Not only the pagan deities, but the
more modern adventures of enchantment were used by them to delineate the
affections, and the trials and rewards of the virtues and vices.
more modern adventures of enchantment were used by them to delineate the
affections, and the trials and rewards of the virtues and vices.
Camoes - Lusiades
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
, etc.
Thus elegantly translated by Pope:--
_As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light,
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene;
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumber'd gild the glowing pole,
O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
And tip with silver every mountain's head;
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies:
The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light. _
[96] The Turks, or Osmanli Turcomans. --_Ed. _
[97] Constantinople.
[98] _Straight as he spoke. _--The description of the armoury, and
account which Vasco de Gama gives of his religion, consists, in the
original, of thirty-two lines, which M. Castera has reduced into the
following sentence: _Leur Governeur fait differentes questions au
Capitaine, qui pour le satisfaire lui explique en peu des mots la
Religion que les Portugais suivent, l'usage des armes dont ils se
servent dans la guerre, et le dessein qui les amene. _
[99] _i. e. _, helmets.
[100] Coats of mail.
[101] _When Gama's lips Messiah's name confess'd. _--This, and the reason
of the Moor's hate, is entirely omitted by Castera. The original is, the
Moor conceived hatred, "knowing they were followers of the truth which
the Son of David taught. " Thus rendered by Fanshaw:--
_Knowing they follow that unerring light,
The Son of David holds out in his Book. _
Zacocia (governor of Mozambique) made no doubt but our people were of
some Mohammedan country. The mutual exchange of good offices between our
people and these islanders promised a long continuance of friendship,
but it proved otherwise. No sooner did Zacocia understand they were
Christians, than all his kindness was turned into the most bitter
hatred; he began to meditate their ruin, and sought to destroy the
fleet. --OSORIO, Bp. of Sylves, Hist. of the Portug. Discov.
[102] Bacchus, god of wine.
[103] _Whom nine long months his father's thigh conceal'd. _--Bacchus was
nourished during his infancy in a cave of mount Meros, which in Greek
signifies a _thigh_. Hence the fable.
[104] Alexander the Great, who on visiting the temple of Jupiter Ammon,
was hailed as son of that deity by his priests. --_Ed. _
[105] Bacchus.
[106] _His form divine he cloth'd in human shape_--
_Alecto torvam faciem et furialia membra
Exuit: in vultus sese transformat aniles,
Et frontem obscaenum rugis arat. _
VIR. AEn. vii.
[107] To be identified with the Sun, in the opinion of later
mythologists; but not so in Homer, with whom Helios (the Sun) is himself
a deity. --_Ed. _
[108]
_Thus, when to gain his beauteous charmer's smile,
The youthful lover dares the bloody toil. _
This simile is taken from a favourite exercise in Spain, where it is
usual to see young gentlemen of the best families entering the lists to
fight with a bull, adorned with ribbons, and armed with a javelin or
kind of cutlass, which the Spaniards call _Machete_.
[109]
------------_e maldizia
O velho inerte, e a m? y, que o filho cria. _
Thus translated by Fanshaw--
------------_curst their ill luck,
Th' old Devil and the Dam that gave them suck. _
[110]
_Flints, clods, and javelins hurling as they fly,
As rage, &c. --
Jamque faces et saxa volant, furor arma ministrat. _
VIRG. AEn. i.
The Spanish commentator on this place relates a very extraordinary
instance of the _furor arma ministrans_. A Portuguese soldier at the
siege of Diu in the Indies, being surrounded by the enemy, and having no
ball to charge his musket, pulled out one of his teeth, and with it
supplied the place of a bullet.
[111] The italics indicate that there is nothing in the original
corresponding to these lines. --_Ed. _
[112] See Virgil's AEneid, bk. ii. --_Ed. _
[113] Quiloa is an island, with a town of the same name, on the east
coast of Africa. --_Ed. _
[114] _But heavenly Love's fair queen. _--When GAMA arrived in the East,
the Moors were the only people who engrossed the trade of those parts.
Jealous of such formidable rivals as the Portuguese, they employed every
artifice to accomplish the destruction of GAMA'S fleet. As the Moors
were acquainted with these seas and spoke the Arabic language, GAMA was
obliged to employ them both as pilots and interpreters. The circumstance
now mentioned by Camoens is an historical fact. "The Moorish pilot,"
says De Barros, "intended to conduct the Portuguese into Quiloa, telling
them that place was inhabited by Christians; but a sudden storm arising,
drove the fleet from that shore, where death or slavery would have been
the certain fate of GAMA and his companions. The villainy of the pilot
was afterwards discovered. As GAMA was endeavouring to enter the port of
Mombaz his ship struck on a sand-bank, and finding their purpose of
bringing him into the harbour defeated, two of the Moorish pilots leaped
into the sea and swam ashore. Alarmed at this tacit acknowledgment of
guilt, GAMA ordered two other Moorish pilots who remained on board to be
examined by whipping, who, after some time, made a full confession of
their intended villainy. This discovery greatly encouraged GAMA and his
men, who now interpreted the sudden storm which had driven them from
Quiloa as a miraculous interposition of Divine Providence in their
favour.
[115] _i. e. _ Mohammed. --_Ed. _
[116] After GAMA had been driven from Quiloa by a sudden storm, the
assurances of the Mozambique pilot, that the city was chiefly inhabited
by Christians, strongly inclined him to enter the harbour of Mombas.
[117] "There were," says Osorius, "ten men in the fleet under sentence
of death, whose lives had been spared on condition that, wherever they
might be landed, they should explore the country and make themselves
acquainted with the manners and laws of the people. "
During the reign of Emmanuel, and his predecessor John II. , few
criminals were executed in Portugal. These great and political princes
employed the lives which were forfeited to the public in the most
dangerous undertakings of public utility. In their foreign expeditions
the condemned criminals were sent upon the most hazardous undertakings.
If death was their fate, it was the punishment they had merited: if
successful in what was required, their crimes were expiated; and often
they rendered their country the greatest atonement for their guilt which
men in their circumstances could possibly make. What multitudes every
year, in the prime of their life, end their days in Great Britain by the
hands of the executioner! That the legislature _might_ devise means to
make the greatest part of these lives useful to society is a fact, which
surely cannot be disputed; though, perhaps, the remedy of an evil so
shocking to humanity may be at some distance.
[118] Semele was the mother of Bacchus, but, as he was prematurely born,
Jupiter, his father, sewed him up in his thigh until he came to
maturity. --_Ed. _
[119]
_On it, the picture of that shape he placed,
In which the Holy Spirit did alight,
The picture of the dove, so white, so chaste,
On the blest Virgin's head, so chaste, so white. _
In these lines, the best of all Fanshaw's, the happy repetition "so
chaste, so white," is a beauty which, though not contained in the
original, the present translator was unwilling to lose.
[120] See the Preface.
[121] When GAMA lay at anchor among the islands of St. George, near
Mozambique, "there came three Ethiopians on board (says Faria y Sousa)
who, seeing St. Gabriel painted on the poop, fell on their knees in
token of their Christianity, which had been preached to them in the
primitive times, though now corrupted. " Barros, c. 4, and Castaneda, l.
i. c. 9, report, that the Portuguese found two or three Abyssinian
Christians in the city of Mombas, who had an oratory in their house. The
following short account of the Christians of the East may perhaps be
acceptable. In the south parts of Malabar, about 200,000 of the
inhabitants professed Christianity before the arrival of the Portuguese.
They use the Syriac language in their services, and read the Scriptures
in that tongue, and call themselves Christians of St. Thomas, by which
apostle their ancestors had been converted. For 1300 years they had been
under the Patriarch of Babylon, who appointed their _Mutran_, or
archbishop. Dr. Geddes, in his History of the Church of Malabar, relates
that Francisco Roz, a Jesuit missionary, complained to Menezes, the
Portuguese archbishop of Goa, that when he showed these people an image
of the Virgin Mary, they cried out, "Away with that filthiness, we are
Christians, and do not adore idols. "
Dom Frey Aleixo de Menezes, archbishop of Goa, "endeavoured to thrust
upon the church of Malabar the whole mass of popery, which they were
before unacquainted with. "--Millar's History of the Propag. of
Christianity.
[122] Venus.
[123] _Proud of her kindred birth. _--The French translator has the
following note on this place:--"This is one of the places which discover
our author's intimate acquaintance with mythology, and at the same time
how much attention his allegory requires. Many readers, on finding that
the protectress of the Lusians sprung from the sea, would be apt to
exclaim, Behold, the birth of the terrestrial Venus! How can a nativity
so infamous be ascribed to the celestial Venus, who represents Religion?
I answer, that Camoens had not his eye on those fables, which derive the
birth of Venus from the foam of the waves, mixed with the blood which
flowed from the dishonest wound of Saturn: he carries his views higher;
his Venus is from a fable more noble. Nigidius relates that two fishes
one day conveyed an egg to the seashore. This egg was hatched by two
pigeons whiter than snow, and gave birth to the Assyrian Venus, which,
in the pagan theology, is the same with the celestial. She instructed
mankind in religion, gave them the lessons of virtue and the laws of
equity. Jupiter, in reward of her labours, promised to grant her
whatever she desired. She prayed him to give immortality to the two
fishes, who had been instrumental in her birth, and the fishes were
accordingly placed in the Zodiac, the sign Pisces. . . . This fable agrees
perfectly with Religion, as I could clearly show; but I think it more
proper to leave to the ingenious reader the pleasure of tracing the
allegory. "
[124] _Doto, Nyse, and Nerine. _--Cloto, or Clotho, as Castera observes,
has by some error crept into almost all the Portuguese editions of the
Lusiad. Clotho was one of the Fates, and neither Hesiod, Homer, nor
Virgil has given such a name to any of the Nereids; but in the ninth
AEneid Doto is mentioned--
----_magnique jubebo
AEquoris esse Deas, qualis Nereia Doto
Et Galatea secant spumantem pectore pontum. _
The Nereids, in the Lusiad, says Castera, are the virtues divine and
human. In the first book they accompany the Portuguese fleet--
----_before the bounding prows
The lovely forms of sea-born nymphs arose. _
[125] The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in
the summer. --PROVERBS xxx. 25. --_Ed. _
[126] Imitated from Virgil--
_Cymothoe simul, et Triton adnixus acuto
Detrudunt naves scopulo. _--VIRG. AEn. i.
[127] Latona, says the fable, flying from the serpent Python, and faint
with thirst, came to a pond, where some Lycian peasants were cutting the
bulrushes. In revenge of the insults which they offered her in
preventing her to drink, she changed them into frogs. This fable, says
Castera, like almost all the rest, is drawn from history. Philocorus, as
cited by Boccace, relates, that the Rhodians having declared war against
the Lycians, were assisted by some troops from Delos, who carried the
image of Latona on their standards. A detachment of these going to drink
at a lake in Lycia, a crowd of peasants endeavoured to prevent them. An
encounter ensued; the peasants fled to the lake for shelter, and were
there slain. Some months afterwards their companions came in search of
their corpses, and finding an unusual quantity of frogs, imagined,
according to the superstition of their age, that the souls of their
friends appeared to them under that metamorphosis.
To some it may, perhaps, appear needless to vindicate Camoens, in a
point wherein he is supported by the authority of Homer and Virgil. Yet,
as many readers are infected with the _sang froid_ of a Bossu or a
Perrault, an observation in defence of our poet cannot be thought
impertinent. If we examine the finest effusions of genius, we shall find
that the most genuine poetical feeling has often dictated those similes
which are drawn from familiar and low objects. The sacred writers, and
the greatest poets of every nation, have used them. We may, therefore,
conclude that the criticism which condemns them is a refinement not
founded on nature. But, allowing them admissible, it must be observed,
that to render them pleasing requires a peculiar happiness and delicacy
of management. When the poet attains this indispensable point, he gives
a striking proof of his elegance, and of his mastership in his art. That
the similes of the emmets and of the frogs in Camoens are happily
expressed and applied, is indisputable. In that of the frogs there is a
peculiar propriety, both in the comparison itself, and in the allusion
to the fable, as it was the intent of the poet to represent not only the
flight, but the baseness of the Moors. The simile he seems to have
copied from Dante, Inf. Cant. 9--
_Come le rane innanzi a la nemica
Biscia per l'acqua si dileguan tutte
Fin che a la terra ciascuna s'abbica. _
And Cant. 22--
_E come a l'orlo de l'acqua d'un fosso
Stan li ranocchi pur col muso fuori
Si che celano i piedi, e l'altro grosso. _
[128] Barros and Castaneda, in relating this part of the voyage of Gama,
say that the fleet, just as they were entering the port of Mombas, were
driven back as it were by an invisible hand. By a subsequent note it
will appear that the safety of the Armada depended upon this
circumstance.
[129] Venus.
[130] As the planet of Jupiter is in the sixth heaven, the author has
with propriety there placed the throne of that god. --CASTERA.
[131] "I am aware of the objection, that this passage is by no means
applicable to the celestial Venus. I answer once for all, that the names
and adventures of the pagan divinities are so blended and uncertain in
mythology, that a poet is at great liberty to adapt them to his allegory
as he pleases. Even the fables, which may appear as profane, even these
contain historical, physical, and moral truths, which fully atone for
the seeming licentiousness of the letter. I could prove this in many
instances, but let the present suffice. Paris, son of Priam, king of
Troy, spent his first years as a shepherd in the country. At this time
Juno, Minerva, and Venus disputed for the apple of gold, which was
destined to be given to the most beautiful goddess. They consented that
Paris should be their judge. His equity claimed this honour. He saw them
all naked. Juno promised him riches, Minerva the sciences, but he
decided in favour of Venus, who promised him the possession of the most
beautiful woman. What a ray of light is contained in this philosophical
fable! Paris represents a studious man, who, in the silence of solitude,
seeks the supreme good. Juno is the emblem of riches and dignities;
Minerva, that of the sciences purely human; Venus is that of religion,
which contains the sciences both human and divine; the charming female,
which she promises to the Trojan shepherd, is that divine wisdom which
gives tranquillity of heart. A judge so philosophical as Paris would not
hesitate a moment to whom to give the apple of gold. "--CASTERA.
[132] "The allegory of Camoens is here obvious. If Acteon, and the
slaves of their violent passions, could discover the beauties of true
religion, they would be astonished and reclaimed: according to the
expression of Seneca, 'Si virtus cerni posset oculis corporeis, omnes ad
amorem suum pelliceret. '"--CASTERA.
[133] "That is Divine love, which always accompanies religion. Behold
how our author insinuates the excellence of his moral! "--CASTERA.
As the French translator has acknowledged, there is no doubt but several
readers will be apt to decry this allegorical interpretation of the
machinery of Camoens. Indeed there is nothing more easy than to discover
a system of allegory in the simplest narrative. The reign of Henry VIII.
is as susceptible of it as any fable in the heathen mythology. Nay,
perhaps, more so. Under the names of Henry, More, Wolsey, Cromwell,
Pole, Cranmer, etc. , all the war of the passions, with their different
catastrophes, might be delineated. Though it may be difficult to
determine how far, yet one may venture to affirm that Homer and Virgil
sometimes allegorised. The poets, however, who wrote on the revival of
letters have left us in no doubt; we have their own authority for it
that their machinery is allegorical.
Not only the pagan deities, but the
more modern adventures of enchantment were used by them to delineate the
affections, and the trials and rewards of the virtues and vices. Tasso
published a treatise to prove that his _Gerusalemme Liberata_ is no
other than the Christian spiritual warfare. And Camoens, as observed in
the preface, has twice asserted that his machinery is allegorical. The
poet's assertion, and the taste of the age in which he wrote,
sufficiently vindicate and explain the allegory of the Lusiad.
[134] The following speech of Venus and the reply of Jupiter, are a fine
imitation from the first AEneid, and do great honour to the classical
taste of the Portuguese poet.
[135] Imitated from Virg. AEn. i. --
_Olli subridens hominum sator atque Deorum,
Vultu, quo coelum tempestatesque serenat,
Oscula libavit natae_----
[136] Ulysses, king of Ithaka. --_Ed. _
[137] _i. e. _, the slave of Calypso, who offered Ulysses immortality on
condition that he would live with her.
[138] AEneas. --_Ed. _
[139]
"Far on the right her dogs foul Scylla hides,
Charybdis roaring on the left presides,
And in her greedy whirlpool sucks the tides. "
DRYDEN'S Virg. AEn. iii. --_Ed. _
[140] After the Portuguese had made great conquests in India, GAMA had
the honour to be appointed Viceroy. In 1524, when sailing thither to
take possession of his government, his fleet was so becalmed on the
coast of Cambaya that the ships stood motionless on the water, when in
an instant, without the least change of the weather, the waves were
shaken with a violent agitation, like trembling. The ships were tossed
about, the sailors were terrified, and in the utmost confusion, thinking
themselves lost. Gama, perceiving it to be the effect of an earthquake,
with his wonted heroism and prudence, exclaimed, "_Of what are you
afraid? Do you not see how the ocean trembles under its sovereigns! _"
Barros, l. 9, c. 1, and Faria, c. 9, say, that such as lay sick of
fevers were cured by the fright.
[141] Ormuz, or Hormuz, an island at the entrance of the Persian Gulf,
once a great commercial depot. --_Ed. _
[142] Both Barros and Castaneda relate this fact. Albuquerque, during
the war of Ormuz, having given battle to the Persians and Moors, by the
violence of a sudden wind the arrows of the latter were driven back upon
themselves, whereby many of their troops were wounded.
[143] Calicut was a seaport town of Malabar, more properly _Colicodu_.
[144]
_Hinc ope barbarica, variisque Antonius armis,
Victor ab Aurorae populis et littore rubro,
AEgyptum, viresque Orientis, et ultima secum
Bactra vehit: sequiturque nefas! AEgyptia conjux.
Una omnes ruere, ac totum spumare, reductis
Convulsum remis rostrisque tridentibus, aequor.
Alta petunt: pelago credas innare revulsas
Cycladas, aut montes concurrere montibus altos:
Tanta mole viri turritis puppibus instant.
Stuppea flamma manu telisque volatile ferrum
Spargitur: arva nova Neptunia caede rubescunt.
----Saevit medio in certamine Maxors. _
VIRG. AEn. viii.
[145] Antony.
[146] Gades, now Cadiz, an ancient and still flourishing seaport of
Spain. --_Ed. _
[147] _The Lusian pride, etc. _--Magalhaens, a most celebrated navigator,
neglected by Emmanuel, king of Portugal, offered his service to the king
of Spain, under whom he made most important discoveries round the
Straits which bear his name, and in parts of South America. Of this hero
see further, Lusiad X. , in the notes.
[148] Mercury.
[149] Mombas, a seaport town on an island of the same name off the coast
of Zanguebar, East Africa. --_Ed. _
[150] Mercury, so called from Cyll? n? , the highest mountain in the
Peloponnesus, where he had a temple, and on which spot he is said to
have been born. --_Ed. _
[151] Petasus.
[152] The caduceus, twined with serpents. --_Ed. _
[153]
"But first he grasps within his awful hand
The mark of sovereign power, the magic wand:
With this he draws the ghosts from hollow graves,
With this he drives them down the Stygian waves,
With this he seals in sleep the wakeful sight,
And eyes, though closed in death, restores to light. "
AENEID, iv. 242. (Dryden's Trans. )
[154] Mercury.
[155] Diomede, a tyrant of Thrace, who fed his horses with human flesh;
a thing, says the grave Castera, almost incredible. Busiris was a king
of Egypt, who sacrificed strangers.
_Quis . . . illaudati nescit Busiridis aras? _
VIRG. Geor. iii.
Hercules vanquished both these tyrants, and put them to the same
punishments which their cruelty had inflicted on others. Isocrates
composed an oration in honour of Busiris; a masterly example of Attic
raillery and satire.
[156] _i. e. _ the equator.
[157] Hermes is the Greek name for the god Mercury.
[158] Having mentioned the escape of the Moorish pilots, Osorius
proceeds: Rex deinde homines magno cum silentio scaphis et lintribus
submittebat, qui securibus anchoralia nocte praeciderent. Quod nisi
fuisset a nostris singulari Gamae industria vigilatum, et insidiis
scelerati illius regis occursum, nostri in summum vitae discrimen
incidissent.
[159] Mercury.
[160] A city and kingdom of the same name on the east coast of Africa.
[161] Ascension Day.
[162] Jesus Christ.
[163]
_Vimen erat dum stagna subit, processerat undis
Gemma fuit. _
CLAUD.
_Sic et coralium, quo primum contigit auras,
Tempore durescit, mollis fuit herba sub undis. _
OVID.
[164] There were on board Gama's fleet several persons skilled in the
Oriental languages. --OSOR.
[165] See the Eighth Odyssey, etc.
[166] Castera's note on this place is so characteristic of a Frenchman,
that the reader will perhaps be pleased to see it transcribed. In his
text he says, "_Toi qui occupes si dignement le rang supreme. _" "_Le
Poete dit_," says he, in the note, "_Tens de Rey o officio, Toi qui sais
le metier de Roi_. (The poet says, _thou who holdest the business of a
king_. ) I confess," he adds, "I found a strong inclination to translate
this sentence literally. I find much nobleness in it. However, I
submitted to the opinion of some friends, who were afraid that the ears
of Frenchmen would be shocked at the word _business_ applied to a king.
It is true, nevertheless, that Royalty is a _business_. Philip II. of
Spain was convinced of it, as we may discern from one of his letters.
_Hallo_, says he, _me muy embaracado_, &c. _I am so entangled and
encumbered with the multiplicity of business, that I have not a moment
to myself. In truth, we kings hold a laborious office_ (or trade);
_there is little reason to envy us. _"
[167] The propriety and artfulness of Homer's speeches have been often
and justly admired. Camoens is peculiarly happy in the same department
of the Epopaea. The speech of Gama's herald to the King of Melinda is a
striking instance of it. The compliments with which it begins have a
direct tendency to the favours afterwards to be asked. The assurances of
the innocence, the purpose of the voyagers, and the greatness of their
king, are happily touched. The exclamation on the barbarous treatment
they had experienced--"Not wisdom saved us, but Heaven's own care"--are
masterly insinuations. Their barbarous treatment is again repeated in a
manner to move compassion: Alas! what could they fear? etc. , is
reasoning joined with pathos. That they were conducted to the King of
Melinda by Heaven, and were by Heaven assured of his truth, is a most
delicate compliment, and in the true spirit of the epic poem. The
apology for Gama's refusal to come on shore is exceeding artful. It
conveys a proof of the greatness of the Portuguese sovereign, and
affords a compliment to loyalty, which could not fail to be acceptable
to a monarch.
[168] Rockets.
[169] The Tyrian purple, obtained from the _murex_, a species of
shell-fish, was very famous among the ancients. --_Ed. _
[170] A girdle, or ornamented belt, worn over one shoulder and across
the breast. --_Ed. _
[171] Camoens seems to have his eye on the picture of Gama, which is
thus described by _Faria y Sousa_: "He is painted with a black cap,
cloak, and breeches edged with velvet, all slashed, through which
appears the crimson lining, the doublet of crimson satin, and over it
his armour inlaid with gold. "
[172] The admiration and friendship of the King of Melinda, so much
insisted on by Camoens, is a judicious imitation of Virgil's Dido. In
both cases such preparation was necessary to introduce the long episodes
which follow.
[173] The Moors, who are Mohammedans, disciples of the Arabian prophet,
who was descended from Abraham through the line of Hagar. --_Ed. _
[174] The famous temple of the goddess Diana at Ephesus. --_Ed. _
[175] Apollo.
[176] _Calliope. _--The Muse of epic poesy, and mother of Orpheus.
Daphne, daughter of the river Peneus, flying from Apollo, was turned
into the laurel. Clytia was metamorphosed into the sun-flower, and
Leucothoe, who was buried alive by her father for yielding to the
solicitations of Apollo, was by her lover changed into an incense tree.
[177] A fountain of Boeotia sacred to the Muses. --_Ed. _
[178] The preface to the speech of Gama, and the description of Europe
which follows, are happy imitations of the manner of Homer. When Camoens
describes countries, or musters an army, it is after the example of the
great models of antiquity: by adding some characteristical feature of
the climate or people, he renders his narrative pleasing, picturesque,
and poetical.
[179] The Mediterranean.
[180] The Don. --_Ed. _
[181] The Sea of Azof. --_Ed. _
[182] Italy. In the year 409 the city of Rome was sacked, and Italy laid
desolate by Alaric, king of the Gothic tribes. In mentioning this
circumstance Camoens has not fallen into the common error of little
poets, who on every occasion bewail the outrage which the Goths and
Vandals did to the arts and sciences. A complaint founded on ignorance.
The Southern nations of Europe were sunk into the most contemptible
degeneracy. The sciences, with every branch of manly literature, were
almost unknown. For near two centuries no poet of note had adorned the
Roman empire. Those arts only, the abuse of which have a certain and
fatal tendency to enervate the mind, the arts of music and cookery, were
passionately cultivated in all the refinement of effeminate abuse. The
art of war was too laborious for their delicacy, and the generous warmth
of heroism and patriotism was incompatible with their effeminacy. On
these despicable Sybarites{*} the North poured her brave and hardy sons,
who, though ignorant of polite literature, were possessed of all the
manly virtues in a high degree. Under their conquests Europe wore a new
face, which, however rude, was infinitely preferable to that which it
had lately worn. And, however ignorance may talk of their barbarity, it
is to them that England owes her constitution, which, as Montesquieu
observes, they brought from the woods of Saxony.
{*} _Sybaris_, a city in Magna Grecia (South Italy), whose inhabitants
were so effeminate, that they ordered all the cocks to be killed, that
they might not be disturbed by their early crowing.
[183] The river Don.
[184] This was the name of an extensive forest in Germany. It exists now
under different names, as the _Black Forest_, the Bohemian and the
Thuringian Forest, the Hartz, etc. --_Ed. _
[185] The Hellespont, or Straits of the Dardanelles. --_Ed. _
[186] The Balkan Mountains separating Greece and Macedonia from the
basin of the Danube, and extending from the Adriatic to the Black
Sea. --_Ed. _
[187] Now Constantinople.
[188] Julius Caesar, the conqueror of Gaul, or France. --_Ed. _
[189] _Faithless to the vows of lost Pyrene_, etc. --She was daughter to
Bebryx, a king of Spain, and concubine to Hercules. Having wandered one
day from her lover, she was destroyed by wild beasts, on one of the
mountains which bear her name.
[190] Hercules, says the fable, to crown his labours, separated the two
mountains Calpe and Abyla, the one in Spain, the other in Africa, in
order to open a canal for the benefit of commerce; on which the ocean
rushed in, and formed the Mediterranean, the AEgean, and Euxine seas. The
twin mountains Abyla and Calpe were known to the ancients by the name of
the Pillars of Hercules. --See Cory's _Ancient Fragments_.
[191] The river Guadalquivir; _i. e. _, in Arabic, _the great
river_. --_Ed. _
[192] Viriatus. --See the note on Book I. p. 9.
[193] The assassination of Viriatus. --See the note on Book I. p. 9.
[194] The name of _Saracen_ is derived from the Arabic _Es-shurk_, _the
East_, and designates the Arabs who followed the banner of
Mohammed. --_Ed. _
[195] Don Alonzo, king of Spain, apprehensive of the superior number of
the Moors, with whom he was at war, demanded assistance from Philip I.
of France, and the Duke of Burgundy. According to the military spirit of
the nobility of that age, no sooner was his desire known than numerous
bodies of troops thronged to his standard. These, in the course of a few
years, having shown signal proofs of their courage, the king
distinguished the leaders with different marks of his regard. To Henry,
a younger son of the Duke of Burgundy, he gave his daughter Teresa in
marriage, with the sovereignty of the countries to the south of Galicia,
commissioning him to enlarge his boundaries by the expulsion of the
Moors. Under the government of this great man, who reigned by the title
of Count, his dominion was greatly enlarged, and became more rich and
populous than before. The two provinces of Entre Minho e Douro, and Tras
os Montes, were subdued, with that part of Beira which was held by the
Moorish king of Lamego, whom he constrained to pay tribute. Many
thousands of Christians, who had either lived in miserable subjection to
the Moors, or in desolate independency in the mountains, took shelter
under the protection of Count Henry. Great multitudes of the Moors also
chose rather to submit, than be exposed to the severities and the
continual feuds and seditions of their own governors. These advantages,
added to the great fertility of the soil of Henry's dominions, will
account for the numerous armies, and the frequent wars of the first
sovereigns of Portugal.
[196] Camoens, in making the founder of the Portuguese monarchy a
younger son of the King of Hungary, has followed the old chronologist
Galvan. The Spanish and Portuguese historians differ widely in their
accounts of the parentage of this gallant stranger.
Thus elegantly translated by Pope:--
_As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light,
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene;
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumber'd gild the glowing pole,
O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
And tip with silver every mountain's head;
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies:
The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light. _
[96] The Turks, or Osmanli Turcomans. --_Ed. _
[97] Constantinople.
[98] _Straight as he spoke. _--The description of the armoury, and
account which Vasco de Gama gives of his religion, consists, in the
original, of thirty-two lines, which M. Castera has reduced into the
following sentence: _Leur Governeur fait differentes questions au
Capitaine, qui pour le satisfaire lui explique en peu des mots la
Religion que les Portugais suivent, l'usage des armes dont ils se
servent dans la guerre, et le dessein qui les amene. _
[99] _i. e. _, helmets.
[100] Coats of mail.
[101] _When Gama's lips Messiah's name confess'd. _--This, and the reason
of the Moor's hate, is entirely omitted by Castera. The original is, the
Moor conceived hatred, "knowing they were followers of the truth which
the Son of David taught. " Thus rendered by Fanshaw:--
_Knowing they follow that unerring light,
The Son of David holds out in his Book. _
Zacocia (governor of Mozambique) made no doubt but our people were of
some Mohammedan country. The mutual exchange of good offices between our
people and these islanders promised a long continuance of friendship,
but it proved otherwise. No sooner did Zacocia understand they were
Christians, than all his kindness was turned into the most bitter
hatred; he began to meditate their ruin, and sought to destroy the
fleet. --OSORIO, Bp. of Sylves, Hist. of the Portug. Discov.
[102] Bacchus, god of wine.
[103] _Whom nine long months his father's thigh conceal'd. _--Bacchus was
nourished during his infancy in a cave of mount Meros, which in Greek
signifies a _thigh_. Hence the fable.
[104] Alexander the Great, who on visiting the temple of Jupiter Ammon,
was hailed as son of that deity by his priests. --_Ed. _
[105] Bacchus.
[106] _His form divine he cloth'd in human shape_--
_Alecto torvam faciem et furialia membra
Exuit: in vultus sese transformat aniles,
Et frontem obscaenum rugis arat. _
VIR. AEn. vii.
[107] To be identified with the Sun, in the opinion of later
mythologists; but not so in Homer, with whom Helios (the Sun) is himself
a deity. --_Ed. _
[108]
_Thus, when to gain his beauteous charmer's smile,
The youthful lover dares the bloody toil. _
This simile is taken from a favourite exercise in Spain, where it is
usual to see young gentlemen of the best families entering the lists to
fight with a bull, adorned with ribbons, and armed with a javelin or
kind of cutlass, which the Spaniards call _Machete_.
[109]
------------_e maldizia
O velho inerte, e a m? y, que o filho cria. _
Thus translated by Fanshaw--
------------_curst their ill luck,
Th' old Devil and the Dam that gave them suck. _
[110]
_Flints, clods, and javelins hurling as they fly,
As rage, &c. --
Jamque faces et saxa volant, furor arma ministrat. _
VIRG. AEn. i.
The Spanish commentator on this place relates a very extraordinary
instance of the _furor arma ministrans_. A Portuguese soldier at the
siege of Diu in the Indies, being surrounded by the enemy, and having no
ball to charge his musket, pulled out one of his teeth, and with it
supplied the place of a bullet.
[111] The italics indicate that there is nothing in the original
corresponding to these lines. --_Ed. _
[112] See Virgil's AEneid, bk. ii. --_Ed. _
[113] Quiloa is an island, with a town of the same name, on the east
coast of Africa. --_Ed. _
[114] _But heavenly Love's fair queen. _--When GAMA arrived in the East,
the Moors were the only people who engrossed the trade of those parts.
Jealous of such formidable rivals as the Portuguese, they employed every
artifice to accomplish the destruction of GAMA'S fleet. As the Moors
were acquainted with these seas and spoke the Arabic language, GAMA was
obliged to employ them both as pilots and interpreters. The circumstance
now mentioned by Camoens is an historical fact. "The Moorish pilot,"
says De Barros, "intended to conduct the Portuguese into Quiloa, telling
them that place was inhabited by Christians; but a sudden storm arising,
drove the fleet from that shore, where death or slavery would have been
the certain fate of GAMA and his companions. The villainy of the pilot
was afterwards discovered. As GAMA was endeavouring to enter the port of
Mombaz his ship struck on a sand-bank, and finding their purpose of
bringing him into the harbour defeated, two of the Moorish pilots leaped
into the sea and swam ashore. Alarmed at this tacit acknowledgment of
guilt, GAMA ordered two other Moorish pilots who remained on board to be
examined by whipping, who, after some time, made a full confession of
their intended villainy. This discovery greatly encouraged GAMA and his
men, who now interpreted the sudden storm which had driven them from
Quiloa as a miraculous interposition of Divine Providence in their
favour.
[115] _i. e. _ Mohammed. --_Ed. _
[116] After GAMA had been driven from Quiloa by a sudden storm, the
assurances of the Mozambique pilot, that the city was chiefly inhabited
by Christians, strongly inclined him to enter the harbour of Mombas.
[117] "There were," says Osorius, "ten men in the fleet under sentence
of death, whose lives had been spared on condition that, wherever they
might be landed, they should explore the country and make themselves
acquainted with the manners and laws of the people. "
During the reign of Emmanuel, and his predecessor John II. , few
criminals were executed in Portugal. These great and political princes
employed the lives which were forfeited to the public in the most
dangerous undertakings of public utility. In their foreign expeditions
the condemned criminals were sent upon the most hazardous undertakings.
If death was their fate, it was the punishment they had merited: if
successful in what was required, their crimes were expiated; and often
they rendered their country the greatest atonement for their guilt which
men in their circumstances could possibly make. What multitudes every
year, in the prime of their life, end their days in Great Britain by the
hands of the executioner! That the legislature _might_ devise means to
make the greatest part of these lives useful to society is a fact, which
surely cannot be disputed; though, perhaps, the remedy of an evil so
shocking to humanity may be at some distance.
[118] Semele was the mother of Bacchus, but, as he was prematurely born,
Jupiter, his father, sewed him up in his thigh until he came to
maturity. --_Ed. _
[119]
_On it, the picture of that shape he placed,
In which the Holy Spirit did alight,
The picture of the dove, so white, so chaste,
On the blest Virgin's head, so chaste, so white. _
In these lines, the best of all Fanshaw's, the happy repetition "so
chaste, so white," is a beauty which, though not contained in the
original, the present translator was unwilling to lose.
[120] See the Preface.
[121] When GAMA lay at anchor among the islands of St. George, near
Mozambique, "there came three Ethiopians on board (says Faria y Sousa)
who, seeing St. Gabriel painted on the poop, fell on their knees in
token of their Christianity, which had been preached to them in the
primitive times, though now corrupted. " Barros, c. 4, and Castaneda, l.
i. c. 9, report, that the Portuguese found two or three Abyssinian
Christians in the city of Mombas, who had an oratory in their house. The
following short account of the Christians of the East may perhaps be
acceptable. In the south parts of Malabar, about 200,000 of the
inhabitants professed Christianity before the arrival of the Portuguese.
They use the Syriac language in their services, and read the Scriptures
in that tongue, and call themselves Christians of St. Thomas, by which
apostle their ancestors had been converted. For 1300 years they had been
under the Patriarch of Babylon, who appointed their _Mutran_, or
archbishop. Dr. Geddes, in his History of the Church of Malabar, relates
that Francisco Roz, a Jesuit missionary, complained to Menezes, the
Portuguese archbishop of Goa, that when he showed these people an image
of the Virgin Mary, they cried out, "Away with that filthiness, we are
Christians, and do not adore idols. "
Dom Frey Aleixo de Menezes, archbishop of Goa, "endeavoured to thrust
upon the church of Malabar the whole mass of popery, which they were
before unacquainted with. "--Millar's History of the Propag. of
Christianity.
[122] Venus.
[123] _Proud of her kindred birth. _--The French translator has the
following note on this place:--"This is one of the places which discover
our author's intimate acquaintance with mythology, and at the same time
how much attention his allegory requires. Many readers, on finding that
the protectress of the Lusians sprung from the sea, would be apt to
exclaim, Behold, the birth of the terrestrial Venus! How can a nativity
so infamous be ascribed to the celestial Venus, who represents Religion?
I answer, that Camoens had not his eye on those fables, which derive the
birth of Venus from the foam of the waves, mixed with the blood which
flowed from the dishonest wound of Saturn: he carries his views higher;
his Venus is from a fable more noble. Nigidius relates that two fishes
one day conveyed an egg to the seashore. This egg was hatched by two
pigeons whiter than snow, and gave birth to the Assyrian Venus, which,
in the pagan theology, is the same with the celestial. She instructed
mankind in religion, gave them the lessons of virtue and the laws of
equity. Jupiter, in reward of her labours, promised to grant her
whatever she desired. She prayed him to give immortality to the two
fishes, who had been instrumental in her birth, and the fishes were
accordingly placed in the Zodiac, the sign Pisces. . . . This fable agrees
perfectly with Religion, as I could clearly show; but I think it more
proper to leave to the ingenious reader the pleasure of tracing the
allegory. "
[124] _Doto, Nyse, and Nerine. _--Cloto, or Clotho, as Castera observes,
has by some error crept into almost all the Portuguese editions of the
Lusiad. Clotho was one of the Fates, and neither Hesiod, Homer, nor
Virgil has given such a name to any of the Nereids; but in the ninth
AEneid Doto is mentioned--
----_magnique jubebo
AEquoris esse Deas, qualis Nereia Doto
Et Galatea secant spumantem pectore pontum. _
The Nereids, in the Lusiad, says Castera, are the virtues divine and
human. In the first book they accompany the Portuguese fleet--
----_before the bounding prows
The lovely forms of sea-born nymphs arose. _
[125] The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in
the summer. --PROVERBS xxx. 25. --_Ed. _
[126] Imitated from Virgil--
_Cymothoe simul, et Triton adnixus acuto
Detrudunt naves scopulo. _--VIRG. AEn. i.
[127] Latona, says the fable, flying from the serpent Python, and faint
with thirst, came to a pond, where some Lycian peasants were cutting the
bulrushes. In revenge of the insults which they offered her in
preventing her to drink, she changed them into frogs. This fable, says
Castera, like almost all the rest, is drawn from history. Philocorus, as
cited by Boccace, relates, that the Rhodians having declared war against
the Lycians, were assisted by some troops from Delos, who carried the
image of Latona on their standards. A detachment of these going to drink
at a lake in Lycia, a crowd of peasants endeavoured to prevent them. An
encounter ensued; the peasants fled to the lake for shelter, and were
there slain. Some months afterwards their companions came in search of
their corpses, and finding an unusual quantity of frogs, imagined,
according to the superstition of their age, that the souls of their
friends appeared to them under that metamorphosis.
To some it may, perhaps, appear needless to vindicate Camoens, in a
point wherein he is supported by the authority of Homer and Virgil. Yet,
as many readers are infected with the _sang froid_ of a Bossu or a
Perrault, an observation in defence of our poet cannot be thought
impertinent. If we examine the finest effusions of genius, we shall find
that the most genuine poetical feeling has often dictated those similes
which are drawn from familiar and low objects. The sacred writers, and
the greatest poets of every nation, have used them. We may, therefore,
conclude that the criticism which condemns them is a refinement not
founded on nature. But, allowing them admissible, it must be observed,
that to render them pleasing requires a peculiar happiness and delicacy
of management. When the poet attains this indispensable point, he gives
a striking proof of his elegance, and of his mastership in his art. That
the similes of the emmets and of the frogs in Camoens are happily
expressed and applied, is indisputable. In that of the frogs there is a
peculiar propriety, both in the comparison itself, and in the allusion
to the fable, as it was the intent of the poet to represent not only the
flight, but the baseness of the Moors. The simile he seems to have
copied from Dante, Inf. Cant. 9--
_Come le rane innanzi a la nemica
Biscia per l'acqua si dileguan tutte
Fin che a la terra ciascuna s'abbica. _
And Cant. 22--
_E come a l'orlo de l'acqua d'un fosso
Stan li ranocchi pur col muso fuori
Si che celano i piedi, e l'altro grosso. _
[128] Barros and Castaneda, in relating this part of the voyage of Gama,
say that the fleet, just as they were entering the port of Mombas, were
driven back as it were by an invisible hand. By a subsequent note it
will appear that the safety of the Armada depended upon this
circumstance.
[129] Venus.
[130] As the planet of Jupiter is in the sixth heaven, the author has
with propriety there placed the throne of that god. --CASTERA.
[131] "I am aware of the objection, that this passage is by no means
applicable to the celestial Venus. I answer once for all, that the names
and adventures of the pagan divinities are so blended and uncertain in
mythology, that a poet is at great liberty to adapt them to his allegory
as he pleases. Even the fables, which may appear as profane, even these
contain historical, physical, and moral truths, which fully atone for
the seeming licentiousness of the letter. I could prove this in many
instances, but let the present suffice. Paris, son of Priam, king of
Troy, spent his first years as a shepherd in the country. At this time
Juno, Minerva, and Venus disputed for the apple of gold, which was
destined to be given to the most beautiful goddess. They consented that
Paris should be their judge. His equity claimed this honour. He saw them
all naked. Juno promised him riches, Minerva the sciences, but he
decided in favour of Venus, who promised him the possession of the most
beautiful woman. What a ray of light is contained in this philosophical
fable! Paris represents a studious man, who, in the silence of solitude,
seeks the supreme good. Juno is the emblem of riches and dignities;
Minerva, that of the sciences purely human; Venus is that of religion,
which contains the sciences both human and divine; the charming female,
which she promises to the Trojan shepherd, is that divine wisdom which
gives tranquillity of heart. A judge so philosophical as Paris would not
hesitate a moment to whom to give the apple of gold. "--CASTERA.
[132] "The allegory of Camoens is here obvious. If Acteon, and the
slaves of their violent passions, could discover the beauties of true
religion, they would be astonished and reclaimed: according to the
expression of Seneca, 'Si virtus cerni posset oculis corporeis, omnes ad
amorem suum pelliceret. '"--CASTERA.
[133] "That is Divine love, which always accompanies religion. Behold
how our author insinuates the excellence of his moral! "--CASTERA.
As the French translator has acknowledged, there is no doubt but several
readers will be apt to decry this allegorical interpretation of the
machinery of Camoens. Indeed there is nothing more easy than to discover
a system of allegory in the simplest narrative. The reign of Henry VIII.
is as susceptible of it as any fable in the heathen mythology. Nay,
perhaps, more so. Under the names of Henry, More, Wolsey, Cromwell,
Pole, Cranmer, etc. , all the war of the passions, with their different
catastrophes, might be delineated. Though it may be difficult to
determine how far, yet one may venture to affirm that Homer and Virgil
sometimes allegorised. The poets, however, who wrote on the revival of
letters have left us in no doubt; we have their own authority for it
that their machinery is allegorical.
Not only the pagan deities, but the
more modern adventures of enchantment were used by them to delineate the
affections, and the trials and rewards of the virtues and vices. Tasso
published a treatise to prove that his _Gerusalemme Liberata_ is no
other than the Christian spiritual warfare. And Camoens, as observed in
the preface, has twice asserted that his machinery is allegorical. The
poet's assertion, and the taste of the age in which he wrote,
sufficiently vindicate and explain the allegory of the Lusiad.
[134] The following speech of Venus and the reply of Jupiter, are a fine
imitation from the first AEneid, and do great honour to the classical
taste of the Portuguese poet.
[135] Imitated from Virg. AEn. i. --
_Olli subridens hominum sator atque Deorum,
Vultu, quo coelum tempestatesque serenat,
Oscula libavit natae_----
[136] Ulysses, king of Ithaka. --_Ed. _
[137] _i. e. _, the slave of Calypso, who offered Ulysses immortality on
condition that he would live with her.
[138] AEneas. --_Ed. _
[139]
"Far on the right her dogs foul Scylla hides,
Charybdis roaring on the left presides,
And in her greedy whirlpool sucks the tides. "
DRYDEN'S Virg. AEn. iii. --_Ed. _
[140] After the Portuguese had made great conquests in India, GAMA had
the honour to be appointed Viceroy. In 1524, when sailing thither to
take possession of his government, his fleet was so becalmed on the
coast of Cambaya that the ships stood motionless on the water, when in
an instant, without the least change of the weather, the waves were
shaken with a violent agitation, like trembling. The ships were tossed
about, the sailors were terrified, and in the utmost confusion, thinking
themselves lost. Gama, perceiving it to be the effect of an earthquake,
with his wonted heroism and prudence, exclaimed, "_Of what are you
afraid? Do you not see how the ocean trembles under its sovereigns! _"
Barros, l. 9, c. 1, and Faria, c. 9, say, that such as lay sick of
fevers were cured by the fright.
[141] Ormuz, or Hormuz, an island at the entrance of the Persian Gulf,
once a great commercial depot. --_Ed. _
[142] Both Barros and Castaneda relate this fact. Albuquerque, during
the war of Ormuz, having given battle to the Persians and Moors, by the
violence of a sudden wind the arrows of the latter were driven back upon
themselves, whereby many of their troops were wounded.
[143] Calicut was a seaport town of Malabar, more properly _Colicodu_.
[144]
_Hinc ope barbarica, variisque Antonius armis,
Victor ab Aurorae populis et littore rubro,
AEgyptum, viresque Orientis, et ultima secum
Bactra vehit: sequiturque nefas! AEgyptia conjux.
Una omnes ruere, ac totum spumare, reductis
Convulsum remis rostrisque tridentibus, aequor.
Alta petunt: pelago credas innare revulsas
Cycladas, aut montes concurrere montibus altos:
Tanta mole viri turritis puppibus instant.
Stuppea flamma manu telisque volatile ferrum
Spargitur: arva nova Neptunia caede rubescunt.
----Saevit medio in certamine Maxors. _
VIRG. AEn. viii.
[145] Antony.
[146] Gades, now Cadiz, an ancient and still flourishing seaport of
Spain. --_Ed. _
[147] _The Lusian pride, etc. _--Magalhaens, a most celebrated navigator,
neglected by Emmanuel, king of Portugal, offered his service to the king
of Spain, under whom he made most important discoveries round the
Straits which bear his name, and in parts of South America. Of this hero
see further, Lusiad X. , in the notes.
[148] Mercury.
[149] Mombas, a seaport town on an island of the same name off the coast
of Zanguebar, East Africa. --_Ed. _
[150] Mercury, so called from Cyll? n? , the highest mountain in the
Peloponnesus, where he had a temple, and on which spot he is said to
have been born. --_Ed. _
[151] Petasus.
[152] The caduceus, twined with serpents. --_Ed. _
[153]
"But first he grasps within his awful hand
The mark of sovereign power, the magic wand:
With this he draws the ghosts from hollow graves,
With this he drives them down the Stygian waves,
With this he seals in sleep the wakeful sight,
And eyes, though closed in death, restores to light. "
AENEID, iv. 242. (Dryden's Trans. )
[154] Mercury.
[155] Diomede, a tyrant of Thrace, who fed his horses with human flesh;
a thing, says the grave Castera, almost incredible. Busiris was a king
of Egypt, who sacrificed strangers.
_Quis . . . illaudati nescit Busiridis aras? _
VIRG. Geor. iii.
Hercules vanquished both these tyrants, and put them to the same
punishments which their cruelty had inflicted on others. Isocrates
composed an oration in honour of Busiris; a masterly example of Attic
raillery and satire.
[156] _i. e. _ the equator.
[157] Hermes is the Greek name for the god Mercury.
[158] Having mentioned the escape of the Moorish pilots, Osorius
proceeds: Rex deinde homines magno cum silentio scaphis et lintribus
submittebat, qui securibus anchoralia nocte praeciderent. Quod nisi
fuisset a nostris singulari Gamae industria vigilatum, et insidiis
scelerati illius regis occursum, nostri in summum vitae discrimen
incidissent.
[159] Mercury.
[160] A city and kingdom of the same name on the east coast of Africa.
[161] Ascension Day.
[162] Jesus Christ.
[163]
_Vimen erat dum stagna subit, processerat undis
Gemma fuit. _
CLAUD.
_Sic et coralium, quo primum contigit auras,
Tempore durescit, mollis fuit herba sub undis. _
OVID.
[164] There were on board Gama's fleet several persons skilled in the
Oriental languages. --OSOR.
[165] See the Eighth Odyssey, etc.
[166] Castera's note on this place is so characteristic of a Frenchman,
that the reader will perhaps be pleased to see it transcribed. In his
text he says, "_Toi qui occupes si dignement le rang supreme. _" "_Le
Poete dit_," says he, in the note, "_Tens de Rey o officio, Toi qui sais
le metier de Roi_. (The poet says, _thou who holdest the business of a
king_. ) I confess," he adds, "I found a strong inclination to translate
this sentence literally. I find much nobleness in it. However, I
submitted to the opinion of some friends, who were afraid that the ears
of Frenchmen would be shocked at the word _business_ applied to a king.
It is true, nevertheless, that Royalty is a _business_. Philip II. of
Spain was convinced of it, as we may discern from one of his letters.
_Hallo_, says he, _me muy embaracado_, &c. _I am so entangled and
encumbered with the multiplicity of business, that I have not a moment
to myself. In truth, we kings hold a laborious office_ (or trade);
_there is little reason to envy us. _"
[167] The propriety and artfulness of Homer's speeches have been often
and justly admired. Camoens is peculiarly happy in the same department
of the Epopaea. The speech of Gama's herald to the King of Melinda is a
striking instance of it. The compliments with which it begins have a
direct tendency to the favours afterwards to be asked. The assurances of
the innocence, the purpose of the voyagers, and the greatness of their
king, are happily touched. The exclamation on the barbarous treatment
they had experienced--"Not wisdom saved us, but Heaven's own care"--are
masterly insinuations. Their barbarous treatment is again repeated in a
manner to move compassion: Alas! what could they fear? etc. , is
reasoning joined with pathos. That they were conducted to the King of
Melinda by Heaven, and were by Heaven assured of his truth, is a most
delicate compliment, and in the true spirit of the epic poem. The
apology for Gama's refusal to come on shore is exceeding artful. It
conveys a proof of the greatness of the Portuguese sovereign, and
affords a compliment to loyalty, which could not fail to be acceptable
to a monarch.
[168] Rockets.
[169] The Tyrian purple, obtained from the _murex_, a species of
shell-fish, was very famous among the ancients. --_Ed. _
[170] A girdle, or ornamented belt, worn over one shoulder and across
the breast. --_Ed. _
[171] Camoens seems to have his eye on the picture of Gama, which is
thus described by _Faria y Sousa_: "He is painted with a black cap,
cloak, and breeches edged with velvet, all slashed, through which
appears the crimson lining, the doublet of crimson satin, and over it
his armour inlaid with gold. "
[172] The admiration and friendship of the King of Melinda, so much
insisted on by Camoens, is a judicious imitation of Virgil's Dido. In
both cases such preparation was necessary to introduce the long episodes
which follow.
[173] The Moors, who are Mohammedans, disciples of the Arabian prophet,
who was descended from Abraham through the line of Hagar. --_Ed. _
[174] The famous temple of the goddess Diana at Ephesus. --_Ed. _
[175] Apollo.
[176] _Calliope. _--The Muse of epic poesy, and mother of Orpheus.
Daphne, daughter of the river Peneus, flying from Apollo, was turned
into the laurel. Clytia was metamorphosed into the sun-flower, and
Leucothoe, who was buried alive by her father for yielding to the
solicitations of Apollo, was by her lover changed into an incense tree.
[177] A fountain of Boeotia sacred to the Muses. --_Ed. _
[178] The preface to the speech of Gama, and the description of Europe
which follows, are happy imitations of the manner of Homer. When Camoens
describes countries, or musters an army, it is after the example of the
great models of antiquity: by adding some characteristical feature of
the climate or people, he renders his narrative pleasing, picturesque,
and poetical.
[179] The Mediterranean.
[180] The Don. --_Ed. _
[181] The Sea of Azof. --_Ed. _
[182] Italy. In the year 409 the city of Rome was sacked, and Italy laid
desolate by Alaric, king of the Gothic tribes. In mentioning this
circumstance Camoens has not fallen into the common error of little
poets, who on every occasion bewail the outrage which the Goths and
Vandals did to the arts and sciences. A complaint founded on ignorance.
The Southern nations of Europe were sunk into the most contemptible
degeneracy. The sciences, with every branch of manly literature, were
almost unknown. For near two centuries no poet of note had adorned the
Roman empire. Those arts only, the abuse of which have a certain and
fatal tendency to enervate the mind, the arts of music and cookery, were
passionately cultivated in all the refinement of effeminate abuse. The
art of war was too laborious for their delicacy, and the generous warmth
of heroism and patriotism was incompatible with their effeminacy. On
these despicable Sybarites{*} the North poured her brave and hardy sons,
who, though ignorant of polite literature, were possessed of all the
manly virtues in a high degree. Under their conquests Europe wore a new
face, which, however rude, was infinitely preferable to that which it
had lately worn. And, however ignorance may talk of their barbarity, it
is to them that England owes her constitution, which, as Montesquieu
observes, they brought from the woods of Saxony.
{*} _Sybaris_, a city in Magna Grecia (South Italy), whose inhabitants
were so effeminate, that they ordered all the cocks to be killed, that
they might not be disturbed by their early crowing.
[183] The river Don.
[184] This was the name of an extensive forest in Germany. It exists now
under different names, as the _Black Forest_, the Bohemian and the
Thuringian Forest, the Hartz, etc. --_Ed. _
[185] The Hellespont, or Straits of the Dardanelles. --_Ed. _
[186] The Balkan Mountains separating Greece and Macedonia from the
basin of the Danube, and extending from the Adriatic to the Black
Sea. --_Ed. _
[187] Now Constantinople.
[188] Julius Caesar, the conqueror of Gaul, or France. --_Ed. _
[189] _Faithless to the vows of lost Pyrene_, etc. --She was daughter to
Bebryx, a king of Spain, and concubine to Hercules. Having wandered one
day from her lover, she was destroyed by wild beasts, on one of the
mountains which bear her name.
[190] Hercules, says the fable, to crown his labours, separated the two
mountains Calpe and Abyla, the one in Spain, the other in Africa, in
order to open a canal for the benefit of commerce; on which the ocean
rushed in, and formed the Mediterranean, the AEgean, and Euxine seas. The
twin mountains Abyla and Calpe were known to the ancients by the name of
the Pillars of Hercules. --See Cory's _Ancient Fragments_.
[191] The river Guadalquivir; _i. e. _, in Arabic, _the great
river_. --_Ed. _
[192] Viriatus. --See the note on Book I. p. 9.
[193] The assassination of Viriatus. --See the note on Book I. p. 9.
[194] The name of _Saracen_ is derived from the Arabic _Es-shurk_, _the
East_, and designates the Arabs who followed the banner of
Mohammed. --_Ed. _
[195] Don Alonzo, king of Spain, apprehensive of the superior number of
the Moors, with whom he was at war, demanded assistance from Philip I.
of France, and the Duke of Burgundy. According to the military spirit of
the nobility of that age, no sooner was his desire known than numerous
bodies of troops thronged to his standard. These, in the course of a few
years, having shown signal proofs of their courage, the king
distinguished the leaders with different marks of his regard. To Henry,
a younger son of the Duke of Burgundy, he gave his daughter Teresa in
marriage, with the sovereignty of the countries to the south of Galicia,
commissioning him to enlarge his boundaries by the expulsion of the
Moors. Under the government of this great man, who reigned by the title
of Count, his dominion was greatly enlarged, and became more rich and
populous than before. The two provinces of Entre Minho e Douro, and Tras
os Montes, were subdued, with that part of Beira which was held by the
Moorish king of Lamego, whom he constrained to pay tribute. Many
thousands of Christians, who had either lived in miserable subjection to
the Moors, or in desolate independency in the mountains, took shelter
under the protection of Count Henry. Great multitudes of the Moors also
chose rather to submit, than be exposed to the severities and the
continual feuds and seditions of their own governors. These advantages,
added to the great fertility of the soil of Henry's dominions, will
account for the numerous armies, and the frequent wars of the first
sovereigns of Portugal.
[196] Camoens, in making the founder of the Portuguese monarchy a
younger son of the King of Hungary, has followed the old chronologist
Galvan. The Spanish and Portuguese historians differ widely in their
accounts of the parentage of this gallant stranger.
