CAMOENS

1524-1579.

Camoens and Cervantes encountered, in several respects, a similar

destiny. They were both men of genius, both men of military valour; both

were disregarded by their contemporaries, and suffered extreme

misfortune. Camoens, indeed, has in this a sad advantage over Cervantes.

The latter lived in poverty, but the former died in want. Posterity

endeavoured to repair the injuries inflicted by ungrateful

contemporaries. The circumstances of the life of Camoens were carefully

collected. Several able native commentators wrote elaborate notes on the

"Lusiad," and lastly a magnificent edition of that poem was published in

1817. Nor have the English been unmindful of the great Portuguese poet.

Sir Richard Fanshaw translated the "Lusiad" as far back as Cromwell's

time; but the present popular translation is by Mickle. He bestowed

great pains on the work, and accompanied it by various essays relative

to its subject, and a life of Camoens. His version has great merit, as

will be hereafter mentioned, notwithstanding its want of fidelity and

the signal defect of being written in heroic couplets, instead of

eight-line stanzas, like the original. Lord Strangford appended a sketch

of Camoens' life to his translation of a portion of his "Rimas;" and,

lastly, Mr. Adamson has presented the English reader with an elaborate

biography, attended by all sorts of valuable collateral information and

embellishments.

The family of Camoens was originally of Gallicia, and possessed

extensive demesnes in that province. The old Spanish name of the family

was Caamaños--the etymology of which has occupied the commentators. We

are told, among others, that it was derived from Cadmus. There is

nothing extraordinary in this. All readers conversant with old national

annals, are aware that they usually derive their immediate origin either

from a son of Noah, or some well known Grecian hero: Ulysses, it was

said, founded Lisbon. It was probably adopted from the castle of Cadmon,

where they resided. The poet himself, however, refers it to a more

imaginative source. In ancient times, in Gallicia, there existed a bird

named the Camaõ, which never survived the infidelity of the wife of its

lord. The moment the lady went astray, the bird sought its master, and

expired at his feet. A matron of the house of Cadmon was unjustly

accused of ill faith--she entrusted her defence to the cadmaõ, and the

success of her appeal caused her husband, grateful for this restoration

to honour and domestic felicity, to adopt the name of the saviour bird.

This is a tale of romance and barbarism, of the days of ordeal and

degrading suspicion; but Camoens himself alludes to it, and it derives

interest from his mention.[127]

The family of Caamaños possessed a _solar_ or ancestral inheritance in

Gallicia, and reigned over seventeen villages near the promontory of

Finisterre. One of the lords of this family having killed a cavalier de

Castros, they were obliged to migrate, and settled at a fortress called

Rubianes; where Faria y Sousa tells us the family still remain, great in

birth, but of diminished means.[128]

Vasco Perez de Camoens, either brother or son of this Ruy, made a second

migration to Portugal in 1370. Faria y Sousa conjectures that it might

be from some such same cause as occasioned the first exile, while

Southey attributes it to his having sided with Pedro the Cruel against

his more infamous brother Henriquez II. However that may be, Fernando,

king of Portugal, received him with distinction, and gifted him with the

"villas" of Sardoal, Punhete, Maraõ, and Amendao, besides making him

one of the principal fidalgos of his court. Nor did the favours of

Fernando stop here. Vasco Perez received various other estates in gift,

and filled places of political and military importance.

After the death of Fernando, Vasco Perez became involved in a dispute

for succession, and he upheld the cause of the queen of Fernando,

Leonor, and his daughter, the queen of Castile. His power was great, and

his aid was held of importance, whichever side he espoused. Camoens

considered that his ancestor assisted the wrong cause, that of Castile

against Portugal. The latter was destined to triumph, and Vasco was the

sufferer. He lost all command, but retained a considerable portion of

his estates. A letter has been discovered by Sarmiento, written by the

marquis of Santillana, which intimates that Vasco Perez was a poet as

well as a warrior.

The descendants of Vasco Perez were of account, and married into the

richest and most powerful families of Portugal. His second son, Joaõ

Vaz, was the great-grandfather of the poet. He acquired glory by his

military services under Alfonso V., and was named his _vassal_--a title

of distinction in those days. He built a house at Coimbra, and there is

a marble monument erected to his memory in the chapel of the cloister of

the cathedral at Coimbra. Simaõ Vaz, the grandson of Joaõ Vaz, married

Dona Ana de Sa e Macedo, of noble descent, and sprung from the Macedos

of Santarem. Thus, in every way, Camoens was highly descended from

nobles and warriors; but, springing from the younger branch, he

inherited the blood and name without the estates of his family. As he

never married this branch of the family became extinct.

Coimbra and Santarem have both contended for the glory of having been

his birth-place, but without foundation; for he was born at Lisbon, most

probably in the district "da Mouraria," in the parish of San Sebastiaõ,

where his parents resided. The date of his birth has been disputed. A

friend and contemporary, Manoel Correa, gave that of 1517; but a

register, in the Portuguese India House, proves that he was really born

in 1524.[129] This entry also is conclusive on another point. It was

long believed that Camoens lost his father while a mere child. Simon Vaz

de Camoens was a mariner; nearly all the biographers of the poet agree

in stating that he lost a ship, of which he was commander, on the coast

of Goa, and, escaping from the wreck, died soon afterwards in that city;

though some aver that he fell in the combat in which his son lost an

eye. Camoens himself does not mention his father as being with him on

that occasion, nor during any of his adventures. This point, therefore,

is left in obscurity.

Camoens was born at Lisbon; he celebrates with fondness the parental

Tagus: "My Tagus," as he sometimes names the river. But most of his

early years were spent at Coimbra, where, as has been mentioned, his

father had a house. He often mentions the river Mondego in his verses.

To a poet, there is something in a river that engages his affections and

enlivens his imagination. Water is indeed the soul, the smile, the

beaming eye of a landscape; and as Camoens' only happy days were those

when he nourished hopes--hopes, as he says in a letter, which he

afterwards cast aside as coiners of false money--in his youth, he might

well record with fondness the hours he spent in the beautiful environs

of Coimbra on the banks of its lovely river. Thus, in his poems, the

nymphs of Tagus and of Mondego are both addressed; and in one remarkable

and most beautiful passage of the "Lusiad" he exclaims, "What, insane

and rash, am I about to do without ye, O nymphs of Tagus and Mondego,

through so arduous, long, and various a way? I invoke your favour, as I

navigate the deep sea with so contrary a wind, that, unless ye aid me, I

fear that my fragile bark must sink!" and then he goes on to describe

his misfortunes in India, turning to those streams that watered his

native land, and whose very names were full of blessed recollections of

life's prime, to give him fortitude and help.[130]

Camoens studied in the university at Coimbra. This university was

founded by king Diniz, in 1308. Camoens introduces mention of this

monarch in the "Lusiad," and alludes to the establishment of the

university under his fosterage:--

From Helicon the Muses wing their way:

Mondego's flowery banks invite their stay,

Now Coimbra shines, Minerva's proud abode;

And fired with joy, Parnassus' blooming God

Beholds another dear-loved Athens rise,

And spread her laurels in indulgent skies.[131]

The university, however, fell off, and it was don Manuel who exerted

himself for its re-establishment; and dom John, his successor, took

equal pains to raise it to its former prosperity, and in the first place

caused it again to be restored to Coimbra--for it had been transferred

to Lisbon--and founded several new colleges. The date when Camoens

entered it is uncertain. It has been supposed that he was twelve years

old. In that case he must have attended it while at Lisbon; for it was

only transferred in 1537[132] when Camoens was thirteen or fourteen.

Saa de Miranda had studied there, and Ferreira was also a student. He

was younger than Camoens by four years, and that, at a boyish age, makes

the difference of, as it were, a generation. There is no token that they

were known to each other, nor, indeed, are there any traces of Camoens'

life or pursuits at Coimbra, except such as we find in his poems; and

these are in some sort contradictory--agreeing, however, in the love

they express for the picturesque scenery in which this seat of learning

was placed, and affection for its beautiful river.

Mr. Adamson quotes a canzone, in which he dwells with delight on the

charms of the Mondego, and dates thence his earliest passion. Lord

Strangford asserts that he had never experienced the passion of love

while at Coimbra, and rests his assertion on expressions of the poet.

Both of course are right, and the poet is wrong. Nor is this assertion

paradoxical. When the heart of Camoens became susceptible to a master

feeling, that filled it and awoke its every pulse to a sense of love, he

would naturally wish to throw into the back-ground any boyish fancy; and

comparing its slight and evanescent emotions with the mighty passion of

which he was afterwards the prey, he might well say,--

All ignorant of love I pass'd my days,

Its bow and all its mad deceits despising,

and revert to that period as the time,--

When from the bonds of love I wander'd free--

For always was I not chain'd to the oar:--

Once liberty was mine--but that is o'er.

And I now dwell in bard captivity.[133]

This certainly contrasts strangely with the poem quoted by Adamson, but

it is a fair poetic licence, or rather a licence of the heart, which not

only would bring to its selected shrine every former emotion and

immolate them there, but is jealous that any such existed, and would

gladly expunge all trace of them from the page of life. The verses above

mentioned form his fourth canzone, and were written on taking leave of

Coimbra.[134] The following is a portion of it:--

Soft from its crystal bed of rest,

Mondego's tranquil waters glide,

Nor stop, till, lost on ocean's breast,

They, swelling, mingle with the tide.

Increasing still, as still they flow--

Ah! there commenced my endless woe.

* * * * * * * * *

Yet whisper'd to the murmuring stream,

That winds these flowery meads among,

I give affection's cheating dream,

And pour in weeping truth my song;

That each recounted woe may prove

A lasting monument of love.

There is another sonnet, in which he takes leave of the Mondego, but its

context renders it apparent that it was not written so early in life, as

when he first quitted the university. As his parents had a house at

Coimbra, it may be assumed that he frequently visited this place, and

wrote the following sonnet in a later and sadder day:--

Mondego! thou whose waters, cold and clear,

Gird those green banks, where fancy fain would stay,

Fondly to muse on that departed day,

When hope was kind, and friendship seem'd sincere--

Ere I had purchased knowledge with a tear.--

Mondego! though I bend my pilgrim way

To other shores, where other fountains stray,

And other rivers roll their proud career,

Still, nor shall time, nor grief, nor stars severe,

Nor widening distance e'er prevail in aught,

To make thee less to this sad bosom dear;

And Memory oft, by old affection taught,

Shall lightly speed upon the shrines of thought,

To bathe among thy waters cold and clear.[135]

There is nothing so attractive to a biographer as to complete the

fragments of his hero's life; and, almost as children trace the forms of

animals and landscapes in the fire, by fixing the eye on salient

particles, so a few words suffice to give "local habitation and a name,"

to such emotions as the poet has made the subject of his verse. To do

this, and by an accurate investigation of dates, and a careful sifting

of concomitant circumstances to discover the veiled event, is often the

art of biography--but we must not be seduced too far. Truth, absolute

and unshakeable, ought to be the foundation of our assertions, or we

paint a fancy head instead of an individual portrait. Truth is all in

all in matters of history, for history is the chart of the world's sea;

and if imaginary lands are marked, those who would wisely learn from the

experience of others, are led sadly astray. Petrarch has been the mark

of similar conjectures to a great extent; but his letters give a true

direction to our researches. We have no such guide in the history of

Camoens's attachment. He loved and was beloved; was banished, and his

lady died. Such is nearly all that we absolutely know.

[Sidenote: 1545.[136]

Ætat.

21.]

To return however from remark to history, Camoens left Coimbra for

Lisbon and the court. He had not lost his time at the University--he was

a finished scholar. He was a poet also then when poetry was held a high

and divine gift. With such acquirements and accomplishments, joined to

his gentlemanly qualities, his courtesy and wit, he was favoured by the

highest people at court; his handsome person also gained him the favour

and estimation of the ladies. His defect was his poverty, but that

defect might be remedied by the friendship of some great man, or the

favour of his sovereign. Asa young noble of illustrious descent, he had

a right to expect advancement. As a poet full of imagination and ardour,

at the very first glowing entrance to life, while (to speak

metaphorically) the Aurora of hope announced the rising sun of

prosperity, he might expect an ample portion of that happiness, which,

while we are young, appears to us to be our just and assured

inheritance.

Soon after his arrival at court he fell in love. One of his sonnets,

(commented upon by an almanack,) fixes the date when he first saw the

lady, as the eleventh or twelfth of April, 1545. He mentions that it was

holy week, and at the time when the ceremonies that commemorate the

death of our Saviour were celebrated. This sonnet is not one of his

best; but we quote Lord Strangford's translation, as it is a monument of

an interesting epoch--the commencement of that attachment which shed a

disastrous influence over the rest of his life--for by it his early

hopes were blighted, and they never flowered again:

"Sweetly was heard the anthem's choral strain,

And myriads bow'd before the sainted shrine,

In solemn reverence to the Sire divine,

Who gave the Lamb, for guilty mortals slain;

When in the midst of God's eternal fane,

(Ah, little weening of his fell design!)

Love bore the heart, which since has ne'er been mine,

To one who seem'd of heaven's elected train!

For sanctity of place or time were vain

'Gainst that blind Archer's soul-consuming power,

Which scorns, and soars all circumstance above.

O! Lady, since I've worn thy gentle chain,

How oft have I deplored each wasted hour,

When I was free and had not learn'd to love!

It is said that this occurrence took place in the church of Christ's

Wounds, at Lisbon.[137] There is so much resemblance of time and place

between this event and the first time when Petrarch records that he saw

Laura, that we might almost suppose that the later poet imitated the

earlier one; but there is no other resemblance between their attachment.

The name of the lady Camoens fell in love with, was dona Caterina de

Atayde, and she was a lady of the palace. Many researches have been made

to discover more of her parentage and station; dom Jose Maria de Sousa

made diligent search in the "Historia da Casa Real;" but he can do no

more than conjecture that she was a relation of dom Antonio de Atayde,

the first conde de Castanheira, a powerful favourite of John III. It is

guessed that she was not more than sixteen when Camoens first saw her.

She was unmarried; his attachment therefore was totally unlike the

Platonic, far-off worship of the lover of Laura de Sades. Camoens loved

as a youth who dedicates himself to one whom he may hope to make his own

in the open face of day--with whom he might spend his life, as her

protector and husband; but she was of high birth, and her relations had

lofty pretensions--a pennyless, though noble and accomplished gentleman

by no means suited their views. The love of Camoens was full of

difficulties: his ardour was excited by them; and, while unassured of

any return he was disposed to vanquish every obstacle for the sake of

seeing, and endeavouring to win the heart of the beloved object.

Youth and love aided the developement of a vivid imagination. There

never breathed a more genuine poet than Camoens, and now he poured forth

his soul in rhymes: canzoni and sonnets are dedicated to his lady,

describing her beauty, his sufferings, and the deep affection he

nourished. Notwithstanding the good old proverb, commentators are fond

of instituting comparisons, and the amatory poetry of Petrarch and

Camoens has been compared. Camoens had doubtless read and studied

Petrarch, but in no respect does he imitate him. There is more finish in

the compositions of the Italian, and for this there is an obvious cause.

While speaking slightingly of them, Petrarch was employed even in his

last days in the correction and polishing of his Italian poetry; while

the verses of Camoens, written in the first gush of inspiration, were

never collected by him, or if collected, the volume was lost: and

scattered over Portugal and India, it was with difficulty they were

brought together, nor were they published till after his death, and some

of those included in the collection are said not to be his.

There is a glow, a freshness, and a truth; a touching softness and a

heart-felt eagerness, in his verses on dona Caterina, which is very

winning. The language he uses does not charm the ear like Italian, but

it is capable of great melody and expression. We possess translations of

a small portion, but lyrics can never be translated; they have a _voice_

of their own which cannot be transfused into another language. Lord

Strangford's translations have this merit, that they read like original

poetry--but something of truth has been sacrificed in consequence.

It is from these poems that we gather almost all we know of Camoens'

attachment. As Petrarch did, he dedicates a sonnet to an emotion--which

to a lover's heart seemed an event, or in a _canzone_, dwells at length

on the course of his passion. One sonnet which describes the lady, is a

great favourite with the Portuguese: the translation is difficult; we

quote the one given by Mr. Adamson--

"Her Eye's soft movement, radiant and benign,

Yet with no casual glance; her honest smile,

Cautious though free;--her gestures that combine,

Light mirth with modesty, as if the while

She stood all trembling o'er some doubtful bliss,

Her blithe demeanour; her confiding ease,

Secure in grave and virgin bashfulness,

Midst every gentler virtue formed to please

Her purity of soul--her innate fear

Of error's stain; her temper mild, resigned;

Her looks, obedience; her unclouded air,

The faithful index of a spotless mind;

These form a Circe, who with magic art

Can fix or change each purpose of my heart."

He describes her charms in many of his poems. Dona Caterina had mild

blue eyes, and hair of a golden brown, and he dwells on the softness of

the former and the splendour of the latter with fond admiration; but the

poem which expresses most fervently the influence of her beauty is one

of which Dr. Southey has given a very exquisite translation, and which

we are irresistibly tempted to quote--

"When I behold you. Lady, when my eyes

Dwell on the deep enjoyment of your sight,

I give my spirit to that one delight,

And earth appears to me a Paradise.

And when I hear you speak and see you smile,

Full, satisfied, absorbed, my centred mind

Deems all the world's vain hopes and joys the while,

As empty as the unsubstantial wind.

Lady, I feel your charms, but dare not raise

To that high theme th' unequal song of praise;

A power for that to language was not given:

Nor marvel I when I those beauties view,

Lady, that he whose power created you,

Could form the stars and yonder glorious heaven."

The concluding lines of the above sonnet are conceived in the very truth

of love and ardour of imagination that stamps the lyrics and sonnets of

Camoens with a charm almost unequalled by any other poet.

The obstacles that were in the way of all intercourse with the lady

maddened his young and impatient spirit. Dona Caterina lived in the

palace, and Camoens violated some rule of decorum in endeavouring to see

her, and was exiled. We are not told what his fault was. Dona Caterina

was not insensible to his passion. He always speaks of her as mild and

retiring--modest and gentle; he never complains of her haughtiness nor

her pride: indeed, several of his sonnets speak of how oft he was happy

and content, and of "past sweet delights."[138] We do not venture too

far, therefore, in supposing that her relations discovered that she

returned her lover's attachment; and, as they were opposed to their

being married, they used their influence to get the youthful and, as

they deemed, presumptuous aspirant, banished.

Lord Strangford speaks decidedly of a parting interview, when the

horrors of approaching exile were softened by finding his grief and his

sorrow shared by her he loved. There indeed appears foundation for this,

though the noble biographer uses a few fancy tints, when, quoting the

twenty-fourth sonnet, he comments on it, by saying, "On the morning of

his departure his mistress relented from her wonted severity, and

confessed the secret of her long concealed affection. The sighs of grief

were soon lost in those of mutual delight, and the hour of parting was

perhaps the sweetest of our poet's existence." This may be true. The

poet speaks of "a mournful and a happy morning, overflowing with grief

and pity", which he desires should for ever be remembered, and he speaks

of "tears shed by other eyes than his."[139]

Camoens appears to have passed his exile at Santarem (the native place

of his mother), or in its neighbourhood. He was supremely unhappy;

banished from her he loved, banished from the court, where all his hopes

of advancement, were centred, the gates of life were closed on him. His

genius and his poetical imagination were his only resource and comfort.

He wrote many of his lyrics and sonnets here, and among the rest a very

beautiful elegy, in which he compares himself to Ovid banished to

Pontus, and separated from the country and the friends he loved. He

dwells on the Roman's misery, and proceeds--

"Thus Fancy paints me--thus like him forlorn,

Condemn'd the hapless exile's fate to prove;

In life-consuming pain, thus doomed to mourn

The loss of all I prized--of her I love.

"Reflection paints me guiltless though opprest,

Increasing thus the sources of my woe;

The pang unmerited that rends the breast,

But bids a tear of keener sorrow flow.

"On golden Tagus' undulating stream[140]

Skim the light barks by gentlest, wishes sped

Trace their still way midst many a rosy gleam

That steals in blushes o'er its trembling bed.

"I see them gay, in passing beauty glide

Some with fix'd sails to woo the tardy gale,

While others with their oars that stream divide

To which I weeping tell the Exile's tale."

At this period also he is supposed to have conceived and begun the

Lusiad. Passionately fond of his country, and proud of her heroes, he

believed it to be a glorious task to celebrate their deeds; and while

his heart warmed and his imagination was fired with such a subject, he

might hope that it would please his sovereign, and that his patriotic

labours would bear the fruit of some prosperity for himself. That he

hoped much, we know, and felt all the confidence in eventual happiness

which the young and ardent naturally feel is certain. How bitter and how

blighting was the truth, that as it brought to light, piece by piece,

year by year, the course of his life, shewed only barren tracks, storms,

and hardship--to end at last in abject wretchedness!

The gleams that a little irradiate the obscurity in which this portion

of the life of Camoens is enveloped, shed a very doubtful light upon his

motives. Faria y Sousa says, that he returned to Lisbon, and was a

second time exiled for the same cause, and then resolved on his

expedition to India. But there is no proof of his being banished a

second time by any royal order.

The simple facts appear to be these. In 1545 he left the university and

began life. He was twenty-one, ardent in his temper, high of hope, of an

aspiring but poetic temperament, that could bear all that called him

forth to action and glory, but was impatient of obscurity, and the dull

sleepy course of hopeless unvaried mediocrity of station and life. He

loved, and he was banished.

His heart then spent itself in rhymes, and he conceived the idea of a

poem which he deemed to be epic, which spoke of heroes, who were his

countrymen, who were but lately dead, and whose path to glory in the

east he even saw open before himself. Five years were passed since he

had left Coimbra; he was still poor and unprotected: he resolved to be

and to do something, and on this, formed the project of going to India.

He had formed an intimacy with dom Antonio de Noronha. Dom Alfonso de

Noronha (who must have been some relation to this young noble) was at

this time named viceroy for India; and the entry in the Portuguese East

Indian register shows that Camoens had taken his passage on board the

same vessel in which the viceroy sailed. From some reason, however, he

changed his intention. Dom Antonio was about to join the Portuguese army

in Africa. His father had discovered an attachment between him and dona

Margarita de Silva, a lady of high birth and great beauty, but from some

unknown cause, not approving of it, he sent his son to Ceuta. Nothing

was more natural than that dom Antonio should solicit his friend to

accompany him, instead of leaving his native country for the distant

clime of India. Other commentators say that the father of Camoens was at

that time in Africa, and sent for his son; but facts tend to negative

this. We have seen that Simon Vaz was his son's surety on his projected

voyage, on board the Don Pedro; nor have we any facility afforded us of

reconciling these contradictions.[141] There are several expressions in

his poems which indicate that the poet, though innocent, was obliged to

go to Africa.[142] These might allude to a paternal command, or simply

to the evil fate that pursued him, driven by which, he might term that

force, which was only a strongly impelling motive.

[Sidenote: 1550.

Ætat.

20.]

While with the troops at Ceuta, Camoens was actively employed, and

displayed great bravery on various occasions; on one, he was destined to

be a great sufferer, as he lost an eye in a naval engagement which took

place in the straits of Gibraltar.

Like Cervantes, Camoens fought for his country and was mutilated in her

wars, and received neither reward nor preferment. After passing some

time in the burning clime of Africa, he returned to Lisbon; but no

better fortune awaited him. He returned, deprived of an eye, and the

unfortunate mutilation rendered him an object of ridicule to those very

ladies who, eight years before, when he was in the prime of youth and

beauty, had welcomed him with distinction. At this period, the

biographers state that the object of his faithful and passionate

attachment died: this seems a mistake, as we shall afterwards mention;

but he was divided from her by obstacles as insurmountable as death. His

father was no more. He had sailed to India as commander of a vessel, was

wrecked on the Malabar coast, and, escaping from the wreck, arrived at

Goa; but did not long survive the loss of his fortunes.

[Sidenote: 1553.

Ætat.

29.]

Camoens cast hope to the winds, and embarked for India. Stricken by

disappointment, rendered despairing by hopeless love--his wearied fancy

could build no more airy fabrics of future good fortune to which to

escape during the tedious or fearful hours of a long and dangerous

voyage. His resource was his poem. He occupied himself with the Lusiad;

and, doubtless, found in the glow of inspiration, and in the exercise of

his imagination, some relief from sorrow and care, while traversing

those stormy and distant seas, which the heroes of his epic had before

sailed over, even though he went towards

"That long desired and distant land, which is

The grave of every poor and honest man."[143]

He sailed in the San Bento, in which the commodore Fernando Alvares

Cabral, who commanded the fleet then going to the east, also embarked.

It was the only one of the squadron that reached its destination; the

rest being destroyed by tempests. It reached Goa in the September of the

same year.

Then Camoens visited India the glorious days of Portugal were at an end.

Albuquerque, Almeida, and the heroic Pacheco, who like a fabulous

Paladin, withstood whole armies with his single arm, and who died

unregarded and unnoticed by his ungrateful sovereign in a hospital in

Lisbon, were no more; the disinterestedness, the honour and humanity,

that distinguished the administration of Albuquerque, was not imitated

by his successors. He had taken Goa, and founded an empire, which the

corrupt government of Portugal has caused us to inherit. The local

governors too often sought only to enrich themselves; the viceroys were

involved in wars occasioned by their tyranny and extortion; and that

which Albuquerque intended should be a political and vast dominion

tributary to his native land, sunk into mere commercial or piratical

speculations. In the same way, the trade with China was stained by

oppressions and rapine.

Dom Alfonso de Noronha was still viceroy on Camoens' arrival. He was

avaricious and tyrannical. At this time the king of Cochin had applied

to the Portuguese for protection against the king of Pimenta. An

armament was sent in November; and Camoens, without giving himself time

to repose from his long voyage, accompanied it. The artillery of the

Portuguese gained for them a signal victory, and the king of Cochin soon

sued for peace. "We were to retale an island," Camoens writes in his

first elegy, "belonging to the king of Porca, and which the king of

Pimenta had seized; and we were successful. We departed from Goa with a

large armament, which comprised all the forces there, collected together

by the viceroy. With little trouble we destroyed the quiver-armed

people, and punished them with death and fire. We were detained in the

island only two days, which was the last for some, who passed the cold

waters of Styx."

Thus he enrolled his name at once among those adventurers who sought by

their gallantry to conquer fortune, and to acquire prosperity and

reputation by the sword. Camoens was full of military ardour, but he was

a poet, and his disposition was gentle as it was fearless; and Southey

well observes, that his better nature induced him, while recording this

victory, to envy those happier men whose lives were spent in the

exercise of the arts of peace.

On his return to Goa, he was saddened by the news of the death of his

young and dear friend, dom Antonio de Noronha. He perished in an

engagement with the Moors, near Tetuan, on the 18th of April, 1553.

Antonio had been driven from his native country to fall in the

destructive African wars, through the obduracy of his father. He was

miserable in his exile; as Camoens pathetically describes:--

"But while his tell-tale cheek the cause betrays,

To him who marks it with affection's eye,

And speaks in silence to a father's gaze

The fatal strength of love's resistless sigh;

Parental art, resolved, alas! to prove

The stronger power of absence over love."

Unimaginative people fancy that when a poet laments in song; his heart

is cold. How false this is, persons even of the chilliest fancy can

judge if they call to mind, how, in times of vehement affliction, they

are more alive, and the world is more alive to them, in images that hear

upon their grief, than during periods of monotony. The act of writing

may compose the mind; but the boiling of the soul, and quake of heart,

that precede, transcend all the sufferings which tame spirits feel.

Camoens wrote a sonnet[144] and an elegy on this loss, which he sent in

a letter to a friend.

"I wish so much for a letter from you," he says in this letter, "that I

fear that my wishes balked themselves--for it is a trick of fortune to

inspire a strong desire for the very purpose of disappointing it. But as

I would not have such wrong done me, as that you should suspect that I

do not remember you, I determined to remind you by this, in which you

will see little more or less than that I wish you to write to me from

your native land; and in anticipated payment I send you news from this,

which will do no harm at the bottom of a box, and may serve as a word of

advice to other adventurers, that they may learn that every country

grows grass. When I left Portugal, as one bound for another world, I

sent all the hopes I had nourished, with a crier before them, to be

hanged, as coiners of false money, and I freed myself from all the

thoughts of home, so that there might not remain in me one stone upon

another. Thus situated, in the midst of uncertainty and confusion, the

last words I uttered were those of Scipio Africanus--'Ingrata patria,

non possidebis ossa mea.' For without having committed any sin that

would doom me to three days of purgatory, I have endured three-thousand

from evil tongues, worse intentions, and wicked designs, born of mere

envy,

"to view

Their darling ivy, torn from them, take root

Against another wall."[145]

Even friendships softer than wax have been warmed into hatred and set

alight, whence my fame has received more blisters than the crackling of

a roasted pig. Thus they found in my skin the valour of Achilles, who

could only be wounded at the sole of the foot; for they were never able

to see mine, though I forced many to show theirs. In short, Senhor, I

know not how to thank myself for having escaped all the snares with

which circumstances surrounded me in that country, except by coming to

this, where I am more respected than the bulls of Merciana[146], and

live more peacefully than in the cell of friar. This country, I say,

which is the mother of rascals, and the mother-in-law of honest men. For

those who seek to enrich themselves float like bladders on the water;

but those whose inclinations lead them to deeds on arms, are thrown, as

the tide throws dead bodies on shore, to be dried up first, and then to

decay."

He then proceeds to speak of the women. The Portuguese whom he finds

there, he says, are old; and of the natives he dislikes their

language--"for if you address them," he continues, "in the style of

Petrarch and Boscan, they reply in a language so sown with tares, that

it sticks in the throat of the understanding, and would throw cold water

on the most burning flame in the world. And now no more, Senhor, than

this sonnet, which I wrote on the death of dom Antonio de Noronha, which

I send as a mark of how much it grieved me. I wrote an eclogue on the

same subject, which appears to me the best I have written. I wished also

to send it to Miguel Diaz, who would be glad to see it, on account of

his great friendship for dom Antonio, but being occupied by the many

letters I have to write to Portugal, I have no time."

Camoens could not remain inactive; he had left a country which,

notwithstanding all he had suffered, he fondly loved, because no career

was open to him. He sought one in India, and when none presented itself,

he cast himself in the first expedition set on foot, however dangerous

or tedious it promised to be, and with all the bravery and ardour of his

soul, using both pen and sword, endeavoured to fight or write himself

into reputation and preferment.

[Sidenote: 1554.

Ætat.

30.]

The year following his arrival at Goa, Noronha was succeeded in his

viceroyalty by dom Pedro Mascarenhas, who soon after died, and Francisco

Barreto acted as governor. The cruising of the Mahometans in the straits

of Mecca was very detrimental to the Portuguese trade, and expeditions

were sent out to protect the merchantmen, under the command of Manoel de

Vasconcellos. On the second occasion, Camoens offered to serve as

volunteer, and accompanying Vasconcellos, shared the great hardships of

the expedition.

[Sidenote: 1555.

Ætat.

31.]

On his return to Goa, he wrote a most beautiful _canzone_, the ninth,

descriptive of the wretchedness he endured, in which he pourtrays that

corner of the world, "neighbouring a barren, rocky, sterile mountain;

useless, bare, bald and shapeless, abhorred of nature, where no bird

flies, nor wild beast crouches--where no stream flows, nor any fountain

springs, and whose name is Felix. Here my hapless fortune placed me;

here, in this remote, rugged, and rocky part of the world, did fortune

will that a short space of my short life should be spent, that it might

be scattered in pieces about the world; here I wasted my sad, solitary,

and sterile days, full of hardship, grief, and resentment; nor had I, as

my only adversaries, life, a burning sun, and chilling waters, a thick

and sultry atmosphere, — but also my own thoughts. They assailed me,

bringing the memory of some passed and brief delight, which once was

mine when I inhabited the world, to double the asperity of my adversity,

by showing me that many happy hours may be enjoyed; and thus, in these

thoughts, I wore out time and life."

Camoens returned to Goa, only to again encounter the enmity of fate and

malice of men. It was natural for him, to behold with indignation and

contempt the extortion and tyranny of the Portuguese government; and he

is said to have been excited by these feelings to express his dislike of

various individuals that composed it in a satire, which he named

"Follies in India," (_Disparates na India_), in which, in general terms,

he lashes many potent individuals for their misdeeds. This made him

enemies; and being suspected of composing another satire, still more

distasteful to several who were named in it, as instituting a feast of

canes in honour of the new governor, and getting drunk on the occasion;

the persons aggrieved, fearing Camoens' sword as well as his pen,

applied for redress to Barreto, and he was glad of the pretence to

arrest and banish him to China[147]; or rather, Southey says, we should

express it, ordered him to another station; but this is often the worst

exile; when a man has sought a new country, where he has friends and

prospects, it is an arbitrary and cruel act that drives him out to seek

his fortune on unknown shores, where he arrives a stranger, and may be

looked on as an intruder; his name already stigmatised by the very

circumstances of his removal.

[Sidenote: 1556.

Ætat.

32.]

Camoens departed from Goa in the fleet which Barreto despatched to the

South. He felt this arbitrary act bitterly. He denounced it as unjust,

and went, he says, "loaded with his recollections, his sorrows, and his

fortunes, which were for ever adverse." He disembarked, at first, at one

of the Molucca Isles; Ternate, as it is supposed: the term of his stay

there is uncertain, but there is every reason to suppose that he soon

proceeded to Macao.[148] He here held the office of "Provedor dos

Defunctos," or commissary for the effects of the deceased; and here

again we find a similarity with Cervantes, who was driven to maintain

himself by accepting a clerkship; but in this Camoens was more fortunate

than the Spaniard; the situation he held was of greater emolument, and

he amassed a little fortune while holding it[149]; nor was it a place

that demanded much time for the fulfilment of its duties. Camoens found

leisure to retire from the details of business, and to pursue his

poetical occupations. He was wont to spend much time in a grotto which

commanded a view of the sea, and where, apart from the rest of the

world, he wrote a great portion of the "Lusiad." This spot is still

shown to strangers who visit Macao, as the grotto of Camoens; and an

English visitor thus describes it: "It is pleasantly situated on the

western shore of the promontory of Macao, and faces the harbour, which

divides it on that side from the main land. This promontory is a narrow

neck of land, whose stony and barren surface is only rendered habitable

by the sea breezes, that blow from three quarters of the compass, and

somewhat temper the natural heat of the climate." At this day, the

English possessor has beautified it by a plantation of trees, and

crowned it with a small Chinese temple, built on the rock, which is a

sort of cromlech; the excavation beneath is the cave, or natural grotto,

to which the poet resorted, bare in itself, but commanding a beautiful

and extensive view:--"the wide sea flecked with verdant isles, the

harbour busy with vessels, the line of woody and cultivated coast,

bounded by the majestic Montagna, whose pyramidical form and dark aspect

add no small charm to the scenery."

Here Camoens continued the "Lusiad;" here Southey supposes that the

happiest years of his life were spent. It may be so, but airy and

cameleon-like must that happiness have been. His imagination, his desire

of fame, the grasp he held of it, as he added to his immortal work,

doubtless often fired his soul with that rapture which poets only know;

and, as he gathered together some of the world's pelf, he might dream of

dona Caterina, of his native Lisbon, and hope to make her his own when

he should return; he could look upon the sky and sea, and the beautiful

earth, and feel the loveliness of the creation breathe peace and love

around him. But still he was exiled and he was alone; his food was hope;

far off expectation, and that too of blessings, which he was never

doomed to possess; and as doubtless the human soul does unconsciously

receive shadows or sunbeams from the future, so his melancholy mood may

often have made him wonder, why on an earth so lovely; beneath so

sublime a heaven, he should be doomed to solitude and misfortune.

Thus several years were passed. Whatever the emoluments of his place

were, or whatever fortune it was that he amassed, or whatever were the

charms of his abode, they did not seduce him to stay a day longer than

he was obliged. He obtained leave to return to Goa from, or was invited

to do so by, dom Costantino de Braganza, the new viceroy, who had known

and entertained friendship for him in Portugal. He embarked carrying

with him his little fortune. But here fate at once displayed her

unmitigated persecution; he was wrecked at the mouth of the river Mecon,

and with difficulty reached the shore; carrying in one hand the

manuscript of his poem, while he swam with the other. Every thing else

that he possessed in the world was lost.[150]

Camoens was kindly received by the natives who lived on the banks of the

Mecon; though he says of them with some scorn--

"The near inhabitants brutishly think

That pain and glory, after this life's end

Even brute creatures of each kind attend."

yet this very belief may have made them more sympathetic and charitable.

He remained on this coast for a few days after his wreck. And here all

commentators agree that he wrote what are called his marvellous and

inimitable rendondilhas, which commence by an allusion to the Hebrew

psalm of exile, "By the waters of Babylon." Southey rejects absolutely

the possibility that this beautiful poem could have been written at such

an hour of tumult and uncertainty, and brings as proof, that not only,

he does not mention his wreck, nor the kindness he received, for which

he evidently felt grateful, but speaks of himself as living in exile.

He soon pursued his voyage to Goa, where the viceroy received him with

kindness and distinction; and hope might dawn again upon his heart, and

he might expect preferment under dom Constantine de Braganza's

patronage, who loved him as a friend. But we are almost forced to

believe in the influence of a star, and that which ruled the fate of

Camoens was full of storm and wreck, and miserable reverses. Dom

Constantine, with whose viceroyalty, Faria tells us, ended all good

government in India, the succeeding governors being unable to stem the

tide and avarice of extortion, was soon replaced by don Francisco de

Coutinho, Conde de Redondo. The poet's enemies took advantage of this

change to urge against him an accusation of malversation in the exercise

of his office at Macao. Don Francisco was said to be the friend and

admirer of the poet, but Mickle, in reprobating his general character,

accuses him also of deceit towards Camoens--at least he afforded him no

protection on this occasion, and this thrice unhappy man was thrown into

prison.

In the seventh canto of the Lusiad, the poet breaks off suddenly in the

narrative, as if oppressed by the sense of his own woes; and, forced to

give a voice to the anguish that wrung his soul, he recalls images of

home and bids them assuage the bitterness of his grief, while he

recapitulates the various disasters he had sustained--exclaiming,--

"But, O, blind man

I! that, unwise and rude, without your clue,

Nymphs of Mondego and the Tagan stream,

A course so long, so intricate, pursue.

I launch into a boundless ocean,

With wind so contrary, that unless you

Extend your favours, I have cause to think

My brittle bark will in a moment sink.

Behold, how long, whilst I strain all my powers

Your Tagus singing, and your Portugal,

Fortune, new toils presenting and new sours,

Through the world drags me at her chariot's tail:

Sometimes committed to sea's rolling towers,

Sometimes to bloody dangers martial!

Thus I, like desperate Canace of old,

My pen in this, my sword in that hand hold.

Now by declined and scorned poverty

Degraded, at another's board to eat;

Now in possession of a fortune high,

Thrown back again, farther than ever yet;

Now 'scaped, with my life only, which hung by

A single thread, even that a load too great;

That 'tis no less a wonder I am here,

Than Judah's king's new lease of fifteen year.

Nay more, my Nymphs, I thus being made an isle

And rock of want, surrounded by my woes,

The same, whom I swam, singing all the while,

Gave me for all my verses, but coarse prose:

Instead of hoped rest for long exile.

Or bays, to crown my head which bald now grows,

Unworthy scandals they thereon did hail,

Which laid me in a miserable jail.[151]

Camoens was easily enabled to prove the falsehood of the charges of

which he was accused. And he would have been set free, but Miguel

Rodrigues Coutinho, a man of wealth and consequence, but nicknamed

Fios-seccos, detained him in prison for a trifling debt; not more, at

the very largest computation, than twenty pounds. He petitioned for his

release from the viceroy in some sportive verses, in which he ridicules

the character of his creditor. The request was such as a man in

adversity might prefer to a friend in power, without humiliation; and

though the biographers are chary of attributing the merit of his release

to the viceroy, and Mickle even asserts that he owed it "to the shame

felt by the gentlemen of Goa," it seems likely that dom Francisco did

shew his friendship by enlarging him.

He continued in India, and pursued his military career as a volunteer.

On all occasions he displayed undaunted bravery; and his companions in

arms loved him for the heroic as well as cheerful spirit which he

displayed in all reverses, and during every hardship.

At this period he is supposed to have heard of the death of dona

Catarina de Atayde[152], who, in her grave, was not more lost to him

than on earth, while such far seas lay between them; yet the thought of

her was dear and consolatory. When recording that two blows befell him

at the same time, the one the loss of fortune, he continues:--

"And greater ill--the other blow destroyed

The gentle one, whom I so deeply loved,

Perpetual Recollection of my soul!"[153]

Of Catarina's story we may say, as Shakspeare's Viola does of her own

history, it was "a blank." She loved, she wept, she died. Her lover won

her heart, and then was driven by fate to other lands at an immeasurable

distance, and the course of long years promised no return. He fondly

laments and commemorates her loss in poems which breathe tenderness and

love in all its purity and truth.[154] He addressed her in that heaven

which she had reached, and adjured her:--

"Prefer thy prayer

To God, who took thee early to his rest,

That it may please him soon amid the blest

To summon me, dear maid, to meet thee there."

He had lost all; poverty clung to him, and the last hope of seeing her

he loved again, was taken away. Fame and glory only remained. His poem

was finished; and weary of hard services in wars--whose objects he

condemned, and in reward for which he received but the slender pay of a

volunteer--he desired to return to his native country, to publish his

poem, and to receive the welcome of his friends, and perhaps the reward

of his sovereign. He had left Portugal with an embittered spirit; but

his misfortunes in India made him turn with a longing eye to his native

land, where he might hope that his enemies would cease to persecute him,

and he obtain favour from his sovereign.

Pedro Barreto (a name unlucky for the poet) was appointed governor of

Sofala, in the Mozambique, and invited Camoens to accompany him. Whether

he offered him an office, or only allured him with the hope of

facilitating his return to Portugal, Sofala being on the way, we are not

told. It seems likely that Camoens went, induced by the latter motive,

and trusting to the friendship of a low-minded and hard-hearted man.

Arrived at Sofala, he obtained no situation; it was his place to dine at

the governor's table, to follow in his train, and to tell the world that

he, a gallant soldier and a poet, who inherited immortality, was the

dependant of Pedro Barreto. His proud spirit revolted, and he was

content to endure the extreme of poverty, rather than play the servile

part of parasite and hanger-on. It is probable that some absolute

quarrel ensued, or at least that Barreto was so ill pleased with the

independent deportment of the man whom he believed that he held in his

power, that he expressed his dissatisfaction with an insolence which

Camoens resented. At this juncture some of his Indian friends arrived in

the Santa Fé; they found him in a most deplorable condition, dependent

on others for his subsistence; in want of clothes and every necessary.

They supplied his wants, and invited him to accompany them, a proposal

Camoens gladly accepted; when the dastardly and malevolent Barreto

refused to permit his departure, until he had been paid 200 ducats,

which he alleged he had spent in his behalf. The newly-arrived

gentlemen, indignant at this meanness, were only the more eager to

rescue their friend out of such a person's hands: they subscribed the

money, and as Faria expresses it, "ransomed him; so that at the same

time the person of Luis Camoens, and the reputation of Pedro Barreto,

were bought and sold at the same price;" and if, as men of genius and

virtue fondly think, renown for good or ill in this world is an

acquisition to be sought, or to be avoided, even with the loss of life,

Pedro Barreto, as he counted his paltry ducats, had better have cast

them and himself into the sea, than have put them into his pocket; but

even the sea could not have washed out the stain of moral infamy. These

friends of Camoens were cavaliers, who loved literature and honoured the

writer. Their names have been preserved: Hector da Sylveira, Duarte de

Abreu, Diogo de Couto, Antonio Cabral, Antonio Serram, and Luis de

Veyga. He was the intimate friend of Hector da Sylveira, who showed

himself the most active and friendly, and who contributed the largest

share to the payment of the debt, even if he did not, as has been

asserted, pay the whole. Sylveira is mentioned in a Barmecide feast,

Camoens describes as having given at Goa; and they composed redondillhas

and other light verses together. The reputation of Couto is known. He

was an historian of great merit.

Camoens felt keenly the depth of adversity in which he had sunk. "Oh,

how long drawn out," he exclaims in a sonnet, "year by year, is my weary

pilgrimage! I go hastening towards age, while my ills increase; every

bright hope becomes a dark deceit, and I follow a good which I never

reach. I fail midway in the path, yet falling a thousand times, I have

still hoped." And in another, driven by despair into feelings unlike his

natural ones, he asks, "where he may find a desert place, unvisited even

by the brute creation; some gloomy wood or darksome forest--a place as

dismal as his own thoughts, wherein to dwell for ever!"

During the voyage home, however, his spirit revived, refreshed by the

kindness and admiration of his friends. They read, they praised, and

anticipated success for the "Lusiad." Couto wrote a commentary on it,

which was unfortunately lost; and the same writer tells us that Camoens

employed himself, on the passage, in composing a work of great erudition

and philosophy, which he entitled "Parnasso de Luis Camoens," and which

Couto says was stolen from him, and irretrievably lost. Late

commentators suppose that this must have been a collection of his minor

poems: but as Couto speaks of its erudition, and had read it, he would

have been aware of this, and expressed himself differently.

The sanguine spirit of the poet, to whom kindness was medicine, and the

hope of fame the dearest joy, again dared look forward--again he

trusted.

[Sidenote: 1569.

Ætat.

45.]

A young and gallant monarch had just ascended the throne, and he hoped

to propitiate his favour by his patriotic work. The moment of his

landing, however, was unfavourable; for the plague was raging at Lisbon,

and the minds of even the great and prosperous were absorbed by the fear

of death. The political state of the kingdom was also disadvantageous.

Sebastian had succeeded to the crown when only three years old. The

queen, Catherine of Austria, had been appointed regent by the will of

the late king; but the cardinal Henrique, uncle to the infant sovereign,

so disgusted her with his intrigues, that she resigned her power in his

favour. Henrique did not show himself unworthy of the trust; but as

Sebastian grew up, the courtiers around him were eager that he should

take the government of the kingdom into his own hands. Sebastian's own

heart was set on military glory and conquests in Africa: a project

favoured by all the young and ambitious, and deprecated by the

experienced, who saw only a useless expenditure of life and money in the

design. The cardinal, meanwhile, endeavoured to prolong his sway.

Camoens must have found it difficult to trim his sail between the actual

power of the cardinal and the anticipated influence of the favourites of

the king. He wrote the verses in which he dedicates his poem to the

young monarch; he corrected and polished it; but the publication

lingered, and it was two years after his return to his native country

before it appeared. It was hailed with enthusiasm, and reprinted within

the year.

[Sidenote: 1571.

Ætat.

47.]

The king heard of it, it is said, and granted the poet a pension of

15,000 reis--about five pounds sterling--and required him to live within

the precincts of the court, and obtain its payment half-yearly. A

soldier who had fought as Camoens had done for his country, would have

had his sufferings and mutilation better rewarded. It has been

impossible to discover what occasioned the paltriness of the grant; if,

indeed, it was not his half-pay as a military man, rather than a pension

given to the poet. Some commentators fancy that the cardinal scowled on

the poem, as likely to excite the martial ardour of the king, which he

wished to repress. This fear almost seems to have gone the length of

withholding the book altogether; for had Sebastian read the poem, he

would surely have found in it a voice that echoed the emotions of his

own heart, and would have regarded its writer with more favour; and when

he sailed on his ill-fated expedition to Africa, and selected Diego

Bernardes to accompany him as his poet, he would rather have chosen a

man who could so well achieve and so well describe deeds of arms, as

Camoens had proved that he could do.[155]

But in mentioning this we anticipate. Sebastian did not undertake his

fatal expedition until the lapse of several years. Meanwhile the darkest

shadows clouded the poet's fate. No court favour, no preferment was

extended to him. Her he loved was dead; his poem was finished,

published, read, admired; yet it proved barren of any advantage, except

what he must have felt to be empty reputation, to its unfortunate

writer. The poetry of his life faded before realities the most

heartbreaking and oppressive. He continued to reside at Lisbon. He did

not write, for he had fallen into a state of ill-health, the consequence

of the many hardships he had endured, and the climate of India. He

lived, he says, "in the knowledge of many, and the society of few." He

enjoyed the acquaintance and conversation of some learned men, who

belonged to the convent of S. Domingos de Lisboa, near which he lived.

The most melancholy circumstances attended his last days. He was sick

and poor; his very life was supported by charity. His servant Antonio, a

native of Java, by whom some say his life was saved when wrecked on the

coast of Cochin, whom he had brought with him from India, was accustomed

to steal out at night, and beg for bread, to support his miserable

master during the following day.

While in this afflicting state, a fidalgo, Ruy Diaz de Camara, paid him

a visit in his wretched dwelling, to complain that he had not fulfilled

a promise which the poet had made of translating the penitential psalms.

Camoens regarded with resentment the man who could urge him to write

while starving. "When I wrote those verses," he replied, "I was young,

well off, and in love; I possessed the affection of many friends, and

was favoured of ladies, which imparted a poetic fire. Now I have neither

spirit nor peace of mind for any thing. There stands my Javanese, who

asks me for two pieces, to buy fuel, and I have none to give him." We

are told, though it seems incredible, that "the cavalier closed his

heart and purse and quitted the room." Thus shewing himself as

base-minded as he was silly. Yet even in this state, so keen and

patriotic were the poet's feelings, that his illness is said to have

been increased by the tidings of Sebastian's overthrow and death in

Africa.

Prophesying that the ruin of his country would result from this defeat,

he says, in a letter written at that time,--"At least I shall die with

it!"--and this sad reflection was a consolation. Southey conjectures

that those friends who were kindest to him perished in this defeat, and

that thus he lost that aid which had hitherto stood between him and

absolute want.

[Sidenote: 1778.

Ætat.

54.]

At length illness and suffering reduced him to so low a state that he

was incapable of all exertion. He felt that his death was near, and, as

a last effort, he expressed in a letter some of the bitter feelings

excited by the miserable circumstances with which it came attended.

[Sidenote: 1779.

Ætat.

55.]

"Who ever heard," he says, "that fortune should wish to represent such

vast misfortunes on the little theatre of a poor bed! and I, as if they

were not sufficient, make myself her ally; for it would appear

effrontery to attempt to resist such ill."

But the last scene was saddest of all. He breathed his last in an

hospital. The month and day of his decease are alike unknown. The sheet

in which he was shrouded was the gift of a noble, Don Francisco de

Portugal, whose name deserves no praise for so meagre an offering to the

dead, whose life a small portion of wealth might have rendered easy. A

moralising monk watched his last hours. "How miserable a thing," he

writes, "to see so great a genius so ill rewarded! I saw him die in a

hospital at Lisbon, without possessing a shroud to cover his remains,

after having borne arms victoriously in India, and having sailed 5500

leagues:--a warning for those who weary themselves by studying night and

day without profit, as the spider who spins his web to catch

flies."[156]

After his death his body was removed to the church of Santa Anna, where

he was interred; but no tomb or monumental inscription marked the spot,

till sixteen years after his death, don Gonçalo Coutinho placed a stone

to his memory, with this inscription--

HERE LIES LOUIS DE CAMOENS,

PRINCE OF THE POETS OF HIS TIME.

HE LIVED POOR AND MISERABLE,

AND THUS DIED,

IN THE YEAR MDLXXIX.

D. GONÇALO COUTINHO ORDERED

THIS STONE TO BE PLACED HERE,

UNDER WHICH

NO OTHER PERSON SHOULD BE BURIED.[157]

We are told that Camoens was handsome in person; and Faria y Sousa

speaks of him as elegant and prepossessing in person before he went to

India. Hardships and disappointments on his return bowed him down,

destroyed his cheerfulness, and made him old before his time.

Camoens was a great man, not only as poet, but in the qualities of his

mind and heart. He entered life full of aspiration after the good and

beautiful. He loved tenderly and fondly one who was as pure and good as

she was lovely; and in absence, and through hardship and sorrow, still

he worshipped her idea and mourned her fate. He was gallant and brave in

doing, as well as in the harder task of bearing. No mean, no servile, no

even dubious act is recorded of him, during the course of many

misfortunes, when spirits less high might have bowed before the rich and

powerful. He was naturally cheerful, friendly, and fond of society,

which he enlivened and adorned by his wit and genius. Fortune warred

with him long in vain, but she conquered at last, when poor, and sick,

and friendless, he grew melancholy and despairing. At the commencement

we compared his fortunes with those of Cervantes; but the career of

Camoens was the most disastrous. Every act of his life had an adverse

termination. In the early season of youth he loved tenderly and

ardently; and this feeling had not injured his fortunes, if his

attachment had not been returned. A modern poet asks, "What makes it

fatal in this world of ours, to be loved?" It was the love that Dona

Catarina bore the poet, that awakened the enmity of her powerful

relations, and cast his whole life into shadow. From the hour he was

banished for her sake, he succeeded in nothing. He fought for his

country in Africa, only to be maimed and deformed for life. He visited

India only to encounter the same hardships in a worse climate; he

amassed a fortune, and lost it in shipwreck; he trusted to the kind

feelings of the powerful, and found himself reduced to absolute want.

The most adverse period of Cervantes' life was his captivity at

Algiers[158], when he had the spirit of early manhood, the love and

admiration of his companions, his own conscience, and stirring hopes and

fears to animate him. The happiest portion of Camoens' existence, we are

told, were the years he spent at Macao, away from every friend, with

hope only to cheer him, and his imagination, while he looked over the

wide distant sea that separated him from the dearest objects of life. In

his last moments, Cervantes had wife and relation near; and, when dying,

he said farewell, to joy; farewell to his friends. In Camoens' last hour

his spirit was broken: want and penury, in their most loathsome guise,

were his death-bed companions, in a wretched hospital. Southey justly

remarks, however, that he is not to be considered a martyr to

literature; for he in no way depended on that for bread. He was a martyr

to that political system which created a body of men, (the younger sons

of the nobility), who, if they inherited no property, could acquire a

livelihood only by court favour; and that is never bestowed upon the

worthiest. He sought advancement, as well as the "bubble, honour, at the

cannon's mouth." He gained the latter only; and unless his spirit now

enjoys the fame which he desired during life, it was a bubble indeed,

without substance to support him in his necessity. Had he lived a little

longer, we are told Philip II. desired to see him when at Lisbon; and he

would have found assistance in him. Many is the reprieve fate sends to

the suffering after they are dead, as if to show her power, and to

impress us with the idea that all depends on her fiat. Wherefore Heaven

has established a law, that the best men are to suffer most in this

life, is a mystery. All we know is, that so it is, and so learn at least

to revere those cast in adversity, and to glory rather than feel shame

in the frowns of fortune.[159]

It seems strange that men should let a fellow-creature die as Camoens

died; a man, too, who possessed the much-coveted advantage of birth, who

had fought for his country, and celebrated her glories in his verse.

Long did these very verses--the "Lusiad," and the reputation it

promised--bear him up; yet some hope he lost as he concluded it, and at

last he breaks off impatiently,--

"No more, my Muse, no more; my harp's ill strung,

Heavy and out of tune, and my voice hoarse--

And not with singing, but to see I've sung

To a deaf people, and without remorse.

Favour that wont t'inspire the poet's tongue,

Our country yields not: she minds the purse

Too much; exhaling from her gilded mud

Nothing but dross and melancholy blood.

Nor know I by what fate or duller chance,

Men have not now the life or general gust,

Which made them with a cheerful countenance,

Themselves into perpetual action thrust.

* * * * *

While I, who speak in rude and humble rhyme,

Nor known, or dreamt of by my king at all,

Know yet from mouths of little ones sometime

The praise of great ones does completely fall

I want not honest studies for my prime,

Nor long experience, since to mix withal;

I want not wit, such as in this you see,

Three things which rarely in conjunction be."

An arm to serve you, trained in war have I,

A soul, to sing you, to the Muses bent;

Only I want acceptance in your eye,

Who owe to virtue fair encouragement

We have dwelt so long on the various and melancholy circumstances of

Camoens' lot, that small space is left to speak of his works. Of his

lesser poems, his lyrics, and sonnets, such mention has been made in the

foregoing pages as have informed the reader of their high merit.

Impassioned yet tender, earnest, yet soft--full of heart, and all the

better feelings of the soul, they are the type of Camoens, and deserve

the same praise as he himself merits.

Patriotism, warmed by the heroic deeds of the discoverers of the passage

to India, inspired him with the idea of the Lusiad. He named it "Os

Lusitanos," that is to say, the Lusitanians or Portuguese. It opens with

the arrival of Vasco de Gama in the Mozambique; it carries him thence,

after many dangers, to Calicut, and brings him thence home. Episodical

narrations vary the poem. It has faults.[160] Its mythology is clumsy.

While bringing forward Christians as Moslems in contention, the

introduction of the heathen deities, of Bacchus and Venus, is

ridiculous; yet the description of Venus presenting herself to Jupiter,

in the second canto, may make any lover of the beautiful pardon the

incongruity. The Lusiad is full of beauties: stanzas that rise to

sublimity, touch the heart by their pathos, or charm it by descriptive

beauties, abound. Above all, there is fire, a heart, a soul--flesh and

blood, enthusiasm, and the poet's best spirit, to adorn it with

magnanimous sentiments, patriotism, and piety.

As such, the Lusiad is an immortal poem, and Camoens a poet that the

world may be proud to have brought forth. He has been considered such,

and his poem translated into many languages. In English Mickles' is the

modern and popular one; but it has no pretension to fidelity; and,

though Mickle was a man of taste and a poet, we turn impatiently from

his paraphrase to the truer, though uncouth version of Fanshaw.[161]

[Footnote 127: Experimentou-se alguã hora

Da Ave que chamaõ Camaõ,

Que, se da Casa, onde mora,

Ve adultera a Senhora,

Morre de pura paixaõ.]

[Footnote 128: Lord Strangford dates the migration of this family from

the time of this Ancestor Ruy de Camoens--and speaks of him as a

follower of king Fernando. Ferreira is his authority, but other

commentators give a different account See Vida del Poeta por Faria y

Sousa, III. IV.]

[Footnote 129: Faria y Sousa, in his second life of Camoens appended to

his "Rimas," mentions having found, in the registers of the Portuguese

India House, a list of all the chief persons who sailed to India. In the

list for 1550, there is this entry: "Luis de Camoens, son of Simon Vaz

and Ana de Sa," inhabitants of Lisbon, in the quarter of la Monraria,

escudeiro (a name equivalent to our esquire), with a red beard; he gave

his father as surety--and sails in the ship San Pedro los Burgalezes.]

[Footnote 130: Lusiad, Canto VII. 78. Further mention will be made

hereafter of this passage.]

[Footnote 131: It is curious to compare the smooth, even, and (so to

speak) _unindividualized_ verses of Mickle with the rugged and even

uncouth stanza of Fanshaw. Both are unlike Camoens. He wrote with fire,

and each word bore stamp of the man; but his style is elevated and truly

poetic--different from the Pope--like flow of Mickle, and the almost

vulgar idiom that Fanshaw too often adopts. This is the stanza in the

original Portuguese:

Fez primeiro em Coimbra exercitarse

O valeroso officio de Minerva;

E de Helicona as Musas fez passar se,

A pizar de Mondego a fertil herva.

Quanto pode de Athenas desejarse

Tudo o soberbo Apollo aqui reserva:

Aqui as capellas dá tecidas de ouro,

Do baccharo, e do sempre verde louro.

_Canto_ III. 97.

"He was the first that made Coimbra shine

With liberal sciences, which Pallas taught;

By him from Helicon the Muses nine,

To bruise Mondego's grassy brink were brought:

Hither transferr'd Apollo that rich mine,

Which the old Greeks in learned Athens wrought:

There ivy wreaths with gold he interweaves,

And the coy Daphne's never fading leaves."

_Fanshaw's Translation._]

[Footnote 132: Cancam, VII. See also Cancam, II.]

[Footnote 133: Soneto, VI.]

[Footnote 134: The translation is from Mr. Adamson's pages; it has the

fault of being in longer measure than the original, and therefore losing

some of its simplicity.]

[Footnote 135: Lord Strangford's translation, p. 94.]

[Footnote 136: Faria y Sousa, says 1542--other commentators give 1545.

The latter seems the more likely date.]

[Footnote 137: Mr. Adamson says, that "The sonnet does not allude to any

particular situation but certainly the line

Eu crendo que o lugar me defendia,

alludes to its being a church, which, as is well known, is in Catholic

counties, where young ladies are so much shut up, a usual place for

falling in love.--Lope de Vega alludes to this circumstance and the

similarity between the loves of Petrarch and Camoens--

El culto celestial se celebrava

Del mayor Viernes en la Iglesia pia,

Quando por Laura Franco se encendia,

y Liso por Natercia se inflamava.

Liso and Natercia were the anagrams which Camoens framed of his own and

his lady's Christian name--his own, Luis, being frequently spelt Lois.]

[Footnote 138: Soneto 25.]

[Footnote 139: Lord Strangford's translation is not literal, but it

retains all the feeling of the original, and is very beautiful:--

"Till lovers' tears at parting cease to flow,

Nor sundered hearts by strong despair be torn,

So long recorded be that April morn

When gleams of joy were dashed with showers of woe.

Scarce had the purpling east began to glow,

Of mournful men, it saw me most forlorn;

Saw those hard pangs by gentle bosom borne,

(The hardest, sure, that gentle bosoms know!)

But oh, it saw love's charming secret told

By tears fast dropping from celestial eyes,

By sobs of grief, and by such piteous sighs

As e'en might turn th' infernal caverns cold

And make the guilty deem their sufferings ease,

Their torments luxury--compared to these!"]

[Footnote 140: These verses are peculiarly beautiful in the original.

The translation, though flowing, does not embody the ideas of the

Portuguese with exactitude, or with equal energy of expression.]

[Footnote 141: While Camoens was in Africa his father sailed to India,

and died at Goa on his arrival. Is it not possible that Simon Vaz,

instead of being in Africa, was in Lisbon, as indeed seems certain, as

he was surety for his son; and that his projected voyage caused Luis to

entertain the design of going to India also, though hopes of preferment

induced him rather to wish to sail with the viceroy than on board his

father's vessel. But the invitation of his youthful friend, the

reluctance he felt to give up every hope of seeing dona Caterina again,

made him prefer an expedition to Africa. Simon Vaz died on his arrival

at Goa, but voyages in those days were long and uncertain: and when Luis

actually sailed for India, he probably had not heard of his father's

fate, and went out with the intention of joining him.]

[Footnote 142: Don Jose Maria de Sousa.]

[Footnote 143: There is a singular story told by Faria y Sousa, that he

found among the old books on the stall of Pedro Coelho, at Madrid, a MS.

copy of the first six cantos of the Lusiad, written before Camoens went

to India. The copy at the conclusion contained this note: "These six

cantos were purloined from Luis de Camoens, from the work which has

commenced on the discovery and conquest of India by the Portuguese: they

are all finished except the sixth;--the conclusion of that is here

given, yet it wants the story of the history of his loves that Leonardo

relates during his watch, which ought to follow at stanza 46., where the

loss of it is felt, for the conversation of those on watch becomes in

consequence shorter and duller, and the canto is shorter than the

others." Faria y Sousa adds that he found several stanzas in this MS.

wanting in the printed copies, but as the Lusiad was published under the

inspection of Camoens, it is to be doubted, whether a late commentator

(Sousa) is right in reproaching his predecessor for not preserving the

new ones, since it would appear that they were expunged by Camoens

himself.]

[Footnote 144: The sonnet has been translated by lord Strangford.]

[Footnote 145: These lines are quoted from the first eclogue of

Garcilaso de la Vega. It is supposed that Camoens meant, that his

enemies were angry to see the reputation they coveted, possessed by him.

The language and style of this letter is so very obscure as to be almost

untranslatable.]

[Footnote 146: A place a few miles from Lisbon, where bulls are bred for

the bull-fights. He seems to use these expressions ironically.]

[Footnote 147: A discussion has arisen concerning the cause of Camoens'

banishment. Fario y Sousa, who lived near the time of Camoens, (he was

born in 1590,) says that Barreto took offence at this second satire, and

adds with great candour and good feeling: "There is not anything

reprehensible in all my master's actions, except his having written

these satires, for in doing so he lost sight of prudence, independence,

and the bearing of a cavalier; as not any of these qualities belong to a

satirist. Barreto, likewise, who was a man possessing a great mind, did

not appear to advantage in revenging himself so sternly upon a man of

such abilities, and in treating him with such rigour." The late

biographer Sousa resents this account. He says, "the satire was falsely

attributed to Camoens, since no spark of his genius appears,--nor is he

found either before, or after that time, indulging in that species of

composition." Southey warmly takes Faria's part, (whom he names one of

the most upright and high-minded men that ever ended his days in

honourable poverty) and blames Camoens. Adamson is inclined to side with

Sousa. We must remember that Barreto was a cruel, arbitrary, and

extortionate man: and the sense Camoens evinces of his banishment, makes

us willing to believe that he was supported by a lofty sense of

innocence. He calls his banishment an unjust decree, in the Lusiad,--and

in more energetic language in another poem, he wishes that the

remembrance of his exile might, in punishment of those by whom it was

obtained, be sculptured in rock or adamant.]

[Footnote 148: The description which he gives of the place where he

spent the greater part of his exile, as doctor Southey justly remarks,

applies decidedly to Macao and not to Ternate, as Mr. Adamson supposes.

Cercada esta de hum rio,

De maritimas aguas saudosas,

Das herbas que aqui nascem,

Os gados juntamente, y es olhos passeml,

Aqui minha ventura

Quiz que huma grande parte,

Da vida----se passasse.

"It is surrounded by an ocean-stream of salt water. On the herbage that

it produces the flock and the eye jointly pasture. Here fortune willed

that a considerable part of my life should be passed."]

[Footnote 149: That Camoens, banished by Barreto, held a profitable

situation under him seems a contradiction; yet since he amassed a sum of

money that seemed wealth to him, he must have been appointed during the

governorship of Barreto. The Quarterly Review, bent on admiring the

virtues of power, deduces arguments in favour of Barreto: but Camoens

could not have denounced him as he did had he been under obligations to

him, obligations too, which the whole world in India would have

considered full compensation for his exile from Goa. Sousa considers

that his stay was of longer duration at Ternate than we assign, and that

he did not fill the place at Macao till a later period, when it was

given him by Barreto's successor. But then he would not have had time to

amass a fortune. Here therefore is an enigma, whose solution we cannot

discover, unless it be (and it seems the probable conjecture) that the

local governor of Macao preferred Camoens to this place, and Barreto had

nothing at all to do with it.]

[Footnote 150: To this wreck, and to his escape he refers in the

prophetic song in the tenth Lusiad when he speaks of the river Mecon--

"Upon his soft and charitable brim

The wet and shipwrecked song receive shall he,

Which in a lamentable plight shall swim

From shoals and quicksands of tempestuous sea,

The dire effect of exile,--when on _him_

Is executed the unjust decree,

Whose repercussive lyre shall have the fate

To be renowned more than fortunate."

_Lusiad_, canto X. stanza 128.--_Fanshaw's Translation._]

[Footnote 151: We cannot help preferring the faithful and nervous,

though uncouth and even obsolete, translation of Fanshaw to the more

diluted stream of Mickle's heroics. Southey speaks of "the elaborate and

curious infidelity of Mickle's version;" at the same time that he

praises it highly. Desirous of understanding the soul of Camoens, it is

not from his smooth expressions, that the reader unacquainted with

Portuguese can be informed.]

[Footnote 152: Don Joze Faria y Souza, the latest Portuguese

commentator, first suggested this as the probable epoch of dona

Catarina's death, in contradistinction to all other biographers, who

place it on his return from Ceuta. He founds his notion on the internal

evidence of Camoens' lyrics and sonnets, and has made converts of

Adamson and Southey, and will of all future biographers. There is this

of agreeable also; that Camoens is rescued from the charge, that

otherwise lies at his door (and is mentioned by Lord Strangford), of

forgetting dona Catarina as soon as she was no more, and addressing

another lady in the language of constant love. But these poems show by

their context that they were addressed to his first love, who still

lived.]

[Footnote 153: Perpetuo saudade da alma mia.

The word _saudade_ is peculiar to the Portuguese language--it includes

much--a recollection accompanied by affection, and regret, and pleasure:

friends when they write, send saudades instead of our remembrances to

others, and it speaks of more tender and kind feeling.]

[Footnote 154: One of the most perfect and beautiful of Camoens' poems,

is a sonnet which many have preferred to the one of Petrarch on the same

subject, or even to his Trionfa, which also narrates the visionary visit

of his lost love. The following is Mr. Hayley's translation:--

"While prest with woes from which it cannot flee,

My fancy sinks, and slumber seals my eyes,

Her spirit hastens in my dreams to rise,

Who was in life but as a dream to me.

O'er the drear waste, so wide no eye can see

How far its sense-evading limit lies,

I follow her quick step; but ah, she flies!

Our distance wid'ning by fate's stern decree.

'Fly not from me, kind shadow,' I exclaim;

She with fixed eyes, that her soft thoughts reveal,

And seemed to say, 'Forbear thy fond design,'--

Still flies.--I call her, but her half-formed name

Dies on my falt'ring tongue.--I wake and feel

Not e'en one short delusion can be mine."]

[Footnote 155: Southey has given the following account of his

rival:--"Diego Bernardes, one of the best of the Portuguese poets, was

born on the banks of the Lima, and passionately fond of its scenery.

Some of his poems will bear comparison with the best poems of their

kind. There is a charge of plagiarism against him, for having printed

several of Camoen's sonnets as his own: to obtain any proof on this

subject would be very difficult: this, however, is certain, that his own

undisputed productions resemble them so much in affecting tenderness and

sweetness of diction, that the whole appear like the works of one

author."--_Notes to Southey's Don Roderick._ Bernardes, however, had no

reason to congratulate himself on the choice having fallen on him. He

was taken prisoner in the battle in which Sebastian fell; and then he

blamed the unfortunate king, and deplored his own fate--a captive doomed

to labour and chains. He obtained his liberty, and died at Lisbon in

1596, and was buried in the same church a Camoens. Vide Adamson.]

[Footnote 156: Lord Holland possesses a copy of the first edition of the

Lusiad, in which these words were written by the friar Josepe Judio, who

left it in the convent of the barefooted Carmelites of Guadalaxara.]

[Footnote 157: This admirable inscription runs thus in its own native

Portuguese on the stone itself--