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LIBRARY OF THE
WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE
ANCIENT AND MODERN
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER
EDITOR
HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE
GEORGE HENRY WARNER
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Connoisseur Edition
VOL. VIII.
NEW YORK
THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY
Connoisseur Edition
LIMITED TO FIVE HUNDRED COPIES IN HALF RUSSIA
_No_. ..........
Copyright, 1896, by
R. S. PEALE AND J. A. HILL
_All rights reserved_
THE ADVISORY COUNCIL
CRAWFORD H. TOY, A. M., LL. D.,
Professor of Hebrew, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Cambridge, Mass.
THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY, LL. D., L. H. D.,
Professor of English in the Sheffield Scientific School of
YALE UNIVERSITY, New Haven, Conn.
WILLIAM M. SLOANE, PH. D., L. H. D.,
Professor of History and Political Science,
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, Princeton, N. J.
BRANDER MATTHEWS, A. M., LL. B.,
Professor of Literature, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, New York City.
JAMES B. ANGELL, LL. D.,
President of the UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, Ann Arbor, Mich.
WILLARD FISKE, A. M., PH. D.,
Late Professor of the Germanic and Scandinavian Languages
and Literatures, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, Ithaca, N. Y.
EDWARD S. HOLDEN, A. M., LL. D.,
Director of the Lick Observatory, and Astronomer,
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Berkeley, Cal.
ALCEE FORTIER, LIT. D.,
Professor of the Romance Languages,
TULANE UNIVERSITY, New Orleans, La.
WILLIAM P. TRENT, M. A.,
Dean of the Department of Arts and Sciences, and Professor of
English and History, UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH, Sewanee, Tenn.
PAUL SHOREY, PH. D.,
Professor of Greek and Latin Literature,
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, Chicago, Ill.
WILLIAM T. HARRIS, LL. D.,
United States Commissioner of Education,
BUREAU OF EDUCATION, Washington, D. C.
MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, A. M., LL. D.,
Professor of Literature in the
CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, Washington, D. C.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
VOL. VIII
LIVED PAGE
JOHN CALVIN 1509-1564 3117
BY ARTHUR CUSHMAN McGIFFERT
Prefatory Address to the 'Institutes'
Election and Predestination ('Institutes of the Christian
Religion')
Freedom of the Will (same)
LUIZ VAZ DE CAMOENS 1524?-1580 3129
BY HENRY R. LANG
From 'The Lusiads'
The Canzon of Life
Adieu to Coimbra
THOMAS CAMPBELL 1777-1844 3159
Hope ('The Pleasures of Hope')
The Fall of Poland (same)
The Slave (same)
Death and a Future Life (same)
Lochiel's Warning
The Soldier's Dream
Lord Ullin's Daughter
The Exile of Erin
Ye Mariners of England
Hohenlinden
The Battle of Copenhagen
From the 'Ode to Winter'
CAMPION -1619 3184
BY ERNEST RHYS
A Hymn in Praise of Neptune
Of Corinna's Singing
From 'Divine and Moral Songs'
To a Coquette
Songs from 'Light Conceits of Lovers'
GEORGE CANNING 1770-1827 3189
Rogero's Soliloquy ('The Rovers')
The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-Grinder
On the English Constitution ('Speech on Parliamentary Reform')
On Brougham and South America
CESARE CANTU 1807-1895 3199
The Execution ('Margherita Pusterla')
GIOSUE CARDUCCI 1835- 3209
BY FRANK SEWALL
Roma ('Poesie')
Homer ('Levia Gravia')
In a Gothic Church ('Poesie')
On the Sixth Centenary of Dante ('Levia Gravia')
The Ox ('Poesie')
Dante ('Levia Gravia')
To Satan ('Poesie')
To Aurora ('Odi Barbare')
Ruit Hora
The Mother
THOMAS CAREW 1589?-1639 3221
A Song
The Protestation
Song
The Spring
The Inquiry
EMILIA FLYGARE-CARLEN 1807-1892 3225
The Pursuit of the Smugglers ('Merchant House among the
Islands')
THOMAS CARLYLE 1795-1881 3231
BY LESLIE STEPHEN
Labor ('Past and Present')
The World in Clothes ('Sartor Resartus')
Dante ('Heroes and Hero-Worship')
Cromwell (same)
The Procession ('French Revolution')
The Siege of the Bastille (same)
Charlotte Corday (same)
The Scapegoat (same)
BLISS CARMAN 1861- 3302
BY CHARLES G.D. ROBERTS
Hack and Hew
At the Granite Gate
A Sea Child
LEWIS CARROLL (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) 1833- 3307
Alice, the Pig-Baby, and the Cheshire Cat ('Alice in
Wonderland')
The Mock Turtle's Education (same)
A Clear Statement (same)
The Walrus and the Carpenter ('Through the Looking-Glass')
The Baker's Tale ('Hunting of the Snark')
You are Old, Father William ('Alice in Wonderland')
CASANOVA (De Seingalt) 1725-1803 3321
Casanova's Escape from the Ducal Palace ('Escapes of
Casanova and Latude from Prison')
BARTOLOMEO DE LAS CASAS 1474-1566 3333
Of the Island of Cuba ('A Relation of the First Voyage')
BALDASSARE CASTIGLIONE 1478-1529 3339
Of the Court of Urbino ('Il Cortegiano')
CATO THE CENSOR 234-149 B.C. 3347
On Agriculture ('De Agricultura')
From the 'Attic Nights' of Aulus Gellius
JACOB CATS 1577-1660 3353
Fear after the Trouble
"A Rich Man Loses his Child, a Poor Man Loses his Cow"
CATULLUS 84-54 B.C.? 3359
BY J. W. MACKAIL
Dedication for a Volume of A Brother's Grave
Lyrics
A Morning Call
Home to Sirmio
Heart-Break
To Calvus in Bereavement
The Pinnace
An Invitation to Dinner
Farewell to His Fellow Officers
Verses from an Epithalamium
Love is All
Elegy on Lesbia's Sparrow
"Fickle and Changeable Ever"
Two Chords
Last Word to Lesbia
BENVENUTO CELLINI 1500-1571 3371
The Escape from Prison
The Casting of Perseus
A Necklace of Pearls
Benvenuto Loses his Brother
An Adventure in Necromancy
Benvenuto Loses Self-Control under Severe Provocation
(All the above are from Cellini's 'Memoirs,'
Symonds's Translation)
CELTIC LITERATURE 3403
BY WILLIAM SHARP AND ERNEST RHYS
I--IRISH
The Miller of Hell
Signs of Home
Oisin in Tirnanoge
From 'The Coming of Cuculain'
The Mystery of Amergin
The Song of Fionn
Vision of a Fair Woman
From 'The Wanderings of Oisin'
The Madness of King Goll
II--SCOTTISH
St. Bridget's Milking Song
Prologue to Gaul
Columcille Fecit
In Hebrid Seas
III--WELSH
IV--CORNISH
From 'The Poem of the Passion'
From 'Origo Mundi,' in the 'Ordinalia'
CERVANTES 1547-1616 3451
BY GEORGE SANTAYANA
Treating of the Character and Pursuits of Don Quixote
Of What Happened to Don Quixote when he Left the Inn
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza Sally Forth: and the
Adventure with the Windmills
Sancho Panza and his Wife Teresa Converse Shrewdly
Of Sancho Panza's Delectable Discourse with the Duchess
Sancho as Governor
The Ending of All Don Quixote's Adventures
FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME VIII
PAGE
Miniature Painting of the Middle Ages (Colored Plate) Frontispiece
John Calvin (Portrait) 3118
The Septuagint (Fac-simile) 3124
Luiz Vaz de Camoens (Portrait) 3130
"Hohenlinden" (Photogravure) 3178
"Homer" (Photogravure) 3209
Thomas Carlyle (Portrait) 3232
"Charlotte Corday in Prison" (Photogravure) 3290
Benvenuto Cellini (Portrait) 3374
Cervantes (Portrait) 3464
VIGNETTE PORTRAITS
Thomas Campbell
George Canning
Emilia Flygare-Carlen
Bliss Carman
Bartolorneo de las Casas
Baldassare Castiglione
Jacob Cats
Valerius Catullus
JOHN CALVIN
(1509-1564)
BY ARTHUR CUSHMAN McGIFFERT
John Calvin was born in the village of Noyon, in northeastern France,
on the 10th of July, 1509. He was intended by his parents for the
priesthood, for which he seemed to be peculiarly fitted by his
naturally austere disposition, averse to every form of sport or
frivolity, and he was given an excellent education with that calling
in view; but finally at the command of his father--whose plans for his
son had undergone a change--he gave up his theological preparation and
devoted himself to the study of law. Gifted with an extraordinary
memory, rare insight, and an uncommonly keen reasoning faculty, he
speedily distinguished himself in his new field, and a brilliant
career was predicted for him by his teachers. His tastes however were
more literary than legal, and his first published work, written at the
age of twenty-three, was a commentary on Seneca's 'De Clementia,'
which brought him wide repute as a classical scholar and as a clear
and forceful writer.
Though he had apparently renounced forever all thoughts of a clerical
life, he retained, even while he was engaged in the study of law and
in the more congenial pursuit of literature, his early love for
theology; and in 1532, under the influence of some of Luther's
writings which happened to fall into his hands, he was converted to
the Protestant faith and threw in his fortunes with the little
evangelical party in Paris. His intellectual attainments made him a
marked man wherever he went, and he speedily became the leading spirit
in the circle to which he had attached himself. Compelled soon
afterward by the persecuting measures of King Francis I. to flee the
country, he took up his residence at Basle and settled down, as he
hoped, to a quiet literary life. It was during his stay here that he
published in 1536 the first edition of his greatest work, 'The
Christian Institutes,' in which is contained the system of theology
which has for centuries borne his name, and by which he is best known
to the world at large. Probably no other work written by so young a
man has ever produced such a wide-spread, profound, and lasting
influence. In its original form, it is true, the work was only a brief
and simple introduction to the study of the Scriptures, much less
imposing and forbidding than the elaborate body of divinity which is
now known to theologians as 'Calvin's Institutes': but all the
substance of the last edition is to be found in the first; the
theology of the one is the theology of the other--the Calvin of 1559
is the Calvin of 1536. The fact that at the age of twenty-six Calvin
could publish a system of theology at once so original and so
profound--a system, moreover, which with all his activity of intellect
and love of truth he never had occasion to modify in any essential
particular--is one of the most striking phenomena in the history of
the human mind; and yet it is but one of many illustrations of the
man's marvelous clearness and comprehensiveness of vision, and of his
force and decision of character. His life from beginning to end was
the consistent unfolding of a single dominant principle--the
unwavering pursuit of a single controlling purpose. From his earliest
youth the sense of duty was all-supreme with him; he lived under a
constant imperative--in awe of, and in reverent obedience to, the will
of a sovereign God; and his theology is but the translation into
language of that experience; its translation by one of the world's
greatest masters of logical thought and of clear speech.
Calvin's great work was accompanied by a dedicatory epistle addressed
to King Francis I., which is by common consent one of the finest
specimens of courteous and convincing apology in existence. A brief
extract from it will be found in the selections given below.
Soon after the publication of the 'Institutes,' Calvin's plans for a
quiet literary career were interrupted by a peremptory call to assist
in the work of reforming the Church and State of Geneva; and the
remainder of his life, with the exception of a brief interval of
exile, was spent in that city, at the head of a religious movement
whose influence was ultimately felt throughout all Western Europe.
It is true that Calvin was not the originating genius of the
Reformation--that he belonged only to the second generation of
reformers, and that he learned the Protestant faith from Luther.
But he became for the peoples of Western Europe what Luther was for
Germany, and he gave his own peculiar type of Protestantism--that type
which was congenial to his disposition and experience--to Switzerland,
to France, to the Netherlands, to Scotland, and through the Dutch, the
English Puritans, and the Scotch Presbyterians, to large portions of
the New World. Calvin, to be sure, is not widely popular to-day even
in those lands which owe him most, for he had little of that human
sympathy which glorifies the best thought and life of the present age;
but for all that, he has left his mark upon the world, and his
influence is not likely ever to be wholly outgrown. His emphasis upon
God's holiness made his followers scrupulously, even censoriously
pure; his emphasis upon God's will made them stern and unyielding in
the performance of what they believed to be their duty; his emphasis
upon God's majesty, paradoxical though it may seem at first sight,
promoted in no small degree the growth of civil and religious liberty,
for it dwarfed all mere human authority and made men bold to withstand
the unlawful encroachments of their fellows. Thus Calvin became a
mighty force in the world, though he gave the world far more of law
than of gospel, far more of Moses than of Christ.
[Illustration: JOHN CALVIN.]
Calvin's career as a writer began at an early day and continued until
his death. His pen was a ready one and was seldom idle. In the midst
of the most engrossing cares and occupations--the cares and
occupations of a preacher, a pastor, a teacher of theology, a
statesman, and a reformer to whom the Protestants of many lands looked
for inspiration and for counsel--he found time, though he died at the
early age of fifty-four, to produce works that to-day fill more than
threescore volumes, and all of which bear the unmistakable impress of
a great mind. In addition to his 'Institutes,' theological and ethical
tracts, and treatises, sermons, and epistles without number, he wrote
commentaries upon almost all the books of the Bible; which for
lucidity, for wide and accurate learning, and for sound and ripe
judgment, have never been surpassed. Among the most characteristic and
important of his briefer works are his vigorous and effective 'Reply
to Cardinal Sadolet,' who had endeavored after Calvin's exile from
Geneva in 1539 to win back the Genevese to the Roman Church; his tract
on 'The Necessity of Reforming the Church; presented to the Imperial
Diet at Spires, A.D. 1544, in the cause of all who wish with Christ
to reign'--an admirable statement of the conditions which had made a
reformation of the Church imperatively necessary, and had led to the
great religious and ecclesiastical revolution; another tract on 'The
True Method of Giving Peace to Christendom and Reforming the
Church,'--marked by a beautiful Christian spirit and permeated with
sound practical sense; still another containing 'Articles Agreed Upon
by the Faculty of Sacred Theology at Paris, with the Antidote', and
finally an 'Admonition Showing the Advantages which Christendom might
Derive from an Inventory of Relics.' Though Calvin was from boyhood up
of a most serious turn of mind, and though his writings, in marked
contrast to the writings of Luther, exhibit few if any traces of
genial spontaneous humor, the last two works show that he knew how to
employ satire on occasion in a very telling way for the overthrow of
error and for the discomfiture of his opponents.
In addition to the services which Calvin rendered by his writings to
the cause of Christianity and of sacred learning, must be recognized
the lasting obligation under which as an author he put his mother
tongue. Whether he wrote in Latin or in French, his style was always
chaste, elegant, clear, and vigorous. His Latin compares favorably
with the best models of antiquity; his French is a new creation. The
latter language indeed owes almost as much to Calvin as the German
language owes to Luther. He was unquestionably its greatest master in
the sixteenth century, and he did more than any one else to fix its
permanent character--to give it that exactness, that lucidity, that
purity and harmony of which it justly boasts.
Calvin's writings bear throughout the imprint of his character. There
appears in all of them the same horror of impurity and dishonor, the
same stern sense of duty, the same respect for the sovereignty of the
Almighty, the same severe judgment of human failings. To read them is
to breathe the tonic air of snow-clad heights; but they are seldom if
ever touched with the tender glow of human feeling or transfigured
with the radiance of creative imagination. There is that in David, in
Isaiah, in Paul, in Luther, which appeals to every heart and makes
their words immortal; but Calvin was neither poet nor prophet,--the
divine afflatus was not his,--and it is not without reason that his
writings, vigorous, forceful, profound, as is their context, and pure
and elegant as is their style, are read to-day only by theologians or
historians.
[Signature: Arthur Cushman McGiffert]
PREFATORY ADDRESS TO THE 'INSTITUTES'
TO FRANCIS, KING OF THE FRENCH, the most Christian Majesty,
the most Mighty and Illustrious Monarch, his Sovereign,--John
Calvin prays peace and salvation in Christ.
_Sire:_--When I first engaged in this work, nothing was further from
my thoughts than to write what should afterwards be presented to your
Majesty. My intention was only to furnish a kind of rudiments, by
which those who feel some interest in religion might be trained to
true godliness. And I toiled at the task chiefly for the sake of my
countrymen the French, multitudes of whom I perceived to be hungering
and thirsting after Christ, while very few seemed to have been duly
imbued with even a slender knowledge of him. That this was the object
which I had in view is apparent from the work itself, which is written
in a simple and elementary form, adapted for instruction.
But when I perceived that the fury of certain bad men had risen to
such a height in your realm that there was no place in it for sound
doctrine, I thought it might be of service if I were in the same work
both to give instruction to my countrymen, and also lay before your
Majesty a Confession, from which you may learn what the doctrine is
that so inflames the rage of those madmen who are this day with fire
and sword troubling your kingdom. For I fear not to declare that what
I have here given may be regarded as a summary of the very doctrine
which, they vociferate, ought to be punished with confiscation, exile,
imprisonment, and flames, as well as exterminated by land and sea.
I am aware indeed how, in order to render our cause as hateful to your
Majesty as possible, they have filled your ears and mind with
atrocious insinuations; but you will be pleased of your clemency to
reflect that neither in word nor deed could there be any innocence,
were it sufficient merely to accuse. When any one, with the view of
exciting prejudice, observes that this doctrine of which I am
endeavoring to give your Majesty an account has been condemned by the
suffrages of all the estates, and was long ago stabbed again and again
by partial sentences of courts of law, he undoubtedly says nothing
more than that it has sometimes been violently oppressed by the power
and faction of adversaries, and sometimes fraudulently and insidiously
overwhelmed by lies, cavils, and calumny. While a cause is unheard, it
is violence to pass sanguinary sentences against it; it is fraud to
charge it, contrary to its deserts, with sedition and mischief.
That no one may suppose we are unjust in thus complaining, you
yourself, most illustrious Sovereign, can bear us witness with what
lying calumnies it is daily traduced in your presence; as aiming at
nothing else than to wrest the sceptres of kings out of their hands,
to overturn all tribunals and seats of justice, to subvert all order
and government, to disturb the peace and quiet of society, to abolish
all laws, destroy the distinctions of rank and property, and in short
turn all things upside down. And yet that which you hear is but the
smallest portion of what is said; for among the common people are
disseminated certain horrible insinuations--insinuations which, if
well founded, would justify the whole world in condemning the doctrine
with its authors to a thousand fires and gibbets. Who can wonder that
the popular hatred is inflamed against it, when credit is given to
those most iniquitous accusations? See why all ranks unite with one
accord in condemning our persons and our doctrine!
Carried away by this feeling, those who sit in judgment merely give
utterance to the prejudices which they have imbibed at home, and think
they have duly performed their part if they do not order punishment to
be inflicted on any one until convicted, either on his own confession,
or on legal evidence. But of what crime convicted? "Of that condemned
doctrine," is the answer. But with what justice condemned? The very
evidence of the defense was not to abjure the doctrine itself, but to
maintain its truth. On this subject, however, not a whisper is
allowed....
It is plain indeed that we fear God sincerely and worship him in
truth, since, whether by life or by death, we desire his name to be
hallowed; and hatred herself has been forced to bear testimony to the
innocence and civil integrity of some of our people, on whom death was
inflicted for the very thing which deserved the highest praise. But if
any, under pretext of the gospel, excite tumults (none such have as
yet been detected in your realm), if any use the liberty of the grace
of God as a cloak for licentiousness (I know of numbers who do), there
are laws and legal punishments by which they may be punished up to the
measure of their deserts; only in the mean time let not the gospel of
God be evil spoken of because of the iniquities of evil men.
Sire, that you may not lend too credulous an ear to the accusations of
our enemies, their virulent injustice has been set before you at
sufficient length: I fear even more than sufficient, since this
preface has grown almost to the bulk of a full apology. My object
however was not to frame a defense, but only with a view to the
hearing of our cause, to mollify your mind, now indeed turned away and
estranged from us,--I add, even inflamed against us,--but whose good
will, we are confident, we should regain, would you but once with
calmness and composure read this our Confession, which we desire your
Majesty to accept instead of a defense. But if the whispers of the
malevolent so possess your ear that the accused are to have no
opportunity of pleading their cause; if those vindictive furies, with
your connivance, are always to rage with bonds, scourgings, tortures,
maimings, and burnings--we indeed, like sheep doomed to slaughter,
shall be reduced to every extremity; yet so that in our patience we
will possess our souls, and wait for the strong hand of the Lord,
which doubtless will appear in its own time, and show itself armed,
both to rescue the poor from affliction and also take vengeance on the
despisers, who are now exulting so securely.
Most illustrious King, may the Lord, the King of kings, establish your
throne in righteousness and your sceptre in equity.
BASLE, August 1st, 1536.
ELECTION AND PREDESTINATION
From the 'Institutes of the Christian Religion'
The human mind when it hears this doctrine of election cannot restrain
its petulance, but boils and rages as if aroused by the sound of a
trumpet. Many, professing a desire to defend the Deity from an
invidious charge, admit the doctrine of election but deny that any one
is reprobated (Bernard, in 'Die Ascensionis,' Serm. 2). This they do
ignorantly and childishly, since there could be no election without
its opposite, reprobation. God is said to set apart those whom he
adopts for salvation. It were most absurd to say that he admits others
fortuitously, or that they by their industry acquire what election
alone confers on a few. Those therefore whom God passes by he
reprobates, and that for no other cause but because he is pleased to
exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines to his
children. Nor is it possible to tolerate the petulance of men in
refusing to be restrained by the word of God, in regard to his
incomprehensible counsel, which even angels adore.
We have already been told that hardening is not less under the
immediate hand of God than mercy. Paul does not, after the example of
those whom I have mentioned, labor anxiously to defend God by calling
in the aid of falsehood; he only reminds us that it is unlawful for
the creature to quarrel with its Creator. Then how will those who
refuse to admit that any are reprobated by God, explain the following
words of Christ? "Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not
planted shall be rooted up" (Matth. xv. 13). They are plainly told
that all whom the heavenly Father has not been pleased to plant as
sacred trees in his garden are doomed and devoted to destruction. If
they deny that this is a sign of reprobation, there is nothing,
however clear, that can be proved to them. But if they will still
murmur, let us in the soberness of faith rest contented with the
admonition of Paul, that it can be no ground of complaint that God,
"willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with
much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction: and
that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of
mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory" (Rom. ix. 22, 23). Let
my readers observe that Paul, to cut off all handle for murmuring and
detraction, attributes supreme sovereignty to the wrath and power of
God; for it were unjust that those profound judgments which transcend
all our powers of discernment should be subjected to our calculation.
It is frivolous in our opponents to reply that God does not altogether
reject those whom in lenity he tolerates, but remains in suspense with
regard to them, if peradventure they may repent; as if Paul were
representing God as patiently waiting for the conversion of those whom
he describes as fitted for destruction. For Augustine, rightly
expounding this passage, says that where power is united to endurance,
God does not permit, but rules (August. Cont. Julian., Lib. v., c. 5).
They add also, that it is not without cause the vessels of wrath are
said to be fitted for destruction, and that God is said to have
prepared the vessels of mercy, because in this way the praise of
salvation is claimed for God; whereas the blame of perdition is thrown
upon those who of their own accord bring it upon themselves. But were
I to concede that by the different forms of expression Paul softens
the harshness of the former clause, it by no means follows that he
transfers the preparation for destruction to any other cause than the
secret counsel of God. This indeed is asserted in the preceding
context, where God is said to have raised up Pharaoh, and to harden
whom he will. Hence it follows that the hidden counsel of God is the
cause of hardening. I at least hold with Augustine, that when God
makes sheep out of wolves he forms them again by the powerful
influence of grace, that their hardness may thus be subdued; and that
he does not convert the obstinate, because he does not exert that more
powerful grace, a grace which he has at command if he were disposed to
use it (August, de Praedest. Sanct., Lib. i., c. 2)....
[Illustration: _SEPTUAGINT._
Facsimile, somewhat reduced, of a page of the
VATICAN MANUSCRIPT.
Fourth Century. Vatican Library.
The Septuagint is the Greek translation, by seventy elders, of
the Hebrew Bible.
The earlier copies are all in uncial or "capital" letters,
cursive or "lower-case" letters being a later invention.
This is a good specimen of the hand-work of the ecclesiastical
scribes of the fourth century.]
Accordingly, when we are accosted in such terms as these: Why did God
from the first predestine some to death, when as they were not yet in
existence, they could not have merited sentence of death?--let us by
way of reply ask in our turn, What do you imagine that God owes to
man, if he is pleased to estimate him by his own nature? As we are all
vitiated by sin, we cannot but be hateful to God, and that not from
tyrannical cruelty, but the strictest justice. But if all whom the
Lord predestines to death are naturally liable to sentence of death,
of what injustice, pray, do they complain? Should all the sons of Adam
come to dispute and contend with their Creator, because by his eternal
providence they were before their birth doomed to perpetual
destruction: when God comes to reckon with them, what will they be
able to mutter against this defense? If all are taken from a corrupt
mass, it is not strange that all are subject to condemnation. Let them
not therefore charge God with injustice, if by his eternal judgment
they are doomed to a death to which they themselves feel that, whether
they will or not, they are drawn spontaneously by their own nature.
Hence it appears how perverse is this affectation of murmuring, when
of set purpose they suppress the cause of condemnation which they are
compelled to recognize in themselves, that they may lay the blame upon
God. But though I should confess a hundred times that God is the
author (and it is most certain that he is), they do not however
thereby efface their own guilt, which, engraven on their own
consciences, is ever and anon presenting itself to their view....
If God merely foresaw human events, and did not also arrange and
dispose of them at his pleasure, there might be room for agitating the
question, how far his foreknowledge amounts to necessity; but since he
foresees the things which are to happen, simply because he has decreed
that they are so to happen, it is vain to debate about prescience,
while it is clear that all events take place by his sovereign
appointment.
They deny that it is ever said in distinct terms, God decreed that
Adam should perish by his revolt. As if the same God who is declared
in Scripture to do whatsoever he pleases could have made the noblest
of his creatures without any special purpose. They say that, in
accordance with free will, he was to be the architect of his own
fortune; that God had decreed nothing but to treat him according to
his desert. If this frigid fiction is received, where will be the
omnipotence of God, by which, according to his secret counsel on which
everything depends, he rules over all? But whether they will allow it
or not, predestination is manifest in Adam's posterity. It was not
owing to nature that they all lost salvation by the fault of one
parent. Why should they refuse to admit with regard to one man that
which against their will they admit with regard to the whole human
race? Why should they in caviling lose their labor? Scripture
proclaims that all were, in the person of one, made liable to eternal
death. As this cannot be ascribed to nature, it is plain that it is
owing to the wonderful counsel of God. It is very absurd in these
worthy defenders of the justice of God to strain at a gnat and swallow
a camel. I again ask how it is that the fall of Adam involves so many
nations with their infant children in eternal death without remedy,
unless that it so seemed meet to God? Here the most loquacious tongues
must be dumb. The decree, I admit, is dreadful; and yet it is
impossible to deny that God foreknew what the end of man was to be
before he made him, and foreknew because he had so ordained by his
decree. Should any one here inveigh against the prescience of God, he
does it rashly and unadvisedly. For why, pray, should it be made a
charge against the heavenly Judge, that he was not ignorant of what
was to happen? Thus, if there is any just or plausible complaint, it
must be directed against predestination. Nor ought it to seem absurd
when I say that God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in
him the ruin of his posterity, but also at his own pleasure arranged
it. For as it belongs to his wisdom to foreknow all future events, so
it belongs to his power to rule and govern them by his hand.
FREEDOM OF THE WILL
From the 'Institutes of the Christian Religion'
God has provided the soul of man with intellect, by which he might
discern good from evil, just from unjust, and might know what to
follow or to shun, reason going before with her lamp; whence
philosophers, in reference to her directing power, have called her
[Greek: to hegemonichon]. To this he has joined will, to which
choice belongs. Man excelled in these noble endowments in his
primitive condition, when reason, intelligence, prudence, and judgment
not only sufficed for the government of his earthly life, but also
enabled him to rise up to God and eternal happiness. Thereafter choice
was added to direct the appetites and temper all the organic motions;
the will being thus perfectly submissive to the authority of reason.
In this upright state, man possessed freedom of will, by which if he
chose he was able to obtain eternal life. It were here unseasonable to
introduce the question concerning the secret predestination of God,
because we are not considering what might or might not happen, but
what the nature of man truly was. Adam, therefore, might have stood if
he chose, since it was only by his own will that he fell; but it was
because his will was pliable in either direction, and he had not
received constancy to persevere, that he so easily fell. Still he had
a free choice of good and evil; and not only so, but in the mind and
will there was the highest rectitude, and all the organic parts were
duly framed to obedience, until man corrupted its good properties, and
destroyed himself. Hence the great darkness of philosophers who have
looked for a complete building in a ruin, and fit arrangement in
disorder. The principle they set out with was, that man could not be a
rational animal unless he had a free choice of good and evil. They
also imagined that the distinction between virtue and vice was
destroyed, if man did not of his own counsel arrange his life. So far
well, had there been no change in man. This being unknown to them, it
is not surprising that they throw everything into confusion. But those
who, while they profess to be the disciples of Christ, still seek for
free-will in man, notwithstanding of his being lost and drowned in
spiritual destruction, labor under manifold delusion, making a
heterogeneous mixture of inspired doctrine and philosophical opinions,
and so erring as to both. But it will be better to leave these things
to their own place. At present it is necessary only to remember that
man at his first creation was very different from all his posterity;
who, deriving their origin from him after he was corrupted, received a
hereditary taint. At first every part of the soul was formed to
rectitude. There was soundness of mind and freedom of will to choose
the good. If any one objects that it was placed, as it were, in a
slippery position because its power was weak, I answer, that the
degree conferred was sufficient to take away every excuse. For surely
the Deity could not be tied down to this condition,--to make man such
that he either could not or would not sin. Such a nature might have
been more excellent; but to expostulate with God as if he had been
bound to confer this nature on man, is more than unjust, seeing he had
full right to determine how much or how little he would give. Why he
did not sustain him by the virtue of perseverance is hidden in his
counsel; it is ours to keep within the bounds of soberness. Man had
received the power, if he had the will, but he had not the will which
would have given the power; for this will would have been followed by
perseverance. Still, after he had received so much, there is no excuse
for his having spontaneously brought death upon himself. No necessity
was laid upon God to give him more than that intermediate and even
transient will, that out of man's fall he might extract materials for
his own glory.
LUIZ VAZ DE CAMOENS
(1524?-1580)
BY HENRY R. LANG
Portuguese literature is usually divided into six periods, which
correspond, in the main, to the successive literary movements of the
other Romance nations which it followed.
_First Period_ (1200-1385), Provencal and French influences. Soon
after the founding of the Portuguese State by Henry of Burgundy and
his knights in the beginning of the twelfth century, the nobles of
Portugal and Galicia, which regions form a unit in race and speech,
began to imitate in their native idiom the art of the Provencal
troubadours who visited the courts of Leon and Castile. This courtly
lyric poetry in the Gallego-Portuguese dialect, which was also
cultivated in the rest of the peninsula excepting the East, reached
its height under Alphonso X. of Castile (1252-84), himself a noted
poet and patron of this art, and under King Dionysius of Portugal
(1279-1325), the most gifted of all these troubadours. The collections
(_cancioneiros_) of the works of this school preserved to us contain
the names of one hundred and sixty-three poets and some two thousand
compositions (inclusive of the four hundred and one spiritual songs of
Alphonso X.). Of this body of verse, two-thirds affect the artificial
style of Provencal lyrics, while one-third is derived from the
indigenous popular poetry. This latter part contains the so-called
_cantigas de amigo_, songs of charming simplicity of form and
naivete of spirit in which a woman addresses her lover either in a
monologue or in a dialogue. It is this native poetry, still echoed in
the modern folk-song of Galicia and Portugal, that imparted to the
Gallego-Portuguese lyric school the decidedly original coloring and
vigorous growth which assign it an independent position in the
mediaeval literature of the Romance nations.
Composition in prose also began in this period, consisting chiefly in
genealogies, chronicles, and in translations from Latin and French
dealing with religious subjects and the romantic traditions of British
origin, such as the 'Demanda do Santo Graal.' It is now almost certain
that the original of the Spanish version of the 'Amadis de Gaula'
(1480) was the work of a Portuguese troubadour of the thirteenth
century, Joam de Lobeira.
_Second Period_ (1385-1521), Spanish influence. Instead of the
Provencal style, the courtly circles now began to cultivate the native
popular forms, the _copla_ and _quadra_, and to compose in the
dialect of Castile, which communicated to them the influence of the
Italian Renaissance, with the vision and allegory of Dante and a
fuller understanding of classical antiquity. These two literary
currents became the formative elements of the second poetic school of
an aristocratic character in Portugal, at the courts of Alphonse V.
(1438-1481), John II. (1481-95), and Emanuel (1495-1521), whose works
were collected by the poet Garcia de Resende in the 'Cancioneiro
Geral' (Lisbon, 1516).
The prose-literature of this period is rich in translations from the
Latin classics, and chiefly noteworthy for the great Portuguese
chronicles which it produced. The most prominent writer was Fernam
Lopes (1454), the founder of Portuguese historiography and the "father
of Portuguese prose."
_Third Period_ (1521-1580), Italian influence. This is the classic
epoch of Portuguese literature, born of the powerful rise of the
Portuguese State during its period of discovery and conquest, and of
the dominant influence of the Italian Renaissance. It opens with three
authors who were prominently active in the preceding literary school,
but whose principal influence lies in this. These are Christovam
Falcao and Bernardim Ribeiro, the founders of the bucolic poem and the
sentimental pastoral romance, and Gil Vicente, a comic writer of
superior talent, who is called the father of the Portuguese drama, and
who, next to Camoens, is the greatest figure of this period. Its real
initiator, however, was Francesco Sa' de Miranda (1495-1557) who, on
his return from a six-years' study in Italy in 1521, introduced the
lyric forms of Petrarch and his followers as the only true models for
composition. Besides giving by his example a classic form to lyrics,
especially to the sonnet, and cultivating the pastoral poem, Sa' de
Miranda, desirous of breaking the influence of Gil Vicente's dramas,
wrote two comedies of intrigue in the style of the Italians and of
Plautus and Terence. His attempts in this direction, however, found no
followers, the only exception being Ferreira's tragedy 'Ines de
Castro' in the antique style. The greatest poet of this period, and
indeed in the whole history of Portuguese literature, is Luiz de
Camoens, in whose works, epic, lyric, and dramatic, the cultivation of
the two literary currents of this epoch, the national and the
Renaissance, attained to its highest perfection, and to whom
Portuguese literature chiefly owes its place in the literature of the
world.
Among the works in prose produced during this time are of especial
importance the historical writings, such as the 'Decadas' of Joao de
Barros (1496-1570), the "Livy of Portugal" and the numerous romances
of chivalry.
[Illustration: LUIS DE CAMOENS.]
_Fourth Period_ (1580-1700), Culteranistic influence. The political
decline of Portugal is accompanied by one in its literature. While
some lyric poetry is still written in the spirit of Camoens, and the
pastoral romance in the national style is cultivated by some authors,
Portuguese literature on the whole is completely under the influence
of the Spanish, receiving from the latter the euphuistic movement,
known in Spain as _culteranismo_ or _Gongorismo_. Many writers of
talent of this time used the Spanish language in preference to their
own. It is thus that the charming pastoral poem 'Diana,' by Jorge de
Montemor, though composed by a Portuguese and in a vein so peculiar to
his nation, is credited to Spanish literature.
_Fifth Period_ (1700-1825), Pseudo-Classicism. The influence of the
French classic school, felt in all European literatures, became
paramount in Portugal. Excepting the works of a few talented members
of the society called "Arcadia," little of literary interest was
produced until the appearance, at the end of the century, of Francisco
Manoel de Nascimento and Manoel Maria Barbosa du Bocage, two poets of
decided talent who connect this period with the following.
_Sixth Period_ (since 1825), Romanticism. The initiator of this
movement in Portugal was Almeida-Garrett (1799-1854), with Gil Vicente
and Camoens one of the three great poets Portugal has produced, who
revived and strengthened the sense of national life in his country by
his 'Camoens,' an epic of glowing patriotism published during his
exile in 1825, by his national dramas, and by the collection of the
popular traditions of his people, which he began and which has since
been zealously continued in all parts of the country. The second
influential leader of romanticism was Alexandre Herculano (1810-1877),
great especially as national historian, but also a novelist and poet
of superior merit. The labors of these two men bore fruit, since the
middle of the century, in what may be termed an intellectual
renovation of Portugal which first found expression in the so-called
Coimbra School, and has since been supported by such men as Theophilo
Braga, F. Adolpho Coelho, Joaquim de Vasconcellos, J. Leite de
Vasconcellos, and others, whose life-work is devoted to the conviction
that only a thorough and critical study of their country's past can
inspire its literature with new life and vigor and maintain the sense
of national independence.
* * * * *
LUIZ VAZ DE CAMOENS, Portugal's greatest poet and patriot, was born in
1524 or 1525, most probably at Coimbra, as the son of Simao Vaz de
Camoens and Donna Anna de Macedo of Santarem. Through his father, a
_cavalleiro fidalgo_, or untitled nobleman, who was related with Vasco
da Gama, Camoens descended from an ancient and once influential noble
family of Galician origin. He spent his youth at Coimbra, and though
his name is not found in the registers of the university, which had
been removed to that city in 1537, and of which his uncle, Bento de
Camoens, prior of the monastery of Santa Cruz, was made chancellor in
1539, it was presumably in that institution, then justly famous, that
the highly gifted youth acquired his uncommon familiarity with the
classics and with the literatures of Spain, Italy, and that of his own
country. In 1542 we find Camoens exchanging his _alma mater_ for the
gay and brilliant court of John III., then at Lisbon, where his gentle
birth, his poetic genius, and his fine personal appearance brought him
much favor, especially with the fair sex, while his independent
bearing and indiscreet speech aroused the jealousy and enmity of his
rivals. Here he woos and wins the damsels of the palace until a
high-born lady in attendance upon the Queen, Donna Catharina de
Athaide,--whom, like Petrarch, he claims to have first seen on Good
Friday in church, and who is celebrated in his poems under the anagram
of _Natercia_,--inspires him with a deep and enduring passion.
Irritated by the intrigues employed by his enemies to mar his
prospects, the impetuous youth commits imprudent acts which lead to
his banishment from the city in 1546. For about a year he lives in
enforced retirement on the Upper Tagus (_Ribatejo_), pouring out his
profound passion and grief in a number of beautiful sonnets and
elegies. Most likely in consequence of some new offense, he is next
exiled for two years to Ceuta in Africa, where, in a fight with the
Moors, he loses his right eye by a chance splinter. Meeting on his
return to Lisbon in 1547 neither with pardon for his indiscretions nor
with recognition for his services and poetic talent, he allows his
keen resentment of this unjust treatment to impel him into the
reckless and turbulent life of a bully. It was thus that during the
festival of Corpus Christi in 1552 he got into a quarrel with Goncalo
Borges, one of the King's equerries, in which he wounded the latter.
For this Camoens was thrown into jail until March, 1553, when he was
released only on condition that he should embark to serve in India.
Not quite two weeks after leaving his prison, on March 24th, he sailed
for India on the flag-ship Sam Bento, bidding, as a true Renaissance
poet, farewell to his native land in the words of Scipio which were to
come true: "Ingrata patria non possidebis ossa mea." After a stormy
passage of six months, the Sam Bento cast anchor in the bay of Goa.
Camoens first took part in an expedition against the King of Pimenta,
and in the following year (1554) he joined another directed against
the Moorish pirates on the coast of Africa. The scenes of drunkenness
and dissoluteness which he witnessed in Goa inspired him with a number
of satirical poems, by which he drew upon himself much enmity and
persecution. In 1556 his three-years' term of service expired; but
though ardently longing for his beloved native land, he remained in
Goa, influenced either by his bent for the soldier's life or by the
sad news of the death of Donna Catharina de Athaide in that year. He
was ordered to Macao in China, to the lucrative post of commissary for
the effects of deceased or absent Portuguese subjects. There, in the
quietude of a grotto near Macao, still called the Grotto of Camoens,
the exiled poet finished the first six cantos of his great epic 'The
Lusiads.' Recalled from this post in 1558, before the expiration of
his term, on the charge of malversation of office, Camoens on his
return voyage to Goa was shipwrecked near the mouth of the Me-Kong,
saving nothing but his faithful Javanese slave and the manuscript of
his 'Lusiads'--which, swimming with one hand, he held above the water
with the other. In Cambodia, where he remained several months, he
wrote his marvelous paraphrase of the 137th psalm, contrasting under
the allegory of Babel (Babylon) and Siam (Zion), Goa and Lisbon. Upon
his return to Goa he was cast into prison, but soon set free on
proving his innocence by a public trial. Though receiving, in 1557,
another lucrative employment, Camoens finally resolved to go home,
burning with the desire to lay his patriotic song, now almost
completed, before his nation, and to cover with honor his injured
name.
He accepted a passage to Sofala offered him by Pedro Barreto, who had
become viceroy of Mozambique in that year. Unable to refund the amount
of the passage, he was once more held for debt and spent two years of
misery and distress in Mozambique, completing and polishing during
this time his great epic song and preparing the collection of his
lyrics, his 'Parnasso.' In 1559 he was released by the historian Diogo
do Couto and other friends of his, visiting Sofala with the expedition
of Noronha, and embarked on the Santa Clara for Lisbon.
On the 7th of April, 1570, Camoens once more set foot on his native
soil, only to find the city for which he had yearned, sadly changed.
The government was in the hands of a brave but harebrained and fanatic
young monarch, ruled by the Jesuits; the capital had been ravaged by a
terrible plague which had carried off fifty thousand souls; and its
society had no room for a man who brought with him from the Indies,
whence so many returned with great riches, nothing but a manuscript,
though in it was sung in classic verse the glory of his people. Still,
through the kind offices of his warm friend Dom Manoel de Portugal,
Camoens obtained, on the 25th of September, 1571, the royal permission
to print his epic. It was published in the spring of the following
year (March, 1572). Great as was the success of the work, which marked
a new epoch in Portuguese history, the reward which the poet received
for it was meagre. King Sebastian granted him an annual pension of
fifteen thousand reis (fifteen dollars, which then had the purchasing
value of about sixty dollars in our money), which, after the poet's
death, was ordered by Philip II. to be paid to his aged mother.
Destitute and broken in spirit, Camoens lived for the last eight years
of his life with his mother in a humble house near the convent of
Santa Ana, "in the knowledge of many and in the society of few." Dom
Sebastian's departure early in 1578 for the conquest in Africa once
more kindled patriotic hopes in his breast; but the terrible defeat at
Alcazarquivir (August 4th of the same year), in which Portugal lost
her king and her army, broke his heart. He died on the 10th of June,
1580, at which time the army of Philip II., under the command of the
Duke of Alva, was marching upon Lisbon. He was thus spared the cruel
blow of seeing, though not of foreseeing, the national death of his
country. The story that his Javanese slave Antonio used to go out at
night to beg of passers-by alms for his master, is one of a number of
touching legends which, as early as 1572, popular fancy had begun to
weave around the poet's life. It is true, however, that Camoens
breathed his last in dire distress and isolation, and was buried
"poorly and plebeianly" in the neighboring convent of Santa Ana. It
was not until sixteen years later that a friend of his, Dom Goncalo
Coutinho, caused his grave to be marked with a marble slab bearing the
inscription:--"Here lies Luis de Camoens, Prince of the Poets of his
time. He died in the year 1579. This tomb was placed for him by order
of D. Goncalo Coutinho, and none shall be buried in it." The words "He
lived poor and neglected, and so died," which in the popular tradition
form part of this inscription, are apocryphal, though entirely in
conformity with the facts. The correctness of 1580 instead of 1579 as
the year of the poet's death is proven by an official document in the
archives of Philip II. Both the memorial slab and the convent-church
of Santa Ana were destroyed by the earthquake of 1755 and during the
rebuilding of the convent, and the identification of the remains of
the great man thus rendered well-nigh impossible. In 1854, however,
all the bones found under the floor of the convent-church were placed
in a coffin of Brazil-wood and solemnly deposited in the convent at
Belem, the Pantheon of King Emanuel. In 1867 a statue was erected to
Camoens by the city of Lisbon.
'The Lusiads' (Portuguese, _Os Lusiadas_), a patronymic adopted by
Camoens in place of the usual term _Lusitanos_, the descendants of
Lusus (the mythical ancestor of the Portuguese), is an epic poem
which, as its name implies, has for its subject the heroic deeds not
of one hero, but of the whole Portuguese nation. Vasco da Gama's
discovery of the way to the East Indies forms, to be sure, the central
part of its action; but around it are grouped, with consummate art,
the heroic deeds and destinies of the other Lusitanians. In this,
Camoens' work stands alone among all poems of its kind. Originating
under conditions similar to those which are indispensable to the
production of a true epic, in the heroic period of the Portuguese
people, when national sentiment had risen to its highest point, it is
the only one among the modern epopees which comes near to the
primitive character of epic poetry. A trait which distinguishes this
epic from all its predecessors is the historic truthfulness with which
Camoens confessedly--"_A verdade_ que eu conto nua e pura Vence toda a
grandiloqua escriptura"--represents his heroic personages and their
exploits, tempering his praise with blame where blame is due, and the
unquestioned fidelity and exactness with which he depicts natural
scenes. Lest, however, this adherence to historic truth should impair
the vivifying element of imagination indispensable to true poetry, our
bard, combining in the true spirit of the Renaissance myth and
miracle, threw around his narrative the allegorical drapery of pagan
mythology, introducing the gods and goddesses of Olympus as siding
with or against the Portuguese heroes, and thus calling the
imagination of the reader into more active play. Among the many
beautiful inventions of his own creative fancy with which Camoens has
adorned his poem, we shall only mention the powerful impersonation of
the Cape of Storms in the Giant Adamastor (c. v.), an episode used by
Meyerbeer in his opera 'L'Africaine,' and the enchanting scene of the
Isle of Love (c. ix.), as characteristic of the poet's delicacy of
touch as it is of his Portuguese temperament, in which Venus provides
for the merited reward and the continuance of the brave sons of Lusus.
For the metric form of his verse, Camoens adopted the octave rhyme of
Ariosto, while for his epic style he followed Virgil, from whom many a
simile and phrase is directly borrowed. His poem, justly admired for
the elegant simplicity, the purity and harmony of its diction, bears
throughout the deep imprint of his own powerful and noble personality,
that independence and magnanimity of spirit, that fortitude of soul,
that genuine and glowing patriotism which alone, amid all the
disappointments and dangers, the dire distress and the foibles and
faults of his life, could enable him to give his mind and heart
steadfastly to the fulfillment of the lofty patriotic task he had set
his genius,--the creation of a lasting monument to the heroic deeds of
his race. It is thus that through 'The Lusiads' Camoens became the
moral bond of the national individuality of his people, and inspired
it with the energy to rise free once more out of Spanish subjection.
Lyrics. Here, Camoens is hardly less great than as an epic poet,
whether we consider the nobility, depth, and fervor of the sentiments
filling his songs, or the artistic perfection, the rich variety of
form, and the melody of his verse. His lyric works fall into two main
classes, those written in Italian metres and those in the traditional
trochaic lines and strophic forms of the Spanish peninsula. The first
class is contained in the 'Parnasso,' which comprises 356 sonnets, 22
canzones, 27 elegies, 12 odes, 8 octaves, and 15 idyls, all of which
testify to the great influence of the Italian school, and especially
of Petrarch, on our poet. The second class is embodied in the
'Cancioneiro,' or song-book, and embraces more than one hundred and
fifty compositions in the national peninsular manner. Together, these
two collections form a body of lyric verse of such richness and
variety as neither Petrarch and Tasso nor Garcilaso de la Vega can
offer. Unfortunately, Camoens never prepared an edition of his
_Rimas_; and the manuscript, which, as Diogo do Couto tells us, he
arranged during his sojourn in Mozambique from 1567 to 1569, is said
to have been stolen. It was not until 1595, fully fifteen years after
the poet's death, that one of his disciples and admirers, Fernao
Rodrigues Lobo Soropita, collected from Portugal, and even from India,
and published in Lisbon, a volume of one hundred and seventy-two
songs, four of which, however, are not by Camoens. The great mass of
verse we now possess has been gathered during the last three
centuries. More may still be discovered, while, on the other hand,
much of what is now attributed to Camoens does not belong to him, and
the question how much of the extant material is genuine is yet to be
definitely answered.
In his lyrics, Camoens has depicted, with all the passion and power of
his impressionable temperament, the varied experiences and emotions of
his eventful life. This variety and change of sentiments and
situations, while greatly enhancing the value of his songs by the
impression of fuller truth and individuality which they produce, is in
so far disadvantageous to a just appreciation of them, as it naturally
brings with it much verse of inferior poetic merit, and lacks that
harmony and unity of emotion which Petrarch was able to effect in his
_Rime_ by confining himself to the portraiture of a lover's soul.
Drama. In his youth, most likely during his life at court between 1542
and 1546, Camoens wrote three comedies of much freshness and verve, in
which he surpassed all the Portuguese plays in the national taste
produced up to his time. One, 'Filodemo,' derives its plot from a
mediaeval novel; the other two, 'Rei Seleuco' (King Seleucus) and
'Amphitryoes,' from antiquity. The last named, a free imitation of
Plautus's 'Amphitryo,' is by far the best play of the three. In these
comedies we can recognize an attempt on the part of the author to fuse
the imperfect play in the national taste, such as it had been
cultivated by Gil Vicente, with the more regular but lifeless pieces
of the classicists, and thus to create a superior form of national
comedy. In this endeavor, however, Camoens found no followers.
Bibliography. The most complete edition of the works of Camoens is
that by the Viscount de Juromenha, 'Obras de Luiz de Camoes,' (6
vols., Lisbon, 1860-70); a more convenient edition is the one by Th.
Braga (in 'Bibliotheca da Actualidade,' 3 vols., Porto, 1874). The
best separate edition of the text of 'The Lusiads' is by F.A. Coelho
(Lisbon, 1880). Camoens' lyric and dramatic works are published in his
collected works, no separate editions of them existing thus far. In
regard to the life and works of Camoens in general cf. Adamson,
'Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Camoens' (2 vols., London, 1820);
Th. Braga, 'Historia de Camoens' (3 vols., Porto, 1873-75); Latino
Coelho, 'Luiz de Camoens' (in the 'Galeria de varoes illustres,' i.,
Lisbon, 1880); J. de Vasconcellos, 'Bibliographia Camoniana' (Porto,
1880); Brito Aranha, 'Estudos Bibliographicos' (Lisbon, 1887-8); W.
Storck, 'Luis' de Camoens Leben' (Paderborn, 1890); and especially
the judicious and impartial article by Mrs. Carolina Michaelis de
Vasconcellos in Vol. ii. of Groeber's 'Grundriss der romanischen
Philologie' (Strassburg, 1894). The best translations of Camoens'
works are the one by W. Storck, 'Camoens' (Saemmtliche Gedichte, 6
vols., Paderborn, 1880-85), into German, and the one by R.F. Burton,
who has also written on the life of the poet, 'The Lusiads' (2 vols.,
London, 1880), and 'The Lyricks' (3 vols., London, 1884, containing
only those in Italian metres), into English. The extracts given below
are from Burton.
[Signature: Henry R. Lang]
THE LUSIADS
CANTO I
The feats of Arms, and famed heroick Host,
from occidental Lusitanian strand,
who o'er the waters ne'er by seaman crost,
fared beyond the Taprobane-land,
forceful in perils and in battle-post,
with more than promised force of mortal hand;
and in the regions of a distant race
rear'd a new throne so haught in Pride of Place:
And, eke, the Kings of mem'ory grand and glorious,
who hied them Holy Faith and Reign to spread,
converting, conquering, and in lands notorious,
Africk and Asia, devastation made;
nor less the Lieges who by deeds memorious
brake from the doom that binds the vulgar dead;
my song would sound o'er Earth's extremest part
were mine the genius, mine the Poet's art.
Cease the sage Grecian, and the man of Troy
to vaunt long voyage made in by-gone day:
Cease Alexander, Trojan cease to 'joy
the fame of vict'ories that have pass'd away:
The noble Lusian's stouter breast sing I,
whom Mars and Neptune dared not disobey:
Cease all that antique Muse hath sung, for now
a better Brav'ry rears its bolder brow.
And you, my Tagian Nymphs, who have create
in me new purpose with new genius firing;
if 'twas my joy whilere to celebrate
your founts and stream my humble song inspiring;
Oh! lend me here a noble strain elate,
a style grandiloquent that flows untiring;
so shall Apollo for your waves ordain ye
in name and fame ne'er envy Hippokrene.
Grant me sonorous accents, fire-abounding,
now serves ne peasant's pipe, ne rustick reed;
but blasts of trumpet, long and loud resounding,
that 'flameth heart and hue to fiery deed:
Grant me high strains to suit their Gestes astounding,
your Sons, who aided Mars in martial need;
that o'er the world he sung the glorious song,
if theme so lofty may to verse belong.
And Thou! O goodly omen'd trust, all-dear[1]
to Lusitania's olden liberty,
whereon assured esperance we rear
enforced to see our frail Christianity:
Thou, O new terror to the Moorish spear,
the fated marvel of our century,
to govern worlds of men by God so given,
that the world's best be given to God and Heaven:
Thou young, thou tender, ever-flourishing bough,
true scion of tree by Christ beloved more
than aught that Occident did ever know,
"Caesarian" or "Most Christian" styled before:
Look on thy 'scutcheon, and behold it show
the present Vict'ory long past ages bore;
Arms which He gave and made thine own to be
by Him assured on the fatal tree:[2]
Thou, mighty Sovran! o'er whose lofty reign
the rising Sun rains earliest smile of light;
sees it from middle firmamental plain;
And sights it sinking on the breast of Night:
Thou, whom we hope to hail the blight, the bane
of the dishonour'd Ishmaelitish knight;
and Orient Turk, and Gentoo--misbeliever
that drinks the liquor of the Sacred River:[3]
Incline awhile, I pray, that majesty
which in thy tender years I see thus ample,
E'en now prefiguring full maturity
that shall be shrined in Fame's eternal temple:
Those royal eyne that beam benignity
bend on low earth: Behold a new ensample
of hero hearts with patriot pride inflamed,
in number'd verses manifold proclaimed.
Thou shalt see Love of Land that ne'er shall own
lust of vile lucre; soaring towards th' Eternal:
For 'tis no light ambition to be known
th' acclaimed herald of my nest paternal.
Hear; thou shalt see the great names greater grown
of Vavasors who hail the Lord Supernal:
So shalt thou judge which were the higher station,
King of the world or Lord of such a nation.
Hark, for with vauntings vain thou shalt not view
phantastical, fictitious, lying deed
of lieges lauded, as strange Muses do,
seeking their fond and foolish pride to feed
Thine acts so forceful are, told simply true,
all fabled, dreamy feats they far exceed;
exceeding Rodomont, and Ruggiero vain,
and Roland haply born of Poet's brain.
For these I give thee a Nuno, fierce in fight,
who for his King and Country freely bled;
an Egas and a Fuas; fain I might
for them my lay with harp Homeric wed!
For the twelve peerless Peers again I cite
the Twelve of England by Magrico led:
Nay, more, I give thee Gama's noble name,
who for himself claims all AEneas' fame.
And if in change for royal Charles of France,
or rivalling Caesar's mem'ories thou wouldst trow,
the first Afonso see, whose conquering lance
lays highest boast of stranger glories low:
See him who left his realm th' inheritance
fair Safety, born of wars that crusht the foe:
That other John, a knight no fear deter'd,
the fourth and fifth Afonso, and the third.
Nor shall they silent in my song remain,
they who in regions there where Dawns arise,
by Acts of Arms such glories toil'd to gain,
where thine unvanquisht flag for ever flies,
Pacheco, brave of braves; th' Almeidas twain,
whom Tagus mourns with ever-weeping eyes;
dread Albuquerque, Castro stark and brave,
with more, the victors of the very grave.
But, singing these, of thee I may not sing,
O King sublime! such theme I fain must fear.
Take of thy reign the reins, so shall my King
create a poesy new to mortal ear:
E'en now the mighty burthen here I ring
(and speed its terrors over all the sphere!)
of sing'ular prowess, War's own prodigies,
in Africk regions and on Orient seas.
Casteth on thee the Moor eyne cold with fright,
in whom his coming doom he views designed:
The barb'rous Gentoo, sole to see thy sight
yields to thy yoke the neck e'en now inclined;
Tethys, of azure seas the sovran right,
her realm, in dowry hath to thee resigned;
and by thy noble tender beauty won,
would bribe and buy thee to become her son.
In thee from high Olympick halls behold
themselves, thy grandsires' sprites; far-famed pair;[4]
this clad in Peacetide's angel-robe of gold,
that crimson-hued with paint of battle-glare:
By thee they hope to see their tale twice told,
their lofty mem'ries live again; and there,
when Time thy years shall end, for thee they 'sign
a seat where soareth Fame's eternal shrine.
But, sithence ancient Time slow minutes by
ere ruled the Peoples who desire such boon;
bend on my novel rashness favouring eye,
that these my verses may become thine own:
So shalt thou see thine Argonauts o'erfly
yon salty argent, when they see it shown
thou seest their labours on the raging sea:
Learn even now invok'd of man to be.[5]
[1] Invocation to Dom Sebastian.
[2] The Arms of Portugal (Canto iii., 53, 54).
[3] The Ganges (not the Jordan).
[4] D. Joam III. and the Emperor Charles Quint.
[5] End of exordium: narrative begins.