The Lusiad Part 34

"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."

aeNEID, 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 G.o.d Mercury.

[158] Having mentioned the escape of the Moorish pilots, Osorius proceeds: Rex deinde homines magno c.u.m silentio scaphis et lintribus submittebat, qui securibus anchoralia nocte praeciderent. Quod nisi fuisset a nostris singulari Gamae industria vigilatum, et insidiis scelerati illius regis occursum, nostri in summum vitae 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 n.o.bleness 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 embaracado_, &c. _I am so entangled and enc.u.mbered 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. Camoens is peculiarly happy in the same department of the Epopaea. 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 a.s.surances 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 compa.s.sion: 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 a.s.sured 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.e.l.l-fish, was very famous among the ancients.--_Ed._

[170] A girdle, or ornamented belt, worn over one shoulder and across the breast.--_Ed._

[171] Camoens 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 Camoens, 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 G.o.ddess 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 Leucothoe, 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 Botia 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 Camoens 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 circ.u.mstance Camoens 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 pa.s.sionately 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 const.i.tution, 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 c.o.c.ks 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 h.e.l.lespont, 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 Caesar, 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 ca.n.a.l for the benefit of commerce; on which the ocean rushed in, and formed the Mediterranean, the aegean, 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_.