The Lusiad Part 41

[416] Thyoneus, a name of Bacchus.

[417] _High from the roof the living amber glows.--_

"From the arched roof, Pendent by subtle magic, many a row Of starry lamps, and blazing cressets, fed With naptha and asphaltus, yielded light As from a sky."

MILTON.

[418] The t.i.tans.

[419] The north wind.

[420] _And rent the Mynian sails._--The sails of the Argonauts, inhabitants of Mynia.

[421] See the first note on the first book of the Lusiad.

[422]

_In haughty England, where the winter spreads His snowy mantle o'er the shining meads.--_

In the original--

_La na grande Inglaterra, que de neve Boreal sempre abunda;_

that is, "In ill.u.s.trious England, always covered with northern snow."

Though the translator was willing to retain the manner of Homer, he thought it proper to correct the error in natural history fallen into by Camoens. Fanshaw seems to have been sensible of the mistake of his author, and has given the following (uncountenanced by the Portuguese) in place of the eternal snows ascribed to his country:--

"In merry England, which (from cliffs that stand Like hills of snow) once Albion's name did git."

[423] Eris, or Discordia, the G.o.ddess of contention.--VIRGIL, aeneid ii.

337.--_Ed._

[424]

_What knighthood asks, the proud accusers yield, And, dare the damsels' champions to the field.--_

The translator has not been able to discover the slightest vestige of this chivalrous adventure in any memoirs of the English history. It is probable, nevertheless, that however adorned with romantic ornament, it is not entirely without foundation in truth. Castera, who unhappily does not cite his authority, gives the names of the twelve Portuguese champions: Alvaro Vaz d'Almada, afterwards Count d'Avranches in Normandy; another Alvaro d'Almada, surnamed the Juster, from his dexterity at that warlike exercise; Lopez Fernando Pacheco; Pedro Homen d'Acosta; Juan Augustin Pereyra; Luis Gonfalez de Malafay; the two brothers Alvaro and Rodrigo Mendez de Cerveyra; Ruy Gomex de Sylva; Soueyro d'Acosta, who gave his name to the river Acosta in Africa; Martin Lopez d'Azevedo; and Alvaro Gonfalez de Coutigno, surnamed Magricio. The names of the English champions, and of the ladies, he confesses are unknown, nor does history positively explain the injury of which the dames complained. It must, however, he adds, have been such as required the atonement of blood; _il falloit qu'elle fut sanglante_, since two sovereigns allowed to determine it by the sword. "Some critics," says Castera, "may perhaps condemn this episode of Camoens; but for my part," he continues, "I think the adventure of Olindo and Sophronia, in Ta.s.so, is much more to be blamed. The episode of the Italian poet is totally exuberant, whereas that of the Portuguese has a direct relation to his proposed subject: the wars of his country, a vast field, in which he has admirably succeeded, without prejudice to the first rule of the epopea, the unity of the action." The severest critic must allow that the episode related by Veloso, is happily introduced. To one who has ever been at sea, the scene must be particularly pleasing.

The fleet is under sail, they plough the smooth deep--

"And o'er the decks cold breath'd the midnight wind."

All but the second watch are asleep in their warm pavilions; the second watch sit by the mast, sheltered from the chilly gale by a broad sail-cloth; sleep begins to overpower them, and they tell stories to entertain one another. For beautiful, picturesque simplicity there is no sea-scene equal to this in the Odyssey, or aeneid.

[425] _What time he claim'd the proud Castilian throne._--John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, claimed the crown of Castile in the right of his wife, Donna Constantia, daughter of Don Pedro, the late king. a.s.sisted by his son-in-law, John I. of Portugal, he entered Galicia, and was proclaimed king of Castile at the city of St. Jago de Compostella. He afterwards relinquished his pretensions, on the marriage of his daughter, Catalina, with the infant, Don Henry of Castile.

[426] _The dames by lot their gallant champions choose._--The ten champions, who in the fifth book of Ta.s.so's Jerusalem are sent by G.o.dfrey for the a.s.sistance of Armida, are chosen by lot. Ta.s.so, who had read the Lusiad, and admired its author, undoubtedly had the Portuguese poet in his eye.

[427]

_In that proud port half circled by the wave, Which Portugallia to the nation gave, A deathless name.--_

Oporto, called by the Romans _Calle_. Hence Portugal.

[428]

_Yet something more than human warms my breast, And sudden whispers--_

In the Portuguese--

_Mas, se a verdade o espirito me adevinha._

Literally, "But, if my spirit truly divine." Thus rendered by Fanshaw--

_But, in my aug'ring ear a bird doth sing._

[429] _As Rome's Corvinus._--Valerius Maximus, a Roman tribune, who fought and slew a Gaul of enormous stature, in single combat. During the duel a raven perched on the helmet of his antagonist, sometimes pecked his face and hand, and sometimes blinded him with the flapping of his wings. The victor was thence named Corvinus, from Corvus. Vid. Livy, l.

7, c. 26.

[430] _The Flandrian countess on her hero smil'd._--The princess, for whom Magricio signalized his valour, was Isabella of Portugal, and spouse to Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, and earl of Flanders. Some Spanish chronicles relate that Charles VII. of France, having a.s.sembled the states of his kingdom, cited Philip to appear with his other va.s.sals. Isabella, who was present, solemnly protested that the earls of Flanders were not obliged to do homage. A dispute arose, on which she offered, according to the custom of that age, to appeal to the fate of arms. The proposal was accepted, and Magricio the champion of Isabella, vanquished a French chevalier, appointed by Charles. Though our authors do not mention this adventure, and though Emmanuel de Faria, and the best Portuguese writers treat it with doubt, nothing to the disadvantage of Camoens is thence to be inferred. A poet is not obliged always to follow the truth of history.

[431] _The Rhine another pa.s.s'd, and prov'd his might._--This was Alvaro Vaz d'Almada. The chronicle of Garibay relates, that at Basle he received from a German a challenge to measure swords, on condition that each should fight with the right side unarmed; the German by this hoping to be victorious, for he was left-handed. The Portuguese, suspecting no fraud, accepted. When the combat began he perceived the inequality. His right side unarmed was exposed to the enemy, whose left side, which was nearest to him was defended with half a cuira.s.s. Notwithstanding all this, the brave Alvaro obtained the victory. He sprang upon the German, seized him, and, grasping him forcibly in his arms, stifled and crushed him to death; imitating the conduct of Hercules, who in the same manner slew the cruel Anteus. Here we ought to remark the address of our author; he describes at length the injury and grief of the English ladies, the voyage of the twelve champions to England, and the prowess they there displayed. When Veloso relates these, the sea is calm; but no sooner does it begin to be troubled, than the soldier abridges his recital: we see him follow by degrees the preludes of the storm, we perceive the anxiety of his mind on the view of the approaching danger, hastening his narration to an end. Behold the strokes of a master!--_This note, and the one preceding, are from Castera._

[432] _The halcyons, mindful of their fate, deplore._--Ceyx, king of Trachinia, son of Lucifer, married Alcyone, the daughter of Eolus. On a voyage to consult the Delphic Oracle, he was shipwrecked. His corpse was thrown ash.o.r.e in the view of his spouse, who, in the agonies of her love and despair, threw herself into the sea. The G.o.ds, in pity of her pious fidelity, metamorphosed them into the birds which bear her name. The halcyon is a little bird about the size of a thrush, its plumage of a beautiful sky blue, mixed with some traits of white and carnation. It is vulgarly called the kingfisher. The halcyons very seldom appear but in the finest weather, whence they are fabled to build their nests on the waves. The female is no less remarkable than the turtle, for her conjugal affection. She nourishes and attends the male when sick, and survives his death but a few days. When the halcyons are surprised in a tempest, they fly about as in the utmost terror, with the most lamentable and doleful cries. To introduce them, therefore, in the picture of a storm is a proof, both of the taste and judgment of Camoens.

[433] _With shrill, faint voice, th' untimely ghost complains._--It may not perhaps be unentertaining to cite Madame Dacier and Mr. Pope on the voices of the dead. It will, at least, afford a critical observation which appears to have escaped them both. "The shades of the suitors,"

observes Dacier, "when they are summoned by Mercury out of the palace of Ulysses, emit a feeble, plaintive, inarticulate sound, t?????s?, strident: whereas Agamemnon, and the shades that have been long in the state of the dead, speak articulately. I doubt not but Homer intended to show, by the former description, that when the soul is separated from the organs of the body, it ceases to act after the same manner as while it was joined to it; but how the dead recover their voices afterwards is not easy to understand. In other respects Virgil paints after Homer:--

_Pars tollere vocem Exiguam: inceptus clamor frustratur hiantes."_

To this Mr. Pope replies, "But why should we suppose, with Dacier, that these shades of the suitors (of Penelope) have lost the faculty of speaking? I rather imagine that the sounds they uttered were signs of complaint and discontent, and proceeded not from an inability to speak.

After Patroclus was slain he appears to Achilles, and speaks very articulately to him; yet, to express his sorrow at his departure, he acts like these suitors: for Achilles--

'Like a thin smoke beholds the spirit fly, And hears a feeble, lamentable cry.'

Dacier conjectures that the power of speech ceases in the dead, till they are admitted into a state of rest; but Patroclus is an instance to the contrary in the Iliad, and Elpenor in the Odyssey, for they both speak before their funereal rites are performed, and consequently before they enter into a state of repose amongst the shades of the happy."

The critic, in his search for distant proofs, often omits the most material one immediately at hand. Had Madame Dacier attended to the episode of the souls of the suitors, the world had never seen her ingenuity in these mythological conjectures; nor had Mr. Pope any need to bring the case of Patroclus or Elpenor to overthrow her system.

Amphimedon, one of the suitors, in the very episode which gave birth to Dacier's conjecture, tells his story very articulately to the shade of Agamemnon, though he had not received the funereal rites:--

"Our mangled bodies, now deform'd with gore, Cold and neglected spread the marble floor: No friend to bathe our wounds! or tears to shed O'er the pale corse! the honours of the dead."

ODYS. XXIV.

On the whole, the defence of Pope is almost as idle as the conjectures of Dacier. The plain truth is, poetry delights in personification; everything in it, as Aristotle says of the Iliad, has manners; poetry must therefore personify according to our ideas. Thus in Milton:--

"Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth."