Luis de Camoes Collected Poetical Works
Page 165
Which e’en those witches of their wits superb,
Medea and magick Circe, never saw
However learned the twain in Magian law.
IX.
And see, how heavy-fraught
Wi’ years and burthen of experience-lore,
An old Man science-taught
By Muses haunting learned Ganges-shore,
In Podalirius’ subtle sylvan spell
Chiron (Achilles’ master) doth excel.
X.
The same implores with stress
Your aid his valued volume not voluminous
May see the light of press,
And rain on physick radiance new and luminous;
And surest secrets to our ken betray
Hid from all Antients of the classic day.
XI.
Thus may you not deny
One who your kindly aura would secure:
For an your name soar high
In bloody warfare with the Turk and Moor,
Aid one that aideth man with Death to fight;
And with the hero Greek’s your name be hight.
ODE IX.
Fogern as neves frias
(The Seasons, a Morality: Horace, Odes IV. 7).
I.
Frore snow-wreaths fade away
From the tall mountains, when their greens re-show
Dark trees in Prime’s array;
Now emerald herblets grow
Weaving a thousand hues for meads that glow.
II.
Bland Zephyr breathes desires;
And now his shaft to sharpen Love has tane;
Progne her woe suspires,
Philomel plains again
And skies bin love-sick seeing Earth’s young plain.
III.
Now beauteous Cytherba
Comes girt by nymphly choir she loves to guide
Comes, eke, white Pasithéa
In naked beauty’s pride
By the twin Sisters aye accompanied.
IV.
And while ’tis Vulcan’s care
The Cyclops’ forges (as he wont) to heat,
Plucking pied daisies fare
The Nymphs, who singing sweet
O’er Earth a-tiptoe skim with tripping feet.
V.
Downs from her rugged hill
Dian, now wearied of the coverture,
Seeking that glassy rill
Where Fortune’s doom so dure
Robbed from Actaeon’s form man’s use and ure.’
VI.
So pass as passing breath
The greeny Springtide and the Summer dry;
And Autumn entereth;
Then Winter frore draws nigh
Who like the lave shall, certes, age and die:
VII.
Shall blanch to wan and pale
Yon sun-parcht Mountain robing sleet and snow;
And Jove with rains that rail
Shall foul the fountain’s flow;
Seamen shall fear Orion, ferest foe:
VIII.
All passeth to the Past
Consistent quality Time never won:
Our Life, not made to last,
Fades and so fast shall run
The course hath ended ere ’tis well begun.
IX.
Where be the sons of Troy,
Pious AEneas, Hector brave and bold?
The strong years could destroy
Thee, Croesus! famed of old
Nor thee availed aught thy hoarded gold.
X.
Thou heldest whole content
In heaped ore and pride of treasure vain!
O false Intendiment!
Whereof at cost of bane
Thou didst believe sage Solon’s counsel sane.
XI.
What Goods we here procure
Endure not, howso firm, and fixt and high:
What Good shall aye endure
Is of another dye,
Short-lived Life for hour of Death lays by.
XII.
For naught in fine, avails
Against one terrible ending, Night eternal;
E’en the chaste Deess fails
To illume wi’ light supernal —
Hippolyte, whelmed in sombre shades Avemah
XIII.
Nor Theseus’ hero-might,
By dint of cunning rede or hardihed,
Could free the daring sprite
Of Pirith from the dread
Lethhan dungeon trod by misty Dead.
ODE X.
Aquelle Mofo fero
(Excusing his love for a slave-girl).
I.
That Youth so fierce and fere
Whom in the Pelethronian caverns trained
The Centaur-sage severe;
Whose breast of force unfeigned
Was fed by draughts fro’ dug of Tygress drained
II.
Her Babe in wave of Styx
The Mother bathes presaging future sure,
That steel shall ne’er transfix
The Hero-bosom dure,
Which for itself makes self the strongest mure.
III.
She hardeneth flesh and bone,
That of all weapons ‘scape he bane and blight:
Blind! who had never known
There may be wounds of sprite
More torturing far than what robs life, and light
IV.
For while his arm of wrath
The Trojan targe and harness tore in two,
There fand he sudden scath
Of steel-point ground anew
By the one Boy who all to all can do.
V.
There self he saw the thrall
Of the fair thrall he served and adore’d 5
There live he saw his fall,
In lowe that lively roar’d
For she had waxt the Ladye of her Lord.
VI.
Now the soft lyre he plies
Wi’ hands the mighty Pelian spear had sway’d;
There sings to sound of sighs,
Not as the Greybeard bade
But as the Boy his eyne so blinded made.
VII.
Then how shall mortals blame
One who a victim to the hopes and fears
O’ Love from birth became?
Who e’en in cradle-years
Was doomed to bear the wound each mortal bears?
2 À 2
VIII.
Whose childhood was design’d
To be subjected aye by stronger hest,
And, for a lover blind
From earliest days imprest,
Was doom’d to bathe in tears his tender breast?
IX.
Gi’en wound, parforce, he dree
By herbal powers or points that never swerve;
An Love be served that he
His lovely servant serve
Say then for whom my Star shall me reserve?
II. —
That form of sculptured grace;
That airy swaying gait, that compast mien;
That delicate clear-cut face,
That form which gars us ween
Beauty from Art may learn, on Art may lean,
XI.
How, then, can fail his Fate
To conquer one who owneth eyes to see?
Whom shall not penetrate
That geste’s sweet subtlety
He claims no praise for faring fancy-free.
XII.
They whose high-priviledged breasts
Destiny deckt with science brightest shine,
Humblest obeyed the hests
Of the vain Boy sans eyne
Struck down by phrenesy and rage divine.
XIII.
The far-famed Hebrew king,
Who more than others learnt Love’s lovely lore;
Nay, who false offering
To alien Love-gods bore,
If much he knew and had, but erred he more.
XIV.
And the high Sage who taught
Sophia’s secrets pacing wisdom’s place,
To low-born Leman, bought
By Hermias (eunuch base),
Raised those altars only gods should grace.
XV.
Raised altars to his love
That high philosopher, by Love bemused,
Fame aye shall him reprove;
He cries he is ill-used
And of a lese-divinity accused.
XVI.
Now from his wone he flies,
Now shall long exile dreadful sin atone.
But O! what griefs arise:
Right well such sin hath shown
That learned hearts be not of steel and stone.
XVII.
Nay, in the mightiest mind,
In subtlest blood, in genius most elect,
Him we shall fittest find
Subject to be subject
Who bland Affection’s brand doth most affect.
ODE XI.
Naquelle tempo brando
(The loves of Peleus and Thetis).
I.
In the soft Prime that shows
Of earth-born beauty fairest portraiture,
When Tethys in repose
From winter-toil recovers fair and pure,
Love wearied the breast
Of youthful Peleus doomed to love’s unrest.
II.
With forceful flight in fear
His lovely Nymph had fled herself to save,
When in the rainy year,
Notus enraged upstirs the clear blue wave,
Heaping with hills the main
That kisses hill-heads studding earthly plain.
III.
The Youngling hope had nurst
In grief profound that weighed down his sprite,
Some day when Phoebus firstShowféd the vernal world his burning light,
Loosing the locks of gold
Which love-sick Clytie doth a threasury holds.
IV.
’Twas in the month when deigneth
Apollo ‘twixt the heavenly Twins pass time;
When Eolus unreineth
His Winds, that Earth’s fair season of pastime
Quiet and silent prove;
When all obligeth and all conquereth Love.
V.
The luminous day of May
Awoke man’s bodily sense, by Love’s behest,
To blind idolatry
That most aggrieves and most contents the breast
Wherein the Boy born blind
A god approveth him to mortal mind:
VI.
Whenas that lovely Nymph,
Girt by half-goddess bevy venerand,
Within the chrystal lymph
Suitable bath for chrystalline body fand;
Which in wave shadowed viewing
She joyed, oft and oft the view renewing;
VII.
The bosom diamantine
Upon whose snowy fountain Love is fed;
The gesture peregrine
Whose glories light upon the night-tide shed;
The mouth, of grace a store,
Which Love with all his loves provoketh more;
VIII.
The rubins red and bright;
The pearls concealed by the living rose
In gardens of delight,
On those so lovely cheeks Heaven grew and grows;
And that diaphanous neck
Jealousing Daphne for Apollo’s sake;
IX.
The subtle glance that deign
Those eyne which dazzle Love wi’ daze of love;
Love, who in pride of pain
For aye refuseth from their sight remove,
For there he ever lies,
A Babe that sports with Babies of her eyes;
X.
The threads released fro’ plait,
Gold-threads far more than gold we covetize,
Where Cupid loves to net
Man’s heart for ever ‘tangled in their plies,
And where begins desire
Immeasurable, like unquenchable Fire.
XI.
The Youth, who Peleus hight
Had loaned from Neptune’s lips a counsel shrewd,
Seeing Heaven on Earth alight,
Deess to beauteous womanhood transmew’d,
Stood for a moment dumb
For Love forbade a word to utterance come.
XII.
In fine, when near he’d view
Who doomed him afar such weird to dree,
Sight from his eyes withdrew
Love, who for purest love no sight could see:
Self he saw mufe and blind
By force of Love who tyrants o’er mankind.
XIII.
Now would he ready make
For battle, now he dares provoke the fight;
Then counsel would he take;
Now tremblings shake him, then he thinks of flight
When with a second shaft
He feels his breast transfixt by Cupid’s craft.
XIV.
Attonce the Youth aspires
To ‘flame whence came the flame his bosom brent;
And in high-flamed desires
The nearer faring more his eyne are blent;
And sightless and deep sighing
At the fair Damsel speeds his arrow flying.
XV.
So’venged was Peleus’ grame
And, from the couple joined in lover-joy,
The great Larissan came
All hopes of Phrygian fancy to destroy;
Whom fro’ war’s harm to save
His mother dippéd in the Stygian wave.
ODE XII.
Já a calma nos deyxou
(Same subject as Ode IX.)
I.
Now Summer-suns have left us
Flowerless the margent where sweet water flows;
Now heat and drought have ‘reft us
Of candid lily and of rubicund rose:
Far fly fro’ fiery beams the birds, to hide
In cool asyla of the nook and nide.
II.
The tall-topt beeches sway
Whene’er the sea-breeze new refreshment brings;
And dedal rocks make way
For liquid chrystal railed by murmurous springs:
The drops, fro’ stones of snowy hue dispread,
Bedew the meadows pearl-enamelled.
III.
Already tired of chase
The chaste Titanick May seeks copsey screen,
Where, strown in shadowy place,
She ‘joyeth restful slumber on the green;
And o’er her wealth of wavy fair-faxt hair
The forest raineth treasures rich and rare.
IV.
The skies no darkness gloomféd
Displayed their sempiternal starry light;
And o’er the meadow blooméd
Florets of gold and red and gleaming white,
Gladding the grove, and gladdening the mountain,
The sea, the tufted treen, the stream, the fountain.
V.
But when that Youngling’s sign,
Jupiter’s eagle for his god did reave,
In Zodiack’s chrystalline
Visit of Clyde’s lover shall receive,
The grove shall sadden, saddened wax the mountain,
The stream, the tufted treen, the sea, the fountain.
VI.
The main whose peaceful flowing
Invites his snowy Nereides to roam,
Right soon shall change to showing
A waste of spumy spray and fretted foam:
The fierce hot fury of the boreal blast
In wild upheaval all the Deep shall cast.
VII.
’Tis Nature-law that Time
(All-legie
r Time) shall thus his course permute:
Succeed to lovely Prime
Rich fruity Fall-tide; snows succeed the fruit;
And thus in line aligned shall Time recall
Summer and Winter-tide and Prime and Fall
VIII.
All must, in fine, see change
Whate’er Sol vieweth, whatso gilds his light;
None may securely range
Thro’ what fair day-tide maketh glad and bright:
For man conditions change as change the years,
Calm-spells, and shifting states, and hopes and fears.
IX.
Only mine Enemy
To change her dour conditions never deigns;
That all the world may say
She breaketh code of laws that all o’erreigns;
She, only she, for ever nilleth see me,
Or to flee Love, or for my love to flee me.
X.
Right sufferable ‘twere
She only for my slaying firmness show,
Were I not fully ‘ware
That eke my Nature change must undergo;
Since bear I ever heart withouten rest
Ever by glooming thunder-cloud opprest.
XI.
Ever I feel extremes,
The fears Love sends for lasting tormentize;
Two ever-flowing streams,
Drawn from these eyne by Love who haunts her eyes,
Down flow, nor Summer-softness can create
Change for such asperous ill-conditioned state.
XII.
Sol, that serene and pure
For ever shineth on the ‘splendent face,
Enwrapt in cloak obscure
Of sad oblivion masks his every trace;
Leaving my wretched Life in wretched night
Never, ah never! perst by Prime’s new light.
XIII.
But, be whate’er may be,
For me shift Nature to all ban and bane;
Die Love’s inconstancy;
Inconstant Fortune constancy maintain;
Let every changeful thing against me range
Firm to mine incept I will never change.
ODE XIII.
Fora conveniente
(To Dom Antao de Noronha).
I.
It would convene I were
Another Petrarch or a Garcilass’,
Or that I boldly dare
With largest pace to pass,
Where peaketh Holy Helicon or Pamasse;
Or that my Sprite inspire
.Apollo lending graces peregrine,
Or that in skies still higher
The Fountain Caballine
I seek, and drain what Draught makes man divine:
II.
Or, leastwise, could I rear
My rank to reckon me with them whose lays,
Here in our Lusian sphere,
Won wreaths of blessed bays
Fro’ him who lordeth o’er the Lord of Days,
That I in fearless tone
Venture my Muse’s message to impart
To yours, on whom alone