Luís de Camões

“ At this time Juno, Minerva, and Venus disputed for the apple of gold, which was destined to be given to the most beautiful goddess. They consented that Paris should be their judge. His equity claimed this honour. He saw them all naked. Juno promised him riches, Minerva the sciences, but he decided in favour of Venus, who promised him the possession of the most beautiful woman. What a ray of light is contained in this philosophical fable! Paris represents a studious man, who, in the silence of solitude, seeks the supreme good. Juno is the emblem of riches and dignities ”

“ The abolition of the feudal system, a system of absolute slavery, and that equality of mankind which affords the protection of property, and every other incitement to industry, are the glorious gifts which the spirit of commerce, awakened by Prince Henry of Portugal, has bestowed upon Europe in general; and, as if directed by the manes of his mother, a daughter of England, upon the British empire in particular. In the vice of effeminacy alone, perhaps, do we exceed our ancestors; yet, even here we have infinitely the advantage over them. ”

“ Through Lisbon's youth the kindling ardour ran,
And bold ambition thrill'd from man to man;
And each, the meanest of the vent'rous band,
With gifts stood honour'd by the sov'reign's hand.
Heavens! what a fury swell'd each warrior's breast,
When each, in turn, the smiling king address'd!
Fir'd by his words the direst toils they scorn'd,
And, with the horrid lust of danger fiercely burn'd.
With such bold rage the youth of Mynia glow'd,
When the first keel the Euxine surges plough'd;
When, bravely vent'rous for the golden fleece,
Orac'lous Argo [327] sail'd from wond'ring Greece. ”

“ The brave Giraldo's sword in conquest shares,
Evora's frowning walls, the castled hold
Of that proud Roman chief, and rebel bold,
Sertorious dread, whose labours still remain; [222]
Two hundred arches, stretch'd in length, sustain
The marble duct, where, glist'ning to the sun,
Of silver hue the shining waters run.
Evora's frowning walls now shake with fear,
And yield, obedient to Giraldo's spear.
Nor rests the monarch while his servants toil,
Around him still increasing trophies smile,
And deathless fame repays the hapless fate
That gives to human life so short a date. ”

“ Ungraced with all that sweetens human life,
Savage and fierce they roam in brutal strife;
Eager they grasp the gifts which culture yields,
Yet naked roam their own neglected fields....
Unnumber'd tribes as bestial grazers stray,
By laws unform'd, unform'd by Reason's sway.
Far inward stretch the mournful sterile dales,
Where on the parch'd hill-side pale famine wails."
Lusiad X.
Let us consider how many millions of these unhappy savages are dragged from their native fields, and cut off for ever from all the hopes and all the rights to which human birth entitled them. ”

“ Rising, casts round his vengeful eyes, while rage
Spread o'er his brows the wrinkled seams of age.
"O thou," he cries, "whose birthright sov'reign sway,
From pole to pole, the raging waves obey;
Of human race 'tis thine to fix the bounds,
And fence the nations with thy wat'ry mounds:
And thou, dread power, O Father Ocean, hear,
Thou, whose wide arms embrace the world's wide sphere,
'Tis thine the haughtiest victor to restrain,
And bind each nation in its own domain:
And you, ye gods, to whom the seas are giv'n,
Your just partition with the gods of heav'n ”

“ And now, brave Paulus gives the friendly hand,
And high on Gama's lofty deck they stand.
Bright to the day the purple sail-cloths glow,
Wide to the gale the silken ensigns flow;
The pictur'd flags display the warlike strife;
Bold seem the heroes, as inspir'd by life.
Here, arm to arm, the single combat strains,
Here, burns the combat on the tented plains
General and fierce; the meeting lances thrust,
And the black blood seems smoking on the dust.
With earnest eyes the wond'ring regent views
The pictur'd warriors, and their history sues. ”

“ He deem'd the vision; when the fiend again,
With sterner mien, and fiercer accent spoke:
"Oh faithless! worthy of the foreign yoke!
And know'st thou not thy prophet sent by Heav'n,
By whom the Koran's sacred lore was giv'n,
God's chiefest gift to men: and must I leave
The bowers of Paradise, for you to grieve,
For you to watch, while, thoughtless of your woe,
Ye sleep, the careless victims of the foe;
The foe, whose rage will soon with cruel joy,
If unoppos'd, my sacred shrines destroy? ”

“ And now, the lawns salute our joyful eyes;
Loud through the fleet the echoing shouts prevail,
We drop the anchor, and restrain the sail;
And now, descending in a spacious bay,
Wide o'er the coast the vent'rous soldiers stray,
To spy the wonders of the savage shore,
Where stranger's foot had never trod before.
I and my pilots, on the yellow sand,
Explore beneath what sky the shores expand.
That sage device, whose wondrous use proclaims
Th' immortal honour of its authors' [357] names,
The sun's height measured, and my compass scann'd,
The painted globe of ocean and of land. ”

“ To sum up all, the nuptial sanctity draws its hallowed curtains, and a masterly allegory shuts up the love-scenes of Camoëns.
How different from all this is the island of Armida in Tasso, and its translation, the bower of Acrasia in Spenser! In these virtue is seduced; the scene therefore is less delicate. The nymphs, while they are bathing, in place of the modesty of the bride as in Camoëns, employ all the arts of the lascivious wanton. They stay not to be wooed; but, as Spenser gives it—
The amorous sweet spoils to greedy eyes reveal. ”

“ And eastward still for happier climates steer'd:
When gath'ring round, and black'ning o'er the tide,
A fleet of small canoes the pilot spied;
Hoisting their sails of palm-tree leaves, inwove
With curious art, a swarming crowd they move:
Long were their boats, and sharp to bound along
Through the dash'd waters, broad their oars and strong:
The bending rowers on their features bore
The swarthy marks of Phaeton's [91] fall of yore:
When flaming lightnings scorch'd the banks of Po,
And nations blacken'd in the dread o'erthrow. ”

“ In a rash, ill-concerted expedition into Africa, Don Sebastian lost his crown in his twenty-fifth year, an event which soon after produced the fall of the Portuguese empire. Had the nobility possessed the spirit of Camoëns, had they, like him, endeavoured to check the quixotism of a young generous prince, that prince might have reigned long and happy, and Portugal might have escaped the Spanish yoke, which soon followed his defeat at Alcazar; a yoke which sunk Portugal into an abyss of misery, from which, in all probability, she will never emerge into her former splendour. ”

“ The great examples of Homer and Virgil prove it; and Camoëns understood and felt its force. While his fleet combat all the horrors of unploughed oceans, we do not view his heroes as idle wanderers; the care of heaven gives their voyage the greatest importance. When Gama falls on his knees and spreads his hands to heaven on the discovery of India, we are presented with a figure infinitely more noble than that of the most successful conqueror who is supposed to act under the influence of fatalism or chance. The human mind is conscious of its own weakness. ”

“ Fierce as the bull that sees his rival rove
Free with the heifers through the mounded grove,
On oak or beech his madd'ning fury pours;
So pours Almeyda's rage on Dabul's towers.{307}
His vanes wide waving o'er the Indian sky,
Before his prows the fleets of India fly; [601]
On Egypt's chief his mortars' dreadful tire
Shall vomit all the rage of prison'd fire:
Heads, limbs, and trunks shall choke the struggling tide,
Till, ev'ry surge with reeking crimson dy'd,
Around the young Almeyda's hapless urn
His conqueror's naked ghosts shall howl and mourn. ”

“ Our keels, that now had steer'd through many a clime,
By shell-fish roughen'd, and incased with slime,
Joyful we clean, while bleating from the field
The fleecy dams the smiling natives yield:
But while each face an honest welcome shows,
And, big with sprightly hope, each bosom glows,
(Alas! how vain the bloom of human joy!
How soon the blasts of woe that bloom destroy!)
A dread disease its rankling horrors shed,
And death's dire ravage through mine army spread.
Never mine eyes such dreary sight beheld,
Ghastly the mouth and gums enormous swell'd ”

“ Ah gallant injur'd chief,
Not thy own sorrows give the sharpest grief.
Thou seest the Lusian name her honours stain,
And lust of gold her heroes' breasts profane;
Thou seest ambition lift the impious head,
Nor God's red arm, nor ling'ring justice dread;
O'er India's bounds thou seest these vultures prowl,
Full gorged with blood, and dreadless of control;
Thou seest and weepst thy country's blotted name,
The gen'rous sorrow thine, but not the shame.
Nor long the Lusian ensigns stain'd remain:
Great Nunio [616] comes, and razes every stain. ”

“ A world of islands claims thy happier view,
Where lavish Nature all her bounty pours,
And flowers and fruits of ev'ry fragrance showers.
Japan behold; beneath the globe's broad face
Northward she sinks, the nether seas embrace
Her eastern bounds; what glorious fruitage there,
Illustrious Gama, shall thy labours bear!
How bright a silver mine! [663] when Heav'n's own lore
From pagan dross shall purify her ore.
"Beneath the spreading wings of purple morn,
Behold what isles these glist'ning seas adorn!
'Mid hundreds yet unnam'd, Ternate behold! ”

“ They shine and wanton o'er the smiling lawn.
Amaz'd and lost in rapture of surprise,
"All joy, my friends!" the brave Veloso cries,
"Whate'er of goddesses old fable told,
Or poet sung of sacred groves, behold.
Sacred to goddesses divinely bright
These beauteous forests own their guardian might.
From eyes profane, from ev'ry age conceal'd,
To us, behold, all Paradise reveal'd!
Swift let us try if phantoms of the air,
Or living charms, appear divinely fair!"
Swift at the word the gallant Lusians bound,
Their rapid footsteps scarcely touch the ground ”

“ Every evil which they have suffered from their acquirements arose, as shall be hereafter demonstrated, from their general ignorance, which rendered them unable to investigate or apprehend even the first principles of civil and commercial philosophy. And what other than the total eclipse of their glory could be expected from a nobility, rude and unlettered as those of Portugal are described by the author of the Lusiad—a court and nobility who sealed the truth of all his complaints against them by suffering that great man, the light of their age, to die in an almshouse! ”

“ Glow bold no more, and all thy rage expires.
Yet thou, Sebastian, thou, my king, attend;
Behold what glories on thy throne descend!
Shall haughty Gaul or sterner Albion boast
That all the Lusian fame in thee is lost!
Oh, be it thine these glories to renew,
And John's bold path and Pedro's course pursue: [678]
Snatch from the tyrant-noble's hand the sword,
And be the rights of humankind restor'd.
The statesman prelate to his vows confine,
Alone auspicious at the holy shrine;
The priest, in whose meek heart Heav'n pours its fires,
Alone to Heav'n, not earth's vain pomp, aspires. ”

“ Having mentioned how the greatest heroes of antiquity revered and cherished the muse, he thus characterizes the nobility of his own age and country.
"Alas! on Tago's hapless shore alone
The muse is slighted, and her charms unknown;
For this, no Virgil here attunes the lyre,
No Homer here awakes the hero's fire;
Unheard, in vain their native poet sings,
And cold neglect weighs dawn the muse's wings."
In such an age, and among such a barbarous nobility, what but wretched neglect could be the fate of a Camoëns! ”

“ Treads on thy borders, and the foe demands:
A thousand cities own his lordly sway,
A thousand various shores his nod obey.
Through all these regions, all these cities, scorn'd
Is thy religion, and thine altars spurn'd.
A foe renown'd in arms the brave require;
That high-plum'd foe, renown'd for martial fire,
Before thy gates his shining spear displays,
Whilst thou wouldst fondly dare the wat'ry maze,
Enfeebled leave thy native land behind,
On shores unknown a foe unknown to find.
Oh! madness of ambition! thus to dare
Dangers so fruitless, so remote a war! ”