{*} Though from the
extracts
given by Mr.
Camoes - Lusiades
xiv.
29.
[435] Noah.
[436] Venus.
[437] For the fable of Eolus see the tenth Odyssey.
[438]
_And vow, that henceforth her Armada's sails
Should gently swell with fair propitious gales. _
In innumerable instances Camoens discovers himself a judicious imitator
of the ancients. In the two great masters of the epic are several
prophecies oracular of the fate of different heroes, which give an air
of solemn importance to the poem. The fate of the Armada thus obscurely
anticipated, resembles in particular the prophecy of the safe return of
Ulysses to Ithaca, foretold by the shade of Tiresias, which was
afterwards fulfilled by the Phaeacians. It remains now to make some
observations on the machinery used by Camoens in this book. The
necessity of machinery in the epopea, and the, perhaps, insurmountable
difficulty of finding one unexceptionably adapted to a poem where the
heroes are Christians, or, in other words, to a poem whose subject is
modern, have already been observed in the preface. The machinery of
Camoens has also been proved, in every respect, to be less exceptionable
than that of Tasso in his Jerusalem, or that of Voltaire in his
Henriade. The descent of Bacchus to the palace of Neptune, in the depths
of the sea, and his address to the watery gods, are noble imitations of
Virgil's Juno in the first AEneid. The description of the storm is also
masterly. In both instances the conduct of the AEneid is joined with the
descriptive exuberance of the Odyssey. The appearance of the star of
Venus through the storm is finely imagined; the influence of the nymphs
of that goddess over the winds, and their subsequent nuptials, are in
the spirit of the promise of Juno to Eolus:--
_Sunt mihi bis septum praestanti corpore nymphae:
Quarum, quae forma pulcherrima; Deiopeiam_
_Connubio jungam stabili, propriamque dicabo:
Omnes ut tecum meritis pro talibus annos
Exigat, et pulchra faciat te prole parentem. _--VIRGIL, AEn. bk. i.
And the fiction itself is an allegory, exactly in the manner of Homer.
Orithia, the daughter of Erecteus, and queen of the Amazons, was
ravished and carried away by Boreas.
[439] Vasco de Gama.
[440] This refers to the Catholic persecutions of Protestants whom they
had previously condemned at the Diet of Spires. War was declared against
the Protestants in 1546. It lasted for six years, when a treaty of peace
was signed at Passau on the Danube, in 1552. --_Ed. _
[441] _Some blindly wand'ring, holy faith disclaim. _--At the time when
Camoens wrote, the German empire was plunged into all the miseries of a
religious war, the Catholics using every endeavour to rivet the chains
of Popery, the adherents of Luther as strenuously endeavouring to shake
them off.
[442]
_High sound the titles of the English crown,
King of Jerusalem. --_
The title of "King of Jerusalem" was never assumed by the kings of
England. Robert, duke of Normandy, son of William the Conqueror, was
elected King of Jerusalem by the army in Syria, but declined it in hope
of ascending the throne of England. Henry VIII. filled the throne of
England when our author wrote: his luxury and conjugal brutality amply
deserved the censure of the honest poet.
[443] France.
[444] _What impious lust of empire steels thy breast. _--The French
translator very cordially agrees with the Portuguese poet in the
strictures upon Germany, England, and Italy.
[445] The Mohammedans.
[446] _Where Cynifio flows. _--A river in Africa, near Tripoli. --VIRGIL,
Georg. iii. 311. --_Ed. _
[447] _O Italy! how fall'n, how low, how lost! _--However these severe
reflections on modern Italy may displease the admirers of Italian
manners, the picture on the whole is too just to admit of confutation.
Never did the history of any court afford such instances of villainy and
all the baseness of intrigue as that of the pope's. That this view of
the lower ranks in the pope's dominions is just, we have the indubitable
testimony of Addison. Our poet is justifiable in his censures, for he
only follows the severe reflections of the greatest of the Italian
poets. It were easy to give fifty instances; two or three, however,
shall suffice. Dante, in his sixth canto, del Purg. --
_Ahi, serva Italia, di dolore ostello,
Nave senza nocchiero in gran tempesta,
Non donna di provincie, bordello. _
"Ah, slavish Italy, the inn of dolour, a ship without a pilot in a
horrid tempest:--not the mistress of provinces, but a brothel! "
Ariosto, canto 17:--
_O d' ogni vitio fetida sentina
Dormi Italia imbriaco. _
"O inebriated Italy, thou sleepest the sink of every filthy vice! "
And Petrarch:--
_Del'empia Babilonia, ond'e fuggita
Ogni vergogna, ond'ogni bene e fuori,
Albergo di dolor, madre d'errori
Son fuggit'io per allungar la vita. _
"From the impious Babylon (the Papal Court) from whence all shame and
all good are fled, the inn of dolour, the mother of errors, have I
hastened away to prolong my life. "
[448] _The fables old of Cadmus_. --Cadmus having slain the dragon which
guarded the fountain of Dirce, in Boeotia, sowed the teeth of the
monster. A number of armed men immediately sprang up, and surrounded
Cadmus, in order to kill him. By the counsel of Minerva he threw a
precious stone among them, in striving for which they slew one another.
Only five survived, who afterwards assisted him to build the city of
Thebes. --Vid. Ovid. Met. iv.
_Terrigenae pereunt per mutua vulnera fratres. _
[449]
_So fall the bravest of the Christian name,
While dogs unclean. --_
Imitated from a fine passage in Lucan, beginning--
_Quis furor, O Cives! quae tanta licentia ferri,
Gentibus invisis_ Latium _pr? bere cruorem? _
[450] The Mohammedans.
[451] Constantinople.
[452] _Beyond the Wolgian Lake. _--The Caspian Sea, so called from the
large river Volga, or Wolga, which empties itself into it.
[453]
_Their fairest offspring from their bosoms torn,
(A dreadful tribute ! )--_
By this barbarous policy the tyranny of the Ottomans was long sustained.
The troops of the Turkish infantry and cavalry, known by the name of
Janissaries and Spahis, were thus supported. "The sons of
Christians--and those the most completely furnished by nature--were
taken in their childhood from their parents by a levy made every five
years, or oftener, as occasion required. "--SANDYS.
[454] Mohammedans.
[455]
_O'er Afric's shores
The sacred shrines the Lusian heroes rear'd. --_
See the note on book v. p. 137.
[456] _Of deepest west. _--Alludes to the discovery and conquest of the
Brazils by the Portuguese.
[457] The poet, having brought his heroes to the shore of India,
indulges himself with a review of the state of the western and eastern
worlds; the latter of which is now, by the labour of his heroes,
rendered accessible to the former. The purpose of his poem is also
strictly kept in view. The west and the east he considers as two great
empires; the one of the true religion, the other of a false. The
professors of the true, disunited and destroying one another; the
professors of the false one, all combined to extirpate the other. He
upbraids the professors of the true religion for their vices,
particularly for their disunion, and for deserting the interests of holy
faith. His countrymen, however, he boasts, have been its defenders and
planters, and, without the assistance of their brother powers, will
plant it in Asia.
"The Crusaders," according to Voltaire, "were a band of vagabond
thieves, who had agreed to ramble from the heart of Europe in order to
desolate a country they had no right to, and massacre, in cold blood, a
venerable prince, more than fourscore years old, and his whole people,
against whom they had no pretence of complaint. "
To prove that the Crusades were neither so unjustifiable, so impolitic,
nor so unhappy in their consequences as superficial readers of history
are accustomed to regard them, would not be difficult.
Upon the whole, it will be found that the Portuguese poet talks of the
political reasons of a Crusade with an accuracy in the philosophy of
history as superior to that of Voltaire, as the poetical merit of the
Lusiad surpasses that of the Henriade. And the critic in poetry must
allow, that, to suppose the discovery of GAMA the completion of all the
endeavours to overthrow the great enemies of the true religion, gives a
dignity to the poem, and an importance to the hero, similar to that
which Voltaire, on the same supposition, allows to the subject of the
Jerusalem of Tasso.
[458] Calicut is the name of a famous sea-port town in the province of
Malabar.
[459]
_The herald hears
Castilia's manly tongue salute his ears. --_
This in according to the truth of history. While the messenger sent
ashore by GAMA was borne here and there, and carried off his feet by the
throng, who understood not a word of his language, he was accosted in
Spanish by a Moorish merchant, a native of Tunis, who, according to
Osorius, had been the chief person with whom King Ferdinand had formerly
contracted for military stores. He proved himself an honest agent, and
of infinite service to GAMA; he returned to Portugal, where, according
to Faria, he died in the Christian communion. He was named Monzaida.
[460] _The sacred pledge of eastern faith. _--To eat together was, and
still is, in the east looked upon as the inviolable pledge of
protection. As a Persian nobleman was one day walking in his garden, a
wretch in the utmost terror prostrated himself before him, and implored
to be protected from the rage of a multitude who were in pursuit of him,
to take his life. The nobleman took a peach, eat part of it, and gave
the rest to the fugitive, assuring him of safety. As they approached the
house, they met a crowd who carried the murdered corpse of the
nobleman's beloved son. The incensed populace demanded the murderer, who
stood beside him, to be delivered to their fury. The father, though
overwhelmed with grief and anger, replied, "We have eaten together, and
I will not betray him. " He protected the murderer of his son from the
fury of his domestics and neighbours, and in the night facilitated his
escape.
[461] _i. e. _ crescent-shaped. --_Ed. _
[462] _In Rhodope. _--The beautiful fable of the descent of Orpheus to
hell, for the recovery of his beloved wife, Eurydice, will be found in
Virgil's Georgics, bk. iv. , lines 460-80. --_Ed. _
[463]
(_For now the banquet on the tented plain,
And sylvan chase his careless hours employ_). --
The great Mogul, and other eastern sovereigns, attended by their
courtiers, spend annually some months of the finest season in
encampments in the field, in hunting parties, and military amusements.
[464] _Th' enormous mountain. _--The Himalaya range, which is a
continuation of an immense chain of mountains girdling the northern
regions of the earth and known by various names, as Caucasus, Homodus,
Paropamissus, Imaus, etc. , and from Imaus extended through Tartary to
the sea of Kamschatka. Not the range of mountains so called in Asia
Minor. --_Ed. _
[465] _As wild traditions tell. _--Pliny, imposed upon by some Greeks,
who pretended to have been in India, relates this fable. --Vide Nat.
Hist. lib. 12.
[466] _Is fondly plac'd in Ganges' holy wave. _--Almost all the Indian
nations attribute to the Ganges the virtue of cleansing the soul from
the stains of sin. They have such veneration for this river, that if any
one in their presence were to throw any filth into the stream, an
instant death would punish his audacity.
[467] Cambaya, the ancient Camanes of Ptolemy, gives name to the gulf of
that name at the head of which it is situated. It is the principal
seaport of Guzerat. --_Ed. _
[468] Porus was king of part of the Punjaub, and was conquered by
Alexander the Great. --_Ed. _
[469] _Narsinga. _--The laws of Narsing oblige the women to throw
themselves into the funeral pile, to be burnt with their deceased
husbands. An infallible secret to prevent the desire of
widowhood. --CASTERA from Barros, Dec. 4.
[470] The Canarese, who inhabit Canara, on the west coast of
India. --_Ed. _
[471] Medina, a city of Arabia, famous as being the burial-place of
Mohammed, and hence esteemed sacred. --_Ed. _
[472] According to tradition, Perimal, a sovereign of India, embraced
Islamism about 800 years before GAMA'S voyage, divided his dominions
into different kingdoms, and ended his days as a hermit at Mecca. --_Ed. _
[473] _i. e. _ pariahs, outcasts.
[474] _Brahma their founder as a god they boast. _--Antiquity has talked
much, but knew little with certainty of the Brahmins, and their
philosophy. Porphyry and others esteem them the same as the
Gymnosophists of the Greeks, and divide them into several sects, the
Samanaei, the Germanes, the Pramnae, the Gymnetae, etc. Brahma is the head
of the Hindu triad which consists of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. --_Ed. _
[475] Almost innumerable, and sometimes as whimsically absurd as the
"Arabian Nights' Entertainments," are the holy legends of India. The
accounts of the god Brahma, or Brimha, are more various than those of
any fable in the Grecian mythology. According to Father Bohours, in his
life of Xavier, the Brahmins hold, that the Great God having a desire to
become visible, became man. In this state he produced three sons, Mayso,
Visnu, and Brahma; the first, born of his mouth, the second, of his
breast, the third, of his belly. Being about to return to his
invisibility, he assigned various departments to his three sons. To
Brahma he gave the third heaven, with the superintendence of the rites
of religion. Brahma having a desire for children, begat the Brahmins,
who are the priests of India, and who are believed by the other tribes
to be a race of demi-gods, who have the blood of heaven running in their
veins. Other accounts say, that Brahma produced the priests from his
head, the more ignoble tribes from his breast, thighs, and feet.
According to the learned Kircher's account of the theology of the
Brahmins, the sole and supreme god Vishnu, formed the secondary god
Brahma, out of a flower that floated on the surface of the great deep
before the creation. And afterwards, in reward of the virtue, fidelity,
and gratitude of Brahma, gave him power to create the universe.
Hesiod's genealogy of the gods, though refined upon by the schools of
Plato, is of the same class with the divine genealogies of the Brahmins.
The Jewish fables, foolish questions and genealogies, reproved by Saint
Paul (epist. Tit. ), were probably of this kind, for the Talmudical
legends were not then sprung up. _Binah_, or Understanding, said the
cabalists, begat _Kochmah_, or Wisdom, etc. , till at last comes
_Milcah_, the Kingdom, who begat _Shekinah_, the Divine Presence. In the
same manner the Christian Gnostics, of the sect of Valentinus, held
their ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , and their thirty AEons. _Ampsiu_ and _Auraan_, they tell
us, _i. e. _ Profundity and Silence, begat _Bacua_ and _Tharthuu_, Mind
and Truth; these begat _Ubucua_ and _Thardeadie_, Word and Life, and
these _Merexa_ and _Atarbarba_, Man and Church. The other conjunctions
of their thirty AEons are of similar ingenuity. The prevalence of the
same spirit of mythological allegory in such different nations, affords
the philosopher a worthy field for speculation.
Almost as innumerable as their legends are the dreadful penances to
which the Hindus submit themselves for the expiation of sins. Some hold
the transmigration of souls, and of consequence abstain from all animal
food. {*} Yet, however austere in other respects, they freely abandon
themselves to every species of debauchery, some of them esteeming the
most unnatural abominations as the privilege of their sanctity. The cow
they venerate as sacred. If a dying man can lay hold of a cow's tail,
and expire with it in his hands, his soul is sure to be purified, and
perhaps will enjoy the signal favour to transmigrate into the body of
one of those animals. The temples of India, which are numerous, are
filled with innumerable idols of the most horrid figures. The Brahmins
are allowed to eat nothing but what is cooked by themselves. Astrology
is their principal study; yet, though they are mostly a despicable set
of fortune-tellers, some of them are excellent moralists, and
particularly inculcate the comprehensive virtue of humanity, which is
enforced by the opinion, that Divine beings often assume the habit of
mendicants, in order to distinguish the charitable from the inhuman.
They have several traditions of the virtuous, on these happy trials,
being translated into heaven; the best designed incitement to virtue,
perhaps, which their religion contains. Besides the Brahmins, the
principal sect of that vast region called India, there are several
others, who are divided and subdivided, according to innumerable
variations, in every province. In Cambaya, the Banians, a sect who
strictly abstain from all animal food, are numerous.
{*} Though from the extracts given by Mr. Dow, the philosopher Goutam
appears to have been a very Duns Scotus or Aquinas in metaphysics, the
Pythagorean reason why the Brahmins abstain from animal food, is a
convincing proof of their ignorance in natural philosophy. Some will let
vermin overrun them; some of the Banians cover their mouth with a cloth,
lest they should suck in a gnat with their breath; and some carefully
sweep the floor ere they tread upon it, lest they dislodge the soul of
an insect. And yet they do not know that in the water they drink, and in
every salad they eat, they cause the death of innumerable living
creatures.
The sacred books of the Hindoos are written in a dead language, the
Sanskrit, which none but the Brahmins are allowed to study. So strict in
this are they, says Mr. Dow, that only one Mussulman was ever instructed
in it, and his knowledge was obtained by fraud. Mahummud Akbar, emperor
of India, though bred a Mohammedan, studied several religions. In the
Christian he was instructed by a Portuguese. But, finding that of the
Hindoos inaccessible, he had recourse to art. A boy named Feizi, was, as
the orphan of a Brahmin, put under the care of one of the most eminent
of these philosophers, and obtained full knowledge of their hidden
religion. But the fraud being discovered, he was laid under the
restraint of an oath, and it does not appear that he ever communicated
the knowledge thus acquired.
[476] Kotwal, the chief officer of police in a town. --FORBES' Hindustani
Dictionary.
[477] _The monster forms, Chimera-like, and rude. _--Chimera, a monster
slain by Bellerophon.
"First, dire Chimera's conquest was enjoin'd,
A mingled monster of no mortal kind;
Behind, a dragon's fiery tail was spread,
A goat's rough body bore a lion's head;
Her pitchy nostrils flaky flames expire,
Her gaping throat emits infernal fire. "
POPE'S II. vi.
[478] _So Titan's son. _--Briareus.
[479] _Before these shrines the blinded Indians bow. _--In this instance,
Camoens has, with great art, deviated from the truth of history. As it
was the great purpose of his hero to propagate the law of heaven in the
East, it would have been highly absurd to have represented GAMA and his
attendants as on their knees in a pagan temple. This, however, was the
case. "GAMA, who had been told," says Osorius, "that there were many
Christians in India, conjectured that the temple, to which the catual
led him, was a Christian church. At their entrance they were met by four
priests, who seemed to make crosses on their foreheads. The walls were
painted with many images. In the middle was it little round chapel, in
the wall of which, opposite to the entrance, stood an image which could
hardly be discovered. The four priests ascending, some entered the
chapel by a little brass door, and pointing to the benighted image,
cried aloud, 'Mary, Mary! ' The catual and his attendants prostrated
themselves an the ground, while the Lusians on their bended knees adored
the blessed virgin. " Thus Osorius. Another writer says, that a
Portuguese, having some doubt, exclaimed, "If this be the devil's image,
I however worship God. "
[480] _Here India's fate. _--The description of the palace of the
zamorim, situated among aromatic groves, is according to history; the
embellishment of the walls is in imitation of Virgil's description of
the palace of King Latinus:--
_Tectum augustum, ingens, centum sublime columnis,
Urbe fuit summa, etc. _
"The palace built by Picus, vast and proud, }
Supported by a hundred pillars stood, }
And round encompass'd with a rising wood. }
The pile o'erlook'd the town, and drew the sight,
Surprised, at once, with reverence and delight. . . .
Above the portal, carv'd in cedar wood,
Placed in their ranks their godlike grandsires stood.
Old Saturn, with his crooked scythe on high;
And Italus, that led the colony:
And ancient Janus with his double face,
And bunch of keys, the porter of the place.
There stood Sabinus, planter of the vines, }
On a short pruning-hook his head reclines; }
And studiously surveys his gen'rous wines. }
Then warlike kings who for their country fought,
And honourable wounds from battle brought.
Around the posts hung helmets, darts, and spears; }
And captive chariots, axes, shields, and bars; }
And broken beaks of ships, the trophies of their wars. }
Above the rest, as chief of all the band
Was Picus plac'd, a buckler in his hand;
His other wav'd a long divining wand.
Girt in his Gabin gown the hero sate----"
DRYDEN, AEn. vii.
[481]
_Behind her founder Nysa's walls were rear'd----
----at distance far
The Ganges lav'd the wide-extended war. --_
This is in the perspective manner of the beautiful descriptions of the
figures on the shield of Achilles. --IL. xviii.
[482] _Had Semele beheld the smiling boy. _--The Theban Bacchus, to whom
the Greek fabulists ascribed the Indian expedition of Sesostris, king of
Egypt.
[483] Semiramis.
[484] _Call'd Jove his father. _--The bon-mot of Olympias on this
pretension of her son Alexander, was admired by the ancients. "This
hot-headed youth, forsooth, cannot be at rest unless he embroil me in a
quarrel with Juno. "--QUINT. CURT.
[485]
_The tap'stried walls with gold were pictur'd o'er,
And flow'ry velvet spread the marble floor. --_
According to Osorius.
[486] _A leaf. _--The Betel.
[487] _More now we add not. _--The tenor of this first conversation
between the zamorim and GAMA, is according to the truth of history.
[488] _What terrors oft have thrill'd my infant breast. _--The enthusiasm
with which Monzaida, a Moor, talks of the Portuguese, may perhaps to
some appear unnatural. Camoens seems to be aware of this by giving a
reason for that enthusiasm in the first speech of Monzaida to Gama--
_Heav'n sent you here for some great work divine,
And Heav'n inspires my breast your sacred toils to join. _
And, that this Moor did conceive a great affection to GAMA, whose
religion he embraced, and to whom he proved of the utmost service, is
according to the truth of history.
[489] _The ruddy juice by Noah found. _--Gen. ix. 20. "And Noah began to
be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard, and he drank of the wine,"
etc.
[490]
_His faith forbade with other tribe to join
The sacred meal, esteem'd a rite divine. --_
The opinion of the sacredness of the table is very ancient in the East.
It is plainly to be discovered in the history of Abraham. When
Melchizedek, a king and priest, blessed Abraham, it is said, "And he
brought forth bread and wine and he blessed him. "--Gen. xiv. 18. The
patriarchs only drank wine, according to Dr. Stukely, on their more
solemn festivals, when they were said _to rejoice before the Lord_.
Other customs of the Hindoos are mentioned by Camoens in this book. If a
noble should touch a person of another tribe--
_A thousand rites, and washings o'er and o'er,
Can scarce his tainted purity restore. _
Nothing, says Osorius, but the death of the unhappy commoner can wipe
off the pollution. Yet we are told by the same author, that Hindoo
nobility cannot be forfeited, or even tarnished by the basest and
greatest of crimes; nor can one of mean birth become great or noble by
the most illustrious actions. The noblemen, says the same writer, adopt
the children of their sisters, esteeming there can be no other certainty
of the relationship of their heirs.
[491] _The warlike song. _--Though Camoens began his Lusiad in Portugal,
almost the whole of it was written while on the ocean, while in Africa,
and in India. --See his Life.
[492] _As Canace. _--Daughter of Eolus. Her father, having thrown her
incestuous child to the dogs, sent her a sword, with which she slew
herself. In Ovid she writes an epistle to her husband-brother, where she
thus describes herself:--
_Dextra tenet calamum, strictum tenet altera ferrum. _
[493]
_Soon I beheld that wealth beneath the wave
For ever lost. --_
See the Life of Camoens.
[494] _My life, like Judah's Heaven-doom'd king of
yore. _--Hezekiah. --See Isaiah xxxviii.
[495] _And left me mourning in a dreary jail. _--This, and the whole
paragraph from--
_Degraded now, by poverty abhorr'd,_
alludes to his fortunes in India. The latter circumstance relates
particularly to the base and inhuman treatment he received on his return
to Goa, after his unhappy shipwreck. --See his Life.
[496] _Who spurns the muse. _--Similarity of condition has produced
similarity of sentiment in Camoens and Spenser. Each was the ornament of
his country and his age, and each was cruelly neglected by the men of
power, who, in truth, were incapable to judge of their merit, or to
relish their writings. We have seen several of the strictures of Camoens
on the barbarous nobility of Portugal. The similar complaints of Spenser
will show, that neglect of genius, however, was not confined to the
court of Lisbon:--
"O grief of griefs! O gall of all good hearts!
To see that virtue should despised be
Of such as first were raised for virtue's parts,
And now, broad spreading like an aged tree,
Let none shoot up that nigh them planted be.
O let not those of whom the muse is scorn'd,
Alive or dead be by the muse adorn'd. "
RUINS OF TIME.
It is thought Lord Burleigh, who withheld the bounty intended by Queen
Elizabeth, is here meant. But he is more clearly stigmatized in these
remarkable lines, where the misery of dependence on court favour is
painted in colours which must recall several strokes of the Lusiad to
the mind of the reader:--
"Full little knowest thou that hast not tried,
What hell it is, in suing long to bide;
To lose good days, that might be better spent,
To waste long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow,
To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow;
To have thy princess' grace, yet want her peers';
To have thy asking, yet wait many years.
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares,
To eat thy heart thro' comfortless despairs;
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone. "
MOTHER HUBBERD'S TALE.
These lines exasperated still more the inelegant, illiberal Burleigh. So
true is the observation of Mr. Hughes, that, "even the sighs of a
miserable man are sometimes resented as an affront by him that is the
occasion of them. "
[497] Kotwal, a sort of superintendent or inspector of police. --FORBES'
Hindustani Dictionary.
[498] Lusus.
[499] _His cluster'd bough, the same which Bacchus bore. _--Camoens
immediately before, and in the former book, calls the ensign of Lusus a
bough; here he calls it the green thyrsus of Bacchus:--
_O verde Tyrso foi de Bacco usado. _
The thyrsus, however, was a javelin twisted with ivy-leaves, used in the
sacrifices of Bacchus.
[500] _In those fair lawns the bless'd Elysium feign'd. _--In this
assertion our author has the authority of Strabo. a foundation
sufficient for a poet. Nor are there wanting several Spanish writers,
particularly Barbosa, who seriously affirm that Homer drew the fine
description of Elysium, in his fourth Odyssey, from the beautiful
valleys of Spain, where, in one of his voyages, they say, he arrived.
Egypt, however, seems to have a better title to this honour. The fable
of Charon, and the judges of hell, are evidently borrowed from the
Egyptian rites of burial, and are older than Homer. After a ferryman had
conveyed the corpse over a lake, certain judges examined the life of the
deceased, particularly his claim to the virtue of loyalty, and,
according to the report, decreed or refused the honours of sepulture.
The place of the catacombs, according to Diodorus Siculus, was
surrounded with deep canals, beautiful meadows, and a wilderness of
groves. It is universally known that the greatest part of the Grecian
fables were fabricated from the customs and opinions of Egypt. Several
other nations have also claimed the honour of affording the idea of the
fields of the blessed. Even the Scotch challenge it. Many Grecian
fables, says an author of that country, are evidently founded on the
reports of the Phoenician sailors. That these navigators traded to the
coasts of Britain is certain. In the middle of summer, the season when
the ancients performed their voyages, for about six weeks there is no
night over the Orkney Islands; the disk of the sun, during that time,
scarcely sinking below the horizon. This appearance, together with the
calm which usually prevails at that season, and the beautiful verdure of
the islands, could not fail to excite the admiration of the Phoenicians;
and their accounts of the place naturally afforded the idea that these
islands were inhabited by the spirits of the just. This, says our
author, is countenanced by Homer, who places his "islands of the happy"
at the extremity of the ocean. That the fables of Scylla, the Gorgones,
and several others, were founded on the accounts of navigators, seems
probable; and, on this supposition, the Insulae Fortunatae, and
Purpurariae, now the Canary and Madeira islands, also claim the honour of
giving colours to the description of Elysium. The truth, however,
appears to be this: That a place of happiness is reserved for the
spirits of the good is the natural suggestion of that anxiety and hope
concerning the future which animates the human breast. All the barbarous
nations of Africa and America agree in placing their heaven in beautiful
islands, at an immense distance over the ocean. The idea is universal,
and is natural to every nation in a state of barbarous simplicity.
[501] The goddess Minerva.
[502] _The heav'n-built towers of Troy. _--Alluding to the fable of
Neptune, Apollo, and Laomedon.
[503]
_On Europe's strand, more grateful to the skies,
He bade th' eternal walls of Lisbon rise. --_
For some account of this tradition, see the note on Lusiad, bk. iii. p.
76. Ancient traditions, however fabulous, have a good effect in poetry.
Virgil has not scrupled to insert one, which required an apology:--
_Prisca fides facto, sed fama perennis. _
Spenser has given us the history of Brute and his descendants at full
length in the Faerie Queene; and Milton, it is known, was so fond of
that absurd legend, that he intended to write a poem on the subject; and
by this fondness was induced to mention it as a truth in the
introduction to his History of England.
[504] _The brother chief. _--Paulus de Gama.
[505] _That gen'rous pride which Rome to Pyrrhus bore. _--When Pyrrhus,
king of Epirus, was at war with the Romans, his physician offered to
poison him. The senate rejected the proposal, and acquainted Pyrrhus of
the designed treason. Florus remarks on the infamous assassination of
Viriatus, that the Roman senate did him great honour; _ut videretur
aliter vinci non potuisse_; it was a confession that they could not
otherwise conquer him,--Vid. Flor. l. 17. For a fuller account of this
great man, see the note on Lusiad, bk. i. p. 9.
[506] _Some deem the warrior of Hungarian race. _--See the note on the
Lusiad, bk. iii p. 67.
[507] Jerusalem.
[508] _The first Alonzo. _--King of Portugal.
[509] _On his young pupil's flight. _--"Some, indeed most, writers say,
that the queen advancing with her army towards Guimaraez, the king,
without waiting till his governor joined him, engaged them and was
routed: but that afterwards the remains of his army, being joined by the
troops under the command of Egaz Munitz, engaged the army of the queen a
second time, and gained a complete victory. "--UNIV. HIST.
[510] _Egaz behold, a chief self-doom'd to death. _--See the same story
in bk. iii. p. 71. Though history affords no authentic document of this
transaction, tradition, the poet's authority, is not silent. And the
monument of Egaz in the monastery of Paco de Souza gives it countenance.
Egaz and his family are there represented, in bas relief, in the
attitude and garb, says Castera, as described by Camoens.
[511] _Ah Rome! no more thy gen'rous consul boast. _--Sc. Posthumus, who,
overpowered by the Samnites, submitted to the indignity of passing under
the yoke.
[512] _The Moorish king. _--The Alcaydes, or tributary governors under
the Miramolin{*} or Emperor of Morocco, are often by the Spanish and
Portuguese writers styled kings. He who was surprised and taken prisoner
by Don Fuaz Roupinho was named _Gama_. Fuaz, after having gained the
first naval victory of the Portuguese, also experienced their first
defeat. With one and twenty sail he attacked fifty-four large galleys of
the Moors. "The sea," says Brandan, "which had lately furnished him with
trophies, now supplied him with a tomb. "
{*} This should be (and is evidently only a corruption of),
_Emir-el-Mumenin_, _i.
[435] Noah.
[436] Venus.
[437] For the fable of Eolus see the tenth Odyssey.
[438]
_And vow, that henceforth her Armada's sails
Should gently swell with fair propitious gales. _
In innumerable instances Camoens discovers himself a judicious imitator
of the ancients. In the two great masters of the epic are several
prophecies oracular of the fate of different heroes, which give an air
of solemn importance to the poem. The fate of the Armada thus obscurely
anticipated, resembles in particular the prophecy of the safe return of
Ulysses to Ithaca, foretold by the shade of Tiresias, which was
afterwards fulfilled by the Phaeacians. It remains now to make some
observations on the machinery used by Camoens in this book. The
necessity of machinery in the epopea, and the, perhaps, insurmountable
difficulty of finding one unexceptionably adapted to a poem where the
heroes are Christians, or, in other words, to a poem whose subject is
modern, have already been observed in the preface. The machinery of
Camoens has also been proved, in every respect, to be less exceptionable
than that of Tasso in his Jerusalem, or that of Voltaire in his
Henriade. The descent of Bacchus to the palace of Neptune, in the depths
of the sea, and his address to the watery gods, are noble imitations of
Virgil's Juno in the first AEneid. The description of the storm is also
masterly. In both instances the conduct of the AEneid is joined with the
descriptive exuberance of the Odyssey. The appearance of the star of
Venus through the storm is finely imagined; the influence of the nymphs
of that goddess over the winds, and their subsequent nuptials, are in
the spirit of the promise of Juno to Eolus:--
_Sunt mihi bis septum praestanti corpore nymphae:
Quarum, quae forma pulcherrima; Deiopeiam_
_Connubio jungam stabili, propriamque dicabo:
Omnes ut tecum meritis pro talibus annos
Exigat, et pulchra faciat te prole parentem. _--VIRGIL, AEn. bk. i.
And the fiction itself is an allegory, exactly in the manner of Homer.
Orithia, the daughter of Erecteus, and queen of the Amazons, was
ravished and carried away by Boreas.
[439] Vasco de Gama.
[440] This refers to the Catholic persecutions of Protestants whom they
had previously condemned at the Diet of Spires. War was declared against
the Protestants in 1546. It lasted for six years, when a treaty of peace
was signed at Passau on the Danube, in 1552. --_Ed. _
[441] _Some blindly wand'ring, holy faith disclaim. _--At the time when
Camoens wrote, the German empire was plunged into all the miseries of a
religious war, the Catholics using every endeavour to rivet the chains
of Popery, the adherents of Luther as strenuously endeavouring to shake
them off.
[442]
_High sound the titles of the English crown,
King of Jerusalem. --_
The title of "King of Jerusalem" was never assumed by the kings of
England. Robert, duke of Normandy, son of William the Conqueror, was
elected King of Jerusalem by the army in Syria, but declined it in hope
of ascending the throne of England. Henry VIII. filled the throne of
England when our author wrote: his luxury and conjugal brutality amply
deserved the censure of the honest poet.
[443] France.
[444] _What impious lust of empire steels thy breast. _--The French
translator very cordially agrees with the Portuguese poet in the
strictures upon Germany, England, and Italy.
[445] The Mohammedans.
[446] _Where Cynifio flows. _--A river in Africa, near Tripoli. --VIRGIL,
Georg. iii. 311. --_Ed. _
[447] _O Italy! how fall'n, how low, how lost! _--However these severe
reflections on modern Italy may displease the admirers of Italian
manners, the picture on the whole is too just to admit of confutation.
Never did the history of any court afford such instances of villainy and
all the baseness of intrigue as that of the pope's. That this view of
the lower ranks in the pope's dominions is just, we have the indubitable
testimony of Addison. Our poet is justifiable in his censures, for he
only follows the severe reflections of the greatest of the Italian
poets. It were easy to give fifty instances; two or three, however,
shall suffice. Dante, in his sixth canto, del Purg. --
_Ahi, serva Italia, di dolore ostello,
Nave senza nocchiero in gran tempesta,
Non donna di provincie, bordello. _
"Ah, slavish Italy, the inn of dolour, a ship without a pilot in a
horrid tempest:--not the mistress of provinces, but a brothel! "
Ariosto, canto 17:--
_O d' ogni vitio fetida sentina
Dormi Italia imbriaco. _
"O inebriated Italy, thou sleepest the sink of every filthy vice! "
And Petrarch:--
_Del'empia Babilonia, ond'e fuggita
Ogni vergogna, ond'ogni bene e fuori,
Albergo di dolor, madre d'errori
Son fuggit'io per allungar la vita. _
"From the impious Babylon (the Papal Court) from whence all shame and
all good are fled, the inn of dolour, the mother of errors, have I
hastened away to prolong my life. "
[448] _The fables old of Cadmus_. --Cadmus having slain the dragon which
guarded the fountain of Dirce, in Boeotia, sowed the teeth of the
monster. A number of armed men immediately sprang up, and surrounded
Cadmus, in order to kill him. By the counsel of Minerva he threw a
precious stone among them, in striving for which they slew one another.
Only five survived, who afterwards assisted him to build the city of
Thebes. --Vid. Ovid. Met. iv.
_Terrigenae pereunt per mutua vulnera fratres. _
[449]
_So fall the bravest of the Christian name,
While dogs unclean. --_
Imitated from a fine passage in Lucan, beginning--
_Quis furor, O Cives! quae tanta licentia ferri,
Gentibus invisis_ Latium _pr? bere cruorem? _
[450] The Mohammedans.
[451] Constantinople.
[452] _Beyond the Wolgian Lake. _--The Caspian Sea, so called from the
large river Volga, or Wolga, which empties itself into it.
[453]
_Their fairest offspring from their bosoms torn,
(A dreadful tribute ! )--_
By this barbarous policy the tyranny of the Ottomans was long sustained.
The troops of the Turkish infantry and cavalry, known by the name of
Janissaries and Spahis, were thus supported. "The sons of
Christians--and those the most completely furnished by nature--were
taken in their childhood from their parents by a levy made every five
years, or oftener, as occasion required. "--SANDYS.
[454] Mohammedans.
[455]
_O'er Afric's shores
The sacred shrines the Lusian heroes rear'd. --_
See the note on book v. p. 137.
[456] _Of deepest west. _--Alludes to the discovery and conquest of the
Brazils by the Portuguese.
[457] The poet, having brought his heroes to the shore of India,
indulges himself with a review of the state of the western and eastern
worlds; the latter of which is now, by the labour of his heroes,
rendered accessible to the former. The purpose of his poem is also
strictly kept in view. The west and the east he considers as two great
empires; the one of the true religion, the other of a false. The
professors of the true, disunited and destroying one another; the
professors of the false one, all combined to extirpate the other. He
upbraids the professors of the true religion for their vices,
particularly for their disunion, and for deserting the interests of holy
faith. His countrymen, however, he boasts, have been its defenders and
planters, and, without the assistance of their brother powers, will
plant it in Asia.
"The Crusaders," according to Voltaire, "were a band of vagabond
thieves, who had agreed to ramble from the heart of Europe in order to
desolate a country they had no right to, and massacre, in cold blood, a
venerable prince, more than fourscore years old, and his whole people,
against whom they had no pretence of complaint. "
To prove that the Crusades were neither so unjustifiable, so impolitic,
nor so unhappy in their consequences as superficial readers of history
are accustomed to regard them, would not be difficult.
Upon the whole, it will be found that the Portuguese poet talks of the
political reasons of a Crusade with an accuracy in the philosophy of
history as superior to that of Voltaire, as the poetical merit of the
Lusiad surpasses that of the Henriade. And the critic in poetry must
allow, that, to suppose the discovery of GAMA the completion of all the
endeavours to overthrow the great enemies of the true religion, gives a
dignity to the poem, and an importance to the hero, similar to that
which Voltaire, on the same supposition, allows to the subject of the
Jerusalem of Tasso.
[458] Calicut is the name of a famous sea-port town in the province of
Malabar.
[459]
_The herald hears
Castilia's manly tongue salute his ears. --_
This in according to the truth of history. While the messenger sent
ashore by GAMA was borne here and there, and carried off his feet by the
throng, who understood not a word of his language, he was accosted in
Spanish by a Moorish merchant, a native of Tunis, who, according to
Osorius, had been the chief person with whom King Ferdinand had formerly
contracted for military stores. He proved himself an honest agent, and
of infinite service to GAMA; he returned to Portugal, where, according
to Faria, he died in the Christian communion. He was named Monzaida.
[460] _The sacred pledge of eastern faith. _--To eat together was, and
still is, in the east looked upon as the inviolable pledge of
protection. As a Persian nobleman was one day walking in his garden, a
wretch in the utmost terror prostrated himself before him, and implored
to be protected from the rage of a multitude who were in pursuit of him,
to take his life. The nobleman took a peach, eat part of it, and gave
the rest to the fugitive, assuring him of safety. As they approached the
house, they met a crowd who carried the murdered corpse of the
nobleman's beloved son. The incensed populace demanded the murderer, who
stood beside him, to be delivered to their fury. The father, though
overwhelmed with grief and anger, replied, "We have eaten together, and
I will not betray him. " He protected the murderer of his son from the
fury of his domestics and neighbours, and in the night facilitated his
escape.
[461] _i. e. _ crescent-shaped. --_Ed. _
[462] _In Rhodope. _--The beautiful fable of the descent of Orpheus to
hell, for the recovery of his beloved wife, Eurydice, will be found in
Virgil's Georgics, bk. iv. , lines 460-80. --_Ed. _
[463]
(_For now the banquet on the tented plain,
And sylvan chase his careless hours employ_). --
The great Mogul, and other eastern sovereigns, attended by their
courtiers, spend annually some months of the finest season in
encampments in the field, in hunting parties, and military amusements.
[464] _Th' enormous mountain. _--The Himalaya range, which is a
continuation of an immense chain of mountains girdling the northern
regions of the earth and known by various names, as Caucasus, Homodus,
Paropamissus, Imaus, etc. , and from Imaus extended through Tartary to
the sea of Kamschatka. Not the range of mountains so called in Asia
Minor. --_Ed. _
[465] _As wild traditions tell. _--Pliny, imposed upon by some Greeks,
who pretended to have been in India, relates this fable. --Vide Nat.
Hist. lib. 12.
[466] _Is fondly plac'd in Ganges' holy wave. _--Almost all the Indian
nations attribute to the Ganges the virtue of cleansing the soul from
the stains of sin. They have such veneration for this river, that if any
one in their presence were to throw any filth into the stream, an
instant death would punish his audacity.
[467] Cambaya, the ancient Camanes of Ptolemy, gives name to the gulf of
that name at the head of which it is situated. It is the principal
seaport of Guzerat. --_Ed. _
[468] Porus was king of part of the Punjaub, and was conquered by
Alexander the Great. --_Ed. _
[469] _Narsinga. _--The laws of Narsing oblige the women to throw
themselves into the funeral pile, to be burnt with their deceased
husbands. An infallible secret to prevent the desire of
widowhood. --CASTERA from Barros, Dec. 4.
[470] The Canarese, who inhabit Canara, on the west coast of
India. --_Ed. _
[471] Medina, a city of Arabia, famous as being the burial-place of
Mohammed, and hence esteemed sacred. --_Ed. _
[472] According to tradition, Perimal, a sovereign of India, embraced
Islamism about 800 years before GAMA'S voyage, divided his dominions
into different kingdoms, and ended his days as a hermit at Mecca. --_Ed. _
[473] _i. e. _ pariahs, outcasts.
[474] _Brahma their founder as a god they boast. _--Antiquity has talked
much, but knew little with certainty of the Brahmins, and their
philosophy. Porphyry and others esteem them the same as the
Gymnosophists of the Greeks, and divide them into several sects, the
Samanaei, the Germanes, the Pramnae, the Gymnetae, etc. Brahma is the head
of the Hindu triad which consists of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. --_Ed. _
[475] Almost innumerable, and sometimes as whimsically absurd as the
"Arabian Nights' Entertainments," are the holy legends of India. The
accounts of the god Brahma, or Brimha, are more various than those of
any fable in the Grecian mythology. According to Father Bohours, in his
life of Xavier, the Brahmins hold, that the Great God having a desire to
become visible, became man. In this state he produced three sons, Mayso,
Visnu, and Brahma; the first, born of his mouth, the second, of his
breast, the third, of his belly. Being about to return to his
invisibility, he assigned various departments to his three sons. To
Brahma he gave the third heaven, with the superintendence of the rites
of religion. Brahma having a desire for children, begat the Brahmins,
who are the priests of India, and who are believed by the other tribes
to be a race of demi-gods, who have the blood of heaven running in their
veins. Other accounts say, that Brahma produced the priests from his
head, the more ignoble tribes from his breast, thighs, and feet.
According to the learned Kircher's account of the theology of the
Brahmins, the sole and supreme god Vishnu, formed the secondary god
Brahma, out of a flower that floated on the surface of the great deep
before the creation. And afterwards, in reward of the virtue, fidelity,
and gratitude of Brahma, gave him power to create the universe.
Hesiod's genealogy of the gods, though refined upon by the schools of
Plato, is of the same class with the divine genealogies of the Brahmins.
The Jewish fables, foolish questions and genealogies, reproved by Saint
Paul (epist. Tit. ), were probably of this kind, for the Talmudical
legends were not then sprung up. _Binah_, or Understanding, said the
cabalists, begat _Kochmah_, or Wisdom, etc. , till at last comes
_Milcah_, the Kingdom, who begat _Shekinah_, the Divine Presence. In the
same manner the Christian Gnostics, of the sect of Valentinus, held
their ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , and their thirty AEons. _Ampsiu_ and _Auraan_, they tell
us, _i. e. _ Profundity and Silence, begat _Bacua_ and _Tharthuu_, Mind
and Truth; these begat _Ubucua_ and _Thardeadie_, Word and Life, and
these _Merexa_ and _Atarbarba_, Man and Church. The other conjunctions
of their thirty AEons are of similar ingenuity. The prevalence of the
same spirit of mythological allegory in such different nations, affords
the philosopher a worthy field for speculation.
Almost as innumerable as their legends are the dreadful penances to
which the Hindus submit themselves for the expiation of sins. Some hold
the transmigration of souls, and of consequence abstain from all animal
food. {*} Yet, however austere in other respects, they freely abandon
themselves to every species of debauchery, some of them esteeming the
most unnatural abominations as the privilege of their sanctity. The cow
they venerate as sacred. If a dying man can lay hold of a cow's tail,
and expire with it in his hands, his soul is sure to be purified, and
perhaps will enjoy the signal favour to transmigrate into the body of
one of those animals. The temples of India, which are numerous, are
filled with innumerable idols of the most horrid figures. The Brahmins
are allowed to eat nothing but what is cooked by themselves. Astrology
is their principal study; yet, though they are mostly a despicable set
of fortune-tellers, some of them are excellent moralists, and
particularly inculcate the comprehensive virtue of humanity, which is
enforced by the opinion, that Divine beings often assume the habit of
mendicants, in order to distinguish the charitable from the inhuman.
They have several traditions of the virtuous, on these happy trials,
being translated into heaven; the best designed incitement to virtue,
perhaps, which their religion contains. Besides the Brahmins, the
principal sect of that vast region called India, there are several
others, who are divided and subdivided, according to innumerable
variations, in every province. In Cambaya, the Banians, a sect who
strictly abstain from all animal food, are numerous.
{*} Though from the extracts given by Mr. Dow, the philosopher Goutam
appears to have been a very Duns Scotus or Aquinas in metaphysics, the
Pythagorean reason why the Brahmins abstain from animal food, is a
convincing proof of their ignorance in natural philosophy. Some will let
vermin overrun them; some of the Banians cover their mouth with a cloth,
lest they should suck in a gnat with their breath; and some carefully
sweep the floor ere they tread upon it, lest they dislodge the soul of
an insect. And yet they do not know that in the water they drink, and in
every salad they eat, they cause the death of innumerable living
creatures.
The sacred books of the Hindoos are written in a dead language, the
Sanskrit, which none but the Brahmins are allowed to study. So strict in
this are they, says Mr. Dow, that only one Mussulman was ever instructed
in it, and his knowledge was obtained by fraud. Mahummud Akbar, emperor
of India, though bred a Mohammedan, studied several religions. In the
Christian he was instructed by a Portuguese. But, finding that of the
Hindoos inaccessible, he had recourse to art. A boy named Feizi, was, as
the orphan of a Brahmin, put under the care of one of the most eminent
of these philosophers, and obtained full knowledge of their hidden
religion. But the fraud being discovered, he was laid under the
restraint of an oath, and it does not appear that he ever communicated
the knowledge thus acquired.
[476] Kotwal, the chief officer of police in a town. --FORBES' Hindustani
Dictionary.
[477] _The monster forms, Chimera-like, and rude. _--Chimera, a monster
slain by Bellerophon.
"First, dire Chimera's conquest was enjoin'd,
A mingled monster of no mortal kind;
Behind, a dragon's fiery tail was spread,
A goat's rough body bore a lion's head;
Her pitchy nostrils flaky flames expire,
Her gaping throat emits infernal fire. "
POPE'S II. vi.
[478] _So Titan's son. _--Briareus.
[479] _Before these shrines the blinded Indians bow. _--In this instance,
Camoens has, with great art, deviated from the truth of history. As it
was the great purpose of his hero to propagate the law of heaven in the
East, it would have been highly absurd to have represented GAMA and his
attendants as on their knees in a pagan temple. This, however, was the
case. "GAMA, who had been told," says Osorius, "that there were many
Christians in India, conjectured that the temple, to which the catual
led him, was a Christian church. At their entrance they were met by four
priests, who seemed to make crosses on their foreheads. The walls were
painted with many images. In the middle was it little round chapel, in
the wall of which, opposite to the entrance, stood an image which could
hardly be discovered. The four priests ascending, some entered the
chapel by a little brass door, and pointing to the benighted image,
cried aloud, 'Mary, Mary! ' The catual and his attendants prostrated
themselves an the ground, while the Lusians on their bended knees adored
the blessed virgin. " Thus Osorius. Another writer says, that a
Portuguese, having some doubt, exclaimed, "If this be the devil's image,
I however worship God. "
[480] _Here India's fate. _--The description of the palace of the
zamorim, situated among aromatic groves, is according to history; the
embellishment of the walls is in imitation of Virgil's description of
the palace of King Latinus:--
_Tectum augustum, ingens, centum sublime columnis,
Urbe fuit summa, etc. _
"The palace built by Picus, vast and proud, }
Supported by a hundred pillars stood, }
And round encompass'd with a rising wood. }
The pile o'erlook'd the town, and drew the sight,
Surprised, at once, with reverence and delight. . . .
Above the portal, carv'd in cedar wood,
Placed in their ranks their godlike grandsires stood.
Old Saturn, with his crooked scythe on high;
And Italus, that led the colony:
And ancient Janus with his double face,
And bunch of keys, the porter of the place.
There stood Sabinus, planter of the vines, }
On a short pruning-hook his head reclines; }
And studiously surveys his gen'rous wines. }
Then warlike kings who for their country fought,
And honourable wounds from battle brought.
Around the posts hung helmets, darts, and spears; }
And captive chariots, axes, shields, and bars; }
And broken beaks of ships, the trophies of their wars. }
Above the rest, as chief of all the band
Was Picus plac'd, a buckler in his hand;
His other wav'd a long divining wand.
Girt in his Gabin gown the hero sate----"
DRYDEN, AEn. vii.
[481]
_Behind her founder Nysa's walls were rear'd----
----at distance far
The Ganges lav'd the wide-extended war. --_
This is in the perspective manner of the beautiful descriptions of the
figures on the shield of Achilles. --IL. xviii.
[482] _Had Semele beheld the smiling boy. _--The Theban Bacchus, to whom
the Greek fabulists ascribed the Indian expedition of Sesostris, king of
Egypt.
[483] Semiramis.
[484] _Call'd Jove his father. _--The bon-mot of Olympias on this
pretension of her son Alexander, was admired by the ancients. "This
hot-headed youth, forsooth, cannot be at rest unless he embroil me in a
quarrel with Juno. "--QUINT. CURT.
[485]
_The tap'stried walls with gold were pictur'd o'er,
And flow'ry velvet spread the marble floor. --_
According to Osorius.
[486] _A leaf. _--The Betel.
[487] _More now we add not. _--The tenor of this first conversation
between the zamorim and GAMA, is according to the truth of history.
[488] _What terrors oft have thrill'd my infant breast. _--The enthusiasm
with which Monzaida, a Moor, talks of the Portuguese, may perhaps to
some appear unnatural. Camoens seems to be aware of this by giving a
reason for that enthusiasm in the first speech of Monzaida to Gama--
_Heav'n sent you here for some great work divine,
And Heav'n inspires my breast your sacred toils to join. _
And, that this Moor did conceive a great affection to GAMA, whose
religion he embraced, and to whom he proved of the utmost service, is
according to the truth of history.
[489] _The ruddy juice by Noah found. _--Gen. ix. 20. "And Noah began to
be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard, and he drank of the wine,"
etc.
[490]
_His faith forbade with other tribe to join
The sacred meal, esteem'd a rite divine. --_
The opinion of the sacredness of the table is very ancient in the East.
It is plainly to be discovered in the history of Abraham. When
Melchizedek, a king and priest, blessed Abraham, it is said, "And he
brought forth bread and wine and he blessed him. "--Gen. xiv. 18. The
patriarchs only drank wine, according to Dr. Stukely, on their more
solemn festivals, when they were said _to rejoice before the Lord_.
Other customs of the Hindoos are mentioned by Camoens in this book. If a
noble should touch a person of another tribe--
_A thousand rites, and washings o'er and o'er,
Can scarce his tainted purity restore. _
Nothing, says Osorius, but the death of the unhappy commoner can wipe
off the pollution. Yet we are told by the same author, that Hindoo
nobility cannot be forfeited, or even tarnished by the basest and
greatest of crimes; nor can one of mean birth become great or noble by
the most illustrious actions. The noblemen, says the same writer, adopt
the children of their sisters, esteeming there can be no other certainty
of the relationship of their heirs.
[491] _The warlike song. _--Though Camoens began his Lusiad in Portugal,
almost the whole of it was written while on the ocean, while in Africa,
and in India. --See his Life.
[492] _As Canace. _--Daughter of Eolus. Her father, having thrown her
incestuous child to the dogs, sent her a sword, with which she slew
herself. In Ovid she writes an epistle to her husband-brother, where she
thus describes herself:--
_Dextra tenet calamum, strictum tenet altera ferrum. _
[493]
_Soon I beheld that wealth beneath the wave
For ever lost. --_
See the Life of Camoens.
[494] _My life, like Judah's Heaven-doom'd king of
yore. _--Hezekiah. --See Isaiah xxxviii.
[495] _And left me mourning in a dreary jail. _--This, and the whole
paragraph from--
_Degraded now, by poverty abhorr'd,_
alludes to his fortunes in India. The latter circumstance relates
particularly to the base and inhuman treatment he received on his return
to Goa, after his unhappy shipwreck. --See his Life.
[496] _Who spurns the muse. _--Similarity of condition has produced
similarity of sentiment in Camoens and Spenser. Each was the ornament of
his country and his age, and each was cruelly neglected by the men of
power, who, in truth, were incapable to judge of their merit, or to
relish their writings. We have seen several of the strictures of Camoens
on the barbarous nobility of Portugal. The similar complaints of Spenser
will show, that neglect of genius, however, was not confined to the
court of Lisbon:--
"O grief of griefs! O gall of all good hearts!
To see that virtue should despised be
Of such as first were raised for virtue's parts,
And now, broad spreading like an aged tree,
Let none shoot up that nigh them planted be.
O let not those of whom the muse is scorn'd,
Alive or dead be by the muse adorn'd. "
RUINS OF TIME.
It is thought Lord Burleigh, who withheld the bounty intended by Queen
Elizabeth, is here meant. But he is more clearly stigmatized in these
remarkable lines, where the misery of dependence on court favour is
painted in colours which must recall several strokes of the Lusiad to
the mind of the reader:--
"Full little knowest thou that hast not tried,
What hell it is, in suing long to bide;
To lose good days, that might be better spent,
To waste long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow,
To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow;
To have thy princess' grace, yet want her peers';
To have thy asking, yet wait many years.
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares,
To eat thy heart thro' comfortless despairs;
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone. "
MOTHER HUBBERD'S TALE.
These lines exasperated still more the inelegant, illiberal Burleigh. So
true is the observation of Mr. Hughes, that, "even the sighs of a
miserable man are sometimes resented as an affront by him that is the
occasion of them. "
[497] Kotwal, a sort of superintendent or inspector of police. --FORBES'
Hindustani Dictionary.
[498] Lusus.
[499] _His cluster'd bough, the same which Bacchus bore. _--Camoens
immediately before, and in the former book, calls the ensign of Lusus a
bough; here he calls it the green thyrsus of Bacchus:--
_O verde Tyrso foi de Bacco usado. _
The thyrsus, however, was a javelin twisted with ivy-leaves, used in the
sacrifices of Bacchus.
[500] _In those fair lawns the bless'd Elysium feign'd. _--In this
assertion our author has the authority of Strabo. a foundation
sufficient for a poet. Nor are there wanting several Spanish writers,
particularly Barbosa, who seriously affirm that Homer drew the fine
description of Elysium, in his fourth Odyssey, from the beautiful
valleys of Spain, where, in one of his voyages, they say, he arrived.
Egypt, however, seems to have a better title to this honour. The fable
of Charon, and the judges of hell, are evidently borrowed from the
Egyptian rites of burial, and are older than Homer. After a ferryman had
conveyed the corpse over a lake, certain judges examined the life of the
deceased, particularly his claim to the virtue of loyalty, and,
according to the report, decreed or refused the honours of sepulture.
The place of the catacombs, according to Diodorus Siculus, was
surrounded with deep canals, beautiful meadows, and a wilderness of
groves. It is universally known that the greatest part of the Grecian
fables were fabricated from the customs and opinions of Egypt. Several
other nations have also claimed the honour of affording the idea of the
fields of the blessed. Even the Scotch challenge it. Many Grecian
fables, says an author of that country, are evidently founded on the
reports of the Phoenician sailors. That these navigators traded to the
coasts of Britain is certain. In the middle of summer, the season when
the ancients performed their voyages, for about six weeks there is no
night over the Orkney Islands; the disk of the sun, during that time,
scarcely sinking below the horizon. This appearance, together with the
calm which usually prevails at that season, and the beautiful verdure of
the islands, could not fail to excite the admiration of the Phoenicians;
and their accounts of the place naturally afforded the idea that these
islands were inhabited by the spirits of the just. This, says our
author, is countenanced by Homer, who places his "islands of the happy"
at the extremity of the ocean. That the fables of Scylla, the Gorgones,
and several others, were founded on the accounts of navigators, seems
probable; and, on this supposition, the Insulae Fortunatae, and
Purpurariae, now the Canary and Madeira islands, also claim the honour of
giving colours to the description of Elysium. The truth, however,
appears to be this: That a place of happiness is reserved for the
spirits of the good is the natural suggestion of that anxiety and hope
concerning the future which animates the human breast. All the barbarous
nations of Africa and America agree in placing their heaven in beautiful
islands, at an immense distance over the ocean. The idea is universal,
and is natural to every nation in a state of barbarous simplicity.
[501] The goddess Minerva.
[502] _The heav'n-built towers of Troy. _--Alluding to the fable of
Neptune, Apollo, and Laomedon.
[503]
_On Europe's strand, more grateful to the skies,
He bade th' eternal walls of Lisbon rise. --_
For some account of this tradition, see the note on Lusiad, bk. iii. p.
76. Ancient traditions, however fabulous, have a good effect in poetry.
Virgil has not scrupled to insert one, which required an apology:--
_Prisca fides facto, sed fama perennis. _
Spenser has given us the history of Brute and his descendants at full
length in the Faerie Queene; and Milton, it is known, was so fond of
that absurd legend, that he intended to write a poem on the subject; and
by this fondness was induced to mention it as a truth in the
introduction to his History of England.
[504] _The brother chief. _--Paulus de Gama.
[505] _That gen'rous pride which Rome to Pyrrhus bore. _--When Pyrrhus,
king of Epirus, was at war with the Romans, his physician offered to
poison him. The senate rejected the proposal, and acquainted Pyrrhus of
the designed treason. Florus remarks on the infamous assassination of
Viriatus, that the Roman senate did him great honour; _ut videretur
aliter vinci non potuisse_; it was a confession that they could not
otherwise conquer him,--Vid. Flor. l. 17. For a fuller account of this
great man, see the note on Lusiad, bk. i. p. 9.
[506] _Some deem the warrior of Hungarian race. _--See the note on the
Lusiad, bk. iii p. 67.
[507] Jerusalem.
[508] _The first Alonzo. _--King of Portugal.
[509] _On his young pupil's flight. _--"Some, indeed most, writers say,
that the queen advancing with her army towards Guimaraez, the king,
without waiting till his governor joined him, engaged them and was
routed: but that afterwards the remains of his army, being joined by the
troops under the command of Egaz Munitz, engaged the army of the queen a
second time, and gained a complete victory. "--UNIV. HIST.
[510] _Egaz behold, a chief self-doom'd to death. _--See the same story
in bk. iii. p. 71. Though history affords no authentic document of this
transaction, tradition, the poet's authority, is not silent. And the
monument of Egaz in the monastery of Paco de Souza gives it countenance.
Egaz and his family are there represented, in bas relief, in the
attitude and garb, says Castera, as described by Camoens.
[511] _Ah Rome! no more thy gen'rous consul boast. _--Sc. Posthumus, who,
overpowered by the Samnites, submitted to the indignity of passing under
the yoke.
[512] _The Moorish king. _--The Alcaydes, or tributary governors under
the Miramolin{*} or Emperor of Morocco, are often by the Spanish and
Portuguese writers styled kings. He who was surprised and taken prisoner
by Don Fuaz Roupinho was named _Gama_. Fuaz, after having gained the
first naval victory of the Portuguese, also experienced their first
defeat. With one and twenty sail he attacked fifty-four large galleys of
the Moors. "The sea," says Brandan, "which had lately furnished him with
trophies, now supplied him with a tomb. "
{*} This should be (and is evidently only a corruption of),
_Emir-el-Mumenin_, _i.
