[426] _The dames by lot their gallant
champions
choose.
Camoes - Lusiades
"Variety," says Pope, in one of his notes on the Odyssey,
"gives life and delight; and it is much more necessary in epic, than in
comic or tragic, poetry, sometimes to shift the scenes, to diversify and
embellish the story. "
The Portuguese, sailing upon the Atlantic Ocean, discovered the most
southern point of Africa: here they found an immense sea, which carried
them to the East Indies. The dangers they encountered in the voyage, the
discovery of Mozambique, of Melinda, and of Calecut, have been sung by
Camoens, whose poem recalls to our minds the charms of the Odyssey, and
the magnificence of the AEneid. --MONTESQUIEU, Spirit of Laws, bk. xxi. c.
21.
[370] Virgil.
[371] A small island, named _Santa Cruz_ by Bartholomew Diaz, who
discovered it. According to Faria y Sousa, he went twenty-five leagues
further, to the river Del Infante, which, till passed by GAMA, was the
utmost extent of the Portuguese discoveries.
[372] It was the force of this rushing current which retarded the
further discoveries of Diaz. GAMA got over it by the assistance of a
tempest. The seasons when these seas are safely navigable, are now
perfectly known.
[373] The wise men of the East, or magi, whom the Roman Catholic writers
will have to have been kings. --_Ed. _
[374] The Epiphany. --_Ed. _
[375] Dos Reis, _i. e. _, of the kings. --_Ed. _
[376] The frequent disappointments of the Portuguese, when they expect
to hear some account of India, is a judicious imitation of several parts
of Virgil; who, in the same manner, magnifies the distresses of the
Trojans in their search for the fated seat of Empire:--
----_O gens
Infelix! cui to exitio fortuna reservat?
Septima post Trojae excidium jam vertitur aestas;
Cum freta, cum terras omnes, tot inhospita saxa
Sideraque emensae ferimur: dum per mare magnum
Italiam sequimur fugientem, et volvimur undis. _ AEN. v. 625.
[377] Hop.
[378] It had been extremely impolitic in GAMA to mention the mutiny of
his followers to the King of Melinda. The boast of their loyalty,
besides, has a good effect in the poem, as it elevates the heroes, and
gives uniformity to the character of bravery, which the dignity of the
epopea required to be ascribed to them. History relates the matter
differently. In standing for the Cape of Good Hope, GAMA gave the
highest proofs of his resolution. The fleet seemed now tossed to the
clouds, _ut modo nubes contingere_, and now sunk to the lowest
whirlpools of the abyss. The winds were insufferably cold, and, to the
rage of the tempest was added the horror of an almost continual
darkness. The crew expected every moment to be swallowed up in the deep.
At every interval of the storm, they came round GAMA, asserting the
impossibility to proceed further, and imploring him to return. This he
resolutely refused. A conspiracy against his life was formed, but was
discovered by his brother. He guarded against it with the greatest
courage and prudence; put all the pilots in chains, and he himself, with
some others, took the management of the helms. At last, after having
many days withstood the tempest, and a perfidious conspiracy, _invicto
animo_, with an unconquered mind, a favourable change of weather revived
the spirits of the fleet, and allowed them to double the Cape of Good
Hope. --_Extr. from_ Osorius's Historia.
[379] GAMA and his followers were, from the darkness of the Portuguese
complexion, thought to be Moors. When GAMA arrived in the East, a
considerable commerce was carried on between the Indies and the Red Sea
by the Moorish traders, by whom the gold mines of Sofala, and the riches
of East Africa were enjoyed. The traffic was brought by land to Cairo,
from whence Europe was supplied by the Venetian and Antwerpian
merchants.
[380] "O nome lhe ficou dos Bons-Signais. "
[381] Raphael. See Tobit, ch. v. and xii. --_Ed. _
[382] It was the custom of the Portuguese navigators to erect crosses on
the shores of new-discovered countries. GAMA carried materials for
pillars of stone with him, and erected six crosses during his
expedition. They bore the name and arms of the king of Portugal, and
were intended as proofs of the title which accrues from first discovery.
[383] This poetical description of the scurvy is by no means
exaggerated. It is what sometimes really happens in the course of a long
voyage.
[384] King of Ithaca.
[385] AEneas.
[386] Homer.
[387] Virgil.
[388] The Muses.
[389] Homer's Odyssey, bk. x. 460.
[390] See the Odyssey, bk. ix.
[391] See AEn. v. 833
[392] The Lotophagi, so named from the lotus, are thus described by
Homer:--
"Not prone to ill, nor strange to foreign guest,
They eat, they drink, and Nature gives the feast;
The trees around them all their fruit produce;
Lotos the name; divine, nectareous juice;
(Thence call'd Lotophagi) which whoso tastes,
Insatiate, riots in the sweet repasts,
Nor other home, nor other care intends,
But quits his home, his country, and his friends:
The three we sent, from off th' enchanting ground
We dragg'd reluctant, and by force we bound:
The rest in haste forsook the pleasing shore,
Or, the charm tasted, had return'd no more. "
POPE, Odyss. ix. 103.
The Libyan lotus is a shrub like a bramble, the berries like the myrtle,
purple when ripe, and about the size of an olive. Mixed with bread-corn,
it was used as food for slaves. They also made an agreeable wine of it,
but which would not keep above ten days. See Pope's note _in loco_.
[393] _In skins confin'd the blust'ring winds control. _--The gift of
AEolus to Ulysses.
"The adverse winds in leathern bags he brac'd,
Compress'd their force, and lock'd each struggling blast:
For him the mighty sire of gods assign'd,
The tempest's lord, the tyrant of the wind;
His word alone the list'ning storms obey,
To smooth the deep, or swell the foamy sea.
These, in my hollow ship the monarch hung,
Securely fetter'd by a silver thong;
But Zephyrus exempt, with friendly gales }
He charg'd to fill, and guide the swelling sails: }
Rare gift! but oh, what gift to fools avails? " }
POPE, Odyss. x. 20.
The companions of Ulysses imagined that these bags contained some
valuable treasure, and opened them while their leader slept. The
tempests bursting out, drove the fleet from Ithaca, which was then in
sight, and was the cause of a new train of miseries.
[394] See the third AEneid.
[395] See the sixth AEneid, and the eleventh Odyssey.
[396] Alexander the Great. --_Ed. _
[397] Achilles, son of Peleus. --_Ed. _
[398] Virgil, born at Mantua. --_Ed. _
[399] Don Francisco de Gama, grandson of Vasco de Gama, the hero of the
Lusiad. --_Ed. _
[400] Cleopatra.
[401] Every display of eastern luxury and magnificence was lavished in
the fishing parties on the Nile, with which Cleopatra amused Mark
Antony, when at any time he showed symptoms of uneasiness, or seemed
inclined to abandon the effeminate life which he led with his mistress.
At one of these parties, Mark Antony, having procured divers to put
fishes upon his hooks while under the water, he very gallantly boasted
to his mistress of his great dexterity in angling. Cleopatra perceived
his art, and as gallantly outwitted him. Some other divers received her
orders, and in a little while Mark Antony's line brought up a fried fish
in place of a live one, to the vast entertainment of the queen, and all
the convivial company. Octavius was at this time on his march to decide
who should be master of the world.
[402] The friendship of the Portuguese and Melindians was of long
continuance. Alvaro Cabral, the second admiral who made the voyage to
India, in an engagement with the Moors off the coast of Sofala, took two
ships richly freighted from the mines of that country. On finding that
Xeques Fonteyma, the commander, was uncle to the King of Melinda, he
restored the valuable prize, and treated him with the utmost courtesy.
Their good offices were reciprocal. By the information of the King of
Melinda, Cabral escaped the treachery of the King of Calicut. The Kings
of Mombaz and Quiloa, irritated at the alliance with Portugal, made
several depredations on the subjects of Melinda, who in return were
effectually revenged by their European allies.
[403] A giant.
[404] _Two gods contending. _--According to the fable, Neptune and
Minerva disputed the honour of giving a name to the city of Athens. They
agreed to determine the contest by a display of their wisdom and power,
in conferring the most beneficial gift on mankind. Neptune struck the
earth with his trident and produced the horse, whose bounding motions
are emblematical of the agitation of the sea. Pallas commanded the
olive-tree, the symbol of peace, and of riches, to spring forth. The
victory was adjudged to the goddess, from whom the city was named
Athens. The taste of the ancient Grecians clothed almost every
occurrence in mythological allegory. The founders of Athens, it is most
probable, disputed whether their new city should be named from the
fertility of the soil or from the marine situation of Attica. The former
opinion prevailed, and the town received its name in honour of the
goddess of the olive-tree--_Ath? n? _.
[405] _While Pallas here appears to wave her hand. _--As Neptune struck
the earth with his trident, Minerva, says the fable, struck the earth
with her lance. That she waved her hand while the olive boughs spread,
is a fine poetical attitude, and varies the picture from that of
Neptune, which follows.
[406] _Though wide, and various, o'er the sculptur'd stone. _--The
description of palaces is a favourite topic several times touched upon
by the two great masters of epic poetry, in which they have been happily
imitated by their three greatest disciples among the moderns, Camoens,
Tasso, and Milton. The description of the palace of Neptune has great
merit. Nothing can be more in place than the picture of chaos and the
four elements. The war of the gods, and the contest of Neptune and
Minerva are touched with the true boldness of poetical colouring. To
show to the English reader that the Portuguese poet is, in his manner,
truly classical, is the intention of many of these notes.
[407] Bacchus.
[408] The description of Triton, who, as Fanshaw says--
"Was a great nasty clown,"
is in the style of the classics. His parentage is differently related.
Hesiod makes him the son of Neptune and Amphitrite. By Triton, in the
physical sense of the fable, is meant the noise, and by Salace, the
mother by some ascribed to him, the salt of the ocean. The origin of the
fable of Triton, it is probable, was founded on the appearance of a sea
animal, which, according to some ancient naturalists, in the upward
parts resembles the human figure. Pausanias relates a wonderful story of
a monstrously large one, which often came ashore on the meadows of
Boeotia. Over his head was a kind of finny cartilage, which, at a
distance, appeared like hair; the body covered with brown scales; the
nose and ears like the human; the mouth of a dreadful width, jagged with
the teeth of a panther; the eyes of a greenish hue; the hands divided
into fingers, the nails of which were crooked, and of a shelly
substance. This monster, whose extremities ended in a tail like a
dolphin's, devoured both men and beasts as they chanced in his way. The
citizens of Tanagra, at last, contrived his destruction. They set a
large vessel full of wine on the sea shore. Triton got drunk with it,
and fell into a profound sleep, in which condition the Tanagrians
beheaded him, and afterwards, with great propriety, hung up his body in
the temple of Bacchus; where, says Pausanias, it continued a long time.
[409] _A shell of purple on his head he bore. _--In the Portuguese--
_Na cabeca por gorra tinha posta
Huma mui grande casco de lagosta. _
Thus rendered by Fanshaw--
"He had (for a montera[413]) on his crown
The shell of a red lobster overgrown. "
[410] Neptune.
[411] _And changeful Proteus, whose prophetic mind. _--The fullest and
best account of the fable of Proteus is in the fourth Odyssey.
[412] Thetis.
[413] Montera, the Spanish word for a huntsman's cap.
[414] _She who the rage of Athamas to shun. _--Ino, the daughter of
Cadmus and Hermione, and second spouse of Athamas, king of Thebes. The
fables of her fate are various. That which Camoens follows is the most
common. Athamas, seized with madness, imagined that his spouse was a
lioness, and her two sons young lions. In this frenzy he slew Learchus,
and drove the mother and her other son, Melicertus, into the sea. The
corpse of the mother was thrown ashore on Megara and that of the son at
Corinth. They were afterwards deified, the one as a sea goddess, the
other as the god of harbours.
[415] _And Glaucus lost to joy. _--A fisherman, says the fable, who, on
eating a certain herb, was turned into a sea god. Circe was enamoured of
him, and in revenge of her slighted love, poisoned the fountain where
his mistress usually bathed. By the force of the enchantment the
favoured Scylla was changed into a hideous monster, whose loins were
surrounded with the ever-barking heads of dogs and wolves. Scylla, on
this, threw herself into the sea, and was metamorphosed into the rock
which bears her name. The rock Scylla at a distance appears like the
statue of a woman. The furious dashing of the waves in the cavities,
which are level with the water, resembles the barking of wolves and
dogs.
[416] Thyoneus, a name of Bacchus.
[417] _High from the roof the living amber glows. --_
"From the arched roof,
Pendent by subtle magic, many a row
Of starry lamps, and blazing cressets, fed
With naptha and asphaltus, yielded light
As from a sky. "
MILTON.
[418] The Titans.
[419] The north wind.
[420] _And rent the Mynian sails. _--The sails of the Argonauts,
inhabitants of Mynia.
[421] See the first note on the first book of the Lusiad.
[422]
_In haughty England, where the winter spreads
His snowy mantle o'er the shining meads. --_
In the original--
_La na grande Inglaterra, que de neve
Boreal sempre abunda;_
that is, "In illustrious England, always covered with northern snow. "
Though the translator was willing to retain the manner of Homer, he
thought it proper to correct the error in natural history fallen into by
Camoens. Fanshaw seems to have been sensible of the mistake of his
author, and has given the following (uncountenanced by the Portuguese)
in place of the eternal snows ascribed to his country:--
"In merry England, which (from cliffs that stand
Like hills of snow) once Albion's name did git. "
[423] Eris, or Discordia, the goddess of contention. --VIRGIL, AEneid ii.
337. --_Ed. _
[424]
_What knighthood asks, the proud accusers yield,
And, dare the damsels' champions to the field. --_
The translator has not been able to discover the slightest vestige of
this chivalrous adventure in any memoirs of the English history. It is
probable, nevertheless, that however adorned with romantic ornament, it
is not entirely without foundation in truth. Castera, who unhappily does
not cite his authority, gives the names of the twelve Portuguese
champions: Alvaro Vaz d'Almada, afterwards Count d'Avranches in
Normandy; another Alvaro d'Almada, surnamed the Juster, from his
dexterity at that warlike exercise; Lopez Fernando Pacheco; Pedro Homen
d'Acosta; Juan Augustin Pereyra; Luis Gonfalez de Malafay; the two
brothers Alvaro and Rodrigo Mendez de Cerveyra; Ruy Gomex de Sylva;
Soueyro d'Acosta, who gave his name to the river Acosta in Africa;
Martin Lopez d'Azevedo; and Alvaro Gonfalez de Coutigno, surnamed
Magricio. The names of the English champions, and of the ladies, he
confesses are unknown, nor does history positively explain the injury of
which the dames complained. It must, however, he adds, have been such as
required the atonement of blood; _il falloit qu'elle fut sanglante_,
since two sovereigns allowed to determine it by the sword. "Some
critics," says Castera, "may perhaps condemn this episode of Camoens;
but for my part," he continues, "I think the adventure of Olindo and
Sophronia, in Tasso, is much more to be blamed. The episode of the
Italian poet is totally exuberant, whereas that of the Portuguese has a
direct relation to his proposed subject: the wars of his country, a vast
field, in which he has admirably succeeded, without prejudice to the
first rule of the epopea, the unity of the action. " The severest critic
must allow that the episode related by Veloso, is happily introduced. To
one who has ever been at sea, the scene must be particularly pleasing.
The fleet is under sail, they plough the smooth deep--
"And o'er the decks cold breath'd the midnight wind. "
All but the second watch are asleep in their warm pavilions; the second
watch sit by the mast, sheltered from the chilly gale by a broad
sail-cloth; sleep begins to overpower them, and they tell stories to
entertain one another. For beautiful, picturesque simplicity there is no
sea-scene equal to this in the Odyssey, or AEneid.
[425] _What time he claim'd the proud Castilian throne. _--John of Gaunt,
duke of Lancaster, claimed the crown of Castile in the right of his
wife, Donna Constantia, daughter of Don Pedro, the late king. Assisted
by his son-in-law, John I. of Portugal, he entered Galicia, and was
proclaimed king of Castile at the city of St. Jago de Compostella. He
afterwards relinquished his pretensions, on the marriage of his
daughter, Catalina, with the infant, Don Henry of Castile.
[426] _The dames by lot their gallant champions choose. _--The ten
champions, who in the fifth book of Tasso's Jerusalem are sent by
Godfrey for the assistance of Armida, are chosen by lot. Tasso, who had
read the Lusiad, and admired its author, undoubtedly had the Portuguese
poet in his eye.
[427]
_In that proud port half circled by the wave,
Which Portugallia to the nation gave,
A deathless name. --_
Oporto, called by the Romans _Calle_. Hence Portugal.
[428]
_Yet something more than human warms my breast,
And sudden whispers--_
In the Portuguese--
_Mas, se a verdade o espirito me adevinha. _
Literally, "But, if my spirit truly divine. " Thus rendered by Fanshaw--
_But, in my aug'ring ear a bird doth sing. _
[429] _As Rome's Corvinus. _--Valerius Maximus, a Roman tribune, who
fought and slew a Gaul of enormous stature, in single combat. During the
duel a raven perched on the helmet of his antagonist, sometimes pecked
his face and hand, and sometimes blinded him with the flapping of his
wings. The victor was thence named Corvinus, from Corvus. Vid. Livy, l.
7, c. 26.
[430] _The Flandrian countess on her hero smil'd. _--The princess, for
whom Magricio signalized his valour, was Isabella of Portugal, and
spouse to Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, and earl of Flanders. Some
Spanish chronicles relate that Charles VII. of France, having assembled
the states of his kingdom, cited Philip to appear with his other
vassals. Isabella, who was present, solemnly protested that the earls of
Flanders were not obliged to do homage. A dispute arose, on which she
offered, according to the custom of that age, to appeal to the fate of
arms. The proposal was accepted, and Magricio the champion of Isabella,
vanquished a French chevalier, appointed by Charles. Though our authors
do not mention this adventure, and though Emmanuel de Faria, and the
best Portuguese writers treat it with doubt, nothing to the disadvantage
of Camoens is thence to be inferred. A poet is not obliged always to
follow the truth of history.
[431] _The Rhine another pass'd, and prov'd his might. _--This was Alvaro
Vaz d'Almada. The chronicle of Garibay relates, that at Basle he
received from a German a challenge to measure swords, on condition that
each should fight with the right side unarmed; the German by this hoping
to be victorious, for he was left-handed. The Portuguese, suspecting no
fraud, accepted. When the combat began he perceived the inequality. His
right side unarmed was exposed to the enemy, whose left side, which was
nearest to him was defended with half a cuirass. Notwithstanding all
this, the brave Alvaro obtained the victory. He sprang upon the German,
seized him, and, grasping him forcibly in his arms, stifled and crushed
him to death; imitating the conduct of Hercules, who in the same manner
slew the cruel Anteus. Here we ought to remark the address of our
author; he describes at length the injury and grief of the English
ladies, the voyage of the twelve champions to England, and the prowess
they there displayed. When Veloso relates these, the sea is calm; but no
sooner does it begin to be troubled, than the soldier abridges his
recital: we see him follow by degrees the preludes of the storm, we
perceive the anxiety of his mind on the view of the approaching danger,
hastening his narration to an end. Behold the strokes of a
master! --_This note, and the one preceding, are from Castera. _
[432] _The halcyons, mindful of their fate, deplore. _--Ceyx, king of
Trachinia, son of Lucifer, married Alcyone, the daughter of Eolus. On a
voyage to consult the Delphic Oracle, he was shipwrecked. His corpse was
thrown ashore in the view of his spouse, who, in the agonies of her love
and despair, threw herself into the sea. The gods, in pity of her pious
fidelity, metamorphosed them into the birds which bear her name. The
halcyon is a little bird about the size of a thrush, its plumage of a
beautiful sky blue, mixed with some traits of white and carnation. It is
vulgarly called the kingfisher. The halcyons very seldom appear but in
the finest weather, whence they are fabled to build their nests on the
waves. The female is no less remarkable than the turtle, for her
conjugal affection. She nourishes and attends the male when sick, and
survives his death but a few days. When the halcyons are surprised in a
tempest, they fly about as in the utmost terror, with the most
lamentable and doleful cries. To introduce them, therefore, in the
picture of a storm is a proof, both of the taste and judgment of
Camoens.
[433] _With shrill, faint voice, th' untimely ghost complains. _--It may
not perhaps be unentertaining to cite Madame Dacier and Mr. Pope on the
voices of the dead. It will, at least, afford a critical observation
which appears to have escaped them both. "The shades of the suitors,"
observes Dacier, "when they are summoned by Mercury out of the palace of
Ulysses, emit a feeble, plaintive, inarticulate sound, ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ,
strident: whereas Agamemnon, and the shades that have been long in the
state of the dead, speak articulately. I doubt not but Homer intended to
show, by the former description, that when the soul is separated from
the organs of the body, it ceases to act after the same manner as while
it was joined to it; but how the dead recover their voices afterwards is
not easy to understand. In other respects Virgil paints after Homer:--
_Pars tollere vocem
Exiguam: inceptus clamor frustratur hiantes. "_
To this Mr. Pope replies, "But why should we suppose, with Dacier, that
these shades of the suitors (of Penelope) have lost the faculty of
speaking? I rather imagine that the sounds they uttered were signs of
complaint and discontent, and proceeded not from an inability to speak.
After Patroclus was slain he appears to Achilles, and speaks very
articulately to him; yet, to express his sorrow at his departure, he
acts like these suitors: for Achilles--
'Like a thin smoke beholds the spirit fly,
And hears a feeble, lamentable cry. '
Dacier conjectures that the power of speech ceases in the dead, till
they are admitted into a state of rest; but Patroclus is an instance to
the contrary in the Iliad, and Elpenor in the Odyssey, for they both
speak before their funereal rites are performed, and consequently before
they enter into a state of repose amongst the shades of the happy. "
The critic, in his search for distant proofs, often omits the most
material one immediately at hand. Had Madame Dacier attended to the
episode of the souls of the suitors, the world had never seen her
ingenuity in these mythological conjectures; nor had Mr. Pope any need
to bring the case of Patroclus or Elpenor to overthrow her system.
Amphimedon, one of the suitors, in the very episode which gave birth to
Dacier's conjecture, tells his story very articulately to the shade of
Agamemnon, though he had not received the funereal rites:--
"Our mangled bodies, now deform'd with gore,
Cold and neglected spread the marble floor:
No friend to bathe our wounds! or tears to shed
O'er the pale corse! the honours of the dead. "
ODYS. XXIV.
On the whole, the defence of Pope is almost as idle as the conjectures
of Dacier. The plain truth is, poetry delights in personification;
everything in it, as Aristotle says of the Iliad, has manners; poetry
must therefore personify according to our ideas. Thus in Milton:--
"Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth. "
And thus in Homer, while the suitors are conducted to hell:--
"Trembling, the spectres glide, and plaintive vent
Thin, hollow screams, along the deep descent:"
and, unfettered with mythological distinctions, either shriek or
articulately talk, according to the most poetical view of their supposed
circumstances.
[434] Exod. 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.
"gives life and delight; and it is much more necessary in epic, than in
comic or tragic, poetry, sometimes to shift the scenes, to diversify and
embellish the story. "
The Portuguese, sailing upon the Atlantic Ocean, discovered the most
southern point of Africa: here they found an immense sea, which carried
them to the East Indies. The dangers they encountered in the voyage, the
discovery of Mozambique, of Melinda, and of Calecut, have been sung by
Camoens, whose poem recalls to our minds the charms of the Odyssey, and
the magnificence of the AEneid. --MONTESQUIEU, Spirit of Laws, bk. xxi. c.
21.
[370] Virgil.
[371] A small island, named _Santa Cruz_ by Bartholomew Diaz, who
discovered it. According to Faria y Sousa, he went twenty-five leagues
further, to the river Del Infante, which, till passed by GAMA, was the
utmost extent of the Portuguese discoveries.
[372] It was the force of this rushing current which retarded the
further discoveries of Diaz. GAMA got over it by the assistance of a
tempest. The seasons when these seas are safely navigable, are now
perfectly known.
[373] The wise men of the East, or magi, whom the Roman Catholic writers
will have to have been kings. --_Ed. _
[374] The Epiphany. --_Ed. _
[375] Dos Reis, _i. e. _, of the kings. --_Ed. _
[376] The frequent disappointments of the Portuguese, when they expect
to hear some account of India, is a judicious imitation of several parts
of Virgil; who, in the same manner, magnifies the distresses of the
Trojans in their search for the fated seat of Empire:--
----_O gens
Infelix! cui to exitio fortuna reservat?
Septima post Trojae excidium jam vertitur aestas;
Cum freta, cum terras omnes, tot inhospita saxa
Sideraque emensae ferimur: dum per mare magnum
Italiam sequimur fugientem, et volvimur undis. _ AEN. v. 625.
[377] Hop.
[378] It had been extremely impolitic in GAMA to mention the mutiny of
his followers to the King of Melinda. The boast of their loyalty,
besides, has a good effect in the poem, as it elevates the heroes, and
gives uniformity to the character of bravery, which the dignity of the
epopea required to be ascribed to them. History relates the matter
differently. In standing for the Cape of Good Hope, GAMA gave the
highest proofs of his resolution. The fleet seemed now tossed to the
clouds, _ut modo nubes contingere_, and now sunk to the lowest
whirlpools of the abyss. The winds were insufferably cold, and, to the
rage of the tempest was added the horror of an almost continual
darkness. The crew expected every moment to be swallowed up in the deep.
At every interval of the storm, they came round GAMA, asserting the
impossibility to proceed further, and imploring him to return. This he
resolutely refused. A conspiracy against his life was formed, but was
discovered by his brother. He guarded against it with the greatest
courage and prudence; put all the pilots in chains, and he himself, with
some others, took the management of the helms. At last, after having
many days withstood the tempest, and a perfidious conspiracy, _invicto
animo_, with an unconquered mind, a favourable change of weather revived
the spirits of the fleet, and allowed them to double the Cape of Good
Hope. --_Extr. from_ Osorius's Historia.
[379] GAMA and his followers were, from the darkness of the Portuguese
complexion, thought to be Moors. When GAMA arrived in the East, a
considerable commerce was carried on between the Indies and the Red Sea
by the Moorish traders, by whom the gold mines of Sofala, and the riches
of East Africa were enjoyed. The traffic was brought by land to Cairo,
from whence Europe was supplied by the Venetian and Antwerpian
merchants.
[380] "O nome lhe ficou dos Bons-Signais. "
[381] Raphael. See Tobit, ch. v. and xii. --_Ed. _
[382] It was the custom of the Portuguese navigators to erect crosses on
the shores of new-discovered countries. GAMA carried materials for
pillars of stone with him, and erected six crosses during his
expedition. They bore the name and arms of the king of Portugal, and
were intended as proofs of the title which accrues from first discovery.
[383] This poetical description of the scurvy is by no means
exaggerated. It is what sometimes really happens in the course of a long
voyage.
[384] King of Ithaca.
[385] AEneas.
[386] Homer.
[387] Virgil.
[388] The Muses.
[389] Homer's Odyssey, bk. x. 460.
[390] See the Odyssey, bk. ix.
[391] See AEn. v. 833
[392] The Lotophagi, so named from the lotus, are thus described by
Homer:--
"Not prone to ill, nor strange to foreign guest,
They eat, they drink, and Nature gives the feast;
The trees around them all their fruit produce;
Lotos the name; divine, nectareous juice;
(Thence call'd Lotophagi) which whoso tastes,
Insatiate, riots in the sweet repasts,
Nor other home, nor other care intends,
But quits his home, his country, and his friends:
The three we sent, from off th' enchanting ground
We dragg'd reluctant, and by force we bound:
The rest in haste forsook the pleasing shore,
Or, the charm tasted, had return'd no more. "
POPE, Odyss. ix. 103.
The Libyan lotus is a shrub like a bramble, the berries like the myrtle,
purple when ripe, and about the size of an olive. Mixed with bread-corn,
it was used as food for slaves. They also made an agreeable wine of it,
but which would not keep above ten days. See Pope's note _in loco_.
[393] _In skins confin'd the blust'ring winds control. _--The gift of
AEolus to Ulysses.
"The adverse winds in leathern bags he brac'd,
Compress'd their force, and lock'd each struggling blast:
For him the mighty sire of gods assign'd,
The tempest's lord, the tyrant of the wind;
His word alone the list'ning storms obey,
To smooth the deep, or swell the foamy sea.
These, in my hollow ship the monarch hung,
Securely fetter'd by a silver thong;
But Zephyrus exempt, with friendly gales }
He charg'd to fill, and guide the swelling sails: }
Rare gift! but oh, what gift to fools avails? " }
POPE, Odyss. x. 20.
The companions of Ulysses imagined that these bags contained some
valuable treasure, and opened them while their leader slept. The
tempests bursting out, drove the fleet from Ithaca, which was then in
sight, and was the cause of a new train of miseries.
[394] See the third AEneid.
[395] See the sixth AEneid, and the eleventh Odyssey.
[396] Alexander the Great. --_Ed. _
[397] Achilles, son of Peleus. --_Ed. _
[398] Virgil, born at Mantua. --_Ed. _
[399] Don Francisco de Gama, grandson of Vasco de Gama, the hero of the
Lusiad. --_Ed. _
[400] Cleopatra.
[401] Every display of eastern luxury and magnificence was lavished in
the fishing parties on the Nile, with which Cleopatra amused Mark
Antony, when at any time he showed symptoms of uneasiness, or seemed
inclined to abandon the effeminate life which he led with his mistress.
At one of these parties, Mark Antony, having procured divers to put
fishes upon his hooks while under the water, he very gallantly boasted
to his mistress of his great dexterity in angling. Cleopatra perceived
his art, and as gallantly outwitted him. Some other divers received her
orders, and in a little while Mark Antony's line brought up a fried fish
in place of a live one, to the vast entertainment of the queen, and all
the convivial company. Octavius was at this time on his march to decide
who should be master of the world.
[402] The friendship of the Portuguese and Melindians was of long
continuance. Alvaro Cabral, the second admiral who made the voyage to
India, in an engagement with the Moors off the coast of Sofala, took two
ships richly freighted from the mines of that country. On finding that
Xeques Fonteyma, the commander, was uncle to the King of Melinda, he
restored the valuable prize, and treated him with the utmost courtesy.
Their good offices were reciprocal. By the information of the King of
Melinda, Cabral escaped the treachery of the King of Calicut. The Kings
of Mombaz and Quiloa, irritated at the alliance with Portugal, made
several depredations on the subjects of Melinda, who in return were
effectually revenged by their European allies.
[403] A giant.
[404] _Two gods contending. _--According to the fable, Neptune and
Minerva disputed the honour of giving a name to the city of Athens. They
agreed to determine the contest by a display of their wisdom and power,
in conferring the most beneficial gift on mankind. Neptune struck the
earth with his trident and produced the horse, whose bounding motions
are emblematical of the agitation of the sea. Pallas commanded the
olive-tree, the symbol of peace, and of riches, to spring forth. The
victory was adjudged to the goddess, from whom the city was named
Athens. The taste of the ancient Grecians clothed almost every
occurrence in mythological allegory. The founders of Athens, it is most
probable, disputed whether their new city should be named from the
fertility of the soil or from the marine situation of Attica. The former
opinion prevailed, and the town received its name in honour of the
goddess of the olive-tree--_Ath? n? _.
[405] _While Pallas here appears to wave her hand. _--As Neptune struck
the earth with his trident, Minerva, says the fable, struck the earth
with her lance. That she waved her hand while the olive boughs spread,
is a fine poetical attitude, and varies the picture from that of
Neptune, which follows.
[406] _Though wide, and various, o'er the sculptur'd stone. _--The
description of palaces is a favourite topic several times touched upon
by the two great masters of epic poetry, in which they have been happily
imitated by their three greatest disciples among the moderns, Camoens,
Tasso, and Milton. The description of the palace of Neptune has great
merit. Nothing can be more in place than the picture of chaos and the
four elements. The war of the gods, and the contest of Neptune and
Minerva are touched with the true boldness of poetical colouring. To
show to the English reader that the Portuguese poet is, in his manner,
truly classical, is the intention of many of these notes.
[407] Bacchus.
[408] The description of Triton, who, as Fanshaw says--
"Was a great nasty clown,"
is in the style of the classics. His parentage is differently related.
Hesiod makes him the son of Neptune and Amphitrite. By Triton, in the
physical sense of the fable, is meant the noise, and by Salace, the
mother by some ascribed to him, the salt of the ocean. The origin of the
fable of Triton, it is probable, was founded on the appearance of a sea
animal, which, according to some ancient naturalists, in the upward
parts resembles the human figure. Pausanias relates a wonderful story of
a monstrously large one, which often came ashore on the meadows of
Boeotia. Over his head was a kind of finny cartilage, which, at a
distance, appeared like hair; the body covered with brown scales; the
nose and ears like the human; the mouth of a dreadful width, jagged with
the teeth of a panther; the eyes of a greenish hue; the hands divided
into fingers, the nails of which were crooked, and of a shelly
substance. This monster, whose extremities ended in a tail like a
dolphin's, devoured both men and beasts as they chanced in his way. The
citizens of Tanagra, at last, contrived his destruction. They set a
large vessel full of wine on the sea shore. Triton got drunk with it,
and fell into a profound sleep, in which condition the Tanagrians
beheaded him, and afterwards, with great propriety, hung up his body in
the temple of Bacchus; where, says Pausanias, it continued a long time.
[409] _A shell of purple on his head he bore. _--In the Portuguese--
_Na cabeca por gorra tinha posta
Huma mui grande casco de lagosta. _
Thus rendered by Fanshaw--
"He had (for a montera[413]) on his crown
The shell of a red lobster overgrown. "
[410] Neptune.
[411] _And changeful Proteus, whose prophetic mind. _--The fullest and
best account of the fable of Proteus is in the fourth Odyssey.
[412] Thetis.
[413] Montera, the Spanish word for a huntsman's cap.
[414] _She who the rage of Athamas to shun. _--Ino, the daughter of
Cadmus and Hermione, and second spouse of Athamas, king of Thebes. The
fables of her fate are various. That which Camoens follows is the most
common. Athamas, seized with madness, imagined that his spouse was a
lioness, and her two sons young lions. In this frenzy he slew Learchus,
and drove the mother and her other son, Melicertus, into the sea. The
corpse of the mother was thrown ashore on Megara and that of the son at
Corinth. They were afterwards deified, the one as a sea goddess, the
other as the god of harbours.
[415] _And Glaucus lost to joy. _--A fisherman, says the fable, who, on
eating a certain herb, was turned into a sea god. Circe was enamoured of
him, and in revenge of her slighted love, poisoned the fountain where
his mistress usually bathed. By the force of the enchantment the
favoured Scylla was changed into a hideous monster, whose loins were
surrounded with the ever-barking heads of dogs and wolves. Scylla, on
this, threw herself into the sea, and was metamorphosed into the rock
which bears her name. The rock Scylla at a distance appears like the
statue of a woman. The furious dashing of the waves in the cavities,
which are level with the water, resembles the barking of wolves and
dogs.
[416] Thyoneus, a name of Bacchus.
[417] _High from the roof the living amber glows. --_
"From the arched roof,
Pendent by subtle magic, many a row
Of starry lamps, and blazing cressets, fed
With naptha and asphaltus, yielded light
As from a sky. "
MILTON.
[418] The Titans.
[419] The north wind.
[420] _And rent the Mynian sails. _--The sails of the Argonauts,
inhabitants of Mynia.
[421] See the first note on the first book of the Lusiad.
[422]
_In haughty England, where the winter spreads
His snowy mantle o'er the shining meads. --_
In the original--
_La na grande Inglaterra, que de neve
Boreal sempre abunda;_
that is, "In illustrious England, always covered with northern snow. "
Though the translator was willing to retain the manner of Homer, he
thought it proper to correct the error in natural history fallen into by
Camoens. Fanshaw seems to have been sensible of the mistake of his
author, and has given the following (uncountenanced by the Portuguese)
in place of the eternal snows ascribed to his country:--
"In merry England, which (from cliffs that stand
Like hills of snow) once Albion's name did git. "
[423] Eris, or Discordia, the goddess of contention. --VIRGIL, AEneid ii.
337. --_Ed. _
[424]
_What knighthood asks, the proud accusers yield,
And, dare the damsels' champions to the field. --_
The translator has not been able to discover the slightest vestige of
this chivalrous adventure in any memoirs of the English history. It is
probable, nevertheless, that however adorned with romantic ornament, it
is not entirely without foundation in truth. Castera, who unhappily does
not cite his authority, gives the names of the twelve Portuguese
champions: Alvaro Vaz d'Almada, afterwards Count d'Avranches in
Normandy; another Alvaro d'Almada, surnamed the Juster, from his
dexterity at that warlike exercise; Lopez Fernando Pacheco; Pedro Homen
d'Acosta; Juan Augustin Pereyra; Luis Gonfalez de Malafay; the two
brothers Alvaro and Rodrigo Mendez de Cerveyra; Ruy Gomex de Sylva;
Soueyro d'Acosta, who gave his name to the river Acosta in Africa;
Martin Lopez d'Azevedo; and Alvaro Gonfalez de Coutigno, surnamed
Magricio. The names of the English champions, and of the ladies, he
confesses are unknown, nor does history positively explain the injury of
which the dames complained. It must, however, he adds, have been such as
required the atonement of blood; _il falloit qu'elle fut sanglante_,
since two sovereigns allowed to determine it by the sword. "Some
critics," says Castera, "may perhaps condemn this episode of Camoens;
but for my part," he continues, "I think the adventure of Olindo and
Sophronia, in Tasso, is much more to be blamed. The episode of the
Italian poet is totally exuberant, whereas that of the Portuguese has a
direct relation to his proposed subject: the wars of his country, a vast
field, in which he has admirably succeeded, without prejudice to the
first rule of the epopea, the unity of the action. " The severest critic
must allow that the episode related by Veloso, is happily introduced. To
one who has ever been at sea, the scene must be particularly pleasing.
The fleet is under sail, they plough the smooth deep--
"And o'er the decks cold breath'd the midnight wind. "
All but the second watch are asleep in their warm pavilions; the second
watch sit by the mast, sheltered from the chilly gale by a broad
sail-cloth; sleep begins to overpower them, and they tell stories to
entertain one another. For beautiful, picturesque simplicity there is no
sea-scene equal to this in the Odyssey, or AEneid.
[425] _What time he claim'd the proud Castilian throne. _--John of Gaunt,
duke of Lancaster, claimed the crown of Castile in the right of his
wife, Donna Constantia, daughter of Don Pedro, the late king. Assisted
by his son-in-law, John I. of Portugal, he entered Galicia, and was
proclaimed king of Castile at the city of St. Jago de Compostella. He
afterwards relinquished his pretensions, on the marriage of his
daughter, Catalina, with the infant, Don Henry of Castile.
[426] _The dames by lot their gallant champions choose. _--The ten
champions, who in the fifth book of Tasso's Jerusalem are sent by
Godfrey for the assistance of Armida, are chosen by lot. Tasso, who had
read the Lusiad, and admired its author, undoubtedly had the Portuguese
poet in his eye.
[427]
_In that proud port half circled by the wave,
Which Portugallia to the nation gave,
A deathless name. --_
Oporto, called by the Romans _Calle_. Hence Portugal.
[428]
_Yet something more than human warms my breast,
And sudden whispers--_
In the Portuguese--
_Mas, se a verdade o espirito me adevinha. _
Literally, "But, if my spirit truly divine. " Thus rendered by Fanshaw--
_But, in my aug'ring ear a bird doth sing. _
[429] _As Rome's Corvinus. _--Valerius Maximus, a Roman tribune, who
fought and slew a Gaul of enormous stature, in single combat. During the
duel a raven perched on the helmet of his antagonist, sometimes pecked
his face and hand, and sometimes blinded him with the flapping of his
wings. The victor was thence named Corvinus, from Corvus. Vid. Livy, l.
7, c. 26.
[430] _The Flandrian countess on her hero smil'd. _--The princess, for
whom Magricio signalized his valour, was Isabella of Portugal, and
spouse to Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, and earl of Flanders. Some
Spanish chronicles relate that Charles VII. of France, having assembled
the states of his kingdom, cited Philip to appear with his other
vassals. Isabella, who was present, solemnly protested that the earls of
Flanders were not obliged to do homage. A dispute arose, on which she
offered, according to the custom of that age, to appeal to the fate of
arms. The proposal was accepted, and Magricio the champion of Isabella,
vanquished a French chevalier, appointed by Charles. Though our authors
do not mention this adventure, and though Emmanuel de Faria, and the
best Portuguese writers treat it with doubt, nothing to the disadvantage
of Camoens is thence to be inferred. A poet is not obliged always to
follow the truth of history.
[431] _The Rhine another pass'd, and prov'd his might. _--This was Alvaro
Vaz d'Almada. The chronicle of Garibay relates, that at Basle he
received from a German a challenge to measure swords, on condition that
each should fight with the right side unarmed; the German by this hoping
to be victorious, for he was left-handed. The Portuguese, suspecting no
fraud, accepted. When the combat began he perceived the inequality. His
right side unarmed was exposed to the enemy, whose left side, which was
nearest to him was defended with half a cuirass. Notwithstanding all
this, the brave Alvaro obtained the victory. He sprang upon the German,
seized him, and, grasping him forcibly in his arms, stifled and crushed
him to death; imitating the conduct of Hercules, who in the same manner
slew the cruel Anteus. Here we ought to remark the address of our
author; he describes at length the injury and grief of the English
ladies, the voyage of the twelve champions to England, and the prowess
they there displayed. When Veloso relates these, the sea is calm; but no
sooner does it begin to be troubled, than the soldier abridges his
recital: we see him follow by degrees the preludes of the storm, we
perceive the anxiety of his mind on the view of the approaching danger,
hastening his narration to an end. Behold the strokes of a
master! --_This note, and the one preceding, are from Castera. _
[432] _The halcyons, mindful of their fate, deplore. _--Ceyx, king of
Trachinia, son of Lucifer, married Alcyone, the daughter of Eolus. On a
voyage to consult the Delphic Oracle, he was shipwrecked. His corpse was
thrown ashore in the view of his spouse, who, in the agonies of her love
and despair, threw herself into the sea. The gods, in pity of her pious
fidelity, metamorphosed them into the birds which bear her name. The
halcyon is a little bird about the size of a thrush, its plumage of a
beautiful sky blue, mixed with some traits of white and carnation. It is
vulgarly called the kingfisher. The halcyons very seldom appear but in
the finest weather, whence they are fabled to build their nests on the
waves. The female is no less remarkable than the turtle, for her
conjugal affection. She nourishes and attends the male when sick, and
survives his death but a few days. When the halcyons are surprised in a
tempest, they fly about as in the utmost terror, with the most
lamentable and doleful cries. To introduce them, therefore, in the
picture of a storm is a proof, both of the taste and judgment of
Camoens.
[433] _With shrill, faint voice, th' untimely ghost complains. _--It may
not perhaps be unentertaining to cite Madame Dacier and Mr. Pope on the
voices of the dead. It will, at least, afford a critical observation
which appears to have escaped them both. "The shades of the suitors,"
observes Dacier, "when they are summoned by Mercury out of the palace of
Ulysses, emit a feeble, plaintive, inarticulate sound, ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ,
strident: whereas Agamemnon, and the shades that have been long in the
state of the dead, speak articulately. I doubt not but Homer intended to
show, by the former description, that when the soul is separated from
the organs of the body, it ceases to act after the same manner as while
it was joined to it; but how the dead recover their voices afterwards is
not easy to understand. In other respects Virgil paints after Homer:--
_Pars tollere vocem
Exiguam: inceptus clamor frustratur hiantes. "_
To this Mr. Pope replies, "But why should we suppose, with Dacier, that
these shades of the suitors (of Penelope) have lost the faculty of
speaking? I rather imagine that the sounds they uttered were signs of
complaint and discontent, and proceeded not from an inability to speak.
After Patroclus was slain he appears to Achilles, and speaks very
articulately to him; yet, to express his sorrow at his departure, he
acts like these suitors: for Achilles--
'Like a thin smoke beholds the spirit fly,
And hears a feeble, lamentable cry. '
Dacier conjectures that the power of speech ceases in the dead, till
they are admitted into a state of rest; but Patroclus is an instance to
the contrary in the Iliad, and Elpenor in the Odyssey, for they both
speak before their funereal rites are performed, and consequently before
they enter into a state of repose amongst the shades of the happy. "
The critic, in his search for distant proofs, often omits the most
material one immediately at hand. Had Madame Dacier attended to the
episode of the souls of the suitors, the world had never seen her
ingenuity in these mythological conjectures; nor had Mr. Pope any need
to bring the case of Patroclus or Elpenor to overthrow her system.
Amphimedon, one of the suitors, in the very episode which gave birth to
Dacier's conjecture, tells his story very articulately to the shade of
Agamemnon, though he had not received the funereal rites:--
"Our mangled bodies, now deform'd with gore,
Cold and neglected spread the marble floor:
No friend to bathe our wounds! or tears to shed
O'er the pale corse! the honours of the dead. "
ODYS. XXIV.
On the whole, the defence of Pope is almost as idle as the conjectures
of Dacier. The plain truth is, poetry delights in personification;
everything in it, as Aristotle says of the Iliad, has manners; poetry
must therefore personify according to our ideas. Thus in Milton:--
"Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth. "
And thus in Homer, while the suitors are conducted to hell:--
"Trembling, the spectres glide, and plaintive vent
Thin, hollow screams, along the deep descent:"
and, unfettered with mythological distinctions, either shriek or
articulately talk, according to the most poetical view of their supposed
circumstances.
[434] Exod. 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.
