The Son of David holds out in his Book._
Zacocia (governor of Mozambique) made no doubt but our people were of
some Mohammedan country. The mutual exchange of good offices between our
people and these islanders promised a long continuance of friendship,
but it proved otherwise. No sooner did Zacocia understand they were
Christians, than all his kindness was turned into the most bitter
hatred; he began to meditate their ruin, and sought to destroy the
fleet.--OSORIO, Bp. of Sylves, Hist. of the Portug. Discov.
[102] Bacchus, god of wine.
[103] _Whom nine long months his father's thigh conceal'd._--Bacchus was
nourished during his infancy in a cave of mount Meros, which in Greek
signifies a _thigh_. Hence the fable.
[104] Alexander the Great, who on visiting the temple of Jupiter Ammon,
was hailed as son of that deity by his priests.--_Ed._
[105] Bacchus.
[106] _His form divine he cloth'd in human shape_--
_Alecto torvam faciem et furialia membra
Exuit: in vultus sese transformat aniles,
Et frontem obscænum rugis arat._
VIR. Æn. vii.
[107] To be identified with the Sun, in the opinion of later
mythologists; but not so in Homer, with whom Helios (the Sun) is himself
a deity.--_Ed._
[108]
_Thus, when to gain his beauteous charmer's smile,
The youthful lover dares the bloody toil._
This simile is taken from a favourite exercise in Spain, where it is
usual to see young gentlemen of the best families entering the lists to
fight with a bull, adorned with ribbons, and armed with a javelin or
kind of cutlass, which the Spaniards call _Machete_.
[109]
------------_e maldizia
O velho inerte, e a m{=a}y, que o filho cria._
Thus translated by Fanshaw--
------------_curst their ill luck,
Th' old Devil and the Dam that gave them suck._
[110]
_Flints, clods, and javelins hurling as they fly,
As rage, &c.--
Jamque faces et saxa volant, furor arma ministrat._
VIRG. Æn. i.
The Spanish commentator on this place relates a very extraordinary
instance of the _furor arma ministrans_. A Portuguese soldier at the
siege of Diu in the Indies, being surrounded by the enemy, and having no
ball to charge his musket, pulled out one of his teeth, and with it
supplied the place of a bullet.
[111] The italics indicate that there is nothing in the original
corresponding to these lines.--_Ed._
[112] See Virgil's Æneid, bk. ii.--_Ed._
[113] Quiloa is an island, with a town of the same name, on the east
coast of Africa.--_Ed._
[114] _But heavenly Love's fair queen._--When GAMA arrived in the East,
the Moors were the only people who engrossed the trade of those parts.
Jealous of such formidable rivals as the Portuguese, they employed every
artifice to accomplish the destruction of GAMA'S fleet. As the Moors
were acquainted with these seas and spoke the Arabic language, GAMA was
obliged to employ them both as pilots and interpreters. The circumstance
now mentioned by Camoëns is an historical fact. "The Moorish pilot,"
says De Barros, "intended to conduct the Portuguese into Quiloa, telling
them that place was inhabited by Christians; but a sudden storm arising,
drove the fleet from that shore, where death or slavery would have been
the certain fate of GAMA and his companions. The villainy of the pilot
was afterwards discovered. As GAMA was endeavouring to enter the port of
Mombaz his ship struck on a sand-bank, and finding their purpose of
bringing him into the harbour defeated, two of the Moorish pilots leaped
into the sea and swam ashore. Alarmed at this tacit acknowledgment of
guilt, GAMA ordered two other Moorish pilots who remained on board to be
examined by whipping, who, after some time, made a full confession of
their intended villainy. This discovery greatly encouraged GAMA and his
men, who now interpreted the sudden storm which had driven them from
Quiloa as a miraculous interposition of Divine Providence in their
favour.
[115] _i.e._ Mohammed.--_Ed._
[116] After GAMA had been driven from Quiloa by a sudden storm, the
assurances of the Mozambique pilot, that the city was chiefly inhabited
by Christians, strongly inclined him to enter the harbour of Mombas.
[117] "There were," says Osorius, "ten men in the fleet under sentence
of death, whose lives had been spared on condition that, wherever they
might be landed, they should explore the country and make themselves
acquainted with the manners and laws of the people."
During the reign of Emmanuel, and his predecessor John II., few
criminals were executed in Portugal. These great and political princes
employed the lives which were forfeited to the public in the most
dangerous undertakings of public utility. In their foreign expeditions
the condemned criminals were sent upon the most hazardous undertakings.
If death was their fate, it was the punishment they had merited: if
successful in what was required, their crimes were expiated; and often
they rendered their country the greatest atonement for their guilt which
men in their circumstances could possibly make. What multitudes every
year, in the prime of their life, end their days in Great Britain by the
hands of the executioner! That the legislature _might_ devise means to
make the greatest part of these lives useful to society is a fact, which
surely cannot be disputed; though, perhaps, the remedy of an evil so
shocking to humanity may be at some distance.
[118] Semele was the mother of Bacchus, but, as he was prematurely born,
Jupiter, his father, sewed him up in his thigh until he came to
maturity.--_Ed._
[119]
_On it, the picture of that shape he placed,
In which the Holy Spirit did alight,
The picture of the dove, so white, so chaste,
On the blest Virgin's head, so chaste, so white._
In these lines, the best of all Fanshaw's, the happy repetition "so
chaste, so white," is a beauty which, though not contained in the
original, the present translator was unwilling to lose.
[120] See the Preface.
[121] When GAMA lay at anchor among the islands of St. George, near
Mozambique, "there came three Ethiopians on board (says Faria y Sousa)
who, seeing St. Gabriel painted on the poop, fell on their knees in
token of their Christianity, which had been preached to them in the
primitive times, though now corrupted." Barros, c. 4, and Castaneda, l.
i. c. 9, report, that the Portuguese found two or three Abyssinian
Christians in the city of Mombas, who had an oratory in their house. The
following short account of the Christians of the East may perhaps be
acceptable. In the south parts of Malabar, about 200,000 of the
inhabitants professed Christianity before the arrival of the Portuguese.
They use the Syriac language in their services, and read the Scriptures
in that tongue, and call themselves Christians of St. Thomas, by which
apostle their ancestors had been converted. For 1300 years they had been
under the Patriarch of Babylon, who appointed their _Mutran_, or
archbishop. Dr. Geddes, in his History of the Church of Malabar, relates
that Francisco Roz, a Jesuit missionary, complained to Menezes, the
Portuguese archbishop of Goa, that when he showed these people an image
of the Virgin Mary, they cried out, "Away with that filthiness, we are
Christians, and do not adore idols."
Dom Frey Aleixo de Menezes, archbishop of Goa, "endeavoured to thrust
upon the church of Malabar the whole mass of popery, which they were
before unacquainted with."--Millar's History of the Propag. of
Christianity.
[122] Venus.
[123] _Proud of her kindred birth._--The French translator has the
following note on this place:--"This is one of the places which discover
our author's intimate acquaintance with mythology, and at the same time
how much attention his allegory requires. Many readers, on finding that
the protectress of the Lusians sprung from the sea, would be apt to
exclaim, Behold, the birth of the terrestrial Venus! How can a nativity
so infamous be ascribed to the celestial Venus, who represents Religion?
I answer, that Camoëns had not his eye on those fables, which derive the
birth of Venus from the foam of the waves, mixed with the blood which
flowed from the dishonest wound of Saturn: he carries his views higher;
his Venus is from a fable more noble. Nigidius relates that two fishes
one day conveyed an egg to the seashore. This egg was hatched by two
pigeons whiter than snow, and gave birth to the Assyrian Venus, which,
in the pagan theology, is the same with the celestial. She instructed
mankind in religion, gave them the lessons of virtue and the laws of
equity. Jupiter, in reward of her labours, promised to grant her
whatever she desired. She prayed him to give immortality to the two
fishes, who had been instrumental in her birth, and the fishes were
accordingly placed in the Zodiac, the sign Pisces.... This fable agrees
perfectly with Religion, as I could clearly show; but I think it more
proper to leave to the ingenious reader the pleasure of tracing the
allegory."
[124] _Doto, Nyse, and Nerine._--Cloto, or Clotho, as Castera observes,
has by some error crept into almost all the Portuguese editions of the
Lusiad. Clotho was one of the Fates, and neither Hesiod, Homer, nor
Virgil has given such a name to any of the Nereids; but in the ninth
Æneid Doto is mentioned--
----_magnique jubebo
Æquoris esse Deas, qualis Nereïa Doto
Et Galatea secant spumantem pectore pontum._
The Nereids, in the Lusiad, says Castera, are the virtues divine and
human. In the first book they accompany the Portuguese fleet--
----_before the bounding prows
The lovely forms of sea-born nymphs arose._
[125] The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in
the summer.--PROVERBS xxx. 25.--_Ed._
[126] Imitated from Virgil--
_Cymothoë simul, et Triton adnixus acuto
Detrudunt naves scopulo._--VIRG. Æn. i.
[127] Latona, says the fable, flying from the serpent Python, and faint
with thirst, came to a pond, where some Lycian peasants were cutting the
bulrushes. In revenge of the insults which they offered her in
preventing her to drink, she changed them into frogs. This fable, says
Castera, like almost all the rest, is drawn from history. Philocorus, as
cited by Boccace, relates, that the Rhodians having declared war against
the Lycians, were assisted by some troops from Delos, who carried the
image of Latona on their standards. A detachment of these going to drink
at a lake in Lycia, a crowd of peasants endeavoured to prevent them. An
encounter ensued; the peasants fled to the lake for shelter, and were
there slain. Some months afterwards their companions came in search of
their corpses, and finding an unusual quantity of frogs, imagined,
according to the superstition of their age, that the souls of their
friends appeared to them under that metamorphosis.
To some it may, perhaps, appear needless to vindicate Camoëns, in a
point wherein he is supported by the authority of Homer and Virgil. Yet,
as many readers are infected with the _sang froid_ of a Bossu or a
Perrault, an observation in defence of our poet cannot be thought
impertinent. If we examine the finest effusions of genius, we shall find
that the most genuine poetical feeling has often dictated those similes
which are drawn from familiar and low objects. The sacred writers, and
the greatest poets of every nation, have used them. We may, therefore,
conclude that the criticism which condemns them is a refinement not
founded on nature. But, allowing them admissible, it must be observed,
that to render them pleasing requires a peculiar happiness and delicacy
of management. When the poet attains this indispensable point, he gives
a striking proof of his elegance, and of his mastership in his art. That
the similes of the emmets and of the frogs in Camoëns are happily
expressed and applied, is indisputable. In that of the frogs there is a
peculiar propriety, both in the comparison itself, and in the allusion
to the fable, as it was the intent of the poet to represent not only the
flight, but the baseness of the Moors. The simile he seems to have
copied from Dante, Inf. Cant. 9--
_Come le rane innanzi a la nemica
Biscia per l'acqua si dileguan tutte
Fin che a la terra ciascuna s'abbica. _
And Cant. 22--
_E come a l'orlo de l'acqua d'un fosso
Stan li ranocchi pur col muso fuori
Sì che celano i piedi, e l'altro grosso. _
[128] Barros and Castaneda, in relating this part of the voyage of Gama,
say that the fleet, just as they were entering the port of Mombas, were
driven back as it were by an invisible hand. By a subsequent note it
will appear that the safety of the Armada depended upon this
circumstance.
[129] Venus.
[130] As the planet of Jupiter is in the sixth heaven, the author has
with propriety there placed the throne of that god.--CASTERA.
[131] "I am aware of the objection, that this passage is by no means
applicable to the celestial Venus. I answer once for all, that the names
and adventures of the pagan divinities are so blended and uncertain in
mythology, that a poet is at great liberty to adapt them to his allegory
as he pleases. Even the fables, which may appear as profane, even these
contain historical, physical, and moral truths, which fully atone for
the seeming licentiousness of the letter. I could prove this in many
instances, but let the present suffice. Paris, son of Priam, king of
Troy, spent his first years as a shepherd in the country. At this time
Juno, Minerva, and Venus disputed for the apple of gold, which was
destined to be given to the most beautiful goddess. They consented that
Paris should be their judge. His equity claimed this honour. He saw them
all naked. Juno promised him riches, Minerva the sciences, but he
decided in favour of Venus, who promised him the possession of the most
beautiful woman. What a ray of light is contained in this philosophical
fable! Paris represents a studious man, who, in the silence of solitude,
seeks the supreme good. Juno is the emblem of riches and dignities;
Minerva, that of the sciences purely human; Venus is that of religion,
which contains the sciences both human and divine; the charming female,
which she promises to the Trojan shepherd, is that divine wisdom which
gives tranquillity of heart. A judge so philosophical as Paris would not
hesitate a moment to whom to give the apple of gold."--CASTERA.
[132] "The allegory of Camoëns is here obvious. If Acteon, and the
slaves of their violent passions, could discover the beauties of true
religion, they would be astonished and reclaimed: according to the
expression of Seneca, 'Si virtus cerni posset oculis corporeis, omnes ad
amorem suum pelliceret.'"--CASTERA.
[133] "That is Divine love, which always accompanies religion. Behold
how our author insinuates the excellence of his moral!"--CASTERA.
As the French translator has acknowledged, there is no doubt but several
readers will be apt to decry this allegorical interpretation of the
machinery of Camoëns. Indeed there is nothing more easy than to discover
a system of allegory in the simplest narrative. The reign of Henry VIII.
is as susceptible of it as any fable in the heathen mythology. Nay,
perhaps, more so. Under the names of Henry, More, Wolsey, Cromwell,
Pole, Cranmer, etc., all the war of the passions, with their different
catastrophes, might be delineated. Though it may be difficult to
determine how far, yet one may venture to affirm that Homer and Virgil
sometimes allegorised. The poets, however, who wrote on the revival of
letters have left us in no doubt; we have their own authority for it
that their machinery is allegorical. Not only the pagan deities, but the
more modern adventures of enchantment were used by them to delineate the
affections, and the trials and rewards of the virtues and vices. Tasso
published a treatise to prove that his _Gerusalemme Liberata_ is no
other than the Christian spiritual warfare. And Camoëns, as observed in
the preface, has twice asserted that his machinery is allegorical. The
poet's assertion, and the taste of the age in which he wrote,
sufficiently vindicate and explain the allegory of the Lusiad.
[134] The following speech of Venus and the reply of Jupiter, are a fine
imitation from the first Æneid, and do great honour to the classical
taste of the Portuguese poet.
[135] Imitated from Virg. Æn. i.--
_Olli subridens hominum sator atque Deorum,
Vultu, quo coelum tempestatesque serenat,
Oscula libavit natæ_----
[136] Ulysses, king of Ithaka.--_Ed._
[137] _i.e._, the slave of Calypso, who offered Ulysses immortality on
condition that he would live with her.
[138] Æneas.--_Ed._
[139]
"Far on the right her dogs foul Scylla hides,
Charybdis roaring on the left presides,
And in her greedy whirlpool sucks the tides."
DRYDEN'S Virg. Æn. iii.--_Ed._
[140] After the Portuguese had made great conquests in India, GAMA had
the honour to be appointed Viceroy. In 1524, when sailing thither to
take possession of his government, his fleet was so becalmed on the
coast of Cambaya that the ships stood motionless on the water, when in
an instant, without the least change of the weather, the waves were
shaken with a violent agitation, like trembling. The ships were tossed
about, the sailors were terrified, and in the utmost confusion, thinking
themselves lost. Gama, perceiving it to be the effect of an earthquake,
with his wonted heroism and prudence, exclaimed, "_Of what are you
afraid? Do you not see how the ocean trembles under its sovereigns!_"
Barros, l. 9, c. 1, and Faria, c. 9, say, that such as lay sick of
fevers were cured by the fright.
[141] Ormuz, or Hormuz, an island at the entrance of the Persian Gulf,
once a great commercial dépôt.--_Ed._
[142] Both Barros and Castaneda relate this fact. Albuquerque, during
the war of Ormuz, having given battle to the Persians and Moors, by the
violence of a sudden wind the arrows of the latter were driven back upon
themselves, whereby many of their troops were wounded.
[143] Calicut was a seaport town of Malabar, more properly _Colicodu_.
[144]
_Hinc ope barbarica, variisque Antonius armis,
Victor ab Auroræ populis et littore rubro,
Ægyptum, viresque Orientis, et ultima secum
Bactra vehit: sequiturque nefas! Ægyptia conjux.
Una omnes ruere, ac totum spumare, reductis
Convulsum remis rostrisque tridentibus, æquor.
Alta petunt: pelago credas innare revulsas
Cycladas, aut montes concurrere montibus altos:
Tanta mole viri turritis puppibus instant.
Stuppea flamma manu telisque volatile ferrum
Spargitur: arva nova Neptunia cæde rubescunt.
----Sævit medio in certamine Maxors._
VIRG. Æn. viii.
[145] Antony.
[146] Gades, now Cadiz, an ancient and still flourishing seaport of
Spain.--_Ed._
[147] _The Lusian pride, etc._--Magalhaens, a most celebrated navigator,
neglected by Emmanuel, king of Portugal, offered his service to the king
of Spain, under whom he made most important discoveries round the
Straits which bear his name, and in parts of South America. Of this hero
see further, Lusiad X., in the notes.
[148] Mercury.
[149] Mombas, a seaport town on an island of the same name off the coast
of Zanguebar, East Africa.--_Ed._
[150] Mercury, so called from Cyll{=e}n{=e}, the highest mountain in the
Peloponnesus, where he had a temple, and on which spot he is said to
have been born.--_Ed._
[151] Petasus.
[152] The caduceus, twined with serpents.--_Ed._
[153]
"But first he grasps within his awful hand
The mark of sovereign power, the magic wand:
With this he draws the ghosts from hollow graves,
With this he drives them down the Stygian waves,
With this he seals in sleep the wakeful sight,
And eyes, though closed in death, restores to light."
ÆNEID, iv. 242. (Dryden's Trans.)
[154] Mercury.
[155] Diomede, a tyrant of Thrace, who fed his horses with human flesh;
a thing, says the grave Castera, almost incredible. Busiris was a king
of Egypt, who sacrificed strangers.
_Quis ... illaudati nescit Busiridis aras?_
VIRG. Geor. iii.
Hercules vanquished both these tyrants, and put them to the same
punishments which their cruelty had inflicted on others. Isocrates
composed an oration in honour of Busiris; a masterly example of Attic
raillery and satire.
[156] _i.e._ the equator.
[157] Hermes is the Greek name for the god Mercury.
[158] Having mentioned the escape of the Moorish pilots, Osorius
proceeds: Rex deinde homines magno cum silentio scaphis et lintribus
submittebat, qui securibus anchoralia nocte præciderent. Quod nisi
fuisset à nostris singulari Gamæ industria vigilatum, et insidiis
scelerati illius regis occursum, nostri in summum vitæ discrimen
incidissent.
[159] Mercury.
[160] A city and kingdom of the same name on the east coast of Africa.
[161] Ascension Day.
[162] Jesus Christ.
[163]
_Vimen erat dum stagna subit, processerat undis
Gemma fuit._
CLAUD.
_Sic et coralium, quo primum contigit auras,
Tempore durescit, mollis fuit herba sub undis._
OVID.
[164] There were on board Gama's fleet several persons skilled in the
Oriental languages.--OSOR.
[165] See the Eighth Odyssey, etc.
[166] Castera's note on this place is so characteristic of a Frenchman,
that the reader will perhaps be pleased to see it transcribed. In his
text he says, "_Toi qui occupes si dignement le rang supreme._" "_Le
Poete dit_," says he, in the note, "_Tens de Rey o officio, Toi qui sais
le metier de Roi_. (The poet says, _thou who holdest the business of a
king_.) I confess," he adds, "I found a strong inclination to translate
this sentence literally. I find much nobleness in it. However, I
submitted to the opinion of some friends, who were afraid that the ears
of Frenchmen would be shocked at the word _business_ applied to a king.
It is true, nevertheless, that Royalty is a _business_. Philip II. of
Spain was convinced of it, as we may discern from one of his letters.
_Hallo_, says he, _me muy embaraçado_, &c. _I am so entangled and
encumbered with the multiplicity of business, that I have not a moment
to myself. In truth, we kings hold a laborious office_ (or trade);
_there is little reason to envy us._"
[167] The propriety and artfulness of Homer's speeches have been often
and justly admired. Camoëns is peculiarly happy in the same department
of the Epopæa. The speech of Gama's herald to the King of Melinda is a
striking instance of it. The compliments with which it begins have a
direct tendency to the favours afterwards to be asked. The assurances of
the innocence, the purpose of the voyagers, and the greatness of their
king, are happily touched. The exclamation on the barbarous treatment
they had experienced--"Not wisdom saved us, but Heaven's own care"--are
masterly insinuations. Their barbarous treatment is again repeated in a
manner to move compassion: Alas! what could they fear? etc., is
reasoning joined with pathos. That they were conducted to the King of
Melinda by Heaven, and were by Heaven assured of his truth, is a most
delicate compliment, and in the true spirit of the epic poem. The
apology for Gama's refusal to come on shore is exceeding artful. It
conveys a proof of the greatness of the Portuguese sovereign, and
affords a compliment to loyalty, which could not fail to be acceptable
to a monarch.
[168] Rockets.
[169] The Tyrian purple, obtained from the _murex_, a species of
shell-fish, was very famous among the ancients.--_Ed._
[170] A girdle, or ornamented belt, worn over one shoulder and across
the breast.--_Ed._
[171] Camoëns seems to have his eye on the picture of Gama, which is
thus described by _Faria y Sousa_: "He is painted with a black cap,
cloak, and breeches edged with velvet, all slashed, through which
appears the crimson lining, the doublet of crimson satin, and over it
his armour inlaid with gold."
[172] The admiration and friendship of the King of Melinda, so much
insisted on by Camoëns, is a judicious imitation of Virgil's Dido. In
both cases such preparation was necessary to introduce the long episodes
which follow.
[173] The Moors, who are Mohammedans, disciples of the Arabian prophet,
who was descended from Abraham through the line of Hagar.--_Ed._
[174] The famous temple of the goddess Diana at Ephesus.--_Ed._
[175] Apollo.
[176] _Calliope._--The Muse of epic poesy, and mother of Orpheus.
Daphne, daughter of the river Peneus, flying from Apollo, was turned
into the laurel. Clytia was metamorphosed into the sun-flower, and
Leucothoë, who was buried alive by her father for yielding to the
solicitations of Apollo, was by her lover changed into an incense tree.
[177] A fountain of Boeotia sacred to the Muses.--_Ed._
[178] The preface to the speech of Gama, and the description of Europe
which follows, are happy imitations of the manner of Homer. When Camoëns
describes countries, or musters an army, it is after the example of the
great models of antiquity: by adding some characteristical feature of
the climate or people, he renders his narrative pleasing, picturesque,
and poetical.
[179] The Mediterranean.
[180] The Don.--_Ed._
[181] The Sea of Azof.--_Ed._
[182] Italy. In the year 409 the city of Rome was sacked, and Italy laid
desolate by Alaric, king of the Gothic tribes. In mentioning this
circumstance Camoëns has not fallen into the common error of little
poets, who on every occasion bewail the outrage which the Goths and
Vandals did to the arts and sciences. A complaint founded on ignorance.
The Southern nations of Europe were sunk into the most contemptible
degeneracy. The sciences, with every branch of manly literature, were
almost unknown. For near two centuries no poet of note had adorned the
Roman empire. Those arts only, the abuse of which have a certain and
fatal tendency to enervate the mind, the arts of music and cookery, were
passionately cultivated in all the refinement of effeminate abuse. The
art of war was too laborious for their delicacy, and the generous warmth
of heroism and patriotism was incompatible with their effeminacy. On
these despicable Sybarites{*} the North poured her brave and hardy sons,
who, though ignorant of polite literature, were possessed of all the
manly virtues in a high degree. Under their conquests Europe wore a new
face, which, however rude, was infinitely preferable to that which it
had lately worn. And, however ignorance may talk of their barbarity, it
is to them that England owes her constitution, which, as Montesquieu
observes, they brought from the woods of Saxony.
{*} _Sybaris_, a city in Magna Grecia (South Italy), whose inhabitants
were so effeminate, that they ordered all the cocks to be killed, that
they might not be disturbed by their early crowing.
[183] The river Don.
[184] This was the name of an extensive forest in Germany. It exists now
under different names, as the _Black Forest_, the Bohemian and the
Thuringian Forest, the Hartz, etc.--_Ed._
[185] The Hellespont, or Straits of the Dardanelles.--_Ed._
[186] The Balkan Mountains separating Greece and Macedonia from the
basin of the Danube, and extending from the Adriatic to the Black
Sea.--_Ed._
[187] Now Constantinople.
[188] Julius Cæsar, the conqueror of Gaul, or France.--_Ed._
[189] _Faithless to the vows of lost Pyrene_, etc.--She was daughter to
Bebryx, a king of Spain, and concubine to Hercules. Having wandered one
day from her lover, she was destroyed by wild beasts, on one of the
mountains which bear her name.
[190] Hercules, says the fable, to crown his labours, separated the two
mountains Calpe and Abyla, the one in Spain, the other in Africa, in
order to open a canal for the benefit of commerce; on which the ocean
rushed in, and formed the Mediterranean, the Ægean, and Euxine seas. The
twin mountains Abyla and Calpe were known to the ancients by the name of
the Pillars of Hercules.--See Cory's _Ancient Fragments_.
[191] The river Guadalquivir; _i.e._, in Arabic, _the great
river_.--_Ed._
[192] Viriatus.--See the note on Book I. p. 9.
[193] The assassination of Viriatus.--See the note on Book I. p. 9.
[194] The name of _Saracen_ is derived from the Arabic _Es-shurk_, _the
East_, and designates the Arabs who followed the banner of
Mohammed.--_Ed._
[195] Don Alonzo, king of Spain, apprehensive of the superior number of
the Moors, with whom he was at war, demanded assistance from Philip I.
of France, and the Duke of Burgundy. According to the military spirit of
the nobility of that age, no sooner was his desire known than numerous
bodies of troops thronged to his standard. These, in the course of a few
years, having shown signal proofs of their courage, the king
distinguished the leaders with different marks of his regard. To Henry,
a younger son of the Duke of Burgundy, he gave his daughter Teresa in
marriage, with the sovereignty of the countries to the south of Galicia,
commissioning him to enlarge his boundaries by the expulsion of the
Moors. Under the government of this great man, who reigned by the title
of Count, his dominion was greatly enlarged, and became more rich and
populous than before. The two provinces of Entre Minho e Douro, and Tras
os Montes, were subdued, with that part of Beira which was held by the
Moorish king of Lamego, whom he constrained to pay tribute. Many
thousands of Christians, who had either lived in miserable subjection to
the Moors, or in desolate independency in the mountains, took shelter
under the protection of Count Henry. Great multitudes of the Moors also
chose rather to submit, than be exposed to the severities and the
continual feuds and seditions of their own governors. These advantages,
added to the great fertility of the soil of Henry's dominions, will
account for the numerous armies, and the frequent wars of the first
sovereigns of Portugal.
[196] Camoëns, in making the founder of the Portuguese monarchy a
younger son of the King of Hungary, has followed the old chronologist
Galvan. The Spanish and Portuguese historians differ widely in their
accounts of the parentage of this gallant stranger. Some bring him from
Constantinople, and others from the house of Lorraine. But the clearest
and most probable account of him is in the chronicle of Fleury, wherein
is preserved a fragment of French history, written by a Benedictine monk
in the beginning of the twelfth century, and in the time of Count Henry.
By this it appears, that he was a younger son of Henry, the only son of
Robert, the first duke of Burgundy, who was a younger brother of Henry
I. of France. Fanshaw having an eye to this history, has taken the
unwarrantable liberty to alter the fact as mentioned by his author.
_Amongst these Henry, saith the history,
A younger son of France, and a brave prince,
Had Portugal in lot.----
And the same king did his own daughter tie
To him in wedlock, to infer from thence
His firmer love._
Nor are the historians agreed on the birth of Donna Teresa, the spouse
of Count Henry. Brandam, and other Portuguese historians, are at great
pains to prove she was the legitimate daughter of Alonzo and the
beautiful Ximena de Guzman. But it appears from the more authentic
chronicle of Fleury, that Ximena was only his concubine. And it is
evident from all the historians, that Donna Urraca, the heiress of her
father's kingdom, was younger than her half-sister, the wife of Count
Henry.
[197] The Mohammedan Arabs.
[198] _Deliver'd Judah Henry's might confess'd_.--His expedition to the
Holy Land is mentioned by some monkish writers, but from the other parts
of his history it is highly improbable.
[199] Jerusalem.
[200] Godfrey of Bouillon.
[201] Don Alonzo Enriquez, son of Count Henry, had only entered into his
third year when his father died. His mother assumed the reins of
government, and appointed Don Fernando Perez de Traba to be her
minister. When the young prince was in his eighteenth year, some of the
nobility, who either envied the power of Don Perez, or suspected his
intention to marry the queen, and exclude the lawful heir, easily
persuaded the young Count to take arms, and assume the sovereignty. A
battle ensued, in which the prince was victorious. Teresa, it is said,
retired into the castle of Legonaso, where she was taken prisoner by her
son, who condemned her to perpetual imprisonment, and ordered chains to
be put upon her legs. That Don Alonso made war against his mother,
vanquished her party, and that she died in prison about two years after,
A.D. 1130, are certain. But the cause of the war, that his mother was
married to, or intended to marry, Don Perez, and that she was put in
chains, are uncertain.
[202] Guimaraens was the scene of a very sanguinary battle.--_Ed._
[203] The Scylla here alluded to was, according to fable, the daughter
of Nisus, king of Megara, who had a purple lock, in which lay the fate
of his kingdom. Minos of Crete made war against him, for whom Scylla
conceived so violent a passion, that she cut off the fatal lock while
her father slept. Minos on this was victorious, but rejected the love of
the unnatural daughter, who in despair flung herself from a rock, and in
the fall was changed into a lark.
[204] Guimaraens, the scene of a famous battle.--_Ed._
[205] Some historians having related this story of Egas, add, "All this
is very pleasant and entertaining, but we see no sufficient reason to
affirm that there is one syllable of it true."
[206] When Darius laid siege to Babylon, one of his lords, named
Zopyrus, having cut off his own nose and ears, persuaded the enemy that
he had received these indignities from the cruelty of his master. Being
appointed to a chief command in Babylon, he betrayed the city to
Darius.--Vid. Justin's History.
[207] Spanish and Portuguese histories afford several instances of the
Moorish chiefs being attended in the field of battle by their
mistresses, and of the romantic gallantry and Amazonian courage of these
ladies.
[208] Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons, who, after having signalized
her valour at the siege of Troy, was killed by Achilles.
[209] The Greek name of Troy.--_Ed._
[210] The Amazons.
[211] Thermodon, a river of Scythia in the country of the Amazons.
_Quales Threïciæ cum flumina Thermodontis
Pulsant et pictis bellantur Amazones armis:
Seu circum Hippolyten, seu cum se Martia curru
Penthesilea refert: magnoque ululante tumultu
Foeminea exsultant lunatis agmina peltis._ VIRG. Æn. xi. 659.
[212] It may, perhaps, be agreeable to the reader, to see the
description of a bull-fight as given by Homer.
_As when a lion, rushing from his den,
Amidst the plain of some wide-water'd fen,_
(_Where num'rous oxen, as at ease they feed,
At large expatiate o'er the ranker mead_;)
_Leaps on the herds before the herdsman's eyes:
The trembling herdsman far to distance flies:
Some lordly bull_ (_the rest dispers'd and fled_)
_He singles out, arrests, and lays him dead.
Thus from the rage of Jove-like Hector flew
All Greece in heaps; but one he seiz'd, and slew
Mycenian Periphas.----_
POPE, II. xv.
[213] A shirt of mail, formed of small iron rings.
[214] Mohammed.
[215] There is a passage in Xenophon, upon which perhaps Camoëns had his
eye. [Greek: Epei de elêxen hê machê, parên idein, tên men gên haimati
pephyrmenên], &c. "When the battle was over, one might behold through
the whole extent of the field the ground purpled with blood; the bodies
of friends and enemies stretched over each other, the shields pierced,
the spears broken, and the drawn swords, some scattered on the earth,
some plunged in the bosoms of the slain, and some yet grasped in the
hands of the dead soldiers."
[216] This memorable battle was fought in the plains of _Ourique_, in
1139. The engagement lasted six hours; the Moors were totally routed
with incredible slaughter. On the field of battle Alonzo was proclaimed
King of Portugal. The Portuguese writers have given many fabulous
accounts of this victory. Some affirm that the Moorish army amounted to
380,000, others, 480,000, and others swell it to 600,000, whereas Don
Alonzo's did not exceed 13,000. Miracles must also be added. Alonzo,
they tell us, being in great perplexity, sat down to comfort his mind by
the perusal of the Holy Scriptures. Having read the story of Gideon, he
sunk into a deep sleep, in which he saw a very old man in a remarkable
dress come into his tent, and assure him of victory. His chamberlain
coming in, awoke him, and told him there was an old man very importunate
to speak with him. Don Alonzo ordered him to be brought in, and no
sooner saw him than he knew him to be the old man whom he had seen in
his dream. This venerable person acquainted him that he was a fisherman,
and had led a life of penance for sixty years on an adjacent rock, where
it had been revealed to him, that if the count marched his army the next
morning, as soon as he heard a certain bell ring, he should receive the
strongest assurance of victory. Accordingly, at the ringing of the bell,
the count put his army in motion, and suddenly beheld in the eastern sky
the figure of the cross, and Christ upon it, who promised him a complete
victory, and commanded him to accept the title of king, if it were
offered him by the army. The same writers add, that as a standing
memorial of this miraculous event, Don Alonzo changed the arms which his
father had given, of a cross azure in a field argent, for five
escutcheons, each charged with five bezants, in memory of the wounds of
Christ. Others assert, that he gave, in a field argent, five escutcheons
azure in the form of a cross, each charged with five bezants argent,
placed saltierwise, with a point sable, in memory of five wounds he
himself received, and of five Moorish kings slain in the battle. There
is an old record, said to be written by Don Alonzo, in which the story
of the vision is related upon his majesty's oath. The Spanish critics,
however, have discovered many inconsistencies in it. They find the
language intermixed with phrases not then in use: and it bears the date
of the year of our Lord, at a time when that era had not been introduced
into Spain.
[217] Troy.
[218] The tradition, that Lisbon was built by Ulysses, and thence called
_Olyssipolis_, is as common as, and of equal authority with, that which
says, that Brute landed a colony of Trojans in England, and gave the
name of Britannia to the island.
[219] The conquest of Lisbon was of the utmost importance to the infant
monarchy. It is one of the finest ports in the world, and before the
invention of cannon, was of great strength. The old Moorish wall was
flanked by seventy-seven towers, was about six miles in length, and
fourteen in circumference. When besieged by Don Alonzo, according to
some, it was garrisoned by an army of 200,000 men. This is highly
incredible. However, that it was strong and well garrisoned is certain,
as also that Alonzo owed the conquest of it to a fleet of adventurers,
who were going to the Holy Land, the greater part of whom were English.
One Udal op Rhys, in his tour through Portugal, says, that Alonzo gave
them Almada, on the side of the Tagus opposite to Lisbon, and that Villa
Franca was peopled by them, which they called Cornualla, either in
honour of their native country, or from the rich meadows in its
neighbourhood, where immense herds of cattle are kept, as in the English
Cornwall.
[220] Jerusalem.
[221] _Unconquer'd towers._--This assertion of Camoëns is not without
foundation, for it was by treachery that Herimeneric, the Goth, got
possession of Lisbon.
[222] The aqueduct of Sertorius, here mentioned, is one of the grandest
remains of antiquity. It was repaired by John III. of Portugal about
A.D. 1540.
[223] Badajoz.
[224] The history of this battle wants authenticity.
[225] As already observed, there is no authentic proof that Don Alonzo
used such severity to his mother as to put her in chains. Brandan says
it was reported that Don Alonzo was born with both his legs growing
together, and that he was cured by the prayers of his tutor, Egas Nunio.
Legendary as this may appear, this however is deducible from it, that
from his birth there was something amiss about his legs. When he was
prisoner to his son-in-law, Don Fernando, king of Leon, he recovered his
liberty ere his leg, which was fractured in the battle, was restored, on
condition that as soon as he was able to mount on horseback, he should
come to Leon, and in person do homage for his dominions. This condition,
so contrary to his coronation agreement, he found means to avoid. He
ever after affected to drive in a calash, and would never mount on
horseback more. The superstitious of those days ascribed this infirmity
to the curses of his mother.
[226] _Phasis._--A river of Colchis.
[227] A frontier town on the Nile, bordering on Nubia.
[228] _Colchis._--A country of Asia Minor bordering on the Black
Sea.--_Ed._
[229]
_Tu quoque littoribus nostris, Æneia nutrix, Æternam moriens famam,
Caieta, dedisti._ VIRG. Æn. vii.
[230] _i.e._ Tangiers, opposite to Gibraltar.--_Ed._
[231] This should be _Emir el Moumeneen_, _i.e._, Commander of the
Faithful.--_Ed._
[232] The Mondego is the largest river having its rise within the
kingdom of Portugal and entering no other state.--_Ed._
[233] _Miramolin._--Not the name of a person, but a title, _quasi
Sultan_; _the Emperor of the Faithful_.
[234] In this poetical exclamation, expressive of the sorrow of Portugal
on the death of Alonzo, Camoëns has happily imitated some passages of
Virgil.
----_Ipsæ te, Tityre, pinus,
Ipsi te fontes, ipsa hæc arbusta vocabant._
ECL. i.
----_Eurydicen vox ipsa et frigida lingua,
Ah miseram Eurydicen, anima fugiente, vocabat:
Eurydicen toto referebant flumine ripæ._
GEORG. iv.
----_littus, Hyla, Hyla, omne sonaret._
ECL. vi.
[235] The Guadalquiver, the largest river in Spain.--_Ed._
[236] The Portuguese, in their wars with the Moors, were several times
assisted by the English and German crusaders. In the present instance
the fleet was mostly English, the troops of which nation were, according
to agreement, rewarded with the plunder, which was exceeding rich, of
the city of Silves. _Nuniz de Leon as cronicas dos Reis de Port_, A.D.
1189.--_Ed._
[237] Barbarossa, A.D. 1189.--_Ed._
[238] _Unlike the Syrian_ (rather _Assyrian_).--Sardanapalus.
[239] _When Rome's proud tyrant far'd._--Heliogabalus, infamous for his
gluttony.
[240] Alluding to the history of Phalaris.
[241] Camoëns, who was quite an enthusiast for the honour of his
country, has in this instance disguised the truth of history. Don Sancho
was by no means the weak prince here represented, nor did the miseries
of his reign proceed from himself. The clergy were the sole authors of
his, and the public, calamities. The Roman See was then in the height of
its power, which it exerted in the most tyrannical manner. The
ecclesiastical courts had long claimed the sole right to try an
ecclesiastic: and, to prohibit a priest to say mass for a twelve-month,
was by the brethren, his judges, esteemed a sufficient punishment for
murder, or any other capital crime. Alonzo II., the father of Don
Sancho, attempted to establish the authority of the king's courts of
justice over the offending clergy. For this the Archbishop of Braga
excommunicated Gonzalo Mendez, the chancellor; and Honorius, the pope,
excommunicated the king, and put his dominions under an interdict. The
exterior offices of religion were suspended, the people fell into the
utmost dissoluteness of manners; Mohammedanism made great advances, and
public confusion everywhere prevailed. By this policy the Church
constrained the nobility to urge the king to a full submission to the
papal chair. While a negotiation for this purpose was on foot Alonzo
died, and left his son to struggle with an enraged and powerful clergy.
Don Sancho was just, affable, brave, and an enamoured husband. On this
last virtue faction first fixed its envenomed fangs. The queen was
accused of arbitrary influence over her husband; and, according to the
superstition of that age, she was believed to have disturbed his senses
by an enchanted draught. Such of the nobility as declared in the king's
favour were stigmatized, and rendered odious, as the creatures of the
queen. The confusions which ensued were fomented by Alonso, Earl of
Bologna, the king's brother, by whom the king was accused as the author
of them. In short, by the assistance of the clergy and Pope Innocent
IV., Sancho was deposed, and soon after died at Toledo. The beautiful
queen, Donna Mencia, was seized upon, and conveyed away by one Raymond
Portocarrero, and was never heard of more. Such are the triumphs of
faction!
[242] Alexander the Great.
[243] Mondego, the largest exclusively Portuguese river.--_Ed._
[244] The _baccaris_, or Lady's glove, a herb to which the Druids and
ancient poets ascribed magical virtues.
----_Baccare frontem
Cingite, ne vati noceat mala lingua futuro._
VIRG. Ecl. vii.
[245] Semiramis, who is said to have invaded India.--_Ed._
[246] Attila, a king of the Huns, surnamed "The Scourge of God." He
lived in the fifth century. He may be reckoned among the greatest of
conquerors.
[247] _His much-lov'd bride._--The Princess Mary. She was a lady of
great beauty and virtue, but was exceedingly ill used by her husband,
who was violently attached to his mistresses, though he owed his crown
to the assistance of his father-in-law, the King of Portugal.
[248]
_By night our fathers' shades confess their fear,
Their shrieks of terror from the tombs we hear.--_
Camoëns says, "A mortos faz espanto;" to give this elegance in English
required a paraphrase. There is something wildly great, and agreeable to
the superstition of that age, to suppose that the dead were troubled in
their graves on the approach of so terrible an army. The French
translator, contrary to the original, ascribes this terror to the ghost
of only one prince, by which this stroke of Camoëns, in the spirit of
Shakespeare, is reduced to a piece of unmeaning frippery.
[249] The Muliya, a river of Morocco.--_Ed._
[250] See the first Æneid.
[251] Goliath, the Philistine champion.--_Ed._
[252] David, afterwards king of Israel.--_Ed._
[253] _Though wove._--It may perhaps be objected that this is
ungrammatical. But--
----Usus
Quem penes arbitrium est, et jus et norma loquendi.
and Dryden, Pope, etc., often use _wove_ as a participle in place of the
harsh-sounding _woven_, a word almost incompatible with the elegance of
versification.
[254] Hannibal, who, as a child, was compelled to swear perpetual
hostility to the Romans.--_Ed._
[255] Where the last great battle between Hannibal and the Romans took
place, in which the Romans sustained a crushing defeat.--_Ed._
[256] When the soldiers of Marius complained of thirst, he pointed to a
river near the camp of the Ambrones. "There," says he, "you may drink,
but it must be purchased with blood." "Lead us on," they replied, "that
we may have something liquid, though it be blood." The Romans, forcing
their way to the river, the channel was filled with the dead bodies of
the slain.--Vid. Plutarch's Lives.
[257] This unfortunate lady, Donna Inez de Castro, was the daughter of a
Castilian gentleman, who had taken refuge in the court of Portugal. Her
beauty and accomplishments attracted the regard of Don Pedro, the king's
eldest son, a prince of a brave and noble disposition. La Neufville, Le
Clede, and other historians, assert that she was privately married to
the prince ere she had any share in his bed. Nor was his conjugal
fidelity less remarkable than the ardour of his passion. Afraid,
however, of his father's resentment, the severity of whose temper he
knew, his intercourse with Donna Inez passed at the court as an intrigue
of gallantry. On the accession of Don Pedro the Cruel to the throne of
Castile many of the disgusted nobility were kindly received by Don
Pedro, through the interest of his beloved Inez. The favour shown to
these Castilians gave great uneasiness to the politicians. A thousand
evils were foreseen from the prince's attachment to his Castilian
mistress: even the murder of his children by his deceased spouse, the
princess Constantia, was surmised; and the enemies of Donna Inez,
finding the king willing to listen, omitted no opportunity to increase
his resentment against the unfortunate lady. The prince was about his
twenty-eighth year when his amour with his beloved Inez commenced.
[258]
_Ad coelum tendens ardentia lumina frustra,
Lumina nam teneras arcebant vincula palmas._
VIRG. Æn. ii.
[259] Romulus and Remus, who were said to have been suckled by a
wolf.--_Ed._
[260] It has been observed by some critics, that Milton on every
occasion is fond of expressing his admiration of music, particularly of
the song of the nightingale, and the full woodland choir. If in the same
manner we are to judge of the favourite taste of Homer, we shall find it
of a less delicate kind. He is continually describing the feast, the
huge chine, the savoury viands on the glowing coals, and the foaming
bowl. The ruling passion of Camoëns is also strongly marked in his
writings. One may venture to affirm, that there is no poem of equal
length that abounds with so many impassioned encomiums on the fair sex
as the Lusiad. The genius of Camoëns seems never so pleased as when he
is painting the variety of female charms; he feels all the magic of
their allurements, and riots in his descriptions of the happiness and
miseries attendant on the passion of love. As he wrote from his
feelings, these parts of his works have been particularly honoured with
the attention of the world.
[261] To give the character of Alphonso IV. will throw light on this
inhuman transaction. He was an undutiful son, an unnatural brother, and
a cruel father, a great and fortunate warrior, diligent in the execution
of the laws, and a Macchiavellian politician. His maxim was that of the
Jesuits; so that a contemplated good might be attained, he cared not how
villainous might be the means employed. When the enemies of Inez had
persuaded him that her death was necessary to the welfare of the state,
he took a journey to Coimbra, that he might see the lady, when the
prince, his son, was absent on a hunting party. Donna Inez, with her
children, threw herself at his feet. The king was moved with the
distress of the beautiful suppliant, when his three counsellors, Alvaro
Gonsalez, Diego Lopez Pacheco, and Pedro Coello, reproaching him for his
disregard to the state, he relapsed to his former resolution. She was
then dragged from his presence, and brutally murdered by the hands of
his three counsellors, who immediately returned to the king with their
daggers reeking with the innocent blood of his daughter-in-law. Alonzo,
says La Neufville, avowed the horrid assassination, as if he had done
nothing of which he ought to be ashamed.
[262] Pyrrhus, son of Achilles: he was also called Neoptolemus. He
sacrificed Polyxena, daughter of Priam king of Troy, to the manes of his
father. Euripides and Sophocles each wrote a tragedy having the
sacrifice of Polyxena for the subject. Both have unfortunately
perished.--_Ed._
[263] Hecuba, mother of Polyxena, and wife of Priam.--_Ed._
[264] The fair Inez was crowned Queen of Portugal after her interment.
[265] Atreus, having slain the sons of Thyestes, cut them in pieces, and
served them up for a repast to their own father. The sun, it is said,
hid his face rather than shine on so barbarous a deed.--Ed.
[266] At an old royal castle near Mondego, there is a rivulet called the
fountain of Amours. According to tradition, it was here that Don Pedro
resided with his beloved Inez. The fiction of Camoëns, founded on the
popular name of the rivulet, is in the spirit of Homer.
[267] When the prince was informed of the death of his beloved Inez, he
was transported into the most violent fury. He took arms against his
father. The country between the rivers Minho and Doura was laid
desolate: but, by the interposition of the queen and the Archbishop of
Braga, the prince relented, and the further horrors of a civil war were
prevented. Don Alonzo was not only reconciled to his son, but laboured
by every means to oblige him, and to efface from his memory the injury
and insult he had received. The prince, however, still continued to
discover the strongest marks of affection and grief. When he succeeded
to the crown, one of his first acts was a treaty with the King of
Castile, whereby each monarch engaged to give up such malcontents as
should take refuge in each other's dominions. In consequence of this,
Pedro Coello and Alvaro Gonsalez, who, on the death of Alonzo had fled
to Castile, were sent prisoners to Don Pedro. Diego Pacheco, the third
murderer, made his escape. The other two were put to death with the most
exquisite tortures, and most justly merited, if torture is in any
instance to be allowed. After this the king, Don Pedro, summoned an
assembly of the states at Cantanedes. Here, in the presence of the
Pope's nuncio, he solemnly swore on the holy Gospels, that having
obtained a dispensation from Rome, he had secretly, at Braganza,
espoused the Lady Inez de Castro, in the presence of the Bishop of
Guarda, and of his master of the wardrobe; both of whom confirmed the
truth of the oath. The Pope's Bull, containing the dispensation, was
published; the body of Inez was lifted from the grave, was placed on a
magnificent throne, and with the proper regalia, crowned Queen of
Portugal. The nobility did homage to her skeleton, and kissed the bones
of her hand. The corpse was then interred at the royal monastery of
Alcobaca, with a pomp before unknown in Portugal, and with all the
honours due to a queen. Her monument is still extant, where her statue
is adorned with the diadem and the royal robe. This, with the
legitimation of her children, and the care he took of all who had been
in her service, consoled him in some degree, and rendered him more
conversable than he had hitherto been; but the cloud which the death of
Inez brought over the natural cheerfulness of his temper, was never
totally dispersed.---- A circumstance strongly characteristic of the
rage of his resentment must not be omitted. When the murderers were
brought before him, he was so transported with indignation, that he
struck Pedro Coello several blows on the face with the shaft of his
whip.
[268] _Pedro the Just._--History cannot afford an instance of any prince
who has a more eminent claim to the title of just than Pedro I. His
diligence to correct every abuse was indefatigable, and when guilt was
proved his justice was inexorable. He was dreadful to the evil, and
beloved by the good, for he respected no persons, and his inflexible
severity never digressed from the line of strict justice. An anecdote or
two will throw some light on his character. A priest having killed a
mason, the king dissembled his knowledge of the crime, and left the
issue to the ecclesiastical court, where the priest was punished by one
year's suspension from saying mass. The king on this privately ordered
the mason's son to revenge the murder of his father. The young man
obeyed, was apprehended, and condemned to death. When his sentence was
to be confirmed by the king, Pedro enquired, what was the young man's
trade. He was answered, that he followed his father's. "Well then," said
the king, "I shall commute his punishment, and interdict him from
meddling with stone or mortar for a twelve-month." After this he fully
established the authority of the king's courts over the clergy, whom he
punished with death when their crimes were capital. When solicited to
refer the causes of such criminals to a higher tribunal, he would answer
very calmly, "That is what I intend to do: I will send them to the
highest of all tribunals, to that of their Maker and mine." Against
adulterers he was particularly severe, often declaring it as his
opinion, that conjugal infidelity was the source of the greatest evils,
and that therefore to restrain it was the interest and duty of the
sovereign. Though the fate of his beloved Inez chagrined and soured his
temper, he was so far from being naturally sullen or passionate, that he
was rather of a gay and sprightly disposition; he was affable and easy
of access; delighted in music and dancing; was a lover of learning, a
man of letters, and an elegant poet.--Vide Le Clede, Mariana, Faria.
[269] This lady, named Leonora de Tellez, was the wife of Don Juan
Lorenzo Acugna, a nobleman of one of the most distinguished families in
Portugal. After a sham process this marriage was dissolved, and the king
privately espoused to her, though, at this time, he was publicly married
by proxy to Donna Leonora of Arragon. A dangerous insurrection, headed
by one Velasquez, a tailor, drove the king and his adulterous bride from
Lisbon. Soon after, he caused his marriage to be publicly celebrated in
the province of Entre Douro e Minho. Henry, king of Castile, being
informed of the general discontent that reigned in Portugal, marched a
formidable army into that kingdom, to revenge the injury offered to some
of his subjects, whose ships had been unjustly seized at Lisbon. The
desolation hinted at by Camoëns ensued. After the subjects of both
kingdoms had severely suffered, the two kings ended the war, much to
their mutual satisfaction, by an intermarriage of their illegitimate
children.
[270] Judges, chap. xix. and xx.
[271] Samuel, chap. xii. 10, "The sword shall never depart from thine
house."
[272] Hercules.
[273] Love compelled Hercules to spin wool.--OVID.
[274] Hannibal.
[275] Dom John was a natural brother of Fernando, being an illegitimate
son of Pedro.--_Ed._
[276] _A cradled infant gave the wondrous sign._--No circumstance has
ever been more ridiculed by the ancient and modern pedants than
Alexander's pretensions to divinity. Some of his courtiers expostulating
with him one day on the absurdity of such claim, he replied, "I know the
truth of what you say, but these," (pointing to a crowd of Persians)
"these know no better." The report that the Grecian army was commanded
by a son of Jupiter spread terror through the East, and greatly
facilitated the operations of the conqueror. The miraculous speech of
the infant, attested by a few monks, was adapted to the superstition of
the age of John I. and, as he was illegitimate, was of infinite service
to his cause. The pretended fact, however, is differently related.
[277] Lisbon, or Ulyssipolis, supposed to be founded by Ulysses.--_Ed._
[278] _The mitred head._--Don Martin, bishop of Lisbon, a man of
exemplary life. He was by birth a Castilian, which was esteemed a
sufficient reason to murder him, as of the queen's party. He was thrown
from the tower of his own cathedral, whither he had fled to avoid the
popular fury.
[279] _The queen beheld her power, her honours lost._--Possessed of
great beauty and great abilities, this bad woman was a disgrace to her
sex, and a curse to the age and country which gave her birth. Her
sister, Donna Maria, a lady of unblemished virtue, had been secretly
married to the infant, Don Juan, the king's brother, who was
passionately attached to her. Donna Maria had formerly endeavoured to
dissuade her sister from the adulterous marriage with the king. In
revenge of this, the queen, Leonora, persuaded Don Juan that her sister
was unfaithful to his bed. The enraged husband hastened to his wife,
and, without enquiry or expostulation, says Mariana, dispatched her with
two strokes of his dagger. He was afterwards convinced of her innocence.
Having sacrificed her honour, and her first husband, to a king, (says
Faria), Leonora soon sacrificed that king to a wicked gallant, a
Castilian nobleman, named Don Juan Fernandez de Andeyro. An unjust war
with Castile, wherein the Portuguese were defeated by sea and land, was
the first fruits of the policy of the new favourite. Andeyro one day
being in a great perspiration, by some military exercise, the queen tore
her veil, and publicly gave it him to wipe his face. The grand master of
Avis, the king's illegitimate brother, afterwards John I., and some
others, expostulated with her on the indecency of this behaviour. She
dissembled her resentment, but, soon after, they were seized and
committed to the castle of Evora, where a forged order for their
execution was sent; but the governor suspecting some fraud, showed it to
the king. Yet, such was her ascendancy over Fernando, that though
convinced of her guilt, he ordered his brother to kiss the queen's hand,
and thank her for his life. Soon after, Fernando died, but not till he
was fully convinced of the queen's conjugal infidelity, and had given an
order for the assassination of the gallant. Not long after the death of
the king, the favourite Andeyro was stabbed in the palace by the
grandmaster of Avis, and Don Ruy de Pereyra. The queen expressed all the
transport of grief and rage, and declared she would undergo the
trial-ordeal in vindication of his, and her, innocence. But this she
never performed: in her vows of revenge, however, she was more punctual.
Don Juan, king of Castile, who had married her only daughter and
heiress, at her earnest entreaties invaded Portugal, and was proclaimed
king. Don John, grand master of Avis, was proclaimed by the people
protector and regent. A desperate war ensued. Queen Leonora, treated
with indifference by her daughter and son-in-law, resolved on the murder
of the latter, but the plot was discovered, and she was sent prisoner to
Castile. The regent was besieged in Lisbon, and the city reduced to the
utmost extremities, when an epidemic broke out in the Castilian army,
and made such devastation, that the king suddenly raised the siege, and
abandoned his views on Portugal. The happy inhabitants ascribed their
deliverance to the valour and vigilance of the regent. The regent
reproved their ardour, exhorted them to repair to their churches, and
return thanks to God, to whose interposition he solely ascribed their
safety. This behaviour increased the admiration of the people; the
nobility of the first rank joined the regent's party, and many garrisons
in the interest of the king of Castile opened their gates to him. An
assembly of the states met at Coimbra, where it was proposed to invest
the regent with the regal dignity. This he pretended to decline. Don
John, son of Pedro the Just and the beautiful Inez de Castro, was by the
people esteemed their lawful sovereign, but was, and had been long,
detained a prisoner by the King of Castile. If the states would declare
the infant, Don John, their king, the regent professed his willingness
to swear allegiance to him, that he would continue to expose himself to
every danger, and act as regent, till Providence restored to Portugal
her lawful sovereign. The states, however, saw the necessity that the
nation should have a head. The regent was unanimously elected king, and
some articles in favour of liberty were added to those agreed upon at
the coronation of Don Alonzo Enriquez, the first king of Portugal.
Don John I., one of the greatest of the Portuguese monarchs, was the
natural son of Pedro the Just, by Donna Teresa Lorenza, a Galician lady,
and was born some years after the death of Inez. At seven years of age
he was made grand master of Avis, where he received an excellent
education, which, joined to his great parts, brought him out early on
the political theatre. He was a brave commander, and a deep politician,
yet never forfeited the character of candour and honour. To be humble to
his friends, and haughty to his enemies, was his leading maxim. His
prudence gained him the confidence of the wise; his steadiness and
gratitude the friendship of the brave; his liberality the bulk of the
people. He was in the twenty-seventh year of his age when declared
protector, and in his twenty-eighth when proclaimed king.
The following anecdote is much to the honour of this prince when regent.
A Castilian officer, having six Portuguese gentleman prisoners, cut off
their noses and hands, and sent them to Don John. Highly incensed, the
protector commanded six Castilian gentlemen to be treated in the same
manner. But, before the officer, to whom he gave the orders, had quitted
the room, he relented. "I have given enough to resentment," said he, "in
giving such a command. It were infamous to put it in execution. See that
the Castilian prisoners receive no harm."
[280] Beatrice.
[281] _By Rodrick given._--The celebrated hero of Corneille's tragedy of
the Cid.
[282] [283] Cadiz: in ancient times a Phoenician colony, whose coins
bear the emblem of two pillars--the pillars of Hercules
(Alcides).--_Ed._
[284] The Gascons or Basques, a very ancient and singular people. Their
language has no relation to that of any other people. They are regarded
as the earliest inhabitants of the Spanish peninsula.--_Ed._
[285] See Judges xvi. 17-19.
[286] This speech in the original has been much admired by foreign
critics, as a model of military eloquence. The critic, it is hoped, will
perceive that the translator has endeavoured to support the character of
the speaker.
[287] This was the famous P. Corn. Scipio Africanus. The fact, somewhat
differently related by Livy, is this. After the defeat at Cannæ, a
considerable body of Romans fled to Canusium, and appointed Scipio and
Ap. Claudius their commanders. While they remained there, it was told
Scipio, that some of his chief officers, at the head of whom was
Cæcilius Metellus, were taking measures to transport themselves out of
Italy. He went immediately to their assembly; and drawing his sword,
said, _I swear that I will not desert the Commonwealth of Rome, nor
suffer any other citizen to do it. The same oath I require of you,
Cæcilius, and of all present; whoever refuses, let him know that this
sword is drawn against him._ The historian adds, that they were as
terrified by this, as if they had beheld the face of their conqueror,
Hannibal. They all swore, and submitted themselves to Scipio.--Vid.
Livy, bk. 22. c. 53.
[288] Sestos was a city of Thrace, on the Dardanelles, opposite
Abydos.--_Ed._
[289] The Guadiana, one of the two great rivers of Spain.--_Ed._
[290] The Douro.
[291] Homer and Virgil have, with great art, gradually heightened the
fury of every battle, till the last efforts of their genius were
lavished in describing the superior prowess of the hero in the decisive
engagement. Camoëns, in like manner, has bestowed his utmost attention
on this his principal battle. The circumstances preparatory to the
engagement are happily imagined, and solemnly conducted, and the fury of
the combat is supported with a poetical heat, and a variety of imagery,
which, one need not hesitate to affirm, would do honour to an ancient
classic author.
[292] _And his own brothers shake the hostile lance._--The just
indignation with which Camoëns treats the kindred of the brave Nunio
Alvaro de Pereyra, is condemned by the French translator. "The
Pereyras," says he, "deserve no stain on their memory for joining the
King of Castile, whose title to the crown of Portugal was infinitely
more just and solid than that of Don John." Castera, however, is grossly
mistaken. Don Alonzo Enriquez, the first King of Portugal, was elected
by the people, who had recovered their liberties at the glorious battle
of Ourique. At the election the constitution of the kingdom was settled
in eighteen short statutes, wherein it is expressly provided, that none
but a Portuguese can be king of Portugal; that if an infanta marry a
foreign prince, he shall not, in her right, become King of Portugal, and
a new election of a king, in case of the failure of the male line, is,
by these statutes, supposed legal. By the treaty of marriage between the
King of Castile and Donna Beatrix, the heiress of Fernando of Portugal,
it was agreed, that only their children should succeed to the Portuguese
crown; and that, in case the throne became vacant ere such children were
born, the Queen-dowager, Leonora, should govern with the title of
Regent. Thus, neither by the original constitution, nor by the treaty of
marriage, could the King of Castile succeed to the throne of Portugal.
And any pretence he might found on the marriage contract was already
forfeited; for he caused himself and his queen to be proclaimed, added
Portugal to his titles, coined Portuguese money with his bust, deposed
the queen regent, and afterwards sent her prisoner to Castile. The
lawful heir, Don Juan, the son of Inez de Castro, was kept in prison by
his rival, the King of Castile; and, as before observed, a new election
was, by the original statutes, supposed legal in cases of emergency.
These facts, added to the consideration of the tyranny of the King of
Castile, and the great services which Don John had rendered his country,
fully vindicate the indignation of Camoëns against the traitorous
Pereyras.
[293] Near Pharsalus was fought the decisive battle between Cæsar and
Pompey, B.C. 48.--_Ed._
[294] Ceuta, a small Spanish possession on the Mediterranean coast of
Morocco.--_Ed._
[295] Tetuan, a city of Morocco.--_Ed._
[296] _Through the fierce Brigians._--The Castilians, so called from one
of their ancient kings, named Brix, or Brigus, whom the monkish writers
call the grandson of Noah.
[297] These lines are not in the common editions of Camoëns. They
consist of three stanzas in the Portuguese, and are said to have been
left out by the author himself in his second edition. The translator,
however, as they breathe the true spirit of Virgil, was willing to
preserve them with this acknowledgment.
[298] Massylia, a province in Numidia, greatly infested with lions,
particularly that part of it called _Os sete montes irmaõs_, the seven
brother mountains.
[299] _And many a gasping warrior sigh'd his last._--This, which is
almost literal from--
_Muitos lançaraõ o ultimo suspiro,--_
and the preceding circumstance of Don John's brandishing his lance four
times--
_E sopesando a lança quatro vezes,_
are poetical, and in the spirit of Homer. Besides Maldonat, Castera has,
in this battle, introduced several other names which have no place in
Camoëns. Carrillo, Robledo, John of Lorca, Salazar of Seville were
killed, he tells us: And, "Velasques and Sanches, natives of Toledo,
Galbes, surnamed the 'Soldier without Fear,' Montanches, Oropesa, and
Mondonedo, all six of proved valour, fell by the hand of young Antony,
who brought to the fight either more address, or better fortune than
these." Not a word of this is in the Portuguese.
[300] _Their swords seem dipp'd in fire._--This is as literal as the
idiom of the two languages would allow. Dryden has a thought like that
of this couplet, but which is not in his original:--
"Their bucklers clash; thick blows descend from high,
And flakes of fire from their hard helmets fly."
DRYD. Virg. Æn. xii.
[301] Grand master of the order of St. James, named Don Pedro Nunio. He
was not killed, however, in this battle, which was fought on the plains
of Aljubarota, but in that of Valverda, which immediately followed. The
reader may, perhaps, be surprised to find that every soldier mentioned
in these notes is a Don, a _Lord_. The following piece of history will
account for the number of the Portuguese nobles. Don Alonzo Enriquez,
Count of Portugal, was saluted king by his army at the battle of
Ourique; in return, his majesty dignified every man in his army with the
rank of nobility.--Vide the 9th of the Statutes of Lamego.
[302] Cerberus.
[303] The Spaniards.
[304] This tyrant, whose unjust pretensions to the crown of Portugal
laid his own, and that, kingdom in blood, was on his final defeat
overwhelmed with all the frenzy of grief. In the night after the
decisive battle of Aljubarota, he fled upwards of thirty miles upon a
mule. Don Laurence, archbishop of Braga, in a letter written in old
Portuguese to Don John, abbot of Alcobaza, gives this account of his
behaviour: "The constable has informed me that he saw the King of
Castile at Santaren, who behaved as a madman, cursing his existence, and
tearing the hairs of his beard. And, in good faith, my good friend, it
is better that he should do so to himself than to us; the man who thus
plucks his own beard, would be much better pleased to do so to others."
The writer of this letter, though a prelate, fought at the battle of
Aljubarota, where he received on the face a large wound from a sabre.
[305] _The festive days by heroes old ordain'd._--As a certain proof of
the victory, it was required, by the honour of these ages, that the
victor should encamp three days on the field of battle. By this
knight-errantry the advantages which ought to have been pursued were
frequently lost. Don John, however, though he complied with the reigning
ideas of honour, sent Don Nunio, with a proper army, to reap the fruits
of his victory.
[306] John of Portugal, about a year after the battle of Aljubarota,
married Philippa, eldest daughter of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster,
son of Edward III. who assisted the king, his son-in-law, in an
irruption into Castile, and, at the end of the campaign, promised to
return with more numerous forces for the next. But this was prevented by
the marriage of his youngest daughter, Catalina, with Don Henry, eldest
son of the King of Castile. The King of Portugal on this entered
Galicia, and reduced the cities of Tui and Salvaterra. A truce followed.
While the tyrant of Castile meditated a new war, he was killed by a fall
from his horse, and, leaving no issue by his queen, Beatrix (the King of
Portugal's daughter), all pretension to that crown ceased. The truce was
now prolonged for fifteen years, and, though not strictly kept, yet, at
last the influence of the English queen, Catalina, prevailed, and a long
peace, happy for both kingdoms, ensued.
[307] The Pillars of Hercules, or Straits of Gibraltar.--_Ed._
[308] The character of this great prince claims a place in these notes,
as it affords a comment on the enthusiasm of Camoëns, who has made him
the hero of his episode. His birth, excellent education, and masterly
conduct when regent, have already been mentioned. The same justice,
prudence, and heroism always accompanied him when king. He had the art
to join the most winning affability with all the manly dignity of the
sovereign. To those who were his friends, when a private man, he was
particularly attentive. His nobility dined at his table, he frequently
made visits to them, and introduced among them the taste for, and the
love of, letters. As he felt the advantages of education, he took the
utmost care of that of his children. He had many sons, and he himself
often instructed them in solid and useful knowledge, and was amply
repaid. He lived to see them men, men of parts and of action, whose only
emulation was to show affection to his person, and to support his
administration by their great abilities. One of his sons, Don Henry,
duke of Viseo, was that great prince whose ardent passion for maritime
affairs gave birth to all the modern improvements in navigation. The
clergy, who had disturbed almost every other reign, were so convinced of
the wisdom of his, that they confessed he ought to be supported out of
the treasures of the church, and granted him the church plate to be
coined. When the pope ordered a rigorous inquiry to be made into his
having brought ecclesiastics before lay tribunals, the clergy had the
singular honesty to desert what was styled the church immunities, and to
own that justice had been impartially administered. He died in the
seventy-sixth year of his age, and in the forty-eighth of his reign. His
affection to his queen, Philippa, made him fond of the English, whose
friendship he cultivated, and by whom he was frequently assisted.
[309] Camoëns, in this instance, has raised the character of one brother
at the other's expense, to give his poem an air of solemnity. The siege
of Tangier was proposed. The king's brothers differed in their opinions:
that of Don Fernand, though a knight-errant adventure, was approved of
by the young nobility. The infants, Henry and Fernand, at the head of
7000 men, laid siege to Tangier, and were surrounded by a numerous army
of Moors, some writers say six hundred thousand. On condition that the
Portuguese army should be allowed to return home, the infants promised
to surrender Ceuta. The Moors gladly accepted of the terms, but demanded
one of the infants as a hostage. Fernand offered himself, and was left.
The king was willing to comply with the terms to relieve his brother,
but the court considered the value of Ceuta, and would not consent. The
pope also interposed his authority, that Ceuta should be kept as a check
on the infidels, and proposed to raise a crusade for the delivery of
Fernand. In the meanwhile large offers were made for his liberty. These
were rejected by the Moors, who would accept of nothing but Ceuta, to
whose vast importance they were no strangers. When negotiations failed,
King Edward assembled a large army to effect his brother's release, but,
just as he was setting out, he was seized with the plague, and died,
leaving orders with his queen to deliver up Ceuta for the release of his
brother. This, however, was never performed. Don Fernand remained with
the Moors till his death. The magnanimity of his behaviour gained him
their esteem and admiration, nor is there good proof that he received
any very rigorous treatment; the contrary is rather to be inferred from
the romantic notions of military honour which then prevailed among the
Moors. Don Fernand is to this day esteemed as a saint and martyr in
Portugal, and his memory is commemorated on the fifth of June. King
Edward reigned only five years and a month. He was the most eloquent man
in his dominions, spoke and wrote Latin elegantly, was author of several
books, one on horsemanship, in which art he excelled. He was brave in
the field, active in business, and rendered his country infinite service
by reducing the laws to a regular code. He was knight of the Order of
the Garter, which honour was conferred upon him by his cousin, Henry V.
of England. In one instance he gave great offence to the superstitious
populace. He despised the advice of a Jew astrologer, who entreated him
to delay his coronation because the stars that day were unfavourable. To
this the misfortune of Tangier was ascribed, and the people were always
on the alarm, as if some terrible disaster were impending over them.
[310] The Moors.
[311] When Henry IV. of Castile died, he declared that the infanta
Joanna, was his heiress, in preference to his sister, Donna Isabella,
married to Don Ferdinand, son to the King of Arragon. In hopes to attain
the kingdom of Castile, Don Alonzo, king of Portugal, obtained a
dispensation from the pope to marry his niece, Donna Joanna. After a
bloody war, the ambitious views of Alonzo and his courtiers were
defeated.
[312] The Pyrenees which separate France from Spain.--_Ed._
[313] The Prince of Portugal.
[314] Julius Cæsar.
[315] Naples.
[316] Parthenope was one of the Syrens. Enraged because she could not
allure Ulysses, she threw herself into the sea. Her corpse was thrown
ashore, and buried where Naples now stands.
[317] The coast of Alexandria.
[318] Among the Christians of Abyssinia.
[319] Sandy, the French sable = sand.--_Ed._
[320] The Nabathean mountains; so named from Nabaoth, the son of
Ishmael.
[321] _Beyond where Trajan._--The Emperor Trajan extended the bounds of
the Roman Empire in the East far beyond any of his predecessors. His
conquests reached to the river Tigris, near which stood the city of
Ctesiphon, which he subdued. The Roman historians boasted that India was
entirely conquered by him; but they could only mean Arabia Felix.--Vid.
Dion. Cass. Euseb. Chron. p. 206.
[322] _Qui mores hominum multorum vidit._--HOR.
[323] Emmanuel was cousin to the late king, John II. and grandson to
king Edward, son of John I.
[324] The river Indus, which gave name to India.
[325] Vasco de Gama, who is, in a certain sense, the hero of the Lusiad,
was born in 1469, at Sines, a fishing town on the Atlantic, midway
between Lisbon and Cape St. Vincent, where, in a small church on a
cliff, built by the great navigator after his appointment as Viceroy of
India, is an inscription to his memory.--_Ed._
[326] Hercules.
[327] _Orac'lous Argo._--According to the fable, the vessel of the
Argonauts spoke and prophesied. See _The Argonautics_ of Apollonius
Rhodius.--_Ed._
[328] This fact is according to history: Aberat Olysippone prope littus
quatuor passuum millia templum sanè religiosum et sanctum ab Henrico in
honorem Sanctissimæ Virginis edificatum.... In id Gama pridie illius
diei, quo erat navem conscensurus, se recepit, ut noctem cum religiosis
hominibus qui in ædibus templo conjunctis habitabant, in precibus et
votis consumeret. Sequenti die cum multi non illius tantùm gratia, sed
aliorum etiam, qui illi comites erant, convenissent, fuit ab omnibus in
scaphis deductus. Neque solùm homines religiosi, sed reliqui omnes voce
maxima cum lacrymis à Deo precabantur, ut benè et prosperè illa tam
periculosa navigatio omnibus eveniret, et universi re benè gesta,
incolumes in patriam redirent.
[329] By this old man is personified the populace of Portugal. The
endeavours to discover the East Indies by the Southern Ocean, for about
eighty years had been the favourite topic of complaint, and never was
any measure of government more unpopular than the expedition of GAMA.
Emmanuel's council were almost unanimous against the attempt. Some
dreaded the introduction of wealth, and its attendants, luxury and
effeminacy; while others affirmed, that no adequate advantages could
arise from so perilous and remote a navigation. The expressions of the
thousands who crowded the shore when GAMA gave his sails to the wind,
are thus expressed by Osorius: "A multis tamen interim is fletus atque
lamentatio fiebat, un funus efferre viderentur. Sic enim dicebant: En
quo miseros mortales provexit cupiditas et ambitio? Potuitne gravius
supplicium hominibus istis constitui, si in se scelestum aliquod facinus
admisissent? Est enim illis immensi maris longitudo peragranda, fluctus
immanes difficillima navigatione superandi, vitæ discrimen in locis
infinitis obeundum. Non fuit multò tolerabilius, in terra quovis genere
mortis absumi, quàm tam procul à patria marinis fluctibus sepeliri. Hæc
et alia multa in hanc sententiam dicebant, cùm omnia multò tristiora
fingere præ metu cogerentur." The tender emotion and fixed resolution of
GAMA, and the earnest passion of the multitudes on the shore, are thus
added by the same venerable historian: "Gama tamen quamvis lacrymas
suorum desiderio funderet, rei tamen benè gerendæ fiducia confirmatus,
alacriter in navem faustis ominibus conscendit.... Qui in littore
consistebant, non prius abscedere voluerunt, quàm naves vento secundo
plenissimis velis ab omnium conspectu remotæ sunt."
[330] More literally rendered by Capt. R. Burton:--
"----He spoke
From a full heart, and skill'd in worldly lore,
In deep, slow tones this solemn warning, fraught
With wisdom, by long-suffering only taught:
'O passion of dominion! O fond lust
Of that poor vanity which men call fame!
O treach'rous appetite, whose highest gust
Is vulgar breath that taketh honour's name!
O fell ambition, terrible but just
Art thou to breasts that cherish most thy flame!
Brief life for them in peril, storm, and rage;
This world a hell, and death their heritage.
"'Shrewd prodigal! whose riot is the dearth
Of states and principalities oppress'd,
Plunder and rape are of thy loathly birth,
Thou art alike of life and soul the pest.
High titles greet thee on this slavish earth,
Yet, none so vile but they would fit thee best.
But Fame, forsooth, and Glory thou art styl'd,
And the blind herd is by a sound beguil'd.'"
[331] The Moor.--_Ed._
[332] The Muses.--_Ed._
[333] Prometheus is said to have stolen fire from heaven.--_Ed._
[334] Alluding to the fables of Phaeton and Icarus; the former having
obtained from Helios, his father, permission to guide the chariot of the
sun for one day, nearly set the world on fire. He perished in the river
Eridanus (the Po.) Icarus, the sun having melted the wax with which his
wings were cemented, fell into that part of the Ægean which, from his
misfortune, was called the _Icarian Sea_.--_Ed._
[335] The sun is in the constellation Leo in July.--_Ed._
[336] The Serra de Cintra, situated about 15 miles N.W. of
Lisbon.--_Ed._
[337] See the life of Don Henry, prince of Portugal, in the preface.
[338] Morocco.
[339] The discovery of some of the West Indian islands by Columbus was
made in 1492 and 1493. His discovery of the continent of America was not
till 1498. The fleet of GAMA sailed from the Tagus in 1497.
[340] Called by the ancients _Insulæ Purpurariæ_. Now Madeira, and Porto
Santo. The former was so named by Juan Gonzales, and Tristan Vaz, from
the Spanish word _madera_, wood. These discoverers wens sent out by the
great Don Henry.
[341] The Tropic of Cancer.--_Ed._
[342] Called by Ptolemy _Caput Assinarium_, now Cape Verde.
[343] The Canaries, called by the ancients _Insulæ Fortunatæ_.
[344] The province of Jalofo lies between the two rivers, the Gambia and
the Zanago. The latter has other names in the several countries through
which it runs. In its course it makes many islands, inhabited only by
wild beasts. It is navigable for 150 leagues, at the end of which it is
crossed by a stupendous ridge of perpendicular rocks, over which the
river rushes with such violence, that travellers pass under it without
any other inconvenience than the prodigious noise. The Gambia, or _Rio
Grande_, runs 180 leagues, but is not so far navigable. It carries more
water, and runs with less noise than the other, though filled with many
rivers which water the country of Mandinga. Both rivers are branches of
the Niger. Their waters have this remarkable quality; when mixed
together they operate as an emetic, but when separate do not. They
abound with great variety of fishes, and their banks are covered with
horses, crocodiles, winged serpents, elephants, ounces, wild boars, with
great numbers of others, wonderful for the variety of their nature and
different forms.--FARIA Y SOUSA.
[345] _Timbuctu_, the mart of Mandinga gold, was greatly resorted to by
the merchants of Grand Cairo, Tunis, Oran, Tlemicen, Fez, Morocco, etc.
[346] Contra hoc promontorium (Hesperionceras) Gorgades insulæ
narrantur, Gorgonum quondam domus, bidui navigatione distantes a
continente, ut tradit Xenophon Lampsacenus. Penetravit in eas Hanno
Poenorum imperator, prodiditque hirta foeminarum corpora viros
pernicitate evasisse, duarumque Gorgonum cutes argumenti et miraculi
gratia in Junonis templo posuit, spectatas usque ad Carthaginem
captam.--PLIN. Hist. Nat. l. 6. c. 31.
[347] Sierra Leone.
[348] Cape Palmas.--_Ed._
[349] During the reign of John II. the Portuguese erected several forts,
and acquired great power in the extensive regions of Guinea. Azambuja, a
Portuguese captain, having obtained leave from Caramansa, a negro
prince, to erect a fort on his territories, an unlucky accident had
almost proved fatal to the discoverers. A huge rock lay very commodious
for a quarry; the workmen began on it; but this rock, as the devil would
have it, happened to be a negro god. The Portuguese were driven away by
the enraged worshippers, who were afterwards with difficulty pacified by
a profusion of such presents as they most esteemed.
[350] The Portuguese, having brought an ambassador from Congo to Lisbon,
sent him back instructed in the faith. By this means the king, queen,
and about 100,000 of the people were baptized; the idols were destroyed
and churches built. Soon after, the prince, who was then absent at war,
was baptized by the name of _Alonzo_. His younger brother, Aquitimo,
however, would not receive the faith, and the father, because allowed
only one wife, turned apostate, and left the crown to his pagan son,
who, with a great army, surrounded his brother, when only attended by
some Portuguese and Christian blacks, in all only thirty-seven. By the
bravery of these, however, Aquitimo was defeated, taken, and slain. One
of Aquitimo's officers declared, they were not defeated by the
thirty-seven Christians, but by a glorious army who fought under a
shining cross. The idols were again destroyed, and Alonzo sent his sons,
grandsons, and nephews to Portugal to study; two of whom were afterwards
bishops in Congo.--_Extracted from_ Faria y Sousa.
[351] According to fable, Calisto was a nymph of Diana. Jupiter having
assumed the figure of that goddess, completed his amorous desires. On
the discovery of her pregnancy, Diana drove her from her train. She fled
to the woods, where she was delivered of a son. Juno changed them into
bears, and Jupiter placed them in heaven, where they form the
constellations of Ursa Major and Minor. Juno, still enraged, entreated
Thetis never to suffer Calisto to bathe in the sea. This is founded on
the appearance of the northern pole-star, to the inhabitants of our
hemisphere; but, when GAMA approached the austral pole, the northern, of
consequence, disappeared under the waves.
[352] The Southern Cross.
[353] The constellation of the southern pole was called _The Cross_ by
the Portuguese sailors, from the appearance of that figure formed by
seven stars. In the southern hemisphere, as Camoëns observes, the nights
are darker than in the northern, the skies being adorned with much fewer
stars.
[354]
_Non, mihi si linguæ centum sunt, oraque
centum, Ferrea vox, omnes scelerum comprendere formas._--ÆN. vi.
[355] _That living fire, by seamen held divine._--The sulphureous
vapours of the air, after being violently agitated by a tempest, unite,
and when the humidity begins to subside, as is the case when the storm
is almost exhausted, by the agitation of their atoms they take fire, and
are attracted by the masts and cordage of the ship. Being thus,
naturally, the pledges of the approaching calm, it is no wonder that the
superstition of sailors should in all ages have esteemed them divine,
and--
_Of heaven's own care in storms the holy sign._
In the expedition of the Golden Fleece, in a violent tempest these fires
were seen to hover over the heads of Castor and Pollux, who were two of
the Argonauts, and a calm immediately ensued. After the apotheoses of
these heroes, the Grecian sailors invoked these fires by the names of
Castor and Pollux, or _the sons of Jupiter_. The Athenians called them
[Greek: Sôtêres], _Saviours_.
[356] In this book, particularly in the description of Massilia, the
Gorgades, the fires called Castor and Pollux, and the water-spout,
Camoëns has happily imitated the manner of Lucan. It is probable that
Camoëns, in his voyage to the East Indies, was an eye witness of the
phenomena of the fires and water-spout. The latter is thus described by
Pliny, l. 2. c. 51. _Fit et caligo, belluæ similis nubes dira
navigantibus vocatur et columna, cum spissatus humor rigensque ipse se
sustinet, et in longam veluti fistulam nubes aquam trahit._ When the
violent heat attracts the waters to rise in the form of a tube, the
marine salts are left behind, by the action of rarefaction, being too
gross and fixed to ascend. It is thus, when the overloaded vapour
bursts, that it descends--
_Sweet as the waters of the limpid rill._
[357] _That sage device._--The astrolabe, an instrument of infinite
service in navigation, by which the altitude of the sun, and distance of
the stars is taken. It was invented in Portugal during the reign of John
II. by two Jewish physicians, named Roderic and Joseph. It is asserted
by some that they were assisted by Martin of Bohemia, a celebrated
mathematician.--_Partly from_ Castera. Vid. Barros, Dec. 1. lib. iv. c.
2.
[358] Arabic, one of the most copious and wide-spoken of
languages.--_Ed._
[359] Camoëns, in describing the adventure of Fernando Velosó, by
departing from the truth of history, has shown his judgment as a poet.
The place where the Portuguese landed they named the Bay of St. Helen.
They caught one of two negroes, says Faria, who were busied in gathering
honey on a mountain. Their behaviour to this savage, whom they gratified
with a red cap, some glasses and bells, induced him to bring a number of
his companions for the like trifles. Though some who accompanied GAMA
were skilled in the various African languages, not one of the natives
could understand them. A commerce, however, was commenced by signs and
gestures. GAMA behaved to them with great civility; the fleet was
cheerfully supplied with fresh provisions, for which the natives
received cloths and trinkets. But this friendship was soon interrupted
by a young, rash Portuguese. Having contracted an intimacy with some of
the negroes, he obtained leave to penetrate into the country along with
them, to observe their habitations and strength. They conducted him to
their huts with great good nature, and placed before him, what they
esteemed an elegant repast, a sea-calf dressed in the way of their
country. This so much disgusted the delicate Portuguese, that he
instantly got up and abruptly left them. Nor did they oppose his
departure, but accompanied him with the greatest innocence. As fear,
however, is always jealous, he imagined they were leading him as a
victim to slaughter. No sooner did he come near the ships, than he
called aloud for assistance. Coëllo's boat immediately set off for his
rescue. The Africans fled to the woods; and now esteeming the Portuguese
as a band of lawless plunderers, they provided themselves with arms, and
lay in ambush. Their weapons were javelins, headed with short pieces of
horn, which they throw with great dexterity. Soon after, while GAMA and
some of his officers were on the shore taking the altitude of the sun by
the astrolabe, they were suddenly and with great fury attacked by the
ambush from the woods. Several were much wounded, _multos convulnerant,
inter quos Gama in pede vulnus accepit_, and GAMA received a wound in
the foot. The admiral made a speedy retreat to the fleet, prudently
choosing rather to leave the negroes the honour of the victory, than to
risk the life of one man in a quarrel so foreign to the destination of
his expedition, and where, to impress the terror of his arms could be of
no service to his interest. When he came nearer to the East Indies he
acted in a different manner. He then made himself dreaded whenever the
treachery of the natives provoked his resentment.--_Collected from_
Faria and Osorius.
[360] The critics have vehemently declaimed against the least mixture of
the comic, with the dignity of the epic poem. It is needless to enter
into any defence of this passage of Camoëns, farther than to observe
that Homer, Virgil, and Milton have offended the critics in the same
manner, and that this piece of raillery in the Lusiad is by much the
politest, and the least reprehensible, of anything of the kind in the
four poets. In Homer are several strokes of low raillery. Patroclus
having killed Hector's charioteer, puns thus on his sudden fall: _It is
a pity he is not nearer the sea! He would soon catch abundance of
oysters, nor would the storms frighten him. See how he dives from his
chariot down to the sand! What excellent divers are the Trojans!_
Virgil, the most judicious of all poets, descends even to burlesque,
where the commander of a galley tumbles the pilot into the sea:--
----_Segnemque Menoeten
In mare præcipitem puppi deturbat ab alta.
At gravis ut sundo vix tandem redditus imo est
Jam senior, madidaque fluens in veste Menoetes,
Summa petit scopuli siccaque in rupe resedit.
Illum et labentem Teucri, et risere natantem;
Et salsos rident revomentem pectore fluctus._
And, though the character of the speakers, the ingenious defence which
has been offered for Milton, may, in some measure, vindicate the
raillery which he puts into the mouths of Satan and Belial, the lowness
of it, when compared with that of Camoëns, must still be acknowledged.
Talking of the execution of the diabolical artillery among the good
angels, they, says Satan--
"Flew off, and into strange vagaries fell
As they would dance, yet for a dance they seem'd
Somewhat extravagant and wild, perhaps
For joy of offer'd peace.----
To whom thus Belial, in like gamesome mood.
Leader, the terms we sent were terms of weight,
Of hard contents, and full of force urg'd home,
Such as we might perceive amus'd them all,
And stumbled many----
----this gift they have beside,
They show us when our foes walk not upright."
[361] The translator in reply to the critics will venture the assertion,
that the fiction of the apparition of the Cape of Tempests, in sublimity
and awful grandeur of imagination, stands unsurpassed in human
composition.
[362] _The next proud fleet._--On the return of GAMA to Portugal, a
fleet of thirteen sail, under the command of Pedro Alvarez Cabral, was
sent out on the second voyage to India, where the admiral with only six
ships arrived. The rest were mostly destroyed by a terrible tempest at
the Cape of Good Hope, which lasted twenty days. "The daytime," says
Faria, "was so dark that the sailors could scarcely see each other, or
hear what was said for the horrid noise of the winds." Among those who
perished was the celebrated Bartholomew Diaz, who was the first modern
discoverer of the Cape of Good Hope, which he named the Cape of
Tempests.
[363] _Behold a hero come._--Don Francisco de Almeyda. He was the first
Portuguese viceroy of India, in which country he obtained several great
victories over the Mohammedans and pagans. He was the first who
conquered Quiloa and Mombas, or Mombaz. On his return to Portugal he put
into the bay of Saldanha, near the Cape of Good Hope, to take in water
and provisions. The rudeness of one of his servants produced a quarrel
with the Caffres, or Hottentots. His attendants, much against his will,
forced him to march against the blacks. "Ah, whither," he exclaimed,
"will you carry the infirm man of sixty years?" After plundering a
miserable village, on the return to their ships they were attacked by a
superior number of Caffres, who fought with such fury in rescue of their
children, whom the Portuguese had seized, that the viceroy and fifty of
his attendants were slain.
[364] The crescent, the symbol of Mohammedanism.--_Ed._
[365] This poetical description of the miserable catastrophe of Don
Emmanuel de Souza, and his beautiful spouse, Leonora de Sà, is by no
means exaggerated. He was several years governor of Diu in India, where
he amassed immense wealth. On his return to his native country, the ship
in which was his lady, all his riches, and five hundred men, his sailors
and domestics, was dashed to pieces on the rocks at the Cape of Good
Hope. Don Emmanuel, his lady, and three children, with four hundred of
the crew escaped, having only saved a few arms and provisions. As they
marched through the wild uncultivated deserts, some died of famine, of
thirst, and fatigue; others, who wandered from the main body in search
of water, were murdered by the savages, or destroyed by the wild beasts.
They arrived, at last, at a village inhabited by African banditti. At
first they were courteously received, but the barbarians, having
unexpectedly seized their arms, stripped the whole company naked, and
left them destitute to the mercy of the desert. The wretchedness of the
delicate and exposed Leonora was increased by the brutal insults of the
negroes. Her husband, unable to relieve, beheld her miseries. After
having travelled about 300 leagues, her legs swelled, her feet bleeding
at every step, and her strength exhausted, she sunk down, and with the
sand covered herself to the neck, to conceal her nakedness. In this
dreadful situation, she beheld two of her children expire. Her own death
soon followed. Her husband, who had been long enamoured of her beauty,
received her last breath in a distracted embrace. Immediately, he
snatched his third child in his arms, and uttering the most lamentable
cries, he ran into the thickest of the wood, where the wild beasts were
soon heard to growl over their prey. Of the whole four hundred who
escaped the waves, only six and twenty arrived at another village, whose
inhabitants were more civilized, and traded with the merchants of the
Red Sea, from whence they found a passage to Europe, and brought the
tidings of the unhappy fate of their companions. Jerome de Cortereal, a
Portuguese poet, has written an affecting poem on the shipwreck, and
deplorable catastrophe of Don Emmanuel, and his beloved spouse.--_Partly
from_ Castera.