The Lusiad Part 39

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 G.o.d. 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 amba.s.sador 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 a.s.sumed the figure of that G.o.ddess, 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 Camoens observes, the nights are darker than in the northern, the skies being adorned with much fewer stars.

[354]

_Non, mihi si linguae centum sunt, oraque centum, Ferrea vox, omnes scelerum comprendere formas._--aeN. 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 superst.i.tion 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 S?t??e?, _Saviours_.

[356] In this book, particularly in the description of Ma.s.silia, the Gorgades, the fires called Castor and Pollux, and the water-spout, Camoens has happily imitated the manner of Lucan. It is probable that Camoens, 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, belluae similis nubes dira navigantibus vocatur et columna, c.u.m sp.i.s.satus 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 alt.i.tude 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 a.s.serted by some that they were a.s.sisted 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] Camoens, in describing the adventure of Fernando Veloso, 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 gla.s.ses 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 a.s.sistance. Coello'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 sh.o.r.e taking the alt.i.tude 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 pa.s.sage of Camoens, 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 Menten In mare praecipitem puppi deturbat ab alta.

At gravis ut sundo vix tandem redditus imo est Jam senior, madidaque fluens in veste Mentes, Summa pet.i.t 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 Camoens, 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 a.s.sertion, that the fiction of the apparition of the Cape of Tempests, in sublimity and awful grandeur of imagination, stands unsurpa.s.sed 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 Sa, is by no means exaggerated. He was several years governor of Diu in India, where he ama.s.sed 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 dest.i.tute 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 pa.s.sage 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.

[366] The giants or t.i.tans; called "sons of G.o.d" in Gen. vi. 2.--_Ed._

[367] Briareus.

[368] Doris, the sister and spouse of Nereus, and mother of the Nereides. By Nereus, in the physical sense of the fable, is understood the water of the sea, and by Doris, the bitterness or salt, the supposed cause of its prolific quality in the generation of fishes.

[369] _And give our wearied minds a lively glow._--Variety is no less delightful to the reader than to the traveller, and the imagination of Camoens gave an abundant supply. The insertion of this pastoral landscape, between the terrific scenes which precede and follow, has a fine effect. "Variety," says Pope, in one of his notes on the Odyssey, "gives life and delight; and it is much more necessary in epic, than in comic or tragic, poetry, sometimes to shift the scenes, to diversify and embellish the story."

The Portuguese, sailing upon the Atlantic Ocean, discovered the most southern point of Africa: here they found an immense sea, which carried them to the East Indies. The dangers they encountered in the voyage, the discovery of Mozambique, of Melinda, and of Calecut, have been sung by Camoens, whose poem recalls to our minds the charms of the Odyssey, and the magnificence of the aeneid.--MONTESQUIEU, Spirit of Laws, bk. xxi. c.

21.

[370] Virgil.

[371] A small island, named _Santa Cruz_ by Bartholomew Diaz, who discovered it. According to Faria y Sousa, he went twenty-five leagues further, to the river Del Infante, which, till pa.s.sed by GAMA, was the utmost extent of the Portuguese discoveries.

[372] It was the force of this rushing current which r.e.t.a.r.ded the further discoveries of Diaz. GAMA got over it by the a.s.sistance of a tempest. The seasons when these seas are safely navigable, are now perfectly known.

[373] The wise men of the East, or magi, whom the Roman Catholic writers will have to have been kings.--_Ed._

[374] The Epiphany.--_Ed._

[375] Dos Reis, _i.e._, of the kings.--_Ed._

[376] The frequent disappointments of the Portuguese, when they expect to hear some account of India, is a judicious imitation of several parts of Virgil; who, in the same manner, magnifies the distresses of the Trojans in their search for the fated seat of Empire:--

----_O gens Infelix! cui to exitio fortuna reservat?

Septima post Trojae excidium jam vert.i.tur aestas; c.u.m freta, c.u.m terras omnes, tot inhospita saxa Sideraque emensae ferimur: dum per mare magnum Italiam sequimur fugientem, et volvimur undis._ aeN. v. 625.

[377] Hop.

[378] It had been extremely impolitic in GAMA to mention the mutiny of his followers to the King of Melinda. The boast of their loyalty, besides, has a good effect in the poem, as it elevates the heroes, and gives uniformity to the character of bravery, which the dignity of the epopea required to be ascribed to them. History relates the matter differently. In standing for the Cape of Good Hope, GAMA gave the highest proofs of his resolution. The fleet seemed now tossed to the clouds, _ut modo nubes contingere_, and now sunk to the lowest whirlpools of the abyss. The winds were insufferably cold, and, to the rage of the tempest was added the horror of an almost continual darkness. The crew expected every moment to be swallowed up in the deep.

At every interval of the storm, they came round GAMA, a.s.serting the impossibility to proceed further, and imploring him to return. This he resolutely refused. A conspiracy against his life was formed, but was discovered by his brother. He guarded against it with the greatest courage and prudence; put all the pilots in chains, and he himself, with some others, took the management of the helms. At last, after having many days withstood the tempest, and a perfidious conspiracy, _invicto animo_, with an unconquered mind, a favourable change of weather revived the spirits of the fleet, and allowed them to double the Cape of Good Hope.--_Extr. from_ Osorius's Historia.

[379] GAMA and his followers were, from the darkness of the Portuguese complexion, thought to be Moors. When GAMA arrived in the East, a considerable commerce was carried on between the Indies and the Red Sea by the Moorish traders, by whom the gold mines of Sofala, and the riches of East Africa were enjoyed. The traffic was brought by land to Cairo, from whence Europe was supplied by the Venetian and Antwerpian merchants.