The Lusiad Part 42

And thus in Homer, while the suitors are conducted to h.e.l.l:--

"Trembling, the spectres glide, and plaintive vent Thin, hollow screams, along the deep descent:"

and, unfettered with mythological distinctions, either shriek or articulately talk, according to the most poetical view of their supposed circ.u.mstances.

[434] Exod. xiv. 29.

[435] Noah.

[436] Venus.

[437] For the fable of Eolus see the tenth Odyssey.

[438]

_And vow, that henceforth her Armada's sails Should gently swell with fair propitious gales._

In innumerable instances Camoens discovers himself a judicious imitator of the ancients. In the two great masters of the epic are several prophecies oracular of the fate of different heroes, which give an air of solemn importance to the poem. The fate of the Armada thus obscurely antic.i.p.ated, resembles in particular the prophecy of the safe return of Ulysses to Ithaca, foretold by the shade of Tiresias, which was afterwards fulfilled by the Phaeacians. It remains now to make some observations on the machinery used by Camoens in this book. The necessity of machinery in the epopea, and the, perhaps, insurmountable difficulty of finding one unexceptionably adapted to a poem where the heroes are Christians, or, in other words, to a poem whose subject is modern, have already been observed in the preface. The machinery of Camoens has also been proved, in every respect, to be less exceptionable than that of Ta.s.so in his Jerusalem, or that of Voltaire in his Henriade. The descent of Bacchus to the palace of Neptune, in the depths of the sea, and his address to the watery G.o.ds, are n.o.ble imitations of Virgil's Juno in the first aeneid. The description of the storm is also masterly. In both instances the conduct of the aeneid is joined with the descriptive exuberance of the Odyssey. The appearance of the star of Venus through the storm is finely imagined; the influence of the nymphs of that G.o.ddess over the winds, and their subsequent nuptials, are in the spirit of the promise of Juno to Eolus:--

_Sunt mihi bis septum praestanti corpore nymphae: Quarum, quae forma pulcherrima; Deopeiam_ _Connubio jungam stabili, propriamque dicabo: Omnes ut tec.u.m meritis pro talibus annos Exigat, et pulchra faciat te prole parentem._--VIRGIL, aen. bk. i.

And the fiction itself is an allegory, exactly in the manner of Homer.

Orithia, the daughter of Erecteus, and queen of the Amazons, was ravished and carried away by Boreas.

[439] Vasco de Gama.

[440] This refers to the Catholic persecutions of Protestants whom they had previously condemned at the Diet of Spires. War was declared against the Protestants in 1546. It lasted for six years, when a treaty of peace was signed at Pa.s.sau on the Danube, in 1552.--_Ed._

[441] _Some blindly wand'ring, holy faith disclaim._--At the time when Camoens wrote, the German empire was plunged into all the miseries of a religious war, the Catholics using every endeavour to rivet the chains of Popery, the adherents of Luther as strenuously endeavouring to shake them off.

[442]

_High sound the t.i.tles of the English crown, King of Jerusalem.--_

The t.i.tle of "King of Jerusalem" was never a.s.sumed by the kings of England. Robert, duke of Normandy, son of William the Conqueror, was elected King of Jerusalem by the army in Syria, but declined it in hope of ascending the throne of England. Henry VIII. filled the throne of England when our author wrote: his luxury and conjugal brutality amply deserved the censure of the honest poet.

[443] France.

[444] _What impious l.u.s.t of empire steels thy breast._--The French translator very cordially agrees with the Portuguese poet in the strictures upon Germany, England, and Italy.

[445] The Mohammedans.

[446] _Where Cynifio flows._--A river in Africa, near Tripoli.--VIRGIL, Georg. iii. 311.--_Ed._

[447] _O Italy! how fall'n, how low, how lost!_--However these severe reflections on modern Italy may displease the admirers of Italian manners, the picture on the whole is too just to admit of confutation.

Never did the history of any court afford such instances of villainy and all the baseness of intrigue as that of the pope's. That this view of the lower ranks in the pope's dominions is just, we have the indubitable testimony of Addison. Our poet is justifiable in his censures, for he only follows the severe reflections of the greatest of the Italian poets. It were easy to give fifty instances; two or three, however, shall suffice. Dante, in his sixth canto, del Purg.--

_Ahi, serva Italia, di dolore ostello, Nave senza nocchiero in gran tempesta, Non donna di provincie, bordello._

"Ah, slavish Italy, the inn of dolour, a ship without a pilot in a horrid tempest:--not the mistress of provinces, but a brothel!"

Ariosto, canto 17:--

_O d' ogni vitio fetida sentina Dormi Italia imbriaco._

"O inebriated Italy, thou sleepest the sink of every filthy vice!"

And Petrarch:--

_Del'empia Babilonia, ond'e fuggita Ogni vergogna, ond'ogni bene e fuori, Albergo di dolor, madre d'errori Son fuggit'io per allungar la vita._

"From the impious Babylon (the Papal Court) from whence all shame and all good are fled, the inn of dolour, the mother of errors, have I hastened away to prolong my life."

[448] _The fables old of Cadmus_.--Cadmus having slain the dragon which guarded the fountain of Dirce, in Botia, sowed the teeth of the monster. A number of armed men immediately sprang up, and surrounded Cadmus, in order to kill him. By the counsel of Minerva he threw a precious stone among them, in striving for which they slew one another.

Only five survived, who afterwards a.s.sisted him to build the city of Thebes.--Vid. Ovid. Met. iv.

_Terrigenae pereunt per mutua vulnera fratres._

[449]

_So fall the bravest of the Christian name, While dogs unclean.--_

Imitated from a fine pa.s.sage in Lucan, beginning--

_Quis furor, O Cives! quae tanta licentia ferri, Gentibus invisis_ Latium _praebere cruorem?_

[450] The Mohammedans.

[451] Constantinople.

[452] _Beyond the Wolgian Lake._--The Caspian Sea, so called from the large river Volga, or Wolga, which empties itself into it.

[453]

_Their fairest offspring from their bosoms torn, (A dreadful tribute !)--_

By this barbarous policy the tyranny of the Ottomans was long sustained.

The troops of the Turkish infantry and cavalry, known by the name of Janissaries and Spahis, were thus supported. "The sons of Christians--and those the most completely furnished by nature--were taken in their childhood from their parents by a levy made every five years, or oftener, as occasion required."--SANDYS.

[454] Mohammedans.

[455]

_O'er Afric's sh.o.r.es The sacred shrines the Lusian heroes rear'd.--_

See the note on book v. p. 137.