The Lusiad Part 45

76. Ancient traditions, however fabulous, have a good effect in poetry.

Virgil has not scrupled to insert one, which required an apology:--

_Prisca fides facto, sed fama perennis._

Spenser has given us the history of Brute and his descendants at full length in the Faerie Queene; and Milton, it is known, was so fond of that absurd legend, that he intended to write a poem on the subject; and by this fondness was induced to mention it as a truth in the introduction to his History of England.

[504] _The brother chief._--Paulus de Gama.

[505] _That gen'rous pride which Rome to Pyrrhus bore._--When Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, was at war with the Romans, his physician offered to poison him. The senate rejected the proposal, and acquainted Pyrrhus of the designed treason. Florus remarks on the infamous a.s.sa.s.sination of Viriatus, that the Roman senate did him great honour; _ut videretur aliter vinci non potuisse_; it was a confession that they could not otherwise conquer him,--Vid. Flor. l. 17. For a fuller account of this great man, see the note on Lusiad, bk. i. p. 9.

[506] _Some deem the warrior of Hungarian race._--See the note on the Lusiad, bk. iii p. 67.

[507] Jerusalem.

[508] _The first Alonzo._--King of Portugal.

[509] _On his young pupil's flight._--"Some, indeed most, writers say, that the queen advancing with her army towards Guimaraez, the king, without waiting till his governor joined him, engaged them and was routed: but that afterwards the remains of his army, being joined by the troops under the command of Egaz Munitz, engaged the army of the queen a second time, and gained a complete victory."--UNIV. HIST.

[510] _Egaz behold, a chief self-doom'd to death._--See the same story in bk. iii. p. 71. Though history affords no authentic doc.u.ment of this transaction, tradition, the poet's authority, is not silent. And the monument of Egaz in the monastery of Paco de Souza gives it countenance.

Egaz and his family are there represented, in bas relief, in the att.i.tude and garb, says Castera, as described by Camoens.

[511] _Ah Rome! no more thy gen'rous consul boast._--Sc. Posthumus, who, overpowered by the Samnites, submitted to the indignity of pa.s.sing under the yoke.

[512] _The Moorish king._--The Alcaydes, or tributary governors under the Miramolin{*} or Emperor of Morocco, are often by the Spanish and Portuguese writers styled kings. He who was surprised and taken prisoner by Don Fuaz Roupinho was named _Gama_. Fuaz, after having gained the first naval victory of the Portuguese, also experienced their first defeat. With one and twenty sail he attacked fifty-four large galleys of the Moors. "The sea," says Brandan, "which had lately furnished him with trophies, now supplied him with a tomb."

{*} This should be (and is evidently only a corruption of), _Emir-el-Mumenin_, _i.e._ in Arabic, Commander of the believers.--_Ed._

[513] _A foreign navy brings the pious aid._--A navy of crusaders, mostly English.

[514] _And from the leaves._--This legend is mentioned by some ancient Portuguese chronicles. Homer would have availed himself, as Camoens has done, of a tradition so enthusiastic, and characteristic of the age.

Henry was a native of Bonneville near Cologne. "His tomb," says Castera, "is still to be seen in the monastery of St. Vincent, but without the palm."

[515] _In robes of white behold a priest advance._--Thestonius, prior of the regulars of St. Augustine of Conymbra. Some ancient chronicles relate this circ.u.mstance as mentioned by Camoens. Modern writers a.s.sert, that he never quitted his breviary.--CASTERA.

[516] _The son of Egas._--He was named Mem Moniz, and was son of Egas Moniz, celebrated for the surrender of himself and family to the King of Castile, as already mentioned.

[517] _The dauntless Gerald._--"He was a man of rank, who, in order to avoid the legal punishment to which several crimes rendered him obnoxious, put himself at the head of a party of freebooters. Tiring, however, of that life, he resolved to reconcile himself to his sovereign by some n.o.ble action. Full of this idea, one evening he entered Evora, which then belonged to the Moors. In the night he killed the sentinels of one of the gates, which he opened to his companions, who soon became masters of the place. This exploit had its desired effect. The king pardoned Gerald, and made him governor of Evora. A knight with a sword in one hand, and two heads in the other, from that time became the armorial bearing of the city."--CASTERA.

[518] _Wrong'd by his king._--Don Pedro Fernando de Castro, injured by the family of Lara, and denied redress by the King of Castile, took the infamous revenge of bearing arms against his native country. At the head of a Moorish army he committed several outrages in Spain; but was totally defeated in Portugal.

[519] _And lo, the skies unfold._--"According to some ancient Portuguese histories, Don Matthew, bishop of Lisbon, in the reign of Alonso I, attempted to reduce Alcazar, then in possession of the Moors. His troops, being suddenly surrounded by a numerous party of the enemy, were ready to fly, when, at the prayers of the bishop, a venerable old man, clothed in white, with a red cross on his breast, appeared in the air.

The miracle dispelled the fears of the Portuguese; the Moors were defeated, and the conquest of Alcazar crowned the victory."--CASTERA.

[520]

_Her streets in blood deplore The seven brave hunters murder'd by the Moor.--_

"During a truce with the Moors, six cavaliers of the order of St. James were, while on a hunting party, surrounded and killed, by a numerous body of the Moors. During the fight, in which the gentlemen sold their lives dear, a common carter, named Garcias Rodrigo, who chanced to pa.s.s that way, came generously to their a.s.sistance, and lost his life along with them. The poet, in giving all seven the same t.i.tle, shows us that virtue const.i.tutes true n.o.bility. Don Payo de Correa, grand master of the order of St. James, revenged the death of these brave unfortunates by the sack of Tavila, where his just rage put the garrison to the sword."--CASTERA.

[521] _Those three bold knights how dread._--Nothing can give us a stronger picture of the romantic character of their age, than the manners of those champions, who were gentlemen of birth; and who, in the true spirit of knight-errantry, went about from court to court in quest of adventures. Their names were, Goncalo Ribeiro; Fernando Martinez de Santarene; and Vasco Anez, foster-brother to Mary, queen of Castile, daughter of Alonzo IV. of Portugal.

[522] _And I, behold, am off'ring sacrifice._--This line, the simplicity which, I think, contains great dignity, is adopted from Fanshaw--

"And I, ye see, am off'ring sacrifice;"

who has here caught the spirit of the original--

_A quem lhe a dura nova estava dando, Pois eu responde estou sacrificando;_

_i.e._ To whom when they told the dreadful tidings, "And I," he replies "am sacrificing." The piety of Numa was crowned with victory.--Vid.

'Plut. in vit. Numae.

[523]

_The Lusian_ Scipio _well might speak his fame, But n.o.bler_ Nunio _shines a greater name_.--

Castera justly observes the happiness with which Camoens introduces the name of this truly great man. "_Il va_," says he, "_le nommer tout a l'heure avec une adresse et une magnificence digne d'un si beau sujet_."

[524] _Two knights of Malta._--These knights were first named Knights Hospitalers of St. John of Jerusalem, afterwards Knights of Rhodes, from whence they were driven to Messina, ere Malta was a.s.signed to them. By their oath of knighthood they were bound to protect the Holy Sepulchre from the profanation of infidels; immediately on taking this oath, they retired to their colleges, where they lived on their revenues in all the idleness of monkish luxury. Their original habit was black, with a white cross; their arms _gules_, a cross, _argent_.

[525] _His captive friend._--Before John I. mounted the throne of Portugal, one Vasco Porcallo was governor of Villaviciosa. Roderic de Landroal and his friend, Alvarez Cuytado, having discovered that he was in the interest of the King of Castile, drove him from his town and fortress. On the establishment of King John, Porcallo had the art to obtain the favour of that prince; but, no sooner was he re-instated in the garrison, than he delivered it up to the Castilians; and plundered the house of Cuytado, whom, with his wife, he made prisoner and, under a numerous party, ordered to be sent to Olivenca. Roderic de Landroal, hearing of this, attacked and defeated the escort, and set his friend at liberty.--CASTERA.

[526] _Here treason's well-earn'd meed allures thine eyes._--While the kingdom of Portugal was divided, some holding with John the newly elected king, and others with the King of Castile, Roderic Marin, governor of Campo-Major, declared for the latter. Fernando d'Elvas endeavoured to gain him to the interest of his native prince, and a conference, with the usual a.s.surances of safety, was agreed to. Marin, at this meeting, seized upon Elvas, and sent him prisoner to his castle.

Elvas having recovered his liberty, a few days after met his enemy in the field, whom, in his turn, he made captive; and the traitorous Marin, notwithstanding the endeavours of their captain to save his life, met the reward of his treason from the soldiers of Elvas.--_Partly from_ Castera.

[527] _And safe the Lusian galleys speed away._--A numerous fleet of the Castilians being on their way to lay siege to Lisbon. Ruy Pereyra, the Portuguese commander, seeing no possibility of victory, boldly attacked the Spanish admiral. The fury of his onset put the Castilians in disorder, and allowed the Portuguese galleys a safe escape. In this brave piece of service the gallant Pereyra lost his life.--CASTERA.

[528] _The shepherd._--Viriatus.

[529] _Equal flame inspir'd these few._--The Castilians having laid siege to Almada, a fortress on a mountain near Lisbon, the garrison, in the utmost distress for water, were obliged at times to make sallies to the bottom of the hill in quest of it. Seventeen Portuguese thus employed were one day attacked by four hundred of the enemy. They made a brave defence, and effected a happy retreat into their fortress.--CASTERA.

[530] _Far from the succour of the Lusian host._--When Alonzo V. took Ceuta, Don Pedro de Menezes was the only officer in the army who was willing to become governor of that fortress; which, on account of the uncertainty of succour from Portugal, and the earnest desire of the Moors to regain it, was deemed untenable. He gallantly defended his post in two severe sieges.

[531] _That other earl._--He was the natural son of Don Pedro de Menezes. Alonzo V. one day, having ridden out from Ceuta with a few attendants, was attacked by a numerous party of the Moors, when De Vian, and some others under him, at the expense of their own lives, purchased the safe retreat of their sovereign.

[532] _Two brother-heroes shine._--The sons of John I. Don Pedro was called the Ulysses of his age, on account both of his eloquence and his voyages. He visited almost every court of Europe, but he princ.i.p.ally distinguished himself in Germany, where, under the standards of the Emperor Sigismond, he signalized his valour in the war against the Turks.--CASTERA.

[533] _The glorious Henry._--In pursuance of the reasons a.s.signed in the preface, the translator has here taken the liberty to make a transposition in the order of his author. In Camoens, Don Pedro de Menezes, and his son De Vian, conclude the description of the pictured ensigns. Don Henry, the greatest man perhaps that ever Portugal produced, has certainly the best t.i.tle to close this procession of the Lusian heroes. And, as he was the father of navigation, particularly of the voyage of GAMA, to sum up the narrative with his encomium has even some critical propriety.

These observations were suggested by the conduct of Camoens, whose design, like that of Virgil, was to write a poem which might contain all the triumphs of his country. As the shield of aeneas supplies what could not be introduced in the vision of Elysium, so the ensigns of GAMA complete the purpose of the third and fourth Lusiads. The use of that long episode, the conversation with the King of Melinda, and its connection with the subject, have been already observed. The seeming episode of the pictures, while it fulfills the promise--

_And all my country's wars the song adorn,_

is also admirably connected with the conduct of the poem. The Hindoos naturally desire to be informed of the country, the history, and power of their foreign visitors, and Paulus sets it before their eyes. In every progression of the scenery the business of the poem advances. The regent and his attendants are struck with the warlike grandeur and power of the strangers, and to accept of their friendship, or to prevent the forerunners of so martial a nation from carrying home the tidings of the discovery of India, becomes the great object of their consideration.

[534] _But ah, forlorn, what shame to barb'rous pride._--In the original.--

_Mas faltamlhes pincel, faltamlhes cores, Honra, premio, favor, que as artes criao._