The
firmness of his behaviour, his singular modesty and heroical patience,
are mentioned with admiration by Le Clede.
firmness of his behaviour, his singular modesty and heroical patience,
are mentioned with admiration by Le Clede.
Camoes - Lusiades
He
sleeps sound, and knows not the diseases of cities. He cannot want what
he does not desire, nor desire that which he does not know, and vexation
or grief do not enter his soul. He is not under the control of a
superior in his actions; in a word, says our author, the savage only
suffers the evils of nature.
If the civilized, he adds, enjoy the elegancies of life, have better
food, and are more comfortably defended against the change of seasons,
it is use which makes these things necessary, and they are purchased by
the painful labours of the multitude who are the basis of society. To
what outrages is not the man of civil life exposed? if he has property,
it is in danger; and government or authority is, according to our
author, the greatest of all evils. If there is a famine in North
America, the savage, led by the wind and the sun, can go to a better
clime; but in the horrors of famine, war, or pestilence, the ports and
barriers of civilized states place the subjects in a prison, where they
must perish. There still remains an infinite difference between the lot
of the civilized and the savage; a difference, all entirely to the
disadvantage of society, that injustice which reigns in the inequality
of fortunes and conditions.
[26] The innocent simplicity of the Americans in their conferences with
the Spaniards, and the horrid cruelties they suffered from them, divert
our view from their complete character. Almost everything was horrid in
their civil customs and religious rites. In some tribes, to cohabit with
their mothers, sisters, and daughters was esteemed the means of domestic
peace. In others, catamites were maintained in every village; they went
from house to house as they pleased, and it was unlawful to refuse them
what victuals they chose. In every tribe, the captives taken in war were
murdered with the most wanton cruelty, and afterwards devoured by the
victors. Their religious rites were, if possible, still more horrid. The
abominations of ancient Moloch were here outnumbered; children, virgins,
slaves, and captives bled on different altars, to appease their various
gods. If there was a scarcity of human victims, the priests announced
that the gods were dying of thirst for human blood. And, to prevent a
threatened famine, the kings of Mexico were obliged to make war on the
neighbouring states. The prisoners of either side died by the hand of
the priest. But the number of the Mexican sacrifices so greatly exceeded
those of other nations, that the Tlascalans, who were hunted down for
this purpose, readily joined Cortez with about 200,000 men, and enabled
him to make one great sacrifice of the Mexican nation. Who that views
Mexico, steeped in her own blood, can restrain the emotion which
whispers to him, This is the hand of Heaven! --By the number of these
sacred butcheries, one would think that cruelty was the greatest
amusement of Mexico. At the dedication of the temple of Vitzliputzli,
A. D. 1486, no less than 64,080 human victims were sacrificed in four
days. And, according to the best accounts, the annual sacrifices of
Mexico required several thousands. The skulls of the victims sometimes
were hung on strings which reached from tree to tree around their
temples, and sometimes were built up in towers and cemented with lime.
In some of these towers Andrew de Tapia one day counted 136,000 skulls.
During the war with Cortez they increased their usual sacrifices, till
priest and people were tired of their bloody religion. --See, for ample
justification of these statements, the _Histories of the Conquest of
Mexico and Peru_, by Prescott. --_Ed. _
[27] Mahommed Ali Khan, Nawab of the Carnatic, declared, "I met the
British with that freedom of openness which they love, and I esteem it
my honour as well as security to be the ally of such a nation of
princes. "
[28] Every man must follow his father's trade, and must marry a daughter
of the same occupation. Innumerable are their other barbarous
restrictions of genius and inclination.
[29] Extremity; for it were both highly unjust and impolitic in
government to allow importation in such a degree as might be destructive
of domestic agriculture.
[30] Even that warm admirer of savage happiness, the author of _Histoire
Philosophique et Politique des Etablissements_, confesses that the wild
Americans seem destitute of the feeling of love. When the heat of
passion, says he, is gratified, they lose all affection and attachment
for their women, whom they degrade to the most servile offices. --A
tender remembrance of the first endearments, a generous participation of
care and hope, the compassionate sentiments of honour; all these
delicate feelings, which arise into affection, and bind attachment, are
indeed, incompatible with the ferocious and gross sensations of
barbarians.
[31] It is a question still debated among medical writers, and by no
means yet decided, whether the disease referred to is of American
origin. We do not read, it is true, of any such disease in the pages of
the ancient classic writers; it has hence been inferred that it was
unknown to them. --_Ed. _
[32] The degeneracy of the Roman literature preceded the fate of the
state, and the reason is obvious. The men of fortune grew frivolous, and
superficial in every branch of knowledge, and were therefore unable to
hold the reigns of empire. The degeneracy of literary taste is,
therefore, the surest proof of the general ignorance.
[33] The soldiers and navigators were the only considerable gainers by
their acquirements in the Indies. Agriculture and manufactures are the
natural strength of a nation; these received little or no increase in
Spain and Portugal by the great acquisitions of these crowns.
[34] Ariosto, who adopted the legends of the old romance, chose this
period for the subject of his Orlando Furioso. Paris besieged by the
Saracens, Orlando and the other Christian knights assemble in aid of
Charlemagne, who are opposed in their amours and in battle by Rodomont,
Ferraw, and other Saracen knights. That there was a noted Moorish
Spaniard, named Ferraw, a redoubted champion of that age, we have the
testimony of Marcus Antonius Sabellicus, a writer of note of the
fifteenth century.
[35] Small indeed in extent, but so rich in fertility, that it was
called _Medulla Hispanica_, "The marrow of Spain. "--Vid. Resandii Antiq.
Lusit. l. iii.
[36] In propriety most certainly a crusade, though that term has never
before been applied to this war.
[37] The power of deposing, and of electing their kings, under certain
circumstances, is vested in the people by the statutes of Lamego.
[38] For the character of this prince, see the note, Bk. iii. p. 96.
[39] For anecdotes of this monarch, see the notes, Bk. iii. p. 99.
[40] This great prince was the natural son of Pedro the Just. Some years
after the murder of his beloved spouse, Inez de Castro (see Lusiad, Bk.
iii. p. 96), lest his father, whose severe temper he too well knew,
should force him into a disagreeable marriage, Don Pedro commenced an
amour with a Galician lady, who became the mother of John I. , the
preserver of the Portuguese monarchy.
[41] The sons of John, who figure in history, were Edward, Juan,
Fernando, Pedro and Henry. Edward succeeded his father. Juan,
distinguished both in the camp and cabinet, in the reign of his brother
Edward had the honour to oppose the expedition against Tangier, which
was proposed by his brother Fernando, in whose perpetual captivity it
ended.
[42] The dominion of the Portuguese in the Indian seas cut the sinews of
the Egyptian and other Mohammedan powers.
[43] Flanders has been the school-mistress of husbandry to Europe. Sir
Charles Lisle, a royalist, resided in this country several years during
the Commonwealth; and after the Restoration, rendered England the
greatest service, by introducing the present system of agriculture.
Where trade increases, men's thoughts are set in action; hence the
increase of food which is wanted is supplied by a redoubled attention to
husbandry; and hence it was that agriculture was of old improved and
diffused by the Phoenician colonies.
[44] At the reduction of Ceuta in Africa, and in other engagements,
Prince Henry displayed military genius and valour of the first
magnitude. The important fortress of Ceuta was in a manner won by his
own sword.
[45] Nam, in Portuguese, a negative. It is now called by corruption Cape
Nun.
[46] Cape Bojador, from the Spanish, _bojar_, to compass or go about.
[47] Unluckily, he also left on this island two rabbits, whose young so
increased that in a few years it was found not habitable, every
vegetable being destroyed by the great increase of these animals.
[48] Madeira in Portuguese signifies timber. --_Ed. _
[49] If one would trace the true character of Cortez and the Americans,
he must have recourse to the numerous Spanish writers, who were either
witnesses of the first wars, or soon after travelled in these countries.
[The reader cannot do better than refer to Prescott's _History of the
Conquest of Mexico and Peru_ for information on these points. --_Ed. _] In
these he will find many anecdotes which afford a light not to be found
in our modern histories. Cortez set out to take gold by force, and not
by establishing any system of commerce with the natives, the only just
reason for effecting a settlement in a foreign country. He was asked by
various states, what commodities or drugs he wanted, and was promised
abundant supply. He and his Spaniards, he answered, had a disease at
their hearts, which nothing but gold could cure; and he received
intelligence that Mexico abounded with it. Under pretence of a friendly
conference, he made the Mexican emperor, Montezuma, his prisoner, and
ordered him to pay tribute to Charles V. Immense sums were paid, but the
demand was boundless. Tumults ensued. Cortez displayed amazing
generalship, and some millions of those who boasted of the greatness of
Montezuma were sacrificed to the disease of Cortez's heart. Pizarro,
however, in the barbarity of his character, far exceeded him. There is a
bright side to the character of Cortez, if we can forget that his
avarice was the cause of a most unjust and most bloody war; but Pizarro
is a character completely detestable, destitute of every spark of
generosity. He massacred the Peruvians because they were barbarians, and
he himself could not read. Atabalipa, the Peruvian Inca, amazed at the
art of reading, got a Spaniard to write the word Dios (God) on his
finger. On trying if the Spaniards agreed in what it signified, he
discovered that Pizarro could not read. And Pizarro, in revenge of the
contempt he perceived in the face of Atabalipa, ordered that prince to
be tried for his life, for having concubines, and being an idolater.
Atabalipa was condemned to be burned; but on submitting to baptism, he
was only hanged. See Prescott's _Conquest of Peru_.
[50] The difficulties he surmounted, and the assistance he received, are
sufficient proofs that an adventurer of inferior birth could never have
carried his designs into execution.
[51] Don Pedro was villainously accused of treacherous designs by his
illegitimate brother, the first Duke of Braganza. Henry left his town of
Sagrez to defend his brother at court, but in vain. Pedro, finding the
young king in the power of Braganza, fled, and soon after was killed in
defending himself against a party who were sent to seize him. His
innocence, after his death, was fully proved, and his nephew, Alonzo V. ,
gave him an honourable burial.
[52] Henry, who undertook to extend the boundaries which ignorance had
given to the world, had extended them much beyond the sensible horizon
long ere Columbus appeared. Columbus indeed taught the Spaniards the use
of longitude and latitude in navigation, but that great mathematician,
Henry, was the author of that grand discovery, and of the _use_ of the
compass. Every alteration ascribed to Columbus, had almost fifty years
before been effected by Henry. Even Henry's idea of sailing to India was
adopted by Columbus. It was everywhere his proposal. When he arrived in
the West Indies he thought he had found the Ophir of Solomon, and thence
these islands received their general name, and on his return he told
John II. that he had been at the islands of India. To find the Spice
Islands of the East was his proposal at the court of Spain; and even on
his fourth and last voyage in 1502, three years after Gama's return, he
promised the King of Spain to find India by a westward passage. But
though great discoveries rewarded his toils, his first and last purpose
he never completed. It was reserved for Magalhaens to discover the
westward route to the Eastern world.
Gomara and other Spanish writers relate, that while Columbus lived in
Madeira, a pilot, the only survivor of a ship's crew, died at his house.
This pilot, they say, had been driven to the West Indies, or America, by
tempest, and on his death-bed communicated the journal of his voyage to
Columbus.
[53] Or Bethlehem, so named from the chapel.
[54] Now called St. Helen's.
[55] The voyage of Gama has been called merely a coasting one, and
therefore regarded as much less dangerous and heroical than that of
Columbus, or of Magalhaens. But this is one of the opinions hastily
taken up, and founded on ignorance. Columbus and Magalhaens undertook to
navigate unknown oceans, and so did Gama; with this difference, that the
ocean around the Cape of Good Hope, which Gama was to encounter, was
believed to be, and had been avoided by Diaz, as impassable. Prince
Henry suggested that the current of Cape Bojador might be avoided by
standing out to sea, and thus that Cape was first passed. Gama for this
reason did not coast, but stood out to sea for upwards of three months
of tempestuous weather. The tempests which afflicted Columbus and
Magalhaens are by their different historians described with
circumstances of less horror and danger than those which attacked Gama.
All the three commanders were endangered by mutiny; but none of their
crews, save Gama's, could urge the opinion of ages, and the example of a
living captain, that the dreadful ocean which they attempted was
impassable. Columbus and Magalhaens always found means, after detecting
a conspiracy, to keep the rest in hope; but Gama's men, when he put the
pilots in irons, continued in the utmost despair. Columbus was indeed
ill obeyed; Magalhaens sometimes little better; but nothing, save the
wonderful authority of Gama's command, could have led his crew through
the tempest which he surmounted ere he doubled the Cape of Good Hope.
Columbus, with _his_ crew, must have returned. The expedients which he
used to soothe them, would, under _his_ authority, have had no avail in
the tempest which Gama rode through. From every circumstance it is
evident that Gama had determined not to return, unless he found India.
Nothing less than such resolution to perish or attain his point could
have led him on.
[56] It afterwards appeared that the Moorish King of Mombas had been
informed of what happened at Mozambique, and intended to revenge it by
the total destruction of the fleet.
[57] Amerigo Vespucci, describing his voyage to America, says, "Having
passed the line, _e come desideroso d'essere autore che segnassi la
stella_--desirous to be the namer and discoverer of the Pole-star of the
other hemisphere, I lost my sleep many nights in contemplating the stars
of the other pole. " He then laments, that as his instruments could not
discover any star of less motion then ten degrees, he had not the
satisfaction of giving a name to any one. But as he observed four stars,
in form of an almond, which had but little motion, he hoped in his next
voyage he should be able to mark them out. --All this is curious, and
affords a good comment on the temper of the man who had the art to
defraud Columbus, by giving his own name to America; of which he
challenged the discovery. Near fifty years before the voyage of Amerigo
Vespucci, the Portuguese had crossed the line; and Diaz fourteen, and
Gama nearly three years before, had doubled the Cape of Good Hope; had
discovered seven stars in the constellation of the south pole, and from
the appearance of the four most luminous, had given it the name of "The
Cross," a figure which it better resembles than that of an almond.
[58] Properly "Samudra-Rajah," King of the Sea, corrupted into
Zamorim. --_Ed. _
[59] "Kotwal" signifies Superintendent of the Police. --_Ed. _
[60] Faria y Sousa.
[61] It was the custom of the first discoverers to erect crosses at
various places remarkable in their voyage. Gama erected six: one,
dedicated to St. Raphael, at the river of Good Signs; one to St. George,
at Mozambique; one to St. Stephen, at Melinda; one to St. Gabriel, at
Calicut; and one to St. Mary, at the island thence named, near
Anchediva.
[62] _The Lusiad_; in the original, Os Lusiadas, The Lusiads, from the
Latin name (_Lusitania_) of Portugal, derived from Lusus or Lysas, the
companion of Bacchus in his travels, who settled a colony in Lusitania,
See Plin. 1, iii. c. i.
[63] _Thro' seas where sail was never spread before. _--M. Duperron de
Castera, who has given a French prose translation, or rather paraphrase,
of the Lusiad, has a long note on this passage, which, he tells us, must
not be understood literally. Our author, he says, could not be ignorant
that the African and Indian Oceans had been navigated before the times
of the Portuguese. The Phoenicians, whose fleets passed the straits of
Gibraltar, made frequent voyages in these seas, though they carefully
concealed the course of their navigation that other nations might not
become partakers of their lucrative traffic. --See the Periplus of Hanno,
in Cory's Ancient Fragments. --_Ed. _
[64] _And all my country's wars. _--He interweaves artfully the history
of Portugal. --VOLTAIRE.
[65] _To Holy Faith unnumber'd altars rear'd. _--In no period of history
does human nature appear with more shocking, more diabolical features
than in the wars of Cortez, and the Spanish conquerors of South America.
Zeal for the Christian religion was esteemed, at the time of the
Portuguese grandeur, as the most cardinal virtue, and to propagate
Christianity and extirpate Mohammedanism were the most certain proofs of
that zeal. In all their expeditions this was professedly a principal
motive of the Lusitanian monarchs, and Camoens understood the nature of
epic poetry too well to omit it.
[66] Ulysses, who is the subject of the Odyssey.
[67] The voyage of AEneas, described in the AEneid of Virgil.
[68] Alexander the Great, who claimed to be the son of Jupiter Ammon.
[69] Vasco de Gama is, in a great measure, though not exclusively, the
hero of the Lusiad.
[70] King Sebastian, who came to the throne in his minority. Though the
warm imagination of Camoens anticipated the praises of the future hero,
the young monarch, like Virgil's Pollio, had not the happiness to fulfil
the prophecy. His endowments and enterprising genius promised, indeed, a
glorious reign. Ambitious of military laurels, he led a powerful army
into Africa, on purpose to replace Muley Hamet on the throne of Morocco,
from which he had been deposed by Muley Molucco. On the 4th of August,
1578, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, he gave battle to the usurper
on the plains of Alcazar. This was that memorable engagement, to which
the Moorish Emperor, extremely weakened by sickness, was carried in his
litter. By the impetuosity of the attack, the first line of the Moorish
infantry was broken, and the second disordered. Muley Molucco on this
mounted his horse, drew his sabre, and would have put himself at the
head of his troops, but was prevented by his attendants. His emotion of
mind was so great that he fell from his horse, and one of his guards
having caught him in his arms, conveyed him to his litter, where,
putting his finger on his lips to enjoin them silence, he immediately
expired. Hamet Taba stood by the curtains of the carriage, opened them
from time to time, and gave out orders as if he had received them from
the Emperor. Victory declared for the Moors, and the defeat of the
Portuguese was so total, that not above fifty of their whole army
escaped. Hieron de Mendoca and Sebastian de Mesa relate, that Don
Sebastian, after having two horses killed under him, was surrounded and
taken; but the party who had secured him, quarrelling among themselves
whose prisoner he was, a Moorish officer rode up and struck the king a
blow over the right eye, which brought him to the ground; when,
despairing of ransom, the others killed him. About twenty years after
this fatal defeat there appeared a stranger at Venice, who called
himself Sebastian, King of Portugal, whom he so perfectly resembled,
that the Portuguese of that city acknowledged him for their sovereign.
He underwent twenty-eight examinations before a committee of the nobles,
in which he gave a distinct account of the manner in which he had passed
his time from the fatal defeat at Alcazar. It was objected, that the
successor of Muley Molucco sent a corpse to Portugal which had been
owned as that of the king by the Portuguese nobility who survived the
battle. To this he replied, that his _valet de chambre_ had produced
that body to facilitate his escape, and that the nobility acted upon the
same motive, and Mesa and Baena confess, that some of this nobility,
after their return to Portugal acknowledged that the corpse was so
disfigured with wounds that it was impossible to know it. He showed
natural marks on his body, which many remembered on the person of the
king whose name he assumed. He entered into a minute detail of the
transactions that had passed between himself and the republic, and
mentioned the secrets of several conversations with the Venetian
ambassadors in the palace of Lisbon. He fell into the hands of the
Spaniards, who conducted him to Naples, where they treated him with the
most barbarous indignities. After they had often exposed him, mounted on
an ass, to the cruel insults of the brutal mob, he was shipped on board
a galley, as a slave. He was then carried to St. Lucar, from thence to a
castle in the heart of Castile, and never was heard of more.
The
firmness of his behaviour, his singular modesty and heroical patience,
are mentioned with admiration by Le Clede. To the last he maintained the
truth of his assertions: a word never slipped from his lips which might
countenance the charge of imposture, or justify the cruelty of his
persecutors.
[71] Portugal, when Camoens wrote his Lusiad, was at the zenith of its
power and splendour. The glorious successes which had attended the arms
of the Portuguese in Africa, had gained them the highest military
reputation. Their fleets covered the ocean. Their dominions and
settlements extended along the western and eastern sides of the vast
African continent. From the Red Sea to China and Japan, they were sole
masters of the riches of the East; and in America, the fertile and
extensive regions of Brazil completed their empire.
[72] Lusitania is the Latin name of a Roman province which comprised the
greater part of the modern kingdom of Portugal, besides a considerable
portion of Leon and Spanish Estremadura. --_Ed. _
[73] _The sun. _--Imitated, perhaps, from Rutilius, speaking of the Roman
Empire--
_Volvitur ipse tibi, qui conspicit omnia, Phoebus,
Atque tuis ortos in tua condit equos;_
or, more probably, from these lines of Buchanan, addressed to John III.
King of Portugal, the grandfather of Sebastian--
_Inque tuis Phoebus regnis oriensque cadensque
Vix longum fesso conderet axe diem.
Et quaecunque vago se circumvolvit Olympo
Affulget ratibus flamma ministra tuis. _
[74] _i. e. _ poetic. Aonia was the ancient name of Boeotia, in which
country was a fountain sacred to the Muses, whence Juvenal sings of a
poet--
"Enamoured of the woods, and fitted for drinking
At the fountains of the Aonides. "
JUV. Sat. vii. 58. --_Ed. _
[75] _To match the Twelve so long by bards renown'd. _--The Twelve Peers
of France, often mentioned in the old romances. For the episode of
Magricio and his eleven companions, see the sixth Lusiad.
[76] Afonso in Portuguese. In the first edition Mickle had Alfonso,
which he altered to Alonzo in the second edition.
[77] _Thy grandsires. _--John III. King of Portugal, celebrated for a
long and peaceful reign; and the Emperor Charles V. , who was engaged in
almost continual wars.
[78] Some critics have condemned Virgil for stopping his narrative to
introduce even a short observation of his own. Milton's beautiful
complaint of his blindness has been blamed for the same reason, as being
no part of the subject of his poem. The address of Camoens to Don
Sebastian at the conclusion of the tenth Lusiad has not escaped the same
censure; though in some measure undeservedly, as the poet has had the
art to interweave therein some part of the general argument of his poem.
[79] This brave Lusitanian, who was first a shepherd and a famous
hunter, and afterwards a captain of banditti, exasperated at the tyranny
of the Romans, encouraged his countrymen to revolt and shake off the
yoke. Being appointed general, he defeated Vetilius the praetor, who
commanded in Lusitania, or farther Spain. After this he defeated, in
three pitched battles, the praetors, C. Plautius Hypsaeus and Claudius
Unimanus, though they led against him very numerous armies. For six
years he continued victorious, putting the Romans to flight wherever he
met them, and laying waste the countries of their allies. Having
obtained such advantages over the proconsul, Servilianus, that the only
choice which was left to the Roman army was death or slavery, the brave
Viriatus, instead of putting them all to the sword, as he could easily
have done, sent a deputation to the general, offering to conclude a
peace with him on this single condition, _That he should continue master
of the country now in his power, and that the Romans should remain
possessed of the rest of Spain_.
The proconsul, who expected nothing but death or slavery, thought these
very favourable and moderate terms, and without hesitation concluded a
peace, which was soon after ratified by the Roman senate and people.
Viriatus, by this treaty, completed the glorious design he had always in
view, which was to erect a kingdom in the vast country he had conquered
from the republic. And, had it not been for the treachery of the Romans,
he would have become, as Florus calls him, the Romulus of Spain.
The senate, desirous to revenge their late defeat, soon after this
peace, ordered Q. Servilius Caepio to exasperate Viriatus, and force him,
by repeated affronts, to commit the first acts of hostility. But this
mean artifice did not succeed: Viriatus would not be provoked to a
breach of the peace. On this the Conscript Fathers, to the eternal
disgrace of their republic, ordered Caepio to declare war, and to
proclaim Viriatus, who had given no provocation, an enemy to Rome. To
this baseness Caepio added one still greater; he corrupted the
ambassadors whom Viriatus had sent to negotiate with him, who, at the
instigation of the Roman, treacherously murdered their protector and
general while he slept. --UNIV. HISTORY.
[80] Sertorius, who was invited by the Lusitanians to defend them
against the Romans. He had a tame white hind, which he had accustomed to
follow him, and from which he pretended to receive the instructions of
Diana. By this artifice he imposed upon the superstition of that people.
[81] _No more in Nysa. _--An ancient city in India sacred to Bacchus.
[82] _Urania-Venus. _--An Italian poet has given the following
description of the celestial Venus--
_Questa e vaga di Dio Venere bella
Vicina al Sole, e sopra ogni altra estella
Questa e quella beata, a cui s'inchina,
A cui si volge desiando amore,
Chiamata cui del Ciel rara e divina
Belta che vien tra noi per nostro honore,
Per far le menti desiando al Cielo
Obliare l'altrui col proprio velo. _--MARTEL.
[83] See the note in the Second Book on the following passage--
_As when in Ida's bower she stood of yore, etc. _
[84] _The manly music of their tongue the same. _--Camoens says:
_E na lingoa, na qual quando imagina,
Com pouca corrupcao cre que he Latina. _
Qualifications are never elegant in poetry. Fanshaw's translation and
the original both prove this:
----_their tongue
Which she thinks Latin, with small dross among. _
[85] _i. e. _ helmet.
[86]---- _and the light turn'd pale. _--The thought in the original has
something in it wildly great, though it is not expressed in the happiest
manner of Camoens--
_O ceo tremeo, e Apollo detorvado
Hum pauco a luz perdeo, como infiado. _
[87] Mercury, the messenger of the gods. --_Ed. _
[88] _And pastoral Madagascar. _--Called by the ancient geographers,
Menuthia and Cerna Ethiopica; by the natives, the Island of the Moon;
and by the Portuguese, the Isle of St. Laurence, on whose festival they
discovered it.
[89] _Praso. _--Name of a promontory near the Red Sea. --_Ed. _
[90] _Lav'd by the gentle waves. _--The original says, the sea showed
them new islands, which it encircled and laved. Thus rendered by
Fanshaw--
_Neptune disclos'd new isles which he did play
About, and with his billows danc't the hay. _
[91] The historical foundation of the fable of Phaeton is this. Phaeton
was a young enterprising prince of Libya. Crossing the Mediterranean in
quest of adventures, he landed at Epirus, from whence he went to Italy
to see his intimate friend Cygnus. Phaeton was skilled in astrology,
from whence he arrogated to himself the title of the son of Apollo. One
day in the heat of summer, as he was riding along the banks of the Po,
his horses took fright at a clap of thunder, and plunged into the river,
where, together with their master, they perished. Cygnus, who was a
poet, celebrated the death of his friend in verse, from whence the
fable. --Vid. Plutarch, in Vit. Pyrr.
[92] _Acheron. _--The river of Hades, or hell. --_Ed. _
[93] _From Abram's race our holy prophet sprung. _--Mohammed, who was
descended from Ishmael, the son of Abraham by Hagar.
[94] The Hydaspes was a tributary of the river Indus. --_Ed. _
[95] _Calm twilight now. _--Camoens, in this passage, has imitated Homer
in the manner of Virgil: by diversifying the scene he has made the
description his own. The passage alluded to is in the eighth Iliad--
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , etc.
Thus elegantly translated by Pope:--
_As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light,
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene;
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumber'd gild the glowing pole,
O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
And tip with silver every mountain's head;
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies:
The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light. _
[96] The Turks, or Osmanli Turcomans. --_Ed. _
[97] Constantinople.
[98] _Straight as he spoke. _--The description of the armoury, and
account which Vasco de Gama gives of his religion, consists, in the
original, of thirty-two lines, which M. Castera has reduced into the
following sentence: _Leur Governeur fait differentes questions au
Capitaine, qui pour le satisfaire lui explique en peu des mots la
Religion que les Portugais suivent, l'usage des armes dont ils se
servent dans la guerre, et le dessein qui les amene. _
[99] _i. e. _, helmets.
[100] Coats of mail.
[101] _When Gama's lips Messiah's name confess'd. _--This, and the reason
of the Moor's hate, is entirely omitted by Castera. The original is, the
Moor conceived hatred, "knowing they were followers of the truth which
the Son of David taught. " Thus rendered by Fanshaw:--
_Knowing they follow that unerring light,
The Son of David holds out in his Book. _
Zacocia (governor of Mozambique) made no doubt but our people were of
some Mohammedan country. The mutual exchange of good offices between our
people and these islanders promised a long continuance of friendship,
but it proved otherwise. No sooner did Zacocia understand they were
Christians, than all his kindness was turned into the most bitter
hatred; he began to meditate their ruin, and sought to destroy the
fleet. --OSORIO, Bp. of Sylves, Hist. of the Portug. Discov.
[102] Bacchus, god of wine.
[103] _Whom nine long months his father's thigh conceal'd. _--Bacchus was
nourished during his infancy in a cave of mount Meros, which in Greek
signifies a _thigh_. Hence the fable.
[104] Alexander the Great, who on visiting the temple of Jupiter Ammon,
was hailed as son of that deity by his priests. --_Ed. _
[105] Bacchus.
[106] _His form divine he cloth'd in human shape_--
_Alecto torvam faciem et furialia membra
Exuit: in vultus sese transformat aniles,
Et frontem obscaenum rugis arat. _
VIR. AEn. vii.
[107] To be identified with the Sun, in the opinion of later
mythologists; but not so in Homer, with whom Helios (the Sun) is himself
a deity. --_Ed. _
[108]
_Thus, when to gain his beauteous charmer's smile,
The youthful lover dares the bloody toil. _
This simile is taken from a favourite exercise in Spain, where it is
usual to see young gentlemen of the best families entering the lists to
fight with a bull, adorned with ribbons, and armed with a javelin or
kind of cutlass, which the Spaniards call _Machete_.
[109]
------------_e maldizia
O velho inerte, e a m? y, que o filho cria. _
Thus translated by Fanshaw--
------------_curst their ill luck,
Th' old Devil and the Dam that gave them suck. _
[110]
_Flints, clods, and javelins hurling as they fly,
As rage, &c. --
Jamque faces et saxa volant, furor arma ministrat. _
VIRG. AEn. i.
The Spanish commentator on this place relates a very extraordinary
instance of the _furor arma ministrans_. A Portuguese soldier at the
siege of Diu in the Indies, being surrounded by the enemy, and having no
ball to charge his musket, pulled out one of his teeth, and with it
supplied the place of a bullet.
[111] The italics indicate that there is nothing in the original
corresponding to these lines. --_Ed.
sleeps sound, and knows not the diseases of cities. He cannot want what
he does not desire, nor desire that which he does not know, and vexation
or grief do not enter his soul. He is not under the control of a
superior in his actions; in a word, says our author, the savage only
suffers the evils of nature.
If the civilized, he adds, enjoy the elegancies of life, have better
food, and are more comfortably defended against the change of seasons,
it is use which makes these things necessary, and they are purchased by
the painful labours of the multitude who are the basis of society. To
what outrages is not the man of civil life exposed? if he has property,
it is in danger; and government or authority is, according to our
author, the greatest of all evils. If there is a famine in North
America, the savage, led by the wind and the sun, can go to a better
clime; but in the horrors of famine, war, or pestilence, the ports and
barriers of civilized states place the subjects in a prison, where they
must perish. There still remains an infinite difference between the lot
of the civilized and the savage; a difference, all entirely to the
disadvantage of society, that injustice which reigns in the inequality
of fortunes and conditions.
[26] The innocent simplicity of the Americans in their conferences with
the Spaniards, and the horrid cruelties they suffered from them, divert
our view from their complete character. Almost everything was horrid in
their civil customs and religious rites. In some tribes, to cohabit with
their mothers, sisters, and daughters was esteemed the means of domestic
peace. In others, catamites were maintained in every village; they went
from house to house as they pleased, and it was unlawful to refuse them
what victuals they chose. In every tribe, the captives taken in war were
murdered with the most wanton cruelty, and afterwards devoured by the
victors. Their religious rites were, if possible, still more horrid. The
abominations of ancient Moloch were here outnumbered; children, virgins,
slaves, and captives bled on different altars, to appease their various
gods. If there was a scarcity of human victims, the priests announced
that the gods were dying of thirst for human blood. And, to prevent a
threatened famine, the kings of Mexico were obliged to make war on the
neighbouring states. The prisoners of either side died by the hand of
the priest. But the number of the Mexican sacrifices so greatly exceeded
those of other nations, that the Tlascalans, who were hunted down for
this purpose, readily joined Cortez with about 200,000 men, and enabled
him to make one great sacrifice of the Mexican nation. Who that views
Mexico, steeped in her own blood, can restrain the emotion which
whispers to him, This is the hand of Heaven! --By the number of these
sacred butcheries, one would think that cruelty was the greatest
amusement of Mexico. At the dedication of the temple of Vitzliputzli,
A. D. 1486, no less than 64,080 human victims were sacrificed in four
days. And, according to the best accounts, the annual sacrifices of
Mexico required several thousands. The skulls of the victims sometimes
were hung on strings which reached from tree to tree around their
temples, and sometimes were built up in towers and cemented with lime.
In some of these towers Andrew de Tapia one day counted 136,000 skulls.
During the war with Cortez they increased their usual sacrifices, till
priest and people were tired of their bloody religion. --See, for ample
justification of these statements, the _Histories of the Conquest of
Mexico and Peru_, by Prescott. --_Ed. _
[27] Mahommed Ali Khan, Nawab of the Carnatic, declared, "I met the
British with that freedom of openness which they love, and I esteem it
my honour as well as security to be the ally of such a nation of
princes. "
[28] Every man must follow his father's trade, and must marry a daughter
of the same occupation. Innumerable are their other barbarous
restrictions of genius and inclination.
[29] Extremity; for it were both highly unjust and impolitic in
government to allow importation in such a degree as might be destructive
of domestic agriculture.
[30] Even that warm admirer of savage happiness, the author of _Histoire
Philosophique et Politique des Etablissements_, confesses that the wild
Americans seem destitute of the feeling of love. When the heat of
passion, says he, is gratified, they lose all affection and attachment
for their women, whom they degrade to the most servile offices. --A
tender remembrance of the first endearments, a generous participation of
care and hope, the compassionate sentiments of honour; all these
delicate feelings, which arise into affection, and bind attachment, are
indeed, incompatible with the ferocious and gross sensations of
barbarians.
[31] It is a question still debated among medical writers, and by no
means yet decided, whether the disease referred to is of American
origin. We do not read, it is true, of any such disease in the pages of
the ancient classic writers; it has hence been inferred that it was
unknown to them. --_Ed. _
[32] The degeneracy of the Roman literature preceded the fate of the
state, and the reason is obvious. The men of fortune grew frivolous, and
superficial in every branch of knowledge, and were therefore unable to
hold the reigns of empire. The degeneracy of literary taste is,
therefore, the surest proof of the general ignorance.
[33] The soldiers and navigators were the only considerable gainers by
their acquirements in the Indies. Agriculture and manufactures are the
natural strength of a nation; these received little or no increase in
Spain and Portugal by the great acquisitions of these crowns.
[34] Ariosto, who adopted the legends of the old romance, chose this
period for the subject of his Orlando Furioso. Paris besieged by the
Saracens, Orlando and the other Christian knights assemble in aid of
Charlemagne, who are opposed in their amours and in battle by Rodomont,
Ferraw, and other Saracen knights. That there was a noted Moorish
Spaniard, named Ferraw, a redoubted champion of that age, we have the
testimony of Marcus Antonius Sabellicus, a writer of note of the
fifteenth century.
[35] Small indeed in extent, but so rich in fertility, that it was
called _Medulla Hispanica_, "The marrow of Spain. "--Vid. Resandii Antiq.
Lusit. l. iii.
[36] In propriety most certainly a crusade, though that term has never
before been applied to this war.
[37] The power of deposing, and of electing their kings, under certain
circumstances, is vested in the people by the statutes of Lamego.
[38] For the character of this prince, see the note, Bk. iii. p. 96.
[39] For anecdotes of this monarch, see the notes, Bk. iii. p. 99.
[40] This great prince was the natural son of Pedro the Just. Some years
after the murder of his beloved spouse, Inez de Castro (see Lusiad, Bk.
iii. p. 96), lest his father, whose severe temper he too well knew,
should force him into a disagreeable marriage, Don Pedro commenced an
amour with a Galician lady, who became the mother of John I. , the
preserver of the Portuguese monarchy.
[41] The sons of John, who figure in history, were Edward, Juan,
Fernando, Pedro and Henry. Edward succeeded his father. Juan,
distinguished both in the camp and cabinet, in the reign of his brother
Edward had the honour to oppose the expedition against Tangier, which
was proposed by his brother Fernando, in whose perpetual captivity it
ended.
[42] The dominion of the Portuguese in the Indian seas cut the sinews of
the Egyptian and other Mohammedan powers.
[43] Flanders has been the school-mistress of husbandry to Europe. Sir
Charles Lisle, a royalist, resided in this country several years during
the Commonwealth; and after the Restoration, rendered England the
greatest service, by introducing the present system of agriculture.
Where trade increases, men's thoughts are set in action; hence the
increase of food which is wanted is supplied by a redoubled attention to
husbandry; and hence it was that agriculture was of old improved and
diffused by the Phoenician colonies.
[44] At the reduction of Ceuta in Africa, and in other engagements,
Prince Henry displayed military genius and valour of the first
magnitude. The important fortress of Ceuta was in a manner won by his
own sword.
[45] Nam, in Portuguese, a negative. It is now called by corruption Cape
Nun.
[46] Cape Bojador, from the Spanish, _bojar_, to compass or go about.
[47] Unluckily, he also left on this island two rabbits, whose young so
increased that in a few years it was found not habitable, every
vegetable being destroyed by the great increase of these animals.
[48] Madeira in Portuguese signifies timber. --_Ed. _
[49] If one would trace the true character of Cortez and the Americans,
he must have recourse to the numerous Spanish writers, who were either
witnesses of the first wars, or soon after travelled in these countries.
[The reader cannot do better than refer to Prescott's _History of the
Conquest of Mexico and Peru_ for information on these points. --_Ed. _] In
these he will find many anecdotes which afford a light not to be found
in our modern histories. Cortez set out to take gold by force, and not
by establishing any system of commerce with the natives, the only just
reason for effecting a settlement in a foreign country. He was asked by
various states, what commodities or drugs he wanted, and was promised
abundant supply. He and his Spaniards, he answered, had a disease at
their hearts, which nothing but gold could cure; and he received
intelligence that Mexico abounded with it. Under pretence of a friendly
conference, he made the Mexican emperor, Montezuma, his prisoner, and
ordered him to pay tribute to Charles V. Immense sums were paid, but the
demand was boundless. Tumults ensued. Cortez displayed amazing
generalship, and some millions of those who boasted of the greatness of
Montezuma were sacrificed to the disease of Cortez's heart. Pizarro,
however, in the barbarity of his character, far exceeded him. There is a
bright side to the character of Cortez, if we can forget that his
avarice was the cause of a most unjust and most bloody war; but Pizarro
is a character completely detestable, destitute of every spark of
generosity. He massacred the Peruvians because they were barbarians, and
he himself could not read. Atabalipa, the Peruvian Inca, amazed at the
art of reading, got a Spaniard to write the word Dios (God) on his
finger. On trying if the Spaniards agreed in what it signified, he
discovered that Pizarro could not read. And Pizarro, in revenge of the
contempt he perceived in the face of Atabalipa, ordered that prince to
be tried for his life, for having concubines, and being an idolater.
Atabalipa was condemned to be burned; but on submitting to baptism, he
was only hanged. See Prescott's _Conquest of Peru_.
[50] The difficulties he surmounted, and the assistance he received, are
sufficient proofs that an adventurer of inferior birth could never have
carried his designs into execution.
[51] Don Pedro was villainously accused of treacherous designs by his
illegitimate brother, the first Duke of Braganza. Henry left his town of
Sagrez to defend his brother at court, but in vain. Pedro, finding the
young king in the power of Braganza, fled, and soon after was killed in
defending himself against a party who were sent to seize him. His
innocence, after his death, was fully proved, and his nephew, Alonzo V. ,
gave him an honourable burial.
[52] Henry, who undertook to extend the boundaries which ignorance had
given to the world, had extended them much beyond the sensible horizon
long ere Columbus appeared. Columbus indeed taught the Spaniards the use
of longitude and latitude in navigation, but that great mathematician,
Henry, was the author of that grand discovery, and of the _use_ of the
compass. Every alteration ascribed to Columbus, had almost fifty years
before been effected by Henry. Even Henry's idea of sailing to India was
adopted by Columbus. It was everywhere his proposal. When he arrived in
the West Indies he thought he had found the Ophir of Solomon, and thence
these islands received their general name, and on his return he told
John II. that he had been at the islands of India. To find the Spice
Islands of the East was his proposal at the court of Spain; and even on
his fourth and last voyage in 1502, three years after Gama's return, he
promised the King of Spain to find India by a westward passage. But
though great discoveries rewarded his toils, his first and last purpose
he never completed. It was reserved for Magalhaens to discover the
westward route to the Eastern world.
Gomara and other Spanish writers relate, that while Columbus lived in
Madeira, a pilot, the only survivor of a ship's crew, died at his house.
This pilot, they say, had been driven to the West Indies, or America, by
tempest, and on his death-bed communicated the journal of his voyage to
Columbus.
[53] Or Bethlehem, so named from the chapel.
[54] Now called St. Helen's.
[55] The voyage of Gama has been called merely a coasting one, and
therefore regarded as much less dangerous and heroical than that of
Columbus, or of Magalhaens. But this is one of the opinions hastily
taken up, and founded on ignorance. Columbus and Magalhaens undertook to
navigate unknown oceans, and so did Gama; with this difference, that the
ocean around the Cape of Good Hope, which Gama was to encounter, was
believed to be, and had been avoided by Diaz, as impassable. Prince
Henry suggested that the current of Cape Bojador might be avoided by
standing out to sea, and thus that Cape was first passed. Gama for this
reason did not coast, but stood out to sea for upwards of three months
of tempestuous weather. The tempests which afflicted Columbus and
Magalhaens are by their different historians described with
circumstances of less horror and danger than those which attacked Gama.
All the three commanders were endangered by mutiny; but none of their
crews, save Gama's, could urge the opinion of ages, and the example of a
living captain, that the dreadful ocean which they attempted was
impassable. Columbus and Magalhaens always found means, after detecting
a conspiracy, to keep the rest in hope; but Gama's men, when he put the
pilots in irons, continued in the utmost despair. Columbus was indeed
ill obeyed; Magalhaens sometimes little better; but nothing, save the
wonderful authority of Gama's command, could have led his crew through
the tempest which he surmounted ere he doubled the Cape of Good Hope.
Columbus, with _his_ crew, must have returned. The expedients which he
used to soothe them, would, under _his_ authority, have had no avail in
the tempest which Gama rode through. From every circumstance it is
evident that Gama had determined not to return, unless he found India.
Nothing less than such resolution to perish or attain his point could
have led him on.
[56] It afterwards appeared that the Moorish King of Mombas had been
informed of what happened at Mozambique, and intended to revenge it by
the total destruction of the fleet.
[57] Amerigo Vespucci, describing his voyage to America, says, "Having
passed the line, _e come desideroso d'essere autore che segnassi la
stella_--desirous to be the namer and discoverer of the Pole-star of the
other hemisphere, I lost my sleep many nights in contemplating the stars
of the other pole. " He then laments, that as his instruments could not
discover any star of less motion then ten degrees, he had not the
satisfaction of giving a name to any one. But as he observed four stars,
in form of an almond, which had but little motion, he hoped in his next
voyage he should be able to mark them out. --All this is curious, and
affords a good comment on the temper of the man who had the art to
defraud Columbus, by giving his own name to America; of which he
challenged the discovery. Near fifty years before the voyage of Amerigo
Vespucci, the Portuguese had crossed the line; and Diaz fourteen, and
Gama nearly three years before, had doubled the Cape of Good Hope; had
discovered seven stars in the constellation of the south pole, and from
the appearance of the four most luminous, had given it the name of "The
Cross," a figure which it better resembles than that of an almond.
[58] Properly "Samudra-Rajah," King of the Sea, corrupted into
Zamorim. --_Ed. _
[59] "Kotwal" signifies Superintendent of the Police. --_Ed. _
[60] Faria y Sousa.
[61] It was the custom of the first discoverers to erect crosses at
various places remarkable in their voyage. Gama erected six: one,
dedicated to St. Raphael, at the river of Good Signs; one to St. George,
at Mozambique; one to St. Stephen, at Melinda; one to St. Gabriel, at
Calicut; and one to St. Mary, at the island thence named, near
Anchediva.
[62] _The Lusiad_; in the original, Os Lusiadas, The Lusiads, from the
Latin name (_Lusitania_) of Portugal, derived from Lusus or Lysas, the
companion of Bacchus in his travels, who settled a colony in Lusitania,
See Plin. 1, iii. c. i.
[63] _Thro' seas where sail was never spread before. _--M. Duperron de
Castera, who has given a French prose translation, or rather paraphrase,
of the Lusiad, has a long note on this passage, which, he tells us, must
not be understood literally. Our author, he says, could not be ignorant
that the African and Indian Oceans had been navigated before the times
of the Portuguese. The Phoenicians, whose fleets passed the straits of
Gibraltar, made frequent voyages in these seas, though they carefully
concealed the course of their navigation that other nations might not
become partakers of their lucrative traffic. --See the Periplus of Hanno,
in Cory's Ancient Fragments. --_Ed. _
[64] _And all my country's wars. _--He interweaves artfully the history
of Portugal. --VOLTAIRE.
[65] _To Holy Faith unnumber'd altars rear'd. _--In no period of history
does human nature appear with more shocking, more diabolical features
than in the wars of Cortez, and the Spanish conquerors of South America.
Zeal for the Christian religion was esteemed, at the time of the
Portuguese grandeur, as the most cardinal virtue, and to propagate
Christianity and extirpate Mohammedanism were the most certain proofs of
that zeal. In all their expeditions this was professedly a principal
motive of the Lusitanian monarchs, and Camoens understood the nature of
epic poetry too well to omit it.
[66] Ulysses, who is the subject of the Odyssey.
[67] The voyage of AEneas, described in the AEneid of Virgil.
[68] Alexander the Great, who claimed to be the son of Jupiter Ammon.
[69] Vasco de Gama is, in a great measure, though not exclusively, the
hero of the Lusiad.
[70] King Sebastian, who came to the throne in his minority. Though the
warm imagination of Camoens anticipated the praises of the future hero,
the young monarch, like Virgil's Pollio, had not the happiness to fulfil
the prophecy. His endowments and enterprising genius promised, indeed, a
glorious reign. Ambitious of military laurels, he led a powerful army
into Africa, on purpose to replace Muley Hamet on the throne of Morocco,
from which he had been deposed by Muley Molucco. On the 4th of August,
1578, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, he gave battle to the usurper
on the plains of Alcazar. This was that memorable engagement, to which
the Moorish Emperor, extremely weakened by sickness, was carried in his
litter. By the impetuosity of the attack, the first line of the Moorish
infantry was broken, and the second disordered. Muley Molucco on this
mounted his horse, drew his sabre, and would have put himself at the
head of his troops, but was prevented by his attendants. His emotion of
mind was so great that he fell from his horse, and one of his guards
having caught him in his arms, conveyed him to his litter, where,
putting his finger on his lips to enjoin them silence, he immediately
expired. Hamet Taba stood by the curtains of the carriage, opened them
from time to time, and gave out orders as if he had received them from
the Emperor. Victory declared for the Moors, and the defeat of the
Portuguese was so total, that not above fifty of their whole army
escaped. Hieron de Mendoca and Sebastian de Mesa relate, that Don
Sebastian, after having two horses killed under him, was surrounded and
taken; but the party who had secured him, quarrelling among themselves
whose prisoner he was, a Moorish officer rode up and struck the king a
blow over the right eye, which brought him to the ground; when,
despairing of ransom, the others killed him. About twenty years after
this fatal defeat there appeared a stranger at Venice, who called
himself Sebastian, King of Portugal, whom he so perfectly resembled,
that the Portuguese of that city acknowledged him for their sovereign.
He underwent twenty-eight examinations before a committee of the nobles,
in which he gave a distinct account of the manner in which he had passed
his time from the fatal defeat at Alcazar. It was objected, that the
successor of Muley Molucco sent a corpse to Portugal which had been
owned as that of the king by the Portuguese nobility who survived the
battle. To this he replied, that his _valet de chambre_ had produced
that body to facilitate his escape, and that the nobility acted upon the
same motive, and Mesa and Baena confess, that some of this nobility,
after their return to Portugal acknowledged that the corpse was so
disfigured with wounds that it was impossible to know it. He showed
natural marks on his body, which many remembered on the person of the
king whose name he assumed. He entered into a minute detail of the
transactions that had passed between himself and the republic, and
mentioned the secrets of several conversations with the Venetian
ambassadors in the palace of Lisbon. He fell into the hands of the
Spaniards, who conducted him to Naples, where they treated him with the
most barbarous indignities. After they had often exposed him, mounted on
an ass, to the cruel insults of the brutal mob, he was shipped on board
a galley, as a slave. He was then carried to St. Lucar, from thence to a
castle in the heart of Castile, and never was heard of more.
The
firmness of his behaviour, his singular modesty and heroical patience,
are mentioned with admiration by Le Clede. To the last he maintained the
truth of his assertions: a word never slipped from his lips which might
countenance the charge of imposture, or justify the cruelty of his
persecutors.
[71] Portugal, when Camoens wrote his Lusiad, was at the zenith of its
power and splendour. The glorious successes which had attended the arms
of the Portuguese in Africa, had gained them the highest military
reputation. Their fleets covered the ocean. Their dominions and
settlements extended along the western and eastern sides of the vast
African continent. From the Red Sea to China and Japan, they were sole
masters of the riches of the East; and in America, the fertile and
extensive regions of Brazil completed their empire.
[72] Lusitania is the Latin name of a Roman province which comprised the
greater part of the modern kingdom of Portugal, besides a considerable
portion of Leon and Spanish Estremadura. --_Ed. _
[73] _The sun. _--Imitated, perhaps, from Rutilius, speaking of the Roman
Empire--
_Volvitur ipse tibi, qui conspicit omnia, Phoebus,
Atque tuis ortos in tua condit equos;_
or, more probably, from these lines of Buchanan, addressed to John III.
King of Portugal, the grandfather of Sebastian--
_Inque tuis Phoebus regnis oriensque cadensque
Vix longum fesso conderet axe diem.
Et quaecunque vago se circumvolvit Olympo
Affulget ratibus flamma ministra tuis. _
[74] _i. e. _ poetic. Aonia was the ancient name of Boeotia, in which
country was a fountain sacred to the Muses, whence Juvenal sings of a
poet--
"Enamoured of the woods, and fitted for drinking
At the fountains of the Aonides. "
JUV. Sat. vii. 58. --_Ed. _
[75] _To match the Twelve so long by bards renown'd. _--The Twelve Peers
of France, often mentioned in the old romances. For the episode of
Magricio and his eleven companions, see the sixth Lusiad.
[76] Afonso in Portuguese. In the first edition Mickle had Alfonso,
which he altered to Alonzo in the second edition.
[77] _Thy grandsires. _--John III. King of Portugal, celebrated for a
long and peaceful reign; and the Emperor Charles V. , who was engaged in
almost continual wars.
[78] Some critics have condemned Virgil for stopping his narrative to
introduce even a short observation of his own. Milton's beautiful
complaint of his blindness has been blamed for the same reason, as being
no part of the subject of his poem. The address of Camoens to Don
Sebastian at the conclusion of the tenth Lusiad has not escaped the same
censure; though in some measure undeservedly, as the poet has had the
art to interweave therein some part of the general argument of his poem.
[79] This brave Lusitanian, who was first a shepherd and a famous
hunter, and afterwards a captain of banditti, exasperated at the tyranny
of the Romans, encouraged his countrymen to revolt and shake off the
yoke. Being appointed general, he defeated Vetilius the praetor, who
commanded in Lusitania, or farther Spain. After this he defeated, in
three pitched battles, the praetors, C. Plautius Hypsaeus and Claudius
Unimanus, though they led against him very numerous armies. For six
years he continued victorious, putting the Romans to flight wherever he
met them, and laying waste the countries of their allies. Having
obtained such advantages over the proconsul, Servilianus, that the only
choice which was left to the Roman army was death or slavery, the brave
Viriatus, instead of putting them all to the sword, as he could easily
have done, sent a deputation to the general, offering to conclude a
peace with him on this single condition, _That he should continue master
of the country now in his power, and that the Romans should remain
possessed of the rest of Spain_.
The proconsul, who expected nothing but death or slavery, thought these
very favourable and moderate terms, and without hesitation concluded a
peace, which was soon after ratified by the Roman senate and people.
Viriatus, by this treaty, completed the glorious design he had always in
view, which was to erect a kingdom in the vast country he had conquered
from the republic. And, had it not been for the treachery of the Romans,
he would have become, as Florus calls him, the Romulus of Spain.
The senate, desirous to revenge their late defeat, soon after this
peace, ordered Q. Servilius Caepio to exasperate Viriatus, and force him,
by repeated affronts, to commit the first acts of hostility. But this
mean artifice did not succeed: Viriatus would not be provoked to a
breach of the peace. On this the Conscript Fathers, to the eternal
disgrace of their republic, ordered Caepio to declare war, and to
proclaim Viriatus, who had given no provocation, an enemy to Rome. To
this baseness Caepio added one still greater; he corrupted the
ambassadors whom Viriatus had sent to negotiate with him, who, at the
instigation of the Roman, treacherously murdered their protector and
general while he slept. --UNIV. HISTORY.
[80] Sertorius, who was invited by the Lusitanians to defend them
against the Romans. He had a tame white hind, which he had accustomed to
follow him, and from which he pretended to receive the instructions of
Diana. By this artifice he imposed upon the superstition of that people.
[81] _No more in Nysa. _--An ancient city in India sacred to Bacchus.
[82] _Urania-Venus. _--An Italian poet has given the following
description of the celestial Venus--
_Questa e vaga di Dio Venere bella
Vicina al Sole, e sopra ogni altra estella
Questa e quella beata, a cui s'inchina,
A cui si volge desiando amore,
Chiamata cui del Ciel rara e divina
Belta che vien tra noi per nostro honore,
Per far le menti desiando al Cielo
Obliare l'altrui col proprio velo. _--MARTEL.
[83] See the note in the Second Book on the following passage--
_As when in Ida's bower she stood of yore, etc. _
[84] _The manly music of their tongue the same. _--Camoens says:
_E na lingoa, na qual quando imagina,
Com pouca corrupcao cre que he Latina. _
Qualifications are never elegant in poetry. Fanshaw's translation and
the original both prove this:
----_their tongue
Which she thinks Latin, with small dross among. _
[85] _i. e. _ helmet.
[86]---- _and the light turn'd pale. _--The thought in the original has
something in it wildly great, though it is not expressed in the happiest
manner of Camoens--
_O ceo tremeo, e Apollo detorvado
Hum pauco a luz perdeo, como infiado. _
[87] Mercury, the messenger of the gods. --_Ed. _
[88] _And pastoral Madagascar. _--Called by the ancient geographers,
Menuthia and Cerna Ethiopica; by the natives, the Island of the Moon;
and by the Portuguese, the Isle of St. Laurence, on whose festival they
discovered it.
[89] _Praso. _--Name of a promontory near the Red Sea. --_Ed. _
[90] _Lav'd by the gentle waves. _--The original says, the sea showed
them new islands, which it encircled and laved. Thus rendered by
Fanshaw--
_Neptune disclos'd new isles which he did play
About, and with his billows danc't the hay. _
[91] The historical foundation of the fable of Phaeton is this. Phaeton
was a young enterprising prince of Libya. Crossing the Mediterranean in
quest of adventures, he landed at Epirus, from whence he went to Italy
to see his intimate friend Cygnus. Phaeton was skilled in astrology,
from whence he arrogated to himself the title of the son of Apollo. One
day in the heat of summer, as he was riding along the banks of the Po,
his horses took fright at a clap of thunder, and plunged into the river,
where, together with their master, they perished. Cygnus, who was a
poet, celebrated the death of his friend in verse, from whence the
fable. --Vid. Plutarch, in Vit. Pyrr.
[92] _Acheron. _--The river of Hades, or hell. --_Ed. _
[93] _From Abram's race our holy prophet sprung. _--Mohammed, who was
descended from Ishmael, the son of Abraham by Hagar.
[94] The Hydaspes was a tributary of the river Indus. --_Ed. _
[95] _Calm twilight now. _--Camoens, in this passage, has imitated Homer
in the manner of Virgil: by diversifying the scene he has made the
description his own. The passage alluded to is in the eighth Iliad--
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , etc.
Thus elegantly translated by Pope:--
_As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light,
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene;
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumber'd gild the glowing pole,
O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
And tip with silver every mountain's head;
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies:
The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light. _
[96] The Turks, or Osmanli Turcomans. --_Ed. _
[97] Constantinople.
[98] _Straight as he spoke. _--The description of the armoury, and
account which Vasco de Gama gives of his religion, consists, in the
original, of thirty-two lines, which M. Castera has reduced into the
following sentence: _Leur Governeur fait differentes questions au
Capitaine, qui pour le satisfaire lui explique en peu des mots la
Religion que les Portugais suivent, l'usage des armes dont ils se
servent dans la guerre, et le dessein qui les amene. _
[99] _i. e. _, helmets.
[100] Coats of mail.
[101] _When Gama's lips Messiah's name confess'd. _--This, and the reason
of the Moor's hate, is entirely omitted by Castera. The original is, the
Moor conceived hatred, "knowing they were followers of the truth which
the Son of David taught. " Thus rendered by Fanshaw:--
_Knowing they follow that unerring light,
The Son of David holds out in his Book. _
Zacocia (governor of Mozambique) made no doubt but our people were of
some Mohammedan country. The mutual exchange of good offices between our
people and these islanders promised a long continuance of friendship,
but it proved otherwise. No sooner did Zacocia understand they were
Christians, than all his kindness was turned into the most bitter
hatred; he began to meditate their ruin, and sought to destroy the
fleet. --OSORIO, Bp. of Sylves, Hist. of the Portug. Discov.
[102] Bacchus, god of wine.
[103] _Whom nine long months his father's thigh conceal'd. _--Bacchus was
nourished during his infancy in a cave of mount Meros, which in Greek
signifies a _thigh_. Hence the fable.
[104] Alexander the Great, who on visiting the temple of Jupiter Ammon,
was hailed as son of that deity by his priests. --_Ed. _
[105] Bacchus.
[106] _His form divine he cloth'd in human shape_--
_Alecto torvam faciem et furialia membra
Exuit: in vultus sese transformat aniles,
Et frontem obscaenum rugis arat. _
VIR. AEn. vii.
[107] To be identified with the Sun, in the opinion of later
mythologists; but not so in Homer, with whom Helios (the Sun) is himself
a deity. --_Ed. _
[108]
_Thus, when to gain his beauteous charmer's smile,
The youthful lover dares the bloody toil. _
This simile is taken from a favourite exercise in Spain, where it is
usual to see young gentlemen of the best families entering the lists to
fight with a bull, adorned with ribbons, and armed with a javelin or
kind of cutlass, which the Spaniards call _Machete_.
[109]
------------_e maldizia
O velho inerte, e a m? y, que o filho cria. _
Thus translated by Fanshaw--
------------_curst their ill luck,
Th' old Devil and the Dam that gave them suck. _
[110]
_Flints, clods, and javelins hurling as they fly,
As rage, &c. --
Jamque faces et saxa volant, furor arma ministrat. _
VIRG. AEn. i.
The Spanish commentator on this place relates a very extraordinary
instance of the _furor arma ministrans_. A Portuguese soldier at the
siege of Diu in the Indies, being surrounded by the enemy, and having no
ball to charge his musket, pulled out one of his teeth, and with it
supplied the place of a bullet.
[111] The italics indicate that there is nothing in the original
corresponding to these lines. --_Ed.
