Luis de Camoes Collected Poetical Works

by Luis de Camoes

  542 Troy.

  543 No sumptuous gift thou bring’st.— “As the Portuguese did not expect to find any people but savages beyond the Cape of Good Hope, they only brought with them some preserves and confections, with trinkets of coral, of glass, and other trifles. This opinion, however, deceived them. In Melinda and in Calicut they found civilized nations, where the arts flourished; who wanted nothing; who were possessed of all the refinements and delicacies on which we value ourselves. The King of Melinda had the generosity to be contented with the present which Gama made; but the zamorim, with a disdainful eye, beheld the gifts which were offered to him. The present was this: Four mantles of scarlet, six hats adorned with feathers, four chaplets of coral beads, twelve Turkey carpets, seven drinking cups of brass, a chest of sugar, two barrels of oil, and two of honey.” — Castera.

  544 Fair Acidalia, Love’s celestial queen. — Castera derives Acidalia from ἁκηδἡς, which, he says, implies to act without fear or restraint. Acidalia is one of the names of Venus, in Virgil; derived from Acidalus, a fountain sacred to her in Bœotia.

  545 Sprung from the prince. — John I.

  546 And from her raging tempests, nam’d the Cape. — Bartholomew Diaz, was the first who discovered the southmost point of Africa. He was driven back by the storms, which on these seas were thought always to continue, and which the learned of former ages, says Osorius, thought impassable. Diaz, when he related his voyage to John II. called the southmost point the Cape of Tempests. The expectation of the king, however, was kindled by the account, and with inexpressible joy, says the same author, he immediately named it the Cape of Good Hope.

  547

  The pillar thus of deathless fame, begun

  By other chiefs, etc. —

  “Till I now ending what those did begin,

  The furthest pillar in thy realm advance;

  Breaking the element of molten tin,

  Through horrid storms I lead to thee the dance.”

  Fanshaw.

  548

  The regent’s palace high o’erlook’d the bay,

  Where Gama’s black-ribb’d fleet at anchor lay. —

  The resemblance of this couplet to many passages in Homer, must be obvious to the intelligent critic.

  549 As in the sun’s bright beam. — Imitated from Virgil, who, by the same simile, describes the fluctuation of the thoughts of Æneas, on the eve of the Latian war: —

  “Laomedontius heros

  Cuncta videns, magno curarum fluctuat æstu,

  Atque animum nunc huc celerem, nunc dividit illuc,

  In partesque rapit varias, perque omnia versat.

  Sicut aquæ tremulum labris ubi lumen ahenis

  Sole repercussum, aut radiantis imagine Lunæ,

  Omnia pervolitat late loca: jamque sub auras

  Erigitur, summique ferit laquearia tecti.”

  “This way and that he turns his anxious mind,

  Thinks, and rejects the counsels he design’d;

  Explores himself in vain, in ev’ry part,

  And gives no rest to his distracted heart:

  So when the sun by day or moon by night

  Strike on the polish’d brass their trembling light,

  The glitt’ring species here and there divide,

  And cast their dubious beams from side to side;

  Now on the walls, now on the pavement play,

  And to the ceiling flash the glaring day.”

  Ariosto has also adopted this simile in the eighth book of his Orlando Furioso: —

  “Qual d’acqua chiara il tremolante lume

  Dal Sol per percossa, o da’ notturni rai,

  Per gli ampli tetti và con lungo salto

  A destra, ed a sinistra, e basso, ed alto.”

  “So from a water clear, the trembling light

  Of Phœbus, or the silver ray of night,

  Along the spacious rooms with splendour plays,

  Now high, now low, and shifts a thousand ways.”

  Hoole.

  But the happiest circumstance belongs to Camoëns. The velocity and various shiftings of the sun-beam, reflected from a piece of crystal or polished steel in the hand of a boy, give a much stronger idea of the violent agitation and sudden shiftings of thought than the image of the trembling light of the sun or moon reflected from a vessel of water. The brazen vessel, however, and not the water, is only mentioned by Dryden. Nor must another inaccuracy pass unobserved. That the reflection of the moon flashed the glaring day is not countenanced by the original.

  We have already seen the warm encomium paid by Tasso to his contemporary, Camoëns. That great poet, the ornament of Italy, has also testified his approbation by several imitations of the Lusiad. Virgil, in no instance, has more closely copied Homer, than Tasso has imitated the appearance of Bacchus, or the evil demon, in the dream of the Moorish priest. The enchanter Ismeno thus appears to the sleeping Solyman: —

  “Soliman’ Solimano, i tuoi silenti

  Riposi à miglior tempo homai riserva:

  Che sotto il giogo de straniere genti

  La patria, ove regnasti, ancor’ e serva.

  In questa terra dormi, e non rammenti,

  Ch’insepolte de’ tuoi l’ossa conserva?

  Ove si gran’ vestigio e del tuo scorno,

  Tu neghittoso aspetti il nuovo giorno?”

  Thus elegantly translated by Mr. Hoole: —

  “Oh! Solyman, regardless chief, awake!

  In happier hours thy grateful slumber take:

  Beneath a foreign yoke thy subjects bend,

  And strangers o’er thy land their rule extend:

  Here dost thou sleep? here close thy careless eyes,

  While uninterr’d each lov’d associate lies?

  Here where thy fame has felt the hostile scorn,

  Canst thou, unthinking, wait the rising morn?”

  The conclusion of this canto has been slightly altered by the translator. Camoëns, adhering to history, makes Gama (when his factors are detained on shore) seize upon some of the native merchants as hostages. At the intreaty of their wives and children the zamorim liberates his captives; while Gama, having recovered his men and the merchandise, sailed away, carrying with him the unfortunate natives, whom he had seized as hostages.

  As there is nothing heroic in this dishonourable action of Gama’s, Mickle has omitted it, and has altered the conclusion of the canto. — Ed.

  550 Mickle, in place of the first seventeen stanzas of this canto, has inserted about three hundred lines of his own composition; in this respect availing himself of the licence he had claimed in his preface. — Ed.

  551 Thy sails, and rudders too, my will demands. — According to history.

  552 My sov’reign’s fleet I yield not to your sway. — The circumstance of Gama’s refusing to put his fleet into the power of the zamorim, is thus rendered by Fanshaw: —

  “The Malabar protests that he shall rot

  In prison, if he send not for the ships.

  He (constant, and with noble anger hot)

  His haughty menace weighs not at two chips.”

  553 Through Gata’s hills. — The hills of Gata or Gate, mountains which form a natural barrier on the eastern side of the kingdom of Malabar.

  “Nature’s rude wall, against the fierce Canar

  They guard the fertile walls of Malabar.”

  Lusiad, vii.

  554 Then, furious, rushing to the darken’d bay. — For the circumstances of the battle, and the tempest which then happened, see the Life of Gama.

  555 I left my fix’d command my navy’s guard. — See the Life of Gama.

  556 Unmindful of my fate on India’s shore. — This most magnanimous resolution, to sacrifice his own safety or his life for the safe return of the fleet, is strictly true. — See the Life of Gama.

  557 Abrupt — the monarch cries— “What yet may save!” — Gama’s declaration, that no message from him to the fleet could alter the orders he had already left, a
nd his rejection of any further treaty, have a necessary effect in the conduct of the poem. They hasten the catastrophe, and give a verisimilitude to the abrupt and full submission of the zamorim.

  558 The rollers — i.e. the capstans. — The capstan is a cylindrical windlass, worked with bars, which are moved from hole to hole as it turns round. It is used on board ship to weigh the anchors, raise the masts, etc. The versification of this passage in the original affords a most noble example of imitative harmony: —

  “Mas ja nas naos os bons trabalhadores

  Volvem o cabrestante, & repartidos

  Pello trabalho, huns puxao pella amarra,

  Outros quebrao co peito duro a barra.”

  Stanza x.

  559

  Mozaide, whose zealous care

  To Gama’s eyes reveal’d each treach’rous snare. —

  Had this been mentioned sooner, the interest of the catastrophe of the poem must have languished. Though he is not a warrior, the unexpected friend of Gama bears a much more considerable part in the action of the Lusiad than the faithful Achates, the friend of the hero, bears in the business of the Æneid.

  560 There wast thou call’d to thy celestial home. — This exclamatory address to the Moor Monzaida, however it may appear digressive, has a double propriety. The conversion of the Eastern world is the great purpose of the expedition of Gama, and Monzaida is the first fruits of that conversion. The good characters of the victorious heroes, however neglected by the great genius of Homer, have a fine effect in making an epic poem interest us and please. It might have been said, that Monzaida was a traitor to his friends, who crowned his villainy with apostacy. Camoëns has, therefore, wisely drawn him with other features, worthy of the friendship of Gama. Had this been neglected, the hero of the Lusiad might have shared the fate of the wise Ulysses of the Iliad, against whom, as Voltaire justly observes, every reader bears a secret ill will. Nor is the poetical character of Monzaida unsupported by history. He was not an Arab Moor, so he did not desert his countrymen. These Moors had determined on the destruction of Gama; Monzaida admired and esteemed him, and therefore generously revealed to him his danger. By his attachment to Gama he lost all his effects in India, a circumstance which his prudence and knowledge of affairs must have certainly foreseen. By the known dangers he encountered, by the loss he thus voluntarily sustained, and by his after constancy, his sincerity is undoubtedly proved.

  561 The joy of the fleet on the homeward departure from India. — We are now come to that part of the Lusiad, which, in the conduct of the poem, is parallel to the great catastrophe of the Iliad, when, on the death of Hector, Achilles thus addresses the Grecian army —

  “Ye sons of Greece, in triumph bring

  The corpse of Hector, and your pæons sing:

  Be this the song, slow moving toward the shore,

  ‘Hector is dead, and Ilion is no more.’”

  Our Portuguese poet, who in his machinery, and many other instances, has followed the manner of Virgil, now forsakes him. In a very bold and masterly spirit he now models his poem by the steps of Homer. What of the Lusiad yet remains, in poetical conduct (though not in an imitation of circumstances), exactly resembles the latter part of the Iliad. The games at the funeral of Patroclus, and the redemption of the body of Hector, are the completion of the rage of Achilles. In the same manner, the reward of the heroes, and the consequences of their expedition complete the unity of the Lusiad. I cannot say it appears that Milton ever read our poet (though Fanshaw’s translation was published in his time); yet no instance can be given of a more striking resemblance of plan and conduct, than may be produced in two principal parts of the poem of Camoëns, and of the Paradise Lost. — See the Dissertation which follows this book.

  562 Near where the bowers of Paradise were plac’d. — Between the mouth of the Ganges and Euphrates.

  563 Swans.

  564 His falling kingdom claim’d his earnest care. — This fiction, in poetical conduct, bears a striking resemblance to the digressive histories with which Homer enriches and adorns his poems, particularly to the beautiful description of the feast of the gods with “the blameless Ethiopians.” It also contains a masterly commentary on the machinery of the Lusiad. The Divine Love conducts Gama to India. The same Divine Love is represented as preparing to reform the corrupted world, when its attention is particularly called to bestow a foretaste of immortality on the heroes of the expedition which discovered the eastern world. Nor do the wild fantastic loves, mentioned in this little episode, afford any objection against this explanation, an explanation which is expressly given in the episode itself. These wild fantastic amours signify, in the allegory, the wild sects of different enthusiasts, which spring up under the wings of the best and most rational institutions; and which, however contrary to each other, all agree in deriving their authority from the same source.

  565 A young Actæon. — The French translator has the following characteristic note: “This passage is an eternal monument of the freedoms taken by Camoëns, and at the same time a proof of the imprudence of poets; an authentic proof of that prejudice which sometimes blinds them, notwithstanding all the light of their genius. The modern Actæon of whom he speaks, was King Sebastian. He loved the chase; but, that pleasure, which is one of the most innocent and one of the most noble we can possibly taste, did not at all interrupt his attention to the affairs of state, and did not render him savage, as our author pretends. On this point the historians are rather to be believed. And what would the lot of princes be, were they allowed no relaxation from their toils, while they allow that privilege to their people? Subjects as we are, let us venerate the amusements of our sovereigns; let us believe that the august cares for our good, which employ them, follow them often even to the very bosom of their pleasures.”

  Many are the strokes in the Lusiad which must endear the character of Camoëns to every reader of sensibility. The noble freedom and manly indignation with which he mentions the foible of his prince, and the flatterers of his court, would do honour to the greatest names of Greece or Rome. While the shadow of freedom remained in Portugal, the greatest men of that nation, in the days of Lusian heroism, thought and conducted themselves in the spirit of Camoëns. A noble anecdote of this brave spirit offers itself. Alonzo IV., surnamed the Brave, ascended the throne of Portugal in the vigour of his age. The pleasures of the chase engrossed all his attention. His confidants and favourites encouraged, and allured him to it. His time was spent in the forests of Cintra, while the affairs of government were neglected or executed by those whose interest it was to keep their sovereign in ignorance. His presence, at last, being necessary at Lisbon, he entered the council with all the brisk impetuosity of a young sportsman, and with great familiarity and gaiety entertained his nobles with the history of a whole month spent in hunting, in fishing, and shooting. When he had finished his narrative, a nobleman of the first rank rose up: “Courts and camps,” said he, “were allotted for kings, not woods and deserts. Even the affairs of private men suffer when recreation is preferred to business. But when the whims of pleasure engross the thoughts of a king, a whole nation is consigned to ruin. We came here for other purposes than to hear the exploits of the chase, exploits which are only intelligible to grooms and falconers. If your majesty will attend to the wants, and remove the grievances of your people, you will find them obedient subjects; if not — —” The king, starting with rage, interrupted him, “If not, what?” “If not,” resumed the nobleman, in a firm tone, “they will look for another and a better king.” Alonzo, in the highest transport of passion, expressed his resentment, and hasted out of the room. In a little while, however, he returned, calm and reconciled: “I perceive,” said he, “the truth of what you say. He who will not execute the duties of a king, cannot long have good subjects. Remember, from this day, you have nothing more to do with Alonzo the sportsman, but with Alonzo the king of Portugal.” His majesty was as good as his promise, and became, as a warrior and politician, one of
the greatest of the Portuguese monarchs.

  566 With love’s fierce flames his frozen heart shall burn.— “It is said, that upon the faith of a portrait Don Sebastian fell in love with Margaret of France, daughter of Henry II., and demanded her in marriage, but was refused. The Spaniards treated him no less unfavourably, for they also rejected his proposals for one of the daughters of Philip II. Our author considers these refusals as the punishment of Don Sebastian’s excessive attachment to the chase; but this is only a consequence of the prejudice with which he viewed the amusements of his prince. The truth is, these princesses were refused for political reasons, and not with any regard to the manner in which he filled up his moments of leisure.”

  Thus Castera, who, with the same spirit of sagacity, starts and answers the following objections: “But here is a difficulty: Camoëns wrote during the life of Don Sebastian, but the circumstance he relates (the return of Gama) happened several years before, under the reign of Emmanuel. How, therefore, could he say that Cupid then saw Don Sebastian at the chase, when that prince was not then born? The answer is easy: Cupid, in the allegory of this work, represents the love of God, the Holy Spirit, who is God himself. Now the Divinity admits of no distinction of time; one glance of his eye beholds the past, the present, and the future; everything is present before him.”

  This defence of the fiction of Actæon is not more absurd than useless. The free and bold spirit of poetry, and in particular the nature of allegory, defend it. The poet might easily have said, that Cupid foresaw; but had he said so his satire had been much less genteel. As the sentiments of Castera on this passage are extremely characteristic of French ideas, another note from him will perhaps be agreeable. “Several Portuguese writers have remarked,” says he, “that the wish —

  ‘Of these lov’d dogs that now his passions sway,

  Ah! may he never fall the hapless prey!’

  Had in it an air of prophecy; and fate, in effect, seemed careful to accomplish it, in making the presaged woes to fall upon Don Sebastian. If he did not fall a prey to his pack of hounds, we may, however, say that he was devoured by his favourites, who misled his youth and his great soul. But at any rate our poet has carried the similitude too far. It was certainly injurious to Don Sebastian, who nevertheless had the bounty not only not to punish this audacity, but to reward the just eulogies which the author had bestowed on him in other places. As much as the indiscretion of Camoëns ought to surprise us, as much ought we to admire the generosity of his master.”