[603] _Heav'n
indignant
showers their arrows backward.
Camoes - Lusiades
" He then proceeds to the story of
Timoja, as if the genius of Camoens stood in need of so weak an
assistance.
[575] _In friendly pity of Latona's woes. _--Latona, pregnant by Jupiter,
was persecuted by Juno, who sent the serpent Python in pursuit of her.
Neptune, in pity of her distress, raised the island of Delos for her
refuge, where she was delivered of Apollo and Diana. --OVID, Met.
[576] _Form'd in a crystal lake the waters blend. _--Castera also
attributes this to history. "The Portuguese actually found in this
island," says he, "a fine piece of water ornamented with hewn stones and
magnificent aqueducts; an ancient and superb work, of which nobody knew
the author. "
In 1505 Don Francisco Almeyda built a fort in this island. In digging
among some ancient ruins he found many crucifixes of black and red
colour, from whence the Portuguese conjectured, says Osorius, that the
Anchedivian islands had in former ages been inhabited by
Christians. --Vid. Osor. 1. iv.
[577]
_The orange here perfumes the buxom air.
And boasts the golden hue of Daphne's hair. --_
Frequent allusions to the fables of the ancients form a characteristic
feature of the poetry of the 16th and 17th centuries. A profusion of it
is pedantry; a moderate use of it, however, in a poem of those times
pleases, because it discovers the stages of composition, and has in
itself a fine effect, as it illustrates its subject by presenting the
classical reader with some little landscapes of that country through
which he has travelled. The description of forests is a favourite topic
in poetry. Chaucer, Tasso, and Spenser, have been happy in it, but both
have copied an admired passage in Statius:--
"Cadit ardua fagus,
Chaoniumque nemus, brumaeque illaesa cupressus;
Procumbunt piceae, flammis alimenta supremis,
Ornique, iliceaeque trabes, metuandaque sulco
Taxus, et infandos belli potura cruores
Fraxinus, atque situ non expugnabile robur:
Hinc audax abies, et odoro vulnere pinus
Scinditur, acclinant intonsa cacumina terrae
Alnus amica fretis, nec inhospita vitibus ulmus. "
In rural descriptions three things are necessary to render them
poetical: the happiness of epithet, of picturesque arrangement, and of
little landscape views. Without these, all the names of trees and
flowers, though strung together in tolerable numbers, contain no more
poetry than a nurseryman or a florist's catalogue. In Statius, in Tasso
and Spenser's admired forests (Ger. Liber. c. 3. st. 75, 76, and F.
Queen, b. 1 c. 1. st. 8, 9), the poetry consists entirely in the
happiness of the epithets. In Camoens, all the three requisites are
admirably attained and blended together.
[578] _And stain'd with lover's blood. _--Pyramus and Thisbe:--
"Arborei foetus aspergine caedis in atram
Vertuntur faciem: madefactaque sanguine radix
Puniceo tingit pendentia mora colore. . . . .
At tu quo ramis arbor miserabile corpus
Nunc tegis unius, mox es tectura duorum;
Signa tene caedis: pullosque et lectibus aptos
Semper habe foetus gemini monumenta cruoris. "
OVID, Met.
[579] _The shadowy vale. _--Literal from the original,--_O sombrio
valle_--which Fanshaw, however, has translated, "the gloomy valley," and
thus has given us a funereal, where the author intended a festive,
landscape. It must be confessed, however, that the description of the
island of Venus, is infinitely the best part of all of Fanshaw's
translation. And indeed the dullest prose translation might obscure, but
could not possibly throw a total eclipse over, so admirable an original.
[580] _The woe-mark'd flower of slain Adonis--water'd by the tears of
love. _--The Anemone. "This," says Castera, "is applicable to the
celestial Venus, for, according to my theology, her amour with Adonis
had nothing in it impure, but was only the love which nature bears to
the sun. " The fables of antiquity have generally a threefold
interpretation, an historical allusion, a physical and a metaphysical
allegory. In the latter view, the fable of Adonis is only applicable to
the celestial Venus. A divine youth is outrageously slain, but shall
revive again at the restoration of the golden age. Several nations, it
is well known, under different names, celebrated the Mysteries, or the
death and resurrection of Adonis; among whom were the British Druids, as
we are told by Dr. Stukely. In the same manner Cupid, in the fable of
Psyche, is interpreted by mythologists, to signify the Divine Love
weeping over the degeneracy of human nature.
[581]
_At strife appear the lawns and purpled skies,
Who from each other stole the beauteous dyes. --_
On this passage Castera has the following sensible, though turgid, note:
"This thought," says he, "is taken from the idyllium of Ausonius on the
rose:--
'Ambigeres raperetne rosis Aurora ruborem,
An daret, et flores tingere torta dies. '
Camoens who had a genius rich of itself, still further enriched it at
the expense of the ancients. Behold what makes great authors! Those who
pretend to give us nothing but the fruits of their own growth, soon
fail, like the little rivulets which dry up in the summer, very
different from the floods, who receive in their course the tribute of a
hundred and a hundred rivers, and which even in the dog-days carry their
waves triumphant to the ocean. "
[582] _The hyacinth bewrays the doleful_ Ai. --Hyacinthus, a youth
beloved of Apollo, by whom he was accidentally slain, and afterwards
turned into a flower:--
"Tyrioque nitentior ostro
Flos oritur, formamque capit, quam lilia: si non,
Purpureus color huic, argenteus esset in illis.
Non satis hoc Phaebo est: is enim fuit auctor honoris.
Ipse suos gemitus foliis inscribit; et Ai, Ai,
Flos habet inscriptum: funestaque littera ducta est. "
OVID, Met.
[583] _The second Argonauts. _--The expedition of the Golden Fleece was
esteemed, in ancient poetry, one of the most daring adventures, the
success of which was accounted miraculous. The allusions of Camoens to
this voyage, though in the spirit of his age, are by no means improper.
[584] _Wide o'er the beauteous isle the lovely fair. _--We now come to
the passage condemned by Voltaire as so lascivious, that no nation in
Europe, except the Portuguese and Italians, could bear it. The fate of
Camoens has hitherto been very peculiar. The mixture of Pagan and
Christian mythology in his machinery has been anathematized, and his
island of love represented as a brothel. Yet both accusations are the
arrogant assertions of the most superficial acquaintance with his works.
His poem itself, and a comparison of its parts with the similar conduct
of the greatest modern poets, will clearly evince, that in both
instances no modern epic writer of note has given less offence to true
criticism.
Not to mention Ariosto, whose descriptions will often admit of no
palliation, Tasso, Spenser, and Milton, have always been esteemed among
the chastest of poets, yet in that delicacy of warm description, which
Milton has so finely exemplified in the nuptials of our first parents,
none of them can boast the continued uniformity of the Portuguese poet.
Though there is a warmth in the colouring of Camoens which even the
genius of Tasso has not reached: and though the island of Armida is
evidently copied from the Lusiad, yet those who are possessed of the
finer feelings, will easily discover an essential difference between the
love-scenes of the two poets, a difference greatly in favour of the
delicacy of the former. Though the nymphs in Camoens are detected naked
in the woods, and in the stream, and though desirous to captivate, still
their behaviour is that of the virgin who hopes to be the spouse. They
act the part of offended modesty; even when they yield they are silent,
and behave in every respect like Milton's Eve in the state of innocence,
who--
"What was honour knew,"
And who displayed--
"Her virtue, and the conscience of her worth,
That would be wooed, and not unsought be won. "
To sum up all, the nuptial sanctity draws its hallowed curtains, and a
masterly allegory shuts up the love-scenes of Camoens.
How different from all this is the island of Armida in Tasso, and its
translation, the bower of Acrasia in Spenser! In these virtue is
seduced; the scene therefore is less delicate. The nymphs, while they
are bathing, in place of the modesty of the bride as in Camoens, employ
all the arts of the lascivious wanton. They stay not to be wooed; but,
as Spenser gives it--
_The amorous sweet spoils to greedy eyes reveal. _
One stanza from our English poet, which, however, is rather fuller than
the original, shall here suffice:--
"Withal she laughed and she blush'd withal,
That blushing to her laughter gave more grace,
And laughter to her blushing, as did fall.
Now when they spy'd the knight to slack his pace,
Them to behold, and _in his sparkling face
The secret signs of kindled lust appear_,
Their wanton merriments they did increase,
And to him beckon'd to approach more near,
_And show'd him many sights, that courage cold could rear_.
This and other descriptions--
"Upon a bed of roses she was laid
As faint through heat, or dight to pleasant sin"--
present every idea of lascivious voluptuousness. The allurements of
speech are also added. Songs, which breathe every persuasive, are heard;
and the nymphs boldly call to the beholder:--
_E' dolce campo di battaglia il letto
Fiavi, e l'herbetta morbida de' prati. _--TASSO.
"Our field of battle is the downy bed,
Or flow'ry turf amid the smiling mead. "--HOOLE.
These, and the whole scenes in the domains of Armida and Acrasia, are in
a turn of manner the reverse of the island of Venus. In these the
expression and idea are meretricious. In Camoens, though the colouring
is even warmer, yet the modesty of the Venus de Medicis is still
preserved. In everything he describes there is still something strongly
similar to the modest attitude of the arms of that celebrated statue.
Though prudery, that usual mask of the impurest minds, may condemn him,
yet those of the most chaste, though less gloomy turn, will allow, that
in comparison with others, he might say,--_Virginibus puerisque canto_.
Spenser also, where he does not follow Tasso, is often gross; and even
in some instances, where the expression is most delicate, the picture is
nevertheless indecently lascivious.
[585] _The hunter. _--Acteon.
[586] _Madd'ning as he said. _--At the end of his Homer Mr. Pope has
given an index of the instances of imitative and sentimental harmony
contained in his translations. He has also often even in his notes
pointed out the adaptation of sound to sense. The translator of the
Lusiad hopes he may for once say, that he has not been inattentive to
this great essential of good versification: how he has succeeded the
judicious only must determine. The speech of Leonard to the cursory
reader may perhaps sometimes appear careless, and sometimes turgid and
stiff. That speech, however, is an attempt at the imitative and
sentimental harmony, and with the judicious he rests its fate. As the
translation in this instance exceeds the original in length, the
objection of a foreign critic requires attention. An old pursy Abbe,
(and critics are apt to judge by themselves) may indeed be surprised
that a man out of breath with running should be able to talk so long.
But, had he consulted the experiences of others, he would have found it
was no wonderful matter for a stout and young cavalier to talk twice as
much, though fatigued with the chase of a couple of miles, provided the
supposition be allowed, that he treads on the last steps of his flying
mistress.
[587] _Hence, ye profane. _--We have already observed, that in every
other poet the love scenes are generally described as those of guilt and
remorse. The contrary character of those of Camoens not only gives them
a delicacy unknown to other moderns, but, by the fiction of the spousal
rites, the allegory and machinery of the poem are most happily
conducted.
[588] _Spread o'er the eastern world the dread alarms. _--This admonition
places the whole design of the poem before us. To extirpate
Mohammedanism, and propagate Christianity, were professed as the
principal purpose of the discoveries of Prince Henry and King Emmanuel.
In the beginning of the seventh Lusiad, the nations of Europe are
upbraided for permitting the Saracens to erect and possess an empire,
which alike threatened Europe and Christianity. The Portuguese, however,
the patriot poet concludes, will themselves overthrow their enormous
power: an event which is the proposed subject of the Lusiad, and which
is represented as, in effect, completed in the last book. On this
system, adopted by the poet, and which on every occasion was avowed by
their kings, the Portuguese made immense conquests in the East. Yet, let
it be remembered, to the honour of GAMA, and the first commanders who
followed his route, that the plots of the Moors, and their various
breaches of treaty, gave rise to the first wars which the Portuguese
waged in Asia. On finding that all the colonies of the Moors were
combined for their destruction, the Portuguese declared war against the
eastern Moors, and their allies, wherever they found them. The course of
human things, however, soon took place, and the sword of victory and
power soon became the sword of tyranny and rapine.
[589] _Far o'er the silver lake of Mexic. _--The city of Mexico is
environed with an extensive lake; or, according to Cortez, in his second
narration to Charles V. , with two lakes, one of fresh, the other of salt
water, in circuit about fifty leagues. This situation, said the
Mexicans, was appointed by their God Vitzliputzli, who, according to the
explanation of their picture-histories, led their forefathers a journey
of fourscore years, in search of the promised land. Four of the
principal priests carried the idol in a coffer of reeds. Whenever they
halted they built a tabernacle for their god in the midst of their camp,
where they placed the coffer and the altar. They then sowed the land,
and their stay or departure, without regard to the harvest, was directed
by the orders received from their idol, till at last, by his command,
they fixed their abode on the site of Mexico.
[590] _Before the love-sick Roman. _--Mark Antony.
[591] _The beverage--the fountain's cooling aid confess'd. _--It was a
custom of the ancients in warm climates to mix the coolest spring water
with their wine, immediately before drinking; not, we may suppose, to
render it less intoxicating, but on account of the cooling flavour it
thereby received. Homer tells us that the wine which Ulysses gave to
Polyphemus would bear twenty measures of water. Modern luxury has
substituted preserved ice, in place of the more ancient mixture.
[592] _Music, such as erst subdued the horrid frown of hell_,
etc. --Alluding to the fable of Orpheus. Fanshaw's translation, as
already observed, was published fourteen years before the Paradise Lost.
These lines of Milton--
"What could it less, when spirits immortal sung?
Their song was partial, but the harmony
Suspended hell, and took with ravishment
The thronging audience,"
bear a resemblance to these of Fanshaw--
"Musical instruments not wanting, such
As to the damn'd spirits once gave ease
In the dark vaults of the infernal hall. "
To _slumber_ amid their punishment, though omitted by Fanshaw, is
literal:--
"Fizerao descancar da eterna pena. "
[593] _No more the summer of my life remains. _--It is not certain when
Camoens wrote this. It seems, however, not long to have preceded the
publication of his poem, at which time he was in his fifty-fifth year.
This apostrophe to his muse may, perhaps, by some be blamed as another
digression; but, so little does it require defence, that one need not
hesitate to affirm that, had Homer, who often talks to his muse,
introduced, on these favourable opportunities, any little picture or
history of himself, these digressions would have been the most
interesting parts of his works. Had any history of Homer complained,
like this of Camoens, it would have been bedewed with the tears of ages.
[594] _Thy faith repent not, nor lament thy wrong. _--P. Alvarez Cabral,
the second Portuguese commander who sailed to India, entered into a
treaty of alliance with Trimumpara, king of Cochin, and high priest of
Malabar. The zamorim raised powerful armies to dethrone him. His
fidelity to the Portuguese was unalterable, though his affairs were
brought to the lowest ebb. --See the history in the Preface.
[595]
_His ship's strong sides shall groan beneath his weight,
And deeper waves receive the sacred freight. --_
Thus Virgil:--
"Simul accipit alveo
Ingentem AEneam. Gemuit sub pondere cymba
Sutilis, et multam accepit rimosa paludem. "--AEN. vi. 412.
That the visionary boat of Charon groaned under the weight of AEneas is a
fine poetical stroke; but that the crazy rents let in the water is
certainly lowering the image. The thought, however, as managed in
Camoens is much grander than in Virgil, and affords a happy instance
where the hyperbole is truly poetical.
The Lusiad affords many instances which must be highly pleasing to the
Portuguese, but dry to those who are unacquainted with their history.
Nor need one hesitate to assert that, were we not acquainted with the
Roman history from our childhood, a great part of the AEneid would appear
to us intolerably uninteresting. Sensible of this disadvantage which
every version of historical poetry must suffer, the translator has not
only in the notes added every incident which might elucidate the
subject, but has also, all along, in the episode in the third and fourth
books, in the description of the painted ensigns in the eighth, and in
the allusions in the present book, endeavoured to throw every historical
incident into that universal language, the picturesque of poetry. When
Hector storms the Grecian camp, when Achilles marches to battle, every
reader understands and is affected with the bold painting. But when
Nestor talks of his exploits at the funeral games of Amarynces (Iliad
xxiii. ) the critics themselves cannot comprehend him, and have vied with
each other in inventing explanations.
[596] _Proas_, or paraos, Indian vessels which lie low on the water, are
worked with oars, and carry 100 men and upwards apiece.
[597]
_His robes are sprinkled o'er,
And his proud face dash'd, with his menials' gore. --_
See the history in the Preface.
[598] _Round Lusus' fleet to pour their sulph'rous entrails. _--How
Pacheco avoided this formidable danger, see the history in the preface.
[599] _Nor Tiber's bridge. _--When Porsenna besieged Rome, Horatius
Cocles defended the pass of a bridge till the Romans destroyed it behind
him. Having thus saved the pass, heavy armed as he was, he swam across
the Tiber to his companions. Roman history, however, at this period, is
often mixed with fable. Miltiades obtained a great victory over Darius
at Marathon. The stand made by Leonidas at Thermopyl? is well known. The
battles of Pacheco were in defence of the fords by which alone the city
of Cochin could be entered. The numbers he withstood by land and sea,
and the victories he obtained, are much more astonishing than the
defence of Thermopylae.
[600] _Bound to the mast the godlike hero stands. _--English history
affords an instance of similar resolution in Admiral Bembo, who was
supported in a wooden frame, and continued the engagement after his legs
and thighs were shivered in splinters. Contrary to the advice of his
officers, the young Almeyda refused to bear off, though almost certain
to be overpowered, and though both wind and tide were against him. His
father had sharply upbraided him for a former retreat, where victory was
thought impossible. He now fell the victim of his father's ideas of
military glory.
[601] _The fleets of India fly. _--After having cleared the Indian seas,
the viceroy, Almeyda, attacked the combined fleets of Egypt, Cambaya,
and the zamorim, in the entrance and harbour of Diu, or Dio. The fleet
of the zamorim almost immediately fled. That of Melique Yaz, Lord of
Diu, suffered much; but the greatest slaughter fell upon the Egyptians
and Turks, commanded by Mir-Hocem, who had defeated and killed the young
Almeyda. Of 800 Mamelukes, or Turks, who fought under Mir-Hocem, only
22, says Osorius, survived this engagement. Melique Yaz, says Faria y
Sousa, was born in slavery, and descended of the Christians of Roxia.
The road to preferment is often a dirty one; but Melique's was much less
so than that of many. As the King of Cambaya was one day riding in
state, an unlucky kite dunged upon his royal head. His majesty in great
wrath swore he would give all he was worth to have the offender killed.
Melique, who was an expert archer, immediately despatched an arrow,
which brought the audacious hawk to the ground. For the merit of this
eminent service he was made Lord of Diu, or Dio, a considerable city,
the strongest and the most important fortress at that time in all
India. --See Faria, 1. 2, c. 2.
[602] _Great Cunia. _--Tristan da Cunha, or d'Acugna.
[603] _Heav'n indignant showers their arrows backward. _--Some writers
related that, when Albuquerque besieged Ormuz, a violent wind drove the
arrows of the enemy backward upon their own ranks. Osorius says, that
many of the dead Persians and Moors were found to have died by arrows.
But as that weapon was not used by the Portuguese he conjectures that,
in their despair of victory, many of the enemy had thus killed
themselves, rather than survive the defeat.
[604] _Muscat. _
[605] Bahrein, in the Persian Gulf.
[606] _What glorious palms on Goa's isle I see. _--This important place
was made an archbishopric, the capital of the Portuguese empire in the
east, and the seat of their viceroys; for which purposes it is
advantageously situated on the coast of Dekhan. It still remains in the
possession of the Portuguese.
[607] _Malacca. _--The conquest of this place was one of the greatest
actions of Albuquerque. It became the chief port of the eastern part of
Portuguese India, and second only to Goa. Besides a great many pieces of
ordnance which were carried away by the Moors who escaped, 3000 large
cannon remained the prize of the victors. When Albuquerque was on the
way to Malacca, he attacked a large ship; but, just as his men were
going to board her, she suddenly appeared all in flames, which obliged
the Portuguese to bear off. Three days afterwards the same vessel sent a
boat to Albuquerque, offering an alliance, which was accepted. The
flames, says Osorius, were only artificial, and did not the least
damage. Another wonderful adventure immediately happened. The admiral
soon after sent his long-boats to attack a ship commanded by one Nehoada
Beeguea. The enemy made an obstinate resistance. Nehoada himself was
pierced with several mortal wounds, but lost not one drop of blood till
a bracelet was taken off his arm, when immediately the blood gushed out.
According to Osorius, this was said to be occasioned by the virtue of a
stone in the bracelet, taken out of an animal called Cabrisia, which,
when worn on the body, could prevent the effusion of blood from the most
grievous wounds.
[608] _Yet art thou stain'd. _--A detail of all the grant actions of
Albuquerque would have been tedious and unpoetical. Camoens has chosen
the most brilliant, and has happily suppressed the rest by a display of
indignation. The French translator has the following note on this
passage: "Behold another instance of our author's prejudice! The action
which he condemns had nothing in it blameable: but, as he was of a most
amorous constitution, he thought every fault which could plead an amour
in its excuse ought to be pardoned; but true heroes, such as
Albuquerque, follow other maxims. This great man had in his palace a
beautiful Indian slave. He viewed her with the eyes of a father, and the
care of her education was his pleasure. A Portuguese soldier, named Ruy
Diaz, had the boldness to enter the general's apartment, where he
succeeded so well with the girl that he obtained his desire. When
Albuquerque heard of it, he immediately ordered him to the gallows. "
Camoens, however, was no such undistinguishing libertine as this would
represent him. In a few pages we find him praising the continence of Don
Henry de Meneses, whose victory over his passions he calls the highest
excellence of youth. Nor does it appear by what authority the Frenchman
assures us of the chaste paternal affection which Albuquerque bore to
this Indian girl. It was the great aim of Albuquerque to establish
colonies in India, and, for that purpose, he encouraged his soldiers to
marry with the natives. The most sightly girls were selected, and
educated in the religion and household arts of Portugal, and portioned
at the expense of the general. These he called his daughters, and with
great pleasure he used to attend their weddings, several couples being
usually joined together at one time. At one of these nuptials, says
Faria, the festivity having continued late, and the brides being mixed
together, several of the bridegrooms committed a blunder. The mistakes
of the night, however, as they were all equal in point of honour, were
mutually forgiven in the morning, and each man took his proper wife whom
he had received at the altar. This delicate anecdote of Albuquerque's
sons and daughters is as bad a commentary on the note of Castera as it
is on the severity which the commander showed to poor Diaz. Nor does
Camoens stand alone in the condemnation of the general. The historian
agrees with the poet. Mentioning the death of D. Antonio Noronha, "This
gentleman," says Faria, "used to moderate the violent temper of his
uncle, Albuquerque, which soon after showed itself in rigid severity. He
ordered a soldier to be hanged for an amour with one of the slaves whom
he called daughters, and whom he used to give in marriage. When some of
his officers asked him what authority he had to take the poor man's
life, he drew his sword, told them that was his commission, and
instantly broke them. " To marry his soldiers with the natives was the
plan of Albuquerque: his severity, therefore, seems unaccountable,
unless we admit the 'perhaps' of Camoens, _ou de cioso_, perhaps it was
jealousy. --But, whatever incensed the general, the execution of the
soldier was contrary to the laws of every nation;{*} and the honest
indignation of Camoens against one of the greatest of his countrymen,
one who was the grand architect of the Portuguese empire in the East,
affords a noble instance of that manly freedom of sentiment which knows
no right by which king or peer may do injustice to the meanest subject.
Nor can we omit the observation, that the above note of Castera is of a
piece with the French devotion we have already seen him pay to the name
of king, a devotion which breathes the true spirit of the blessed advice
given by Father Paul to the republic of Venice: "When a nobleman commits
an offence against a subject," says the Jesuit, "let every means be
tried to justify him. But, if a subject has offended a nobleman, let him
be punished with the utmost severity. "
{*} Osorius relates the affair of Diaz with some other circumstances;
but with no difference that affects this assertion.
[609] _Not Ammon. _--Campaspe, the most beautiful concubine of Alexander
the Great, was given by that monarch to Apelles, whom he perceived in
love with her. Araspas had strict charge of the fair captive, Panthea.
His attempt on her virtue was forgiven by Cyrus.
[610] _And Flandria's earldom on the knight bestow'd. _--"Baldwin,
surnamed Iron-arm, Grand Forester of Flanders, being in love with
Judith, the daughter of Charles the Bald, and widow of Ethelwolf, king
of England, obtained his desire by force. Charles, though at first he
highly resented, afterwards pardoned his crime, and consented to his
marriage with the princess. "--CASTERA.
* * * * *
This digression in the song of the nymph bears, in manner, a striking
resemblance to the histories which often, even in the heat of battle,
the heroes of Homer relate to each other. That these little episodes
have their beauty and propriety in an epic poem will strongly appear
from a view of M. de la Motte's translation of the Iliad into French
verse. The four and twenty books of Homer he has contracted into twelve,
and these contain no more lines than about four books of the original. A
thousand embellishments which the warm poetical feelings of Homer
suggested to him are thus thrown out by the Frenchman. But what is the
consequence of this improvement? The work of La Motte is unread, even by
his own countrymen, and despised by every foreigner who has the least
relish for poetry and Homer.
[611] _And midnight horror shakes Medina's shrine. _--Medina, the city
where Mohammed is buried. About six years after GAMA'S discovery of
India, the Sultan of Egypt sent Maurus, the abbot of the monks at
Jerusalem, who inhabit Mount Sion, on an embassy to Pope Julius II. The
sultan, with severe threats to the Christians of the East in case of
refusal, entreated the Pope to desire Emmanuel, king of Portugal, to
send no more fleets to the Indian seas. The Pope sent Maurus to
Emmanuel, who returned a very spirited answer to his holiness, assuring
him that no threats, no dangers, could make him alter his resolutions,
and lamenting that it had not yet been in his power to fulfil his
purpose of demolishing the sepulchre and erasing the memorials of
Mohammed from the earth. This, he says was the first purpose of sending
his fleets to India. It is with great art that Camoens so often reminds
us of the grand design of the expedition of his heroes to subvert
Mohammedanism, and found a Christian empire in the East. But the dignity
which this gives to his poem has already been observed in the preface.
[612] _Where Sheba's sapient queen the sceptre bore. _--The Abyssinians
contend that their country is the Sheba mentioned in the Scripture, and
that the queen who visited Solomon bore a son to that monarch, from whom
their royal family, to the present time, is descended.
[613] _Snatch'd from thy golden throne. _--GAMA only reigned three months
viceroy of India. During his second voyage, the third which the
Portuguese made to India, he gave the zamorim some considerable defeats
by sea, besides his victories over the Moors. These, however, are
judiciously omitted by Camoens, as the less striking part of his
character.
The French translator is highly pleased with the prediction of GAMA'S
death, delivered to himself at the feast. "The siren," says he,
"persuaded that GAMA is a hero exempt from weakness, does not hesitate
to mention the end of his life. GAMA listens without any mark of
emotion; the feast and the song continue. If I am not deceived, this is
truly great. "
[614] _Victorious Henry. _--Don Henry de Menezes. He was only
twenty-eight when appointed to the government of India. He died in his
thirtieth year, a noble example of the most disinterested heroism.
[615] _Great Mascarine. _--Pedro de Mascarenhas. The injustice done to
this brave officer, and the usurpation of his government by Lopez Vaz de
Sampayo, afford one of the most interesting periods of the history of
the Portuguese in India.
[616] _Great Nunio. _--Nunio de Cunha, one of the most worthy of the
Portuguese governors.
[617] _Awed by his fame. _--That brave, generous spirit, which prompted
Camoens to condemn the great Albuquerque for injustice to a common
soldier, has here deserted him. In place of poetical compliment, on the
terrors of his name, Noronha deserved infamy. The siege of Dio, it is
true, was raised on the report of his approach, but that report was the
stratagem of Coje Zofar, one of the general officers of the assailants.
The delays of Noronha were as highly blamable as his treatment of his
predecessor, the excellent Nunio, was unworthy of a gentleman.
[618] _A son of thine, O Gama. _--Stephen de Gama.
[619] _A vet'ran, fam'd on Brazil's shore. _--Martin Alonzo de Souza. He
was celebrated for clearing the coast of Brazil of several pirates, who
were formidable to that infant colony.
[620] _O'er blood-stain'd ground. _--This is as near the original as
elegance will allow--_de sangue cheyo_--which Fanshaw has thus punned:--
"With no little loss,
Sending him home again by _Weeping-Cross_"--
a place near Banbury in Oxfordshire.
[621] Cape Comorin, the southernmost point of India. --_Ed. _
[622] _The Rumien fierce, who boasts the name of Rome. _--When the
victories of the Portuguese began to overspread the East, several Indian
princes, by the counsels of the Moors, applied for assistance to the
Sultan of Egypt, and the Grand Signior. The troops of these Mohammedan
princes were in the highest reputation for bravery, and though, composed
of many different nations, were known among the orientals by one common
name. Ignorance delights in the marvellous. The history of ancient Rome
made the same figure among the easterns, as that of the fabulous, or
heroic, ages does with us, with this difference, it was better believed.
The Turks of Roumania pretended to be the descendants of the Roman
conquerors, and the Indians gave them and their auxiliaries the name of
Rum? s, or Romans. In the same manner, the fame of Godfrey in the East
conferred the name of Franks on all the western Christians, who, on
their part, gave the name of Moors to all the Mohammedans of the East.
[623] _No hope, bold Mascarene. _--The commander of Diu, or Dio, during
this siege, one of the most memorable in the Portuguese history.
[624] _Fierce Hydal-Kan. _--The title of the lords or princes of Decan,
who in their wars with the Portuguese have sometimes brought 400,000 men
into the field. The prince here mentioned, after many revolts, was at
last finally subdued by Don John de Castro, the fourth viceroy of India,
with whose reign our poet judiciously ends the prophetic song.
Albuquerque laid the plan, and Castro completed the system of the
Portuguese empire in the East. It is with propriety, therefore, that the
prophecy given to GAMA is here summed up. Nor is the discretion of
Camoens in this instance inferior to his judgment. He is now within a
few years of his own times, when he himself was upon the scene in India.
But whatever he had said of his contemporaries would have been liable to
misconstruction, and every sentence would have been branded with the
epithets of flattery or malice. A little poet would have been happy in
such an opportunity to resent his wrongs. But the silent contempt of
Camoens does him true honour.
In this historical song, as already hinted, the translator has been
attentive, as much as he could, to throw it into these universal
languages, the picturesque and characteristic. To convey the sublimest
instruction to princes, is, according to Aristotle, the peculiar
province of the epic muse. The striking points of view in which the
different characters of the governors of India are here placed, are in
the most happy conformity to this ingenious canon of the Stagyrite.
[625]
_In whirling circles now they fell, now rose,
Yet never rose nor fell. --_
The motions of the heavenly bodies, in every system, bear at all times
the same uniform relation to each other; these expressions, therefore,
are strictly just. The first relates to the appearance, the second to
the reality. Thus, while to us the sun appears to go down, to more
western inhabitants of the globe he appears to rise, and while he rises
to us, he is going down to the more eastern; the difference being
entirely relative to the various parts of the earth. And in this the
expressions of our poet are equally applicable to the Ptolemaic and
Copernican systems. The ancient hypothesis which made our earth the
centre of the universe, is the system adopted by Camoens, a happiness,
in the opinion of the translator, to the English Lusiad. The new system
is so well known, that a poetical description of it would have been no
novelty to the English reader. The other has not only that advantage in
its favour: but this description is perhaps the finest and fullest that
ever was given of it in poetry, that of Lucretius, l. v. being chiefly
argumentative, and therefore less picturesque.
Our author studied at the university of Coimbra, where the ancient
system and other doctrines of the Aristotelians then, and long
afterward, prevailed.
[626] _He holds His loftiest state. _--Called by the old philosophers and
school divines the sensorium of the Deity.
[627] _These spheres behold. _--According to the Peripatetics, the
universe consisted of eleven spheres inclosed within each other; as
Fanshaw has familiarly expressed it by a simile which he has lent our
author. The first of these spheres, he says--
"Doth (_as in a nest
Of boxes_) all the other orbs comprise. "
In their accounts of this first-mentioned, but eleventh, sphere, which
they called the Empyrean, or heaven of the blest, the disciples of
Aristotle, and the Arab Moors, gave loose to all the warmth of
imagination. And several of the Christian fathers applied to it the
descriptions of heaven which are found in the Holy Scripture.
[628] _Hence motion darts its force. _--This is the tenth sphere, the
_Primum Mobile_ of the ancient system. To account for the appearances of
the heavens, the Peripatetics ascribed a double motion to it. While its
influence drew the other orbs from east to west, they supposed it had a
motion of its own from west to east. To effect this, the ponderous
weight and interposition of the ninth sphere, or crystalline heaven, was
necessary. The ancient astronomers observed that the stars shifted their
places. This they called the motion of the crystalline heaven, expressed
by our poet at the rate of one pace during two hundred solar years. The
famous Arab astronomer, Abulhasan, in his Meadows of Gold, calculates
the revolution of this sphere to consist of 49,000 of our years. But
modern discoveries have not only corrected the calculation,{*} but have
also ascertained the reason of the apparent motion of the fixed stars.
The earth is not a perfect sphere; the quantity of matter is greater at
the equator; hence the earth turns on her axis in a rocking motion,
revolving round the axis of the ecliptic, which is called the procession
of the equinoxes, and makes the stars seem to shift their places at
about the rate of a degree in 72 years; according to which all the stars
seem to perform one revolution in the space of 25,920 years, after which
they return exactly to the same situation as at the beginning of this
period. However imperfect in their calculations, the Chaldean
astronomers perceived that the motions of the heavens composed one great
revolution. This they called the _annus magnus_, which those who did not
understand them mistook for a restoration of all things to their first
originals.
{*} However deficient the astronomy of Abulhasan may be, it is nothing
to the calculation of his prophet Mohammed, who tells his disciples,
that the stars were each about the bigness of a house, and hung from the
sky on chains of gold.
[629] _And binds the starry sphere. _--This was called the firmament, or
eighth heaven. Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Apollo, Venus, Mercury, and Diana,
were the planets which gave name to, and whose orbits composed, the
other spheres or heavens.
[630] _In shining frost the Northern Chariot rides. _--Commonly called
Charles' Wain. Andromeda was the daughter of Cepheus, king of Ethiopia,
and of Cassiope. Cassiope boasted that she and her daughter were more
beautiful than Juno and the Nereids. Andromeda, to appease the goddess,
was, at her father's command, chained to a rock to be devoured by a sea
monster, but was saved by Perseus, who obtained of Jupiter that all the
family should be placed among the stars. Orion was a hunter, who, for an
attempt on Diana, was stung to death by a serpent. The star of his name
portends tempests. The Dogs; fable gives this honour to those of
different hunters. The faithful dog of Erigone, however, that died mad
with grief for the death of his mistress, has the best title to preside
over the dog-days. The Swan; whose form Jupiter borrowed to enjoy Leda.
The Hare, when pursued by Orion, was saved by Mercury, and placed in
heaven, to signify that Mercury presides over melancholy dispositions.
The Lyre, with which Orpheus charmed Pluto. The Dragon which guarded the
golden apples of the Hesperides, and the ship Argo complete the number
of the constellations mentioned by Camoens. If our author has blended
the appearances of heaven with those of the painted artificial sphere,
it is in the manner of the classics. Ovid, in particular, thus describes
the heavens, in the second book of his Metamorphoses.
[631] _Such are their laws impress'd by God's dread will. _--Though a
modern narrative of gallant adventures by no means requires the
supposition of a particular Providence, that supposition, however, is
absolutely necessary to the grandeur of an epic poem. The great examples
of Homer and Virgil prove it; and Camoens understood and felt its force.
While his fleet combat all the horrors of unploughed oceans, we do not
view his heroes as idle wanderers; the care of heaven gives their voyage
the greatest importance. When GAMA falls on his knees and spreads his
hands to heaven on the discovery of India, we are presented with a
figure infinitely more noble than that of the most successful conqueror
who is supposed to act under the influence of fatalism or chance. The
human mind is conscious of its own weakness. It expects an elevation in
poetry, and demands a degree of importance superior to the caprices of
unmeaning accident. The poetical reader cannot admire the hero who is
subject to such blind fortuity. He appears to us with an abject,
uninteresting littleness. Our poetical ideas of permanent greatness
demand a GAMA, a hero whose enterprises and whose person interest the
care of Heaven and the happiness of his people. Nor must this
supposition be confined merely to the machinery. The reason why it
pleases, also requires, that the supposition should be uniform
throughout the whole poem. Virgil, by dismissing Eneas through the ivory
gate of Elysium, has hinted that all his pictures of a future state were
merely dreams, and has thus destroyed the highest merit of the
compliment to his patron Augustus. But Camoens has certainly been more
happy. A fair opportunity offered itself to indulge the opinions of
Lucretius and the Academic Grove; but Camoens, in ascribing the
government of the universe to the will of God, has not only preserved
the philosophy of his poem perfectly uniform, but has also shown that
the Peripatetic system is, in this instance, exactly conformable to the
Newtonian.
Though the Author of nature has placed man in a state of moral agency,
and made his happiness and misery to depend upon it, and though every
page of human history is stained with the tears of injured innocence and
the triumphs of guilt, with miseries which must affect a moral, or
thinking being, yet we have been told, that God perceiveth it not, and
that what mortals call moral evil vanishes from before His more perfect
sight. Thus the appeal of injured innocence, and the tear of bleeding
virtue fall unregarded, unworthy of the attention of the Deity. {*} Yet,
with what raptures do these philosophers behold the infinite wisdom and
care of Beelzebub, their god of flies, in the admirable and various
provision he has made for the preservation of the eggs of vermin, and
the generation of maggots. {**}
Much more might be said in proof that our poet's philosophy does not
altogether deserve ridicule. And those who allow a general, but deny a
particular providence, will, it is hoped, excuse Camoens, on the
consideration, that if we estimate a general moral providence by analogy
of that providence which presides over vegetable and animal nature, a
more particular one cannot possibly be wanted. If a particular
providence, however, is still denied, another consideration obtrudes
itself; if one pang of a moral agent is unregarded, one tear of injured
innocence left to fall unpitied by the Deity, if _Ludit in humanis
Divina potentia rebus_, the consequence is, that the human conception
can form an idea of a much better God. And it may modestly be presumed
we may hazard the laugh of the wisest philosopher, and without scruple
assert, that it is impossible that a created mind should conceive an
idea of perfection superior to that which is possessed by the Creator
and Author of existence.
{*} Perhaps, like Lucretius, some philosophers think this would be too
much trouble to the Deity.
Timoja, as if the genius of Camoens stood in need of so weak an
assistance.
[575] _In friendly pity of Latona's woes. _--Latona, pregnant by Jupiter,
was persecuted by Juno, who sent the serpent Python in pursuit of her.
Neptune, in pity of her distress, raised the island of Delos for her
refuge, where she was delivered of Apollo and Diana. --OVID, Met.
[576] _Form'd in a crystal lake the waters blend. _--Castera also
attributes this to history. "The Portuguese actually found in this
island," says he, "a fine piece of water ornamented with hewn stones and
magnificent aqueducts; an ancient and superb work, of which nobody knew
the author. "
In 1505 Don Francisco Almeyda built a fort in this island. In digging
among some ancient ruins he found many crucifixes of black and red
colour, from whence the Portuguese conjectured, says Osorius, that the
Anchedivian islands had in former ages been inhabited by
Christians. --Vid. Osor. 1. iv.
[577]
_The orange here perfumes the buxom air.
And boasts the golden hue of Daphne's hair. --_
Frequent allusions to the fables of the ancients form a characteristic
feature of the poetry of the 16th and 17th centuries. A profusion of it
is pedantry; a moderate use of it, however, in a poem of those times
pleases, because it discovers the stages of composition, and has in
itself a fine effect, as it illustrates its subject by presenting the
classical reader with some little landscapes of that country through
which he has travelled. The description of forests is a favourite topic
in poetry. Chaucer, Tasso, and Spenser, have been happy in it, but both
have copied an admired passage in Statius:--
"Cadit ardua fagus,
Chaoniumque nemus, brumaeque illaesa cupressus;
Procumbunt piceae, flammis alimenta supremis,
Ornique, iliceaeque trabes, metuandaque sulco
Taxus, et infandos belli potura cruores
Fraxinus, atque situ non expugnabile robur:
Hinc audax abies, et odoro vulnere pinus
Scinditur, acclinant intonsa cacumina terrae
Alnus amica fretis, nec inhospita vitibus ulmus. "
In rural descriptions three things are necessary to render them
poetical: the happiness of epithet, of picturesque arrangement, and of
little landscape views. Without these, all the names of trees and
flowers, though strung together in tolerable numbers, contain no more
poetry than a nurseryman or a florist's catalogue. In Statius, in Tasso
and Spenser's admired forests (Ger. Liber. c. 3. st. 75, 76, and F.
Queen, b. 1 c. 1. st. 8, 9), the poetry consists entirely in the
happiness of the epithets. In Camoens, all the three requisites are
admirably attained and blended together.
[578] _And stain'd with lover's blood. _--Pyramus and Thisbe:--
"Arborei foetus aspergine caedis in atram
Vertuntur faciem: madefactaque sanguine radix
Puniceo tingit pendentia mora colore. . . . .
At tu quo ramis arbor miserabile corpus
Nunc tegis unius, mox es tectura duorum;
Signa tene caedis: pullosque et lectibus aptos
Semper habe foetus gemini monumenta cruoris. "
OVID, Met.
[579] _The shadowy vale. _--Literal from the original,--_O sombrio
valle_--which Fanshaw, however, has translated, "the gloomy valley," and
thus has given us a funereal, where the author intended a festive,
landscape. It must be confessed, however, that the description of the
island of Venus, is infinitely the best part of all of Fanshaw's
translation. And indeed the dullest prose translation might obscure, but
could not possibly throw a total eclipse over, so admirable an original.
[580] _The woe-mark'd flower of slain Adonis--water'd by the tears of
love. _--The Anemone. "This," says Castera, "is applicable to the
celestial Venus, for, according to my theology, her amour with Adonis
had nothing in it impure, but was only the love which nature bears to
the sun. " The fables of antiquity have generally a threefold
interpretation, an historical allusion, a physical and a metaphysical
allegory. In the latter view, the fable of Adonis is only applicable to
the celestial Venus. A divine youth is outrageously slain, but shall
revive again at the restoration of the golden age. Several nations, it
is well known, under different names, celebrated the Mysteries, or the
death and resurrection of Adonis; among whom were the British Druids, as
we are told by Dr. Stukely. In the same manner Cupid, in the fable of
Psyche, is interpreted by mythologists, to signify the Divine Love
weeping over the degeneracy of human nature.
[581]
_At strife appear the lawns and purpled skies,
Who from each other stole the beauteous dyes. --_
On this passage Castera has the following sensible, though turgid, note:
"This thought," says he, "is taken from the idyllium of Ausonius on the
rose:--
'Ambigeres raperetne rosis Aurora ruborem,
An daret, et flores tingere torta dies. '
Camoens who had a genius rich of itself, still further enriched it at
the expense of the ancients. Behold what makes great authors! Those who
pretend to give us nothing but the fruits of their own growth, soon
fail, like the little rivulets which dry up in the summer, very
different from the floods, who receive in their course the tribute of a
hundred and a hundred rivers, and which even in the dog-days carry their
waves triumphant to the ocean. "
[582] _The hyacinth bewrays the doleful_ Ai. --Hyacinthus, a youth
beloved of Apollo, by whom he was accidentally slain, and afterwards
turned into a flower:--
"Tyrioque nitentior ostro
Flos oritur, formamque capit, quam lilia: si non,
Purpureus color huic, argenteus esset in illis.
Non satis hoc Phaebo est: is enim fuit auctor honoris.
Ipse suos gemitus foliis inscribit; et Ai, Ai,
Flos habet inscriptum: funestaque littera ducta est. "
OVID, Met.
[583] _The second Argonauts. _--The expedition of the Golden Fleece was
esteemed, in ancient poetry, one of the most daring adventures, the
success of which was accounted miraculous. The allusions of Camoens to
this voyage, though in the spirit of his age, are by no means improper.
[584] _Wide o'er the beauteous isle the lovely fair. _--We now come to
the passage condemned by Voltaire as so lascivious, that no nation in
Europe, except the Portuguese and Italians, could bear it. The fate of
Camoens has hitherto been very peculiar. The mixture of Pagan and
Christian mythology in his machinery has been anathematized, and his
island of love represented as a brothel. Yet both accusations are the
arrogant assertions of the most superficial acquaintance with his works.
His poem itself, and a comparison of its parts with the similar conduct
of the greatest modern poets, will clearly evince, that in both
instances no modern epic writer of note has given less offence to true
criticism.
Not to mention Ariosto, whose descriptions will often admit of no
palliation, Tasso, Spenser, and Milton, have always been esteemed among
the chastest of poets, yet in that delicacy of warm description, which
Milton has so finely exemplified in the nuptials of our first parents,
none of them can boast the continued uniformity of the Portuguese poet.
Though there is a warmth in the colouring of Camoens which even the
genius of Tasso has not reached: and though the island of Armida is
evidently copied from the Lusiad, yet those who are possessed of the
finer feelings, will easily discover an essential difference between the
love-scenes of the two poets, a difference greatly in favour of the
delicacy of the former. Though the nymphs in Camoens are detected naked
in the woods, and in the stream, and though desirous to captivate, still
their behaviour is that of the virgin who hopes to be the spouse. They
act the part of offended modesty; even when they yield they are silent,
and behave in every respect like Milton's Eve in the state of innocence,
who--
"What was honour knew,"
And who displayed--
"Her virtue, and the conscience of her worth,
That would be wooed, and not unsought be won. "
To sum up all, the nuptial sanctity draws its hallowed curtains, and a
masterly allegory shuts up the love-scenes of Camoens.
How different from all this is the island of Armida in Tasso, and its
translation, the bower of Acrasia in Spenser! In these virtue is
seduced; the scene therefore is less delicate. The nymphs, while they
are bathing, in place of the modesty of the bride as in Camoens, employ
all the arts of the lascivious wanton. They stay not to be wooed; but,
as Spenser gives it--
_The amorous sweet spoils to greedy eyes reveal. _
One stanza from our English poet, which, however, is rather fuller than
the original, shall here suffice:--
"Withal she laughed and she blush'd withal,
That blushing to her laughter gave more grace,
And laughter to her blushing, as did fall.
Now when they spy'd the knight to slack his pace,
Them to behold, and _in his sparkling face
The secret signs of kindled lust appear_,
Their wanton merriments they did increase,
And to him beckon'd to approach more near,
_And show'd him many sights, that courage cold could rear_.
This and other descriptions--
"Upon a bed of roses she was laid
As faint through heat, or dight to pleasant sin"--
present every idea of lascivious voluptuousness. The allurements of
speech are also added. Songs, which breathe every persuasive, are heard;
and the nymphs boldly call to the beholder:--
_E' dolce campo di battaglia il letto
Fiavi, e l'herbetta morbida de' prati. _--TASSO.
"Our field of battle is the downy bed,
Or flow'ry turf amid the smiling mead. "--HOOLE.
These, and the whole scenes in the domains of Armida and Acrasia, are in
a turn of manner the reverse of the island of Venus. In these the
expression and idea are meretricious. In Camoens, though the colouring
is even warmer, yet the modesty of the Venus de Medicis is still
preserved. In everything he describes there is still something strongly
similar to the modest attitude of the arms of that celebrated statue.
Though prudery, that usual mask of the impurest minds, may condemn him,
yet those of the most chaste, though less gloomy turn, will allow, that
in comparison with others, he might say,--_Virginibus puerisque canto_.
Spenser also, where he does not follow Tasso, is often gross; and even
in some instances, where the expression is most delicate, the picture is
nevertheless indecently lascivious.
[585] _The hunter. _--Acteon.
[586] _Madd'ning as he said. _--At the end of his Homer Mr. Pope has
given an index of the instances of imitative and sentimental harmony
contained in his translations. He has also often even in his notes
pointed out the adaptation of sound to sense. The translator of the
Lusiad hopes he may for once say, that he has not been inattentive to
this great essential of good versification: how he has succeeded the
judicious only must determine. The speech of Leonard to the cursory
reader may perhaps sometimes appear careless, and sometimes turgid and
stiff. That speech, however, is an attempt at the imitative and
sentimental harmony, and with the judicious he rests its fate. As the
translation in this instance exceeds the original in length, the
objection of a foreign critic requires attention. An old pursy Abbe,
(and critics are apt to judge by themselves) may indeed be surprised
that a man out of breath with running should be able to talk so long.
But, had he consulted the experiences of others, he would have found it
was no wonderful matter for a stout and young cavalier to talk twice as
much, though fatigued with the chase of a couple of miles, provided the
supposition be allowed, that he treads on the last steps of his flying
mistress.
[587] _Hence, ye profane. _--We have already observed, that in every
other poet the love scenes are generally described as those of guilt and
remorse. The contrary character of those of Camoens not only gives them
a delicacy unknown to other moderns, but, by the fiction of the spousal
rites, the allegory and machinery of the poem are most happily
conducted.
[588] _Spread o'er the eastern world the dread alarms. _--This admonition
places the whole design of the poem before us. To extirpate
Mohammedanism, and propagate Christianity, were professed as the
principal purpose of the discoveries of Prince Henry and King Emmanuel.
In the beginning of the seventh Lusiad, the nations of Europe are
upbraided for permitting the Saracens to erect and possess an empire,
which alike threatened Europe and Christianity. The Portuguese, however,
the patriot poet concludes, will themselves overthrow their enormous
power: an event which is the proposed subject of the Lusiad, and which
is represented as, in effect, completed in the last book. On this
system, adopted by the poet, and which on every occasion was avowed by
their kings, the Portuguese made immense conquests in the East. Yet, let
it be remembered, to the honour of GAMA, and the first commanders who
followed his route, that the plots of the Moors, and their various
breaches of treaty, gave rise to the first wars which the Portuguese
waged in Asia. On finding that all the colonies of the Moors were
combined for their destruction, the Portuguese declared war against the
eastern Moors, and their allies, wherever they found them. The course of
human things, however, soon took place, and the sword of victory and
power soon became the sword of tyranny and rapine.
[589] _Far o'er the silver lake of Mexic. _--The city of Mexico is
environed with an extensive lake; or, according to Cortez, in his second
narration to Charles V. , with two lakes, one of fresh, the other of salt
water, in circuit about fifty leagues. This situation, said the
Mexicans, was appointed by their God Vitzliputzli, who, according to the
explanation of their picture-histories, led their forefathers a journey
of fourscore years, in search of the promised land. Four of the
principal priests carried the idol in a coffer of reeds. Whenever they
halted they built a tabernacle for their god in the midst of their camp,
where they placed the coffer and the altar. They then sowed the land,
and their stay or departure, without regard to the harvest, was directed
by the orders received from their idol, till at last, by his command,
they fixed their abode on the site of Mexico.
[590] _Before the love-sick Roman. _--Mark Antony.
[591] _The beverage--the fountain's cooling aid confess'd. _--It was a
custom of the ancients in warm climates to mix the coolest spring water
with their wine, immediately before drinking; not, we may suppose, to
render it less intoxicating, but on account of the cooling flavour it
thereby received. Homer tells us that the wine which Ulysses gave to
Polyphemus would bear twenty measures of water. Modern luxury has
substituted preserved ice, in place of the more ancient mixture.
[592] _Music, such as erst subdued the horrid frown of hell_,
etc. --Alluding to the fable of Orpheus. Fanshaw's translation, as
already observed, was published fourteen years before the Paradise Lost.
These lines of Milton--
"What could it less, when spirits immortal sung?
Their song was partial, but the harmony
Suspended hell, and took with ravishment
The thronging audience,"
bear a resemblance to these of Fanshaw--
"Musical instruments not wanting, such
As to the damn'd spirits once gave ease
In the dark vaults of the infernal hall. "
To _slumber_ amid their punishment, though omitted by Fanshaw, is
literal:--
"Fizerao descancar da eterna pena. "
[593] _No more the summer of my life remains. _--It is not certain when
Camoens wrote this. It seems, however, not long to have preceded the
publication of his poem, at which time he was in his fifty-fifth year.
This apostrophe to his muse may, perhaps, by some be blamed as another
digression; but, so little does it require defence, that one need not
hesitate to affirm that, had Homer, who often talks to his muse,
introduced, on these favourable opportunities, any little picture or
history of himself, these digressions would have been the most
interesting parts of his works. Had any history of Homer complained,
like this of Camoens, it would have been bedewed with the tears of ages.
[594] _Thy faith repent not, nor lament thy wrong. _--P. Alvarez Cabral,
the second Portuguese commander who sailed to India, entered into a
treaty of alliance with Trimumpara, king of Cochin, and high priest of
Malabar. The zamorim raised powerful armies to dethrone him. His
fidelity to the Portuguese was unalterable, though his affairs were
brought to the lowest ebb. --See the history in the Preface.
[595]
_His ship's strong sides shall groan beneath his weight,
And deeper waves receive the sacred freight. --_
Thus Virgil:--
"Simul accipit alveo
Ingentem AEneam. Gemuit sub pondere cymba
Sutilis, et multam accepit rimosa paludem. "--AEN. vi. 412.
That the visionary boat of Charon groaned under the weight of AEneas is a
fine poetical stroke; but that the crazy rents let in the water is
certainly lowering the image. The thought, however, as managed in
Camoens is much grander than in Virgil, and affords a happy instance
where the hyperbole is truly poetical.
The Lusiad affords many instances which must be highly pleasing to the
Portuguese, but dry to those who are unacquainted with their history.
Nor need one hesitate to assert that, were we not acquainted with the
Roman history from our childhood, a great part of the AEneid would appear
to us intolerably uninteresting. Sensible of this disadvantage which
every version of historical poetry must suffer, the translator has not
only in the notes added every incident which might elucidate the
subject, but has also, all along, in the episode in the third and fourth
books, in the description of the painted ensigns in the eighth, and in
the allusions in the present book, endeavoured to throw every historical
incident into that universal language, the picturesque of poetry. When
Hector storms the Grecian camp, when Achilles marches to battle, every
reader understands and is affected with the bold painting. But when
Nestor talks of his exploits at the funeral games of Amarynces (Iliad
xxiii. ) the critics themselves cannot comprehend him, and have vied with
each other in inventing explanations.
[596] _Proas_, or paraos, Indian vessels which lie low on the water, are
worked with oars, and carry 100 men and upwards apiece.
[597]
_His robes are sprinkled o'er,
And his proud face dash'd, with his menials' gore. --_
See the history in the Preface.
[598] _Round Lusus' fleet to pour their sulph'rous entrails. _--How
Pacheco avoided this formidable danger, see the history in the preface.
[599] _Nor Tiber's bridge. _--When Porsenna besieged Rome, Horatius
Cocles defended the pass of a bridge till the Romans destroyed it behind
him. Having thus saved the pass, heavy armed as he was, he swam across
the Tiber to his companions. Roman history, however, at this period, is
often mixed with fable. Miltiades obtained a great victory over Darius
at Marathon. The stand made by Leonidas at Thermopyl? is well known. The
battles of Pacheco were in defence of the fords by which alone the city
of Cochin could be entered. The numbers he withstood by land and sea,
and the victories he obtained, are much more astonishing than the
defence of Thermopylae.
[600] _Bound to the mast the godlike hero stands. _--English history
affords an instance of similar resolution in Admiral Bembo, who was
supported in a wooden frame, and continued the engagement after his legs
and thighs were shivered in splinters. Contrary to the advice of his
officers, the young Almeyda refused to bear off, though almost certain
to be overpowered, and though both wind and tide were against him. His
father had sharply upbraided him for a former retreat, where victory was
thought impossible. He now fell the victim of his father's ideas of
military glory.
[601] _The fleets of India fly. _--After having cleared the Indian seas,
the viceroy, Almeyda, attacked the combined fleets of Egypt, Cambaya,
and the zamorim, in the entrance and harbour of Diu, or Dio. The fleet
of the zamorim almost immediately fled. That of Melique Yaz, Lord of
Diu, suffered much; but the greatest slaughter fell upon the Egyptians
and Turks, commanded by Mir-Hocem, who had defeated and killed the young
Almeyda. Of 800 Mamelukes, or Turks, who fought under Mir-Hocem, only
22, says Osorius, survived this engagement. Melique Yaz, says Faria y
Sousa, was born in slavery, and descended of the Christians of Roxia.
The road to preferment is often a dirty one; but Melique's was much less
so than that of many. As the King of Cambaya was one day riding in
state, an unlucky kite dunged upon his royal head. His majesty in great
wrath swore he would give all he was worth to have the offender killed.
Melique, who was an expert archer, immediately despatched an arrow,
which brought the audacious hawk to the ground. For the merit of this
eminent service he was made Lord of Diu, or Dio, a considerable city,
the strongest and the most important fortress at that time in all
India. --See Faria, 1. 2, c. 2.
[602] _Great Cunia. _--Tristan da Cunha, or d'Acugna.
[603] _Heav'n indignant showers their arrows backward. _--Some writers
related that, when Albuquerque besieged Ormuz, a violent wind drove the
arrows of the enemy backward upon their own ranks. Osorius says, that
many of the dead Persians and Moors were found to have died by arrows.
But as that weapon was not used by the Portuguese he conjectures that,
in their despair of victory, many of the enemy had thus killed
themselves, rather than survive the defeat.
[604] _Muscat. _
[605] Bahrein, in the Persian Gulf.
[606] _What glorious palms on Goa's isle I see. _--This important place
was made an archbishopric, the capital of the Portuguese empire in the
east, and the seat of their viceroys; for which purposes it is
advantageously situated on the coast of Dekhan. It still remains in the
possession of the Portuguese.
[607] _Malacca. _--The conquest of this place was one of the greatest
actions of Albuquerque. It became the chief port of the eastern part of
Portuguese India, and second only to Goa. Besides a great many pieces of
ordnance which were carried away by the Moors who escaped, 3000 large
cannon remained the prize of the victors. When Albuquerque was on the
way to Malacca, he attacked a large ship; but, just as his men were
going to board her, she suddenly appeared all in flames, which obliged
the Portuguese to bear off. Three days afterwards the same vessel sent a
boat to Albuquerque, offering an alliance, which was accepted. The
flames, says Osorius, were only artificial, and did not the least
damage. Another wonderful adventure immediately happened. The admiral
soon after sent his long-boats to attack a ship commanded by one Nehoada
Beeguea. The enemy made an obstinate resistance. Nehoada himself was
pierced with several mortal wounds, but lost not one drop of blood till
a bracelet was taken off his arm, when immediately the blood gushed out.
According to Osorius, this was said to be occasioned by the virtue of a
stone in the bracelet, taken out of an animal called Cabrisia, which,
when worn on the body, could prevent the effusion of blood from the most
grievous wounds.
[608] _Yet art thou stain'd. _--A detail of all the grant actions of
Albuquerque would have been tedious and unpoetical. Camoens has chosen
the most brilliant, and has happily suppressed the rest by a display of
indignation. The French translator has the following note on this
passage: "Behold another instance of our author's prejudice! The action
which he condemns had nothing in it blameable: but, as he was of a most
amorous constitution, he thought every fault which could plead an amour
in its excuse ought to be pardoned; but true heroes, such as
Albuquerque, follow other maxims. This great man had in his palace a
beautiful Indian slave. He viewed her with the eyes of a father, and the
care of her education was his pleasure. A Portuguese soldier, named Ruy
Diaz, had the boldness to enter the general's apartment, where he
succeeded so well with the girl that he obtained his desire. When
Albuquerque heard of it, he immediately ordered him to the gallows. "
Camoens, however, was no such undistinguishing libertine as this would
represent him. In a few pages we find him praising the continence of Don
Henry de Meneses, whose victory over his passions he calls the highest
excellence of youth. Nor does it appear by what authority the Frenchman
assures us of the chaste paternal affection which Albuquerque bore to
this Indian girl. It was the great aim of Albuquerque to establish
colonies in India, and, for that purpose, he encouraged his soldiers to
marry with the natives. The most sightly girls were selected, and
educated in the religion and household arts of Portugal, and portioned
at the expense of the general. These he called his daughters, and with
great pleasure he used to attend their weddings, several couples being
usually joined together at one time. At one of these nuptials, says
Faria, the festivity having continued late, and the brides being mixed
together, several of the bridegrooms committed a blunder. The mistakes
of the night, however, as they were all equal in point of honour, were
mutually forgiven in the morning, and each man took his proper wife whom
he had received at the altar. This delicate anecdote of Albuquerque's
sons and daughters is as bad a commentary on the note of Castera as it
is on the severity which the commander showed to poor Diaz. Nor does
Camoens stand alone in the condemnation of the general. The historian
agrees with the poet. Mentioning the death of D. Antonio Noronha, "This
gentleman," says Faria, "used to moderate the violent temper of his
uncle, Albuquerque, which soon after showed itself in rigid severity. He
ordered a soldier to be hanged for an amour with one of the slaves whom
he called daughters, and whom he used to give in marriage. When some of
his officers asked him what authority he had to take the poor man's
life, he drew his sword, told them that was his commission, and
instantly broke them. " To marry his soldiers with the natives was the
plan of Albuquerque: his severity, therefore, seems unaccountable,
unless we admit the 'perhaps' of Camoens, _ou de cioso_, perhaps it was
jealousy. --But, whatever incensed the general, the execution of the
soldier was contrary to the laws of every nation;{*} and the honest
indignation of Camoens against one of the greatest of his countrymen,
one who was the grand architect of the Portuguese empire in the East,
affords a noble instance of that manly freedom of sentiment which knows
no right by which king or peer may do injustice to the meanest subject.
Nor can we omit the observation, that the above note of Castera is of a
piece with the French devotion we have already seen him pay to the name
of king, a devotion which breathes the true spirit of the blessed advice
given by Father Paul to the republic of Venice: "When a nobleman commits
an offence against a subject," says the Jesuit, "let every means be
tried to justify him. But, if a subject has offended a nobleman, let him
be punished with the utmost severity. "
{*} Osorius relates the affair of Diaz with some other circumstances;
but with no difference that affects this assertion.
[609] _Not Ammon. _--Campaspe, the most beautiful concubine of Alexander
the Great, was given by that monarch to Apelles, whom he perceived in
love with her. Araspas had strict charge of the fair captive, Panthea.
His attempt on her virtue was forgiven by Cyrus.
[610] _And Flandria's earldom on the knight bestow'd. _--"Baldwin,
surnamed Iron-arm, Grand Forester of Flanders, being in love with
Judith, the daughter of Charles the Bald, and widow of Ethelwolf, king
of England, obtained his desire by force. Charles, though at first he
highly resented, afterwards pardoned his crime, and consented to his
marriage with the princess. "--CASTERA.
* * * * *
This digression in the song of the nymph bears, in manner, a striking
resemblance to the histories which often, even in the heat of battle,
the heroes of Homer relate to each other. That these little episodes
have their beauty and propriety in an epic poem will strongly appear
from a view of M. de la Motte's translation of the Iliad into French
verse. The four and twenty books of Homer he has contracted into twelve,
and these contain no more lines than about four books of the original. A
thousand embellishments which the warm poetical feelings of Homer
suggested to him are thus thrown out by the Frenchman. But what is the
consequence of this improvement? The work of La Motte is unread, even by
his own countrymen, and despised by every foreigner who has the least
relish for poetry and Homer.
[611] _And midnight horror shakes Medina's shrine. _--Medina, the city
where Mohammed is buried. About six years after GAMA'S discovery of
India, the Sultan of Egypt sent Maurus, the abbot of the monks at
Jerusalem, who inhabit Mount Sion, on an embassy to Pope Julius II. The
sultan, with severe threats to the Christians of the East in case of
refusal, entreated the Pope to desire Emmanuel, king of Portugal, to
send no more fleets to the Indian seas. The Pope sent Maurus to
Emmanuel, who returned a very spirited answer to his holiness, assuring
him that no threats, no dangers, could make him alter his resolutions,
and lamenting that it had not yet been in his power to fulfil his
purpose of demolishing the sepulchre and erasing the memorials of
Mohammed from the earth. This, he says was the first purpose of sending
his fleets to India. It is with great art that Camoens so often reminds
us of the grand design of the expedition of his heroes to subvert
Mohammedanism, and found a Christian empire in the East. But the dignity
which this gives to his poem has already been observed in the preface.
[612] _Where Sheba's sapient queen the sceptre bore. _--The Abyssinians
contend that their country is the Sheba mentioned in the Scripture, and
that the queen who visited Solomon bore a son to that monarch, from whom
their royal family, to the present time, is descended.
[613] _Snatch'd from thy golden throne. _--GAMA only reigned three months
viceroy of India. During his second voyage, the third which the
Portuguese made to India, he gave the zamorim some considerable defeats
by sea, besides his victories over the Moors. These, however, are
judiciously omitted by Camoens, as the less striking part of his
character.
The French translator is highly pleased with the prediction of GAMA'S
death, delivered to himself at the feast. "The siren," says he,
"persuaded that GAMA is a hero exempt from weakness, does not hesitate
to mention the end of his life. GAMA listens without any mark of
emotion; the feast and the song continue. If I am not deceived, this is
truly great. "
[614] _Victorious Henry. _--Don Henry de Menezes. He was only
twenty-eight when appointed to the government of India. He died in his
thirtieth year, a noble example of the most disinterested heroism.
[615] _Great Mascarine. _--Pedro de Mascarenhas. The injustice done to
this brave officer, and the usurpation of his government by Lopez Vaz de
Sampayo, afford one of the most interesting periods of the history of
the Portuguese in India.
[616] _Great Nunio. _--Nunio de Cunha, one of the most worthy of the
Portuguese governors.
[617] _Awed by his fame. _--That brave, generous spirit, which prompted
Camoens to condemn the great Albuquerque for injustice to a common
soldier, has here deserted him. In place of poetical compliment, on the
terrors of his name, Noronha deserved infamy. The siege of Dio, it is
true, was raised on the report of his approach, but that report was the
stratagem of Coje Zofar, one of the general officers of the assailants.
The delays of Noronha were as highly blamable as his treatment of his
predecessor, the excellent Nunio, was unworthy of a gentleman.
[618] _A son of thine, O Gama. _--Stephen de Gama.
[619] _A vet'ran, fam'd on Brazil's shore. _--Martin Alonzo de Souza. He
was celebrated for clearing the coast of Brazil of several pirates, who
were formidable to that infant colony.
[620] _O'er blood-stain'd ground. _--This is as near the original as
elegance will allow--_de sangue cheyo_--which Fanshaw has thus punned:--
"With no little loss,
Sending him home again by _Weeping-Cross_"--
a place near Banbury in Oxfordshire.
[621] Cape Comorin, the southernmost point of India. --_Ed. _
[622] _The Rumien fierce, who boasts the name of Rome. _--When the
victories of the Portuguese began to overspread the East, several Indian
princes, by the counsels of the Moors, applied for assistance to the
Sultan of Egypt, and the Grand Signior. The troops of these Mohammedan
princes were in the highest reputation for bravery, and though, composed
of many different nations, were known among the orientals by one common
name. Ignorance delights in the marvellous. The history of ancient Rome
made the same figure among the easterns, as that of the fabulous, or
heroic, ages does with us, with this difference, it was better believed.
The Turks of Roumania pretended to be the descendants of the Roman
conquerors, and the Indians gave them and their auxiliaries the name of
Rum? s, or Romans. In the same manner, the fame of Godfrey in the East
conferred the name of Franks on all the western Christians, who, on
their part, gave the name of Moors to all the Mohammedans of the East.
[623] _No hope, bold Mascarene. _--The commander of Diu, or Dio, during
this siege, one of the most memorable in the Portuguese history.
[624] _Fierce Hydal-Kan. _--The title of the lords or princes of Decan,
who in their wars with the Portuguese have sometimes brought 400,000 men
into the field. The prince here mentioned, after many revolts, was at
last finally subdued by Don John de Castro, the fourth viceroy of India,
with whose reign our poet judiciously ends the prophetic song.
Albuquerque laid the plan, and Castro completed the system of the
Portuguese empire in the East. It is with propriety, therefore, that the
prophecy given to GAMA is here summed up. Nor is the discretion of
Camoens in this instance inferior to his judgment. He is now within a
few years of his own times, when he himself was upon the scene in India.
But whatever he had said of his contemporaries would have been liable to
misconstruction, and every sentence would have been branded with the
epithets of flattery or malice. A little poet would have been happy in
such an opportunity to resent his wrongs. But the silent contempt of
Camoens does him true honour.
In this historical song, as already hinted, the translator has been
attentive, as much as he could, to throw it into these universal
languages, the picturesque and characteristic. To convey the sublimest
instruction to princes, is, according to Aristotle, the peculiar
province of the epic muse. The striking points of view in which the
different characters of the governors of India are here placed, are in
the most happy conformity to this ingenious canon of the Stagyrite.
[625]
_In whirling circles now they fell, now rose,
Yet never rose nor fell. --_
The motions of the heavenly bodies, in every system, bear at all times
the same uniform relation to each other; these expressions, therefore,
are strictly just. The first relates to the appearance, the second to
the reality. Thus, while to us the sun appears to go down, to more
western inhabitants of the globe he appears to rise, and while he rises
to us, he is going down to the more eastern; the difference being
entirely relative to the various parts of the earth. And in this the
expressions of our poet are equally applicable to the Ptolemaic and
Copernican systems. The ancient hypothesis which made our earth the
centre of the universe, is the system adopted by Camoens, a happiness,
in the opinion of the translator, to the English Lusiad. The new system
is so well known, that a poetical description of it would have been no
novelty to the English reader. The other has not only that advantage in
its favour: but this description is perhaps the finest and fullest that
ever was given of it in poetry, that of Lucretius, l. v. being chiefly
argumentative, and therefore less picturesque.
Our author studied at the university of Coimbra, where the ancient
system and other doctrines of the Aristotelians then, and long
afterward, prevailed.
[626] _He holds His loftiest state. _--Called by the old philosophers and
school divines the sensorium of the Deity.
[627] _These spheres behold. _--According to the Peripatetics, the
universe consisted of eleven spheres inclosed within each other; as
Fanshaw has familiarly expressed it by a simile which he has lent our
author. The first of these spheres, he says--
"Doth (_as in a nest
Of boxes_) all the other orbs comprise. "
In their accounts of this first-mentioned, but eleventh, sphere, which
they called the Empyrean, or heaven of the blest, the disciples of
Aristotle, and the Arab Moors, gave loose to all the warmth of
imagination. And several of the Christian fathers applied to it the
descriptions of heaven which are found in the Holy Scripture.
[628] _Hence motion darts its force. _--This is the tenth sphere, the
_Primum Mobile_ of the ancient system. To account for the appearances of
the heavens, the Peripatetics ascribed a double motion to it. While its
influence drew the other orbs from east to west, they supposed it had a
motion of its own from west to east. To effect this, the ponderous
weight and interposition of the ninth sphere, or crystalline heaven, was
necessary. The ancient astronomers observed that the stars shifted their
places. This they called the motion of the crystalline heaven, expressed
by our poet at the rate of one pace during two hundred solar years. The
famous Arab astronomer, Abulhasan, in his Meadows of Gold, calculates
the revolution of this sphere to consist of 49,000 of our years. But
modern discoveries have not only corrected the calculation,{*} but have
also ascertained the reason of the apparent motion of the fixed stars.
The earth is not a perfect sphere; the quantity of matter is greater at
the equator; hence the earth turns on her axis in a rocking motion,
revolving round the axis of the ecliptic, which is called the procession
of the equinoxes, and makes the stars seem to shift their places at
about the rate of a degree in 72 years; according to which all the stars
seem to perform one revolution in the space of 25,920 years, after which
they return exactly to the same situation as at the beginning of this
period. However imperfect in their calculations, the Chaldean
astronomers perceived that the motions of the heavens composed one great
revolution. This they called the _annus magnus_, which those who did not
understand them mistook for a restoration of all things to their first
originals.
{*} However deficient the astronomy of Abulhasan may be, it is nothing
to the calculation of his prophet Mohammed, who tells his disciples,
that the stars were each about the bigness of a house, and hung from the
sky on chains of gold.
[629] _And binds the starry sphere. _--This was called the firmament, or
eighth heaven. Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Apollo, Venus, Mercury, and Diana,
were the planets which gave name to, and whose orbits composed, the
other spheres or heavens.
[630] _In shining frost the Northern Chariot rides. _--Commonly called
Charles' Wain. Andromeda was the daughter of Cepheus, king of Ethiopia,
and of Cassiope. Cassiope boasted that she and her daughter were more
beautiful than Juno and the Nereids. Andromeda, to appease the goddess,
was, at her father's command, chained to a rock to be devoured by a sea
monster, but was saved by Perseus, who obtained of Jupiter that all the
family should be placed among the stars. Orion was a hunter, who, for an
attempt on Diana, was stung to death by a serpent. The star of his name
portends tempests. The Dogs; fable gives this honour to those of
different hunters. The faithful dog of Erigone, however, that died mad
with grief for the death of his mistress, has the best title to preside
over the dog-days. The Swan; whose form Jupiter borrowed to enjoy Leda.
The Hare, when pursued by Orion, was saved by Mercury, and placed in
heaven, to signify that Mercury presides over melancholy dispositions.
The Lyre, with which Orpheus charmed Pluto. The Dragon which guarded the
golden apples of the Hesperides, and the ship Argo complete the number
of the constellations mentioned by Camoens. If our author has blended
the appearances of heaven with those of the painted artificial sphere,
it is in the manner of the classics. Ovid, in particular, thus describes
the heavens, in the second book of his Metamorphoses.
[631] _Such are their laws impress'd by God's dread will. _--Though a
modern narrative of gallant adventures by no means requires the
supposition of a particular Providence, that supposition, however, is
absolutely necessary to the grandeur of an epic poem. The great examples
of Homer and Virgil prove it; and Camoens understood and felt its force.
While his fleet combat all the horrors of unploughed oceans, we do not
view his heroes as idle wanderers; the care of heaven gives their voyage
the greatest importance. When GAMA falls on his knees and spreads his
hands to heaven on the discovery of India, we are presented with a
figure infinitely more noble than that of the most successful conqueror
who is supposed to act under the influence of fatalism or chance. The
human mind is conscious of its own weakness. It expects an elevation in
poetry, and demands a degree of importance superior to the caprices of
unmeaning accident. The poetical reader cannot admire the hero who is
subject to such blind fortuity. He appears to us with an abject,
uninteresting littleness. Our poetical ideas of permanent greatness
demand a GAMA, a hero whose enterprises and whose person interest the
care of Heaven and the happiness of his people. Nor must this
supposition be confined merely to the machinery. The reason why it
pleases, also requires, that the supposition should be uniform
throughout the whole poem. Virgil, by dismissing Eneas through the ivory
gate of Elysium, has hinted that all his pictures of a future state were
merely dreams, and has thus destroyed the highest merit of the
compliment to his patron Augustus. But Camoens has certainly been more
happy. A fair opportunity offered itself to indulge the opinions of
Lucretius and the Academic Grove; but Camoens, in ascribing the
government of the universe to the will of God, has not only preserved
the philosophy of his poem perfectly uniform, but has also shown that
the Peripatetic system is, in this instance, exactly conformable to the
Newtonian.
Though the Author of nature has placed man in a state of moral agency,
and made his happiness and misery to depend upon it, and though every
page of human history is stained with the tears of injured innocence and
the triumphs of guilt, with miseries which must affect a moral, or
thinking being, yet we have been told, that God perceiveth it not, and
that what mortals call moral evil vanishes from before His more perfect
sight. Thus the appeal of injured innocence, and the tear of bleeding
virtue fall unregarded, unworthy of the attention of the Deity. {*} Yet,
with what raptures do these philosophers behold the infinite wisdom and
care of Beelzebub, their god of flies, in the admirable and various
provision he has made for the preservation of the eggs of vermin, and
the generation of maggots. {**}
Much more might be said in proof that our poet's philosophy does not
altogether deserve ridicule. And those who allow a general, but deny a
particular providence, will, it is hoped, excuse Camoens, on the
consideration, that if we estimate a general moral providence by analogy
of that providence which presides over vegetable and animal nature, a
more particular one cannot possibly be wanted. If a particular
providence, however, is still denied, another consideration obtrudes
itself; if one pang of a moral agent is unregarded, one tear of injured
innocence left to fall unpitied by the Deity, if _Ludit in humanis
Divina potentia rebus_, the consequence is, that the human conception
can form an idea of a much better God. And it may modestly be presumed
we may hazard the laugh of the wisest philosopher, and without scruple
assert, that it is impossible that a created mind should conceive an
idea of perfection superior to that which is possessed by the Creator
and Author of existence.
{*} Perhaps, like Lucretius, some philosophers think this would be too
much trouble to the Deity.
