar, was the
Presbyterian minister. At the age of sixteen William Julius Mickle was
removed, to his great dislike, from school, and sent into the
counting-house of a relation of his mother's, a brewer, where, against
his inclination, he remained five years. He subsequently, for family
reasons, became the head of the firm, and carried on the business. It is
not to be wondered at, however, that with his dislike to business in
general and to this one in particular, he did not succeed; and it is
quite reasonable to suppose that the cause of his failure, and
subsequent pecuniary embarrassments, arose from his having devoted those
hours to his poetical studies which should have been dedicated to
business. Mickle obtained afterwards the appointment of corrector of the
Clarendon Press in Oxford, and died at Wheatly, in Oxfordshire, in 1789.
Southey speaks of Mickle (_Quarterly Review_, liii. p. 29) as a man of
genius who had ventured upon the chance of living by his literary
labours, and says that he "did not over-rate the powers which he was
conscious of possessing, knew that he could rely upon himself for their
due exertion, and had sufficient worldly prudence to look out for a
subject which was likely to obtain notice and patronage. " His other
poems, Pollio, Sir Martyn, etc. , with the exception of his Cumnor Hall,
are not held in high estimation.
Describing the several poetic versions of the Lusiad, Mr. Musgrave
says,[5] of Fanshaw's version, that "its language is antiquated, and in
many instances it travesties the original, and seldom long sustains the
tone of epic gravity suited to the poem. It is, however," says he, "more
faithful than the translation of Mickle, but it would be ungenerous," he
adds, "to dwell on the paraphrastic licences which abound in Mickle's
performance, and on its many interpolations and omissions. Mr. Mickle
thought, no doubt," says Musgrave, "that by this process he should
produce a poem which in its perusal might afford a higher gratification.
Nor am I prepared to say that by all readers this would be deemed a
miscalculation. Let it not be supposed, however, that I wish to detract
from the intrinsic merit of his translation. It is but an act of justice
to admit, that it contains many passages of exquisite beauty, and that
it is a performance which discovers much genius, a cultivated taste, and
a brilliant imagination. Many parts of the original are rendered with
great facility, elegance, and fidelity. In poetical elegance I presume
not to enter into competition with him. "
For his own performance Musgrave claims the merit of greater fidelity to
the original; but in respect of harmony, in true poetic grace, and
sublimity of diction, his translation will bear no comparison with
Mickle's version; for even Southey, in the article before quoted, though
very hard upon his interpolations, admits that, "Mickle was a man of
genius . . . a man whom we admire and respect; whose memory is without a
spot, and whose name will live among the English poets. " (_Quarterly
Review_, liii. p. 29. )
It only remains for me to say, that in order to place the reader in a
position to judge of the merits of this sublime effort of genius, I have
distinguished Mickle's longer interpolations by printing them in Bk. i.
p. 24, in _Italics_, and in the first 300 lines of Bk. ix. by calling
the attention of the reader to the interpolation by means of a
foot-note. The notes are, in general, left as written by the translator,
except in some cases where it seemed advisable to curtail them. Original
notes are indicated by the abbreviation "_Ed. _"
THE EDITOR.
LONDON, 1877.
THE LIFE OF CAMOENS,
BY WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE.
When the glory of the arms of Portugal had reached its meridian
splendour, Nature, as if in pity of the literary rudeness of that
nation, produced a great poet to record the numberless actions of high
spirit performed by his countrymen. Except Osorius, the historians of
Portugal are little better than dry journalists. But it is not their
inelegance which rendered the poet necessary. It is the peculiar nature
of poetry to give a colouring to heroic actions, and to express
indignation against breaches of honour, in a spirit which at once seizes
the heart of the man of feeling, and carries with it instantaneous
conviction. The brilliant actions of the Portuguese form the great hinge
which opened the door to the most important alterations in the civil
history of mankind. And to place these actions in the light and
enthusiasm of poetry--that enthusiasm which particularly assimilates the
youthful breast to its own fires--was Luis de Camoens the poet of
Portugal, born.
Different cities have claimed the honour of his birth. But according to
N. Antonio, and Manuel Correa, his intimate friend, this event happened
at Lisbon in 1517. [6] His family was of considerable note, and
originally Spanish. In 1370 Vasco Perez de Caamans, disgusted at the
court of Castile, fled to that of Lisbon, where King Ferdinand
immediately admitted him into his council, and gave him the lordships of
Sardoal, Punnete, Marano, Amendo, and other considerable lands; a
certain proof of the eminence of his rank and abilities. In the war for
the succession, which broke out on the death of Ferdinand, Caamans
sided with the King of Castile, and was killed in the battle of
Aljabarota. But though John I. , the victor, seized a great part of his
estate, his widow, the daughter of Gonsalo Tereyro, grand master of the
Order of Christ, and general of the Portuguese army, was not reduced
beneath her rank. She had three sons, who took the name of Camoens. The
family of the eldest intermarried with the first nobility of Portugal,
and even, according to Castera, with the blood royal. But the family of
the second brother, whose fortune was slender, had the superior honour
to produce the author of the Lusiad.
Early in life the misfortunes of the poet began. In his infancy, Simon
Vaz de Camoens, his father, commander of a vessel, was shipwrecked at
Goa, where, with his life, the greatest part of his fortune was lost.
His mother, however, Anne de Macedo of Santarem, provided for the
education of her son Luis, at the University of Coimbra. What he
acquired there his works discover; an intimacy with the classics, equal
to that of a Scaliger, but directed by the taste of a Milton or a Pope.
When he left the university he appeared at court. He was a polished
scholar and very handsome,[7] possessing a most engaging mien and
address, with the finest complexion, which, added to the natural ardour
and gay vivacity of his deposition, rendered him an accomplished
gentleman. Courts are the scenes of intrigue, and intrigue was
fashionable at Lisbon. But the particulars of the amours of Camoens rest
unknown. This only appears: he had aspired above his rank, for he was
banished from the court; and in several of his sonnets he ascribes this
misfortune to love.
He now retired to his mother's friends at Santarem. Here he renewed his
studies, and began his poem on the discovery of India. John III. at this
time prepared an armament against Africa. Camoens, tired of his
inactive, obscure life, went to Ceuta in this expedition, and greatly
distinguished his valour in several _rencontres_. In a naval engagement
with the Moors in the Straits of Gibraltar, Camoens, in the conflict of
boarding, where he was among the foremost, lost his right eye. Yet
neither the hurry of actual service, nor the dissipation of the camp,
could stifle his genius. He continued his _Lusiadas_; and several of his
most beautiful sonnets were written in Africa, while, as he expresses
it,
"One hand the pen, and ant the sword employ'd. "
The fame of his valour had now reached the Court, and he obtained
permission to return to Lisbon. But while he solicited an establishment
which he had merited in the ranks of battle, the malignity of evil
tongues (as he calls it in one of his letters) was injuriously poured
upon him. Though the bloom of his early youth was effaced by several
years residence under the scorching sky of Africa, and though altered by
the loss of an eye, his presence gave uneasiness to the gentlemen of
some families of the first rank where he had formerly visited. Jealousy
is the characteristic of the Spanish and Portuguese; its resentment
knows no bounds, and Camoens now found it prudent to banish himself from
his native country. Accordingly, in 1553 he hailed for India, with a
resolution never to return. As the ship left the Tagus he exclaimed, in
the words of the sepulchral monument of Scipio Africanus, "_Ingrata
patria, non possidebis ossa mea! _" (Ungrateful country, thou shalt not
possess my bones! ) But he knew not what evils in the East would awaken
the remembrance of his native fields.
When Camoens arrived in India, an expedition was ready to sail to
revenge the King of Cochin on the King of Pimenta. Without any rest on
shore after his long voyage, he joined this armament, and, in the
conquest of the Alagada Islands, displayed his usual bravery. But his
modesty, perhaps, is his greatest praise. In a sonnet he mentions this
expedition: "We went to punish the King of Pimenta," says he, "_e
succedeones bem_" (and we succeeded well). When it is considered that
the poet bore no inconsiderable share in the victory, no ode can
conclude more elegantly, more happily than this.
In the year following, he attended Manuel de Vasconcello in an
expedition to the Red Sea. Here, says Faria, as Camoens had no use for
his sword, he employed his pen. Nor was his activity confined to the
fleet or camp. He visited Mount Felix, and the adjacent inhospitable
regions of Africa, which he so strongly pictures in the Lusiad, and in
one of his little pieces, where he laments the absence of his mistress.
When he returned to Goa, he enjoyed a tranquility which enabled him to
bestow his attention on his epic poem. But this serenity was
interrupted, perhaps by his own imprudence. He wrote some satires which
gave offence, and by order of the viceroy, Francisco Barreto, he was
banished to China.
Men of poor abilities are more conscious of their embarrassment and
errors than is commonly believed. When men of this kind are in power,
they affect great solemnity; and every expression of the most distant
tendency to lessen their dignity is held as the greatest of crimes.
Conscious, also, how severely the man of genius can hurt their interest,
they bear an instinctive antipathy against him, are uneasy even in his
company, and, on the slightest pretence, are happy to drive him from
them. Camoens was thus situated at Goa; and never was there a fairer
field for satire than the rulers of India at that time afforded. Yet,
whatever esteem the prudence of Camoens may lose in our idea, the
nobleness of his disposition will doubly gain. And, so conscious was he
of his real integrity and innocence, that in one of his sonnets he
wishes no other revenge on Barreto than that the cruelty of his exile
should ever be remembered. [8]
The accomplishments and manners of Camoens soon found him friends,
though under the disgrace of banishment.
But the particulars of the amours of Camoens rest
unknown. This only appears: he had aspired above his rank, for he was
banished from the court; and in several of his sonnets he ascribes this
misfortune to love.
He now retired to his mother's friends at Santarem. Here he renewed his
studies, and began his poem on the discovery of India. John III. at this
time prepared an armament against Africa. Camoens, tired of his
inactive, obscure life, went to Ceuta in this expedition, and greatly
distinguished his valour in several _rencontres_. In a naval engagement
with the Moors in the Straits of Gibraltar, Camoens, in the conflict of
boarding, where he was among the foremost, lost his right eye. Yet
neither the hurry of actual service, nor the dissipation of the camp,
could stifle his genius. He continued his _Lusiadas_; and several of his
most beautiful sonnets were written in Africa, while, as he expresses
it,
"One hand the pen, and ant the sword employ'd. "
The fame of his valour had now reached the Court, and he obtained
permission to return to Lisbon. But while he solicited an establishment
which he had merited in the ranks of battle, the malignity of evil
tongues (as he calls it in one of his letters) was injuriously poured
upon him. Though the bloom of his early youth was effaced by several
years residence under the scorching sky of Africa, and though altered by
the loss of an eye, his presence gave uneasiness to the gentlemen of
some families of the first rank where he had formerly visited. Jealousy
is the characteristic of the Spanish and Portuguese; its resentment
knows no bounds, and Camoens now found it prudent to banish himself from
his native country. Accordingly, in 1553 he hailed for India, with a
resolution never to return. As the ship left the Tagus he exclaimed, in
the words of the sepulchral monument of Scipio Africanus, "_Ingrata
patria, non possidebis ossa mea! _" (Ungrateful country, thou shalt not
possess my bones! ) But he knew not what evils in the East would awaken
the remembrance of his native fields.
When Camoens arrived in India, an expedition was ready to sail to
revenge the King of Cochin on the King of Pimenta. Without any rest on
shore after his long voyage, he joined this armament, and, in the
conquest of the Alagada Islands, displayed his usual bravery. But his
modesty, perhaps, is his greatest praise. In a sonnet he mentions this
expedition: "We went to punish the King of Pimenta," says he, "_e
succedeones bem_" (and we succeeded well). When it is considered that
the poet bore no inconsiderable share in the victory, no ode can
conclude more elegantly, more happily than this.
In the year following, he attended Manuel de Vasconcello in an
expedition to the Red Sea. Here, says Faria, as Camoens had no use for
his sword, he employed his pen. Nor was his activity confined to the
fleet or camp. He visited Mount Felix, and the adjacent inhospitable
regions of Africa, which he so strongly pictures in the Lusiad, and in
one of his little pieces, where he laments the absence of his mistress.
When he returned to Goa, he enjoyed a tranquility which enabled him to
bestow his attention on his epic poem. But this serenity was
interrupted, perhaps by his own imprudence. He wrote some satires which
gave offence, and by order of the viceroy, Francisco Barreto, he was
banished to China.
Men of poor abilities are more conscious of their embarrassment and
errors than is commonly believed. When men of this kind are in power,
they affect great solemnity; and every expression of the most distant
tendency to lessen their dignity is held as the greatest of crimes.
Conscious, also, how severely the man of genius can hurt their interest,
they bear an instinctive antipathy against him, are uneasy even in his
company, and, on the slightest pretence, are happy to drive him from
them. Camoens was thus situated at Goa; and never was there a fairer
field for satire than the rulers of India at that time afforded. Yet,
whatever esteem the prudence of Camoens may lose in our idea, the
nobleness of his disposition will doubly gain. And, so conscious was he
of his real integrity and innocence, that in one of his sonnets he
wishes no other revenge on Barreto than that the cruelty of his exile
should ever be remembered. [8]
The accomplishments and manners of Camoens soon found him friends,
though under the disgrace of banishment. He was appointed Commissary of
the estates of deceased persons, in the island of Macao, a Portuguese
settlement on the coast of China. Here he continued his Lusiad; and
here, also, after five years residence, he acquired a fortune, though
small, yet equal to his wishes. Don Constantine de Braganza was now
Viceroy of India; and Camoens, desirous to return to Goa, resigned his
charge. In a ship, freighted by himself, he set sail, but was
shipwrecked in the gulf near the mouth of the river Meekhaun, in Cochin
China. All he had acquired was lost in the waves: his poems, which he
held in one hand, while he swam with the other, were all he found
himself possessed of when he stood friendless on the unknown shore. But
the natives gave him a most humane reception; this he has immortalized
in the prophetic song in the tenth Lusiad;[9] and in the seventh he
tells us that here he lost the wealth which satisfied his wishes.
_Agora da esperanca ja adquirida, etc. _
"Now blest with all the wealth fond hope could crave,
Soon I beheld that wealth beneath the wave
For ever lost;----
My life like Judah's Heaven-doom'd king of yore
By miracle prolong'd. "
On the banks of the Meekhaun, he wrote his beautiful paraphrase of the
137th Psalm, where the Jews, in the finest strain of poetry, are
represented as hanging their harps on the willows by the rivers of
Babylon, and weeping their exile from their native country. Here Camoens
continued some time, till an opportunity offered to carry him to Goa.
When he arrived at that city, Don Constantine de Braganza, the viceroy,
whose characteristic was politeness, admitted him into intimate
friendship, and Camoens was happy till Count Redondo assumed the
government. Those who had formerly procured the banishment of the
satirist were silent while Constantine was in power. But now they
exerted all their arts against him. Redondo, when he entered on office,
pretended to be the friend of Camoens; yet, with the most unfeeling
indifference, he suffered the innocent man to be thrown into the common
prison. After all the delay of bringing witnesses, Camoens, in a public
trial, fully refuted every accusation against his conduct while
commissary at Macao, and his enemies were loaded with ignominy and
reproach. But Camoens had some creditors; and these detained him in
prison a considerable time, till the gentlemen of Goa began to be
ashamed that a man of his singular merit should experience such
treatment among them. He was set at liberty; and again he assumed the
profession of arms, and received the allowance of a
gentleman-volunteer, a character at that time common in Portuguese
India. Soon after, Pedro Barreto (appointed governor of the fort of
Sofala), by high promises, allured the poet to attend him thither. The
governor of a distant fort, in a barbarous country, shares in some
measure the fate of an exile. Yet, though the only motive of Barreto
was, in this unpleasant situation, to retain the conversation of Camoens
at his table, it was his least care to render the life of his guest
agreeable. Chagrined with his treatment, and a considerable time having
elapsed in vain dependence upon Barreto, Camoens resolved to return to
his native country. A ship, on the homeward voyage, at this time touched
at Sofala, and several gentlemen[10] who were on board were desirous
that Camoens should accompany them. But this the governor ungenerously
endeavoured to prevent, and charged him with a debt for board. Anthony
de Cabral, however, and Hector de Sylveyra, paid the demand, and
Camoens, says Faria, and the honour of Barreto were sold together.
After an absence of sixteen years, Camoens, in 1569, returned to Lisbon,
unhappy even in his arrival, for the pestilence then raged in that city,
and prevented his publishing for three years. At last, in 1572, he
printed his Lusiad, which, in the opening of the first book, in a most
elegant turn of compliment, he addressed to his prince, King Sebastian,
then in his eighteenth year. The king, says the French translator, was
so pleased with his merit, that he gave the author a pension of 4000
reals, on condition that he should reside at court. But this salary,
says the same writer, was withdrawn by Cardinal Henry, who succeeded to
the crown of Portugal, lost by Sebastian at the battle of Alcazar.
But this story of the pension is very doubtful. Correa and other
contemporary authors do not mention it, though some late writers have
given credit to it. If Camoens, however, had a pension, it is highly
probable that Henry deprived him of it. While Sebastian was devoted to
the chase, his grand-uncle, the cardinal, presided at the council board,
and Camoens, in his address to the king, which closes the Lusiad,
advises him to exclude the clergy from State affairs. It was easy to see
that the cardinal was here intended. And Henry, besides, was one of
those statesmen who can perceive no benefit resulting to the public
from elegant literature. But it ought also to be added in completion of
his character, that under the narrow views and weak hands of this Henry,
the kingdom of Portugal fell into utter ruin; and on his death, which
closed a short inglorious reign, the crown of Lisbon, after a faint
struggle, was annexed to that of Spain. Such was the degeneracy of the
Portuguese, a degeneracy lamented in vain by Camoens, whose observation
of it was imputed to him as a crime.
Though the great[11] patron of theological literature--a species the
reverse of that of Camoens--certain it is, that the author of the Lusiad
was utterly neglected by Henry, under whose inglorious reign he died in
all the misery of poverty. By some, it is said, he died in an
almshouse. It appears, however, that he had not even the certainty of
subsistence which these houses provide. He had a black servant, who had
grown old with him, and who had long experienced his master's humanity.
This grateful dependant, a native of Java, who, according to some
writers, saved his master's life in the unhappy shipwreck where he lost
his effects, begged in the streets of Lisbon for the only man in
Portugal on whom God had bestowed those talents which have a tendency to
erect the spirit of a downward age. To the eye of a careful observer,
the fate of Camoens throws great light on that of his country, and will
appear strictly connected with it. The same ignorance, the same
degenerate spirit, which suffered Camoens to depend on his share of the
alms begged in the streets by his old hoary servant--the same spirit
which caused this, sank the kingdom of Portugal into the most abject
vassalage ever experienced by a conquered nation. While the grandees of
Portugal were blind to the ruin which impended over them, Camoens beheld
it with a pungency of grief which hastened his end. In one of his
letters he has these remarkable words, "_Em fim accaberey a vida, e
verram todos que fuy afeicoada a minho patria_," etc. --"I am ending the
course of my life, the world will witness how I have loved my country. I
have returned, not only to die in her bosom, but to die with her. " In
another letter, written a little before his death, he thus, yet with
dignity, complains, "Who has seen on so small a theatre as my poor bed,
such a representation of the disappointments of Fortune. And I, as if
she could not herself subdue me, I have yielded and become of her party;
for it were wild audacity to hope to surmount such accumulated evils. "
In this unhappy situation, in 1579, in his sixty-second year, the year
after the fatal defeat of Don Sebastian, died Luis de Camoens, the
greatest literary genius ever produced by Portugal; in martial courage
and spirit of honour nothing inferior to her greatest heroes. And in a
manner suitable to the poverty in which he died was he buried. Soon
after, however, many epitaphs honoured his memory; the greatness of his
merit was universally confessed, and his Lusiad was translated into
various languages. [12] Nor ought it to be omitted, that the man so
miserably neglected by the weak king Henry, was earnestly enquired after
by Philip of Spain when he assumed the crown of Lisbon. When Philip
heard that Camoens was dead, both his words and his countenance
expressed his disappointment and grief.
From the whole tenor of his life, and from that spirit which glows
throughout the Lusiad, it evidently appears that the courage and manners
of Camoens flowed from true greatness and dignity of soul. Though his
polished conversation was often courted by the great, he appears so
distant from servility that his imprudence in this respect is by some
highly blamed. Yet the instances of it by no means deserve that severity
of censure with which some writers have condemned him. Unconscious of
the feelings of a Camoens, they knew not that a carelessness in securing
the smiles of fortune, and an open honesty of indignation, are almost
inseparable from the enthusiasm of fine imagination. The truth is, the
man possessed of true genius feels his greatest happiness in the
pursuits and excursions of the mind, and therefore makes an estimate of
things very different from that of him whose unremitting attention is
devoted to his external interest. The profusion of Camoens is also
censured. Had he dissipated the wealth he acquired at Macao, his
profusion indeed had been criminal; but it does not appear that he ever
enjoyed any other opportunity of acquiring independence. But Camoens was
unfortunate, and the unfortunate man is viewed--
"Through the dim shade his fate casts o'er him:
A shade that spreads its evening darkness o'er
His brightest virtues, while it shows his foibles
Crowding and obvious as the midnight stars,
Which, in the sunshine of prosperity
Never had been descried. "
Yet, after the strictest discussion, when all the causes are weighed
together, the misfortunes of Camoens will appear the fault and disgrace
of his age and country, and not of the man. His talents would have
secured him an apartment in the palace of Augustus, but such talents are
a curse to their possessor in an illiterate nation. In a beautiful,
digressive exclamation at the end of the Lusiad, he affords us a
striking view of the neglect which he experienced. Having mentioned how
the greatest heroes of antiquity revered and cherished the muse, he thus
characterizes the nobility of his own age and country.
"Alas! on Tago's hapless shore alone
The muse is slighted, and her charms unknown;
For this, no Virgil here attunes the lyre,
No Homer here awakes the hero's fire;
Unheard, in vain their native poet sings,
And cold neglect weighs dawn the muse's wings. "
In such an age, and among such a barbarous nobility, what but wretched
neglect could be the fate of a Camoens! After all, however, if he was
imprudent on his first appearance at the court of John III. ; if the
honesty of his indignation led him into great imprudence, as certainly
it did, when at Goa he satirised the viceroy and the first persons in
power; yet let it also be remembered, that "The gifts of imagination
bring the heaviest task upon the vigilance of reason; and to bear those
faculties with unerring rectitude, or invariable propriety, requires a
degree of firmness and of cool attention, which doth not always attend
the higher gifts of the mind. Yet, difficult as nature herself seems to
have rendered the task of regularity to genius, it is the supreme
consolation of dullness and of folly to point with Gothic triumph to
those excesses which are the overflowings of faculties they never
enjoyed. Perfectly unconscious that they are indebted to their stupidity
for the consistency of their conduct, they plume themselves on an
imaginary virtue which has its origin in what is really their
disgrace. --Let such, if such dare approach the shrine of Camoens,
withdraw to a respectful distance; and should they behold the ruins of
genius, or the weakness of an exalted mind, let them be taught to lament
that nature has left the noblest of her works imperfect. "[13]
DISSERTATION ON THE LUSIAD, AND ON EPIC POETRY,
BY THE TRANSLATOR.
When Voltaire was in England, previous to his publication of his
Henriade, he published in English an essay on the epic poetry of the
European nations. In this he both highly praised, and severely attacked,
the Lusiad. In his French editions of this essay, he has made various
alterations, at different times, in the article on Camoens. It is not,
however, improper to premise, that some most amazing falsities will be
here detected; the gross misrepresentation of every objection refuted;
and demonstration brought, that when Voltaire wrote his English essay,
his knowledge of the Lusiad was entirely borrowed from the bold, harsh,
unpoetical version of Fanshaw.
"While Trissino," says Voltaire, "was clearing away the rubbish in
Italy, which barbarity and ignorance had heaped up for ten centuries in
the way of the arts and sciences, Camoens, in Portugal, steered a new
course, and acquired a reputation which lasts still among his countrymen
who pay as much respect to his memory as the English to Milton. "
Among other passages of the Lusiad which he criticises is that where
"Adamastor, the giant of the Cape of Storms, appears to them, walking in
the depth of the sea; his head reaches to the clouds; the storms, the
winds, the thunders, and the lightnings hang about him; his arms are
extended over the waves. It is the guardian of that foreign ocean,
unploughed before by any ship. He complains of being obliged to submit
to fate, and to the audacious undertaking of the Portuguese, and
foretells them all the misfortunes they must undergo in the Indies. I
believe that such a fiction would be thought noble and proper in all
ages, and in all nations.
"There is another, which perhaps would have pleased the Italians as well
as the Portuguese, but no other nation besides: it is the enchanted
island, called the Island of Bliss, which the fleet finds in its way
home, just rising from the sea, for their comfort, and for their reward.
Camoens describes that place, as Tasso some years after depicted his
island of Armida. There a supernatural power brings in all the beauties,
and presents all the pleasures which nature can afford, and the heart
may wish for; a goddess, enamoured with Vasco de Gama, carries him to
the top of a high mountain, from whence she shows him all the kingdoms
of the earth, and foretells the fate of Portugal.
"After Camoens hath given loose to his fancy, in the description of the
pleasures which Gama and his crew enjoyed in the island, he takes care
to inform the reader that he ought to understand by this fiction nothing
but the satisfaction which the virtuous man feels, and the glory which
accrues to him, by the practice of virtue; but the best excuse for such
an invention is the charming style in which it is delivered (if we may
believe the Portuguese), for the beauty of the elocution sometimes makes
amends for the faults of the poet, as the colouring of Rubens makes some
defects in his figures pass unregarded.
"There is _another_ kind of machinery continued throughout all the poem,
which nothing can excuse; that is, an injudicious mixture of the heathen
gods with our religion. Gama in a storm addresses his prayers to Christ,
but it is Venus who comes to his relief; the heroes are Christians, and
the poet heathen. The main design which the Portuguese are supposed to
have (next to promoting their trade) is to propagate Christianity; yet
Jupiter, Bacchus, and Venus, have in their hands all the management of
the voyage. So incongruous a machinery casts a blemish upon the whole
poem; yet it shows at the same time how prevailing are its beauties
since the Portuguese like it with all its faults. "
The Lusiad, says Voltaire, contains "a sort of epic poetry unheard of
before. No heroes are wounded a thousand different ways; no woman
enticed away, and the world overturned for her cause. " But the very want
of these, in place of supporting the objection intended by Voltaire,
points out the happy judgment and peculiar excellence of Camoens. If
Homer has given us all the fire and hurry of battles, he has also given
us all the uninteresting, tiresome detail. What reader but must be
tired with the deaths of a thousand heroes, who are never mentioned
before, nor afterwards, in the poem. Yet, in every battle we are wearied
out with such _Gazette_-returns of the slain and wounded as--
"Hector Priamides when Zeus him glory gave,
Assaeus first, Autonous, he slew;
Ophites, Dolops, Klytis' son beside;
Opheltius also, Agelaus too,
AEsymnus, and the battle-bide
Hipponous, chiefs on Danaian side,
And then, the multitude. "
HOMER'S Iliad, bk. xi. 299, et seq. ,
(W. G. T. BARTER'S translation. )
And corresponding to it is Virgil's AEneid, bk. x. line 747, et seq. :--
"By Caedicus Alcathous was slain;
Sacrator laid Hydaspes on the plain;
Orses the strong to greater strength must yield,
He, with Parthenius, were by Rapo killed.
Then brave Messapus Ericetes slew,
Who from Lycaon's blood his lineage drew. "
DRYDEN'S version.
With, such catalogues is every battle extended; and what can be more
tiresome than such uninteresting descriptions, and their imitations! If
the idea of the battle be raised by such enumeration, still the copy and
original are so near each other that they can never please in two
separate poems. Nor are the greater part of the battles of the AEneid
much more distant than those of the Iliad. Though Virgil with great art
has introduced a Camilla, a Pallas, and a Lausus, still, in many
particulars, and in the action upon the whole, there is such a sameness
with the Iliad, that the learned reader of the AEneid is deprived of the
pleasure inspired by originality. If the man of taste, however, will be
pleased to mark how the genius of a Virgil has managed a war after
Homer, he will certainly be tired with a dozen epic poems in the same
style. Where the siege of a town and battles are the subject of an epic,
there will, of necessity, in the characters and circumstances, be a
resemblance to Homer; and such poem must therefore want originality.
Happily for Tasso, the variation of manners, and his masterly
superiority over Homer in describing his duels, has given to his
Jerusalem an air of novelty. Yet, with all the difference between
Christian and pagan heroes, we have a Priam, an Agamemnon, an Achilles,
etc. , armies slaughtered, and a city besieged. In a word, we have a
handsome copy of the Iliad in the Jerusalem Delivered. If some
imitations, however, have been successful, how many other epics of
ancient and modern times have hurried down the stream of oblivion! Some
of their authors had poetical merit, but the fault was in the choice of
their subjects. So fully is the strife of war exhausted by Homer, that
Virgil and Tasso could add to it but little novelty; no wonder,
therefore, that so many epics on battles and sieges have been suffered
to sink into utter neglect. Camoens, perhaps, did not weigh these
circumstances, but the strength of his poetical genius directed him. He
could not but feel what it was to read Virgil after Homer; and the
original turn and force of his mind led him from the beaten track of
Helen's and Lavinia's, Achilles's and Hector's sieges and slaughters,
where the hero hews down, and drives to flight, whole armies with his
own sword. Camoens was the first who wooed the modern Epic Muse, and she
gave him the wreath of a first lover; a sort of epic poetry unheard of
before; or, as Voltaire calls it, _une nouvelle espece d'epopee_; and
the grandest subject it is (of profane history) which the world has ever
beheld. [14] A voyage esteemed too great for man to dare; the adventures
of this voyage through unknown oceans deemed unnavigable; the eastern
world happily discovered, and for ever indissolubly joined and given to
the western; the grand Portuguese empire in the East founded; the
humanization of mankind, and universal commerce the consequence! What
are the adventures of an old, fabulous hero's arrival in Britain, what
are Greece and Latium in arms for a woman compared to this! Troy is in
ashes, and even the Roman empire is no more. But the effects of the
voyage, adventures, and bravery of the hero of the Lusiad will be felt
and beheld, and perhaps increase in importance, while the world shall
remain.
Happy in his choice, happy also was the genius of Camoens in the method
of pursuing his subject. He has not, like Tasso, given it a total
appearance of fiction; nor has he, like Lucan, excluded allegory and
poetical machinery. Whether he intended it or not (for his genius was
sufficient to suggest its propriety), the judicious precept of
Petronius[15] is the model of the Lusiad. That elegant writer proposes a
poem on the civil war, and no poem, ancient or modern, merits the
character there sketched out in any degree comparative to the Lusiad. A
truth of history is preserved; yet, what is improper for the historian,
the ministry of Heaven is employed, and the free spirit of poetry throws
itself into fictions which makes the whole appear as an effusion of
prophetic fury, and not like a rigid detail of facts, given under the
sanction of witnesses. Contrary to Lucan, who, in the above rules, drawn
from the nature of poetry, is severely condemned by Petronius, Camoens
conducts his poem _per ambages Deorumque ministeria_. The apparition,
which in the night hovers athwart the fleet near the Cape of Good Hope,
is the grandest fiction in human composition; the invention his own! In
the Island of Venus, the use of which fiction in an epic poem is also
his own, he has given the completest assemblage of all the flowers which
have ever adorned the bowers of love. And, never was the _furentis animi
vaticinatio_ more conspicuously displayed than in the prophetic song,
the view of the spheres, and the globe of the earth. Tasso's imitation
of the Island of Venus is not equal to the original; and, though
"Virgil's myrtles[16] dropping blood are nothing to Tasso's enchanted
forest," what are all Ismeno's enchantments to the grandeur and horror
of the appearance, prophecy, and vanishment of the spectre of
Camoens! [17] It has long been agreed among critics, that the solemnity
of religious observances gives great dignity to the historical narrative
of epic poetry. Camoens, in the embarkation of the fleet, and in several
other places, is peculiarly happy in the dignity of religious
allusions. Manners and character are also required in the epic poem. But
all the epics which have appeared are, except two, mere copies of the
Iliad in these respects. Every one has its Agamemnon, Achilles, Ajax,
and Ulysses; its calm, furious, gross, and intelligent hero. Camoens and
Milton happily left this beaten track, this exhausted field, and have
given us pictures of manners unknown in the Iliad, the AEneid, and all
those poems which may be classed with the Thebaid. The Lusiad abounds
with pictures of manners, from those of the highest chivalry to those of
the rudest, fiercest, and most innocent barbarism. In the fifth, sixth,
and ninth books, Leonardo and Veloso are painted in stronger colours
than any of the inferior characters in Virgil. But _character_, indeed,
is not the excellence of the AEneid. That of Monzaida, the friend of
Gama, is much superior to that of Achates. The base, selfish, perfidious
and cruel character of the Zamorim and the Moors, are painted in the
strongest colours; and the character of Gama himself is that of the
finished hero. His cool command of his passions, his deep sagacity, his
fixed intrepidity, his tenderness of heart, his manly piety, and his
high enthusiasm in the love of his country are all displayed in the
superlative degree. Let him who objects the want of character to the
Lusiad, beware lest he stumble upon its praise; lest he only say, it
wants an Achilles, a Hector, and a Priam. And, to the novelty of the
manners of the Lusiad let the novelty of fire-arms also be added. It has
been said that the buckler, the bow, and the spear, must continue the
arms of poetry. Yet, however unsuccessful others may have been, Camoens
has proved that fire-arms may be introduced with the greatest dignity,
and the finest effect in the epic poem.
As the grand interest of commerce and of mankind forms the subject of
the Lusiad, so, with great propriety, as necessary accompaniments to the
voyage of his hero, the author has given poetical pictures of the four
parts of the world--in the third book a view of Europe; in the fifth, a
view of Africa; and in the tenth, a picture of Asia and America. Homer
and Virgil have been highly praised for their judgment in the choice of
subjects which interested their countrymen, and Statius has been as
severely condemned for his uninteresting choice. But, though the subject
of Camoens be particularly interesting to his own countrymen, it has
also the peculiar happiness to be the poem of every trading nation. It
is the epic poem of the birth of commerce, and, in a particular manner,
the epic poem of whatever country has the control and possession of the
commerce of India. [18]
An unexhausted fertility and variety of poetical description, an
unexhausted elevation of sentiment, and a constant tenor of the grand
simplicity of diction, complete the character of the Lusiad of Camoens:
a poem which, though it has hitherto received from the public most
unmerited neglect, and from the critics most flagrant injustice, was yet
better understood by the greatest poet of Italy. Tasso never did his
judgment more credit than when he confessed that he dreaded Camoens as a
rival; or his generosity more honour than when he addressed the elegant
sonnet to the hero of the Lusiad, commencing--
"Vasco, le cui felici, ardite antenne
In contro al sol, che ne riporta il giorno. "
It only remains to give some account of the version of the Lusiad which
is now offered to the public.
