The Lusiad; Or, The Discovery of India, an Epic Poem
king, are happily touched. The exclamation on the barbarous treatment
they had experienced--"Not wisdom saved us, but Heaven's own care"--are
masterly insinuations. Their barbarous treatment is again repeated in a
manner to move compassion: Alas! what could they fear? etc., is
reasoning joined with pathos. That they were conducted to the King of
Melinda by Heaven, and were by Heaven assured of his truth, is a most
delicate compliment, and in the true spirit of the epic poem. The
apology for Gama's refusal to come on shore is exceeding artful. It
conveys a proof of the greatness of the Portuguese sovereign, and
affords a compliment to loyalty, which could not fail to be acceptable
to a monarch.
[168] Rockets.
[169] The Tyrian purple, obtained from the _murex_, a species of
shell-fish, was very famous among the ancients.--_Ed._
[170] A girdle, or ornamented belt, worn over one shoulder and across
the breast.--_Ed._
[171] Camoëns seems to have his eye on the picture of Gama, which is
thus described by _Faria y Sousa_: "He is painted with a black cap,
cloak, and breeches edged with velvet, all slashed, through which
appears the crimson lining, the doublet of crimson satin, and over it
his armour inlaid with gold."
[172] The admiration and friendship of the King of Melinda, so much
insisted on by Camoëns, is a judicious imitation of Virgil's Dido. In
both cases such preparation was necessary to introduce the long episodes
which follow.
[173] The Moors, who are Mohammedans, disciples of the Arabian prophet,
who was descended from Abraham through the line of Hagar.--_Ed._
[174] The famous temple of the goddess Diana at Ephesus.--_Ed._
[175] Apollo.
[176] _Calliope._--The Muse of epic poesy, and mother of Orpheus.
Daphne, daughter of the river Peneus, flying from Apollo, was turned
into the laurel. Clytia was metamorphosed into the sun-flower, and
Leucothoë, who was buried alive by her father for yielding to the
solicitations of Apollo, was by her lover changed into an incense tree.
[177] A fountain of Boeotia sacred to the Muses.--_Ed._
[178] The preface to the speech of Gama, and the description of Europe
which follows, are happy imitations of the manner of Homer. When Camoëns
describes countries, or musters an army, it is after the example of the
great models of antiquity: by adding some characteristical feature of
the climate or people, he renders his narrative pleasing, picturesque,
and poetical.
[179] The Mediterranean.
[180] The Don.--_Ed._
[181] The Sea of Azof.--_Ed._
[182] Italy. In the year 409 the city of Rome was sacked, and Italy laid
desolate by Alaric, king of the Gothic tribes. In mentioning this
circumstance Camoëns has not fallen into the common error of little
poets, who on every occasion bewail the outrage which the Goths and
Vandals did to the arts and sciences. A complaint founded on ignorance.
The Southern nations of Europe were sunk into the most contemptible
degeneracy. The sciences, with every branch of manly literature, were
almost unknown. For near two centuries no poet of note had adorned the
Roman empire. Those arts only, the abuse of which have a certain and
fatal tendency to enervate the mind, the arts of music and cookery, were
passionately cultivated in all the refinement of effeminate abuse. The
art of war was too laborious for their delicacy, and the generous warmth
of heroism and patriotism was incompatible with their effeminacy. On
these despicable Sybarites{*} the North poured her brave and hardy sons,
who, though ignorant of polite literature, were possessed of all the
manly virtues in a high degree. Under their conquests Europe wore a new
face, which, however rude, was infinitely preferable to that which it
had lately worn. And, however ignorance may talk of their barbarity, it
is to them that England owes her constitution, which, as Montesquieu
observes, they brought from the woods of Saxony.
{*} _Sybaris_, a city in Magna Grecia (South Italy), whose inhabitants
were so effeminate, that they ordered all the cocks to be killed, that
they might not be disturbed by their early crowing.
[183] The river Don.
[184] This was the name of an extensive forest in Germany. It exists now
under different names, as the _Black Forest_, the Bohemian and the
Thuringian Forest, the Hartz, etc.--_Ed._
[185] The Hellespont, or Straits of the Dardanelles.--_Ed._
[186] The Balkan Mountains separating Greece and Macedonia from the
basin of the Danube, and extending from the Adriatic to the Black
Sea.--_Ed._
[187] Now Constantinople.
[188] Julius Cæsar, the conqueror of Gaul, or France.--_Ed._
[189] _Faithless to the vows of lost Pyrene_, etc.--She was daughter to
Bebryx, a king of Spain, and concubine to Hercules. Having wandered one
day from her lover, she was destroyed by wild beasts, on one of the
mountains which bear her name.
[190] Hercules, says the fable, to crown his labours, separated the two
mountains Calpe and Abyla, the one in Spain, the other in Africa, in
order to open a canal for the benefit of commerce; on which the ocean
rushed in, and formed the Mediterranean, the Ægean, and Euxine seas. The
twin mountains Abyla and Calpe were known to the ancients by the name of
the Pillars of Hercules.--See Cory's _Ancient Fragments_.
[191] The river Guadalquivir; _i.e._, in Arabic, _the great
river_.--_Ed._
[192] Viriatus.--See the note on Book I. p. 9.
[193] The assassination of Viriatus.--See the note on Book I. p. 9.
[194] The name of _Saracen_ is derived from the Arabic _Es-shurk_, _the
East_, and designates the Arabs who followed the banner of
Mohammed.--_Ed._
[195] Don Alonzo, king of Spain, apprehensive of the superior number of
the Moors, with whom he was at war, demanded assistance from Philip I.
of France, and the Duke of Burgundy. According to the military spirit of
the nobility of that age, no sooner was his desire known than numerous
bodies of troops thronged to his standard. These, in the course of a few
years, having shown signal proofs of their courage, the king
distinguished the leaders with different marks of his regard. To Henry,
a younger son of the Duke of Burgundy, he gave his daughter Teresa in
marriage, with the sovereignty of the countries to the south of Galicia,
commissioning him to enlarge his boundaries by the expulsion of the
Moors. Under the government of this great man, who reigned by the title
of Count, his dominion was greatly enlarged, and became more rich and
populous than before. The two provinces of Entre Minho e Douro, and Tras
os Montes, were subdued, with that part of Beira which was held by the
Moorish king of Lamego, whom he constrained to pay tribute. Many
thousands of Christians, who had either lived in miserable subjection to
the Moors, or in desolate independency in the mountains, took shelter
under the protection of Count Henry. Great multitudes of the Moors also
chose rather to submit, than be exposed to the severities and the
continual feuds and seditions of their own governors. These advantages,
added to the great fertility of the soil of Henry's dominions, will
account for the numerous armies, and the frequent wars of the first
sovereigns of Portugal.
[196] Camoëns, in making the founder of the Portuguese monarchy a
younger son of the King of Hungary, has followed the old chronologist
Galvan. The Spanish and Portuguese historians differ widely in their
accounts of the parentage of this gallant stranger. Some bring him from
Constantinople, and others from the house of Lorraine. But the clearest
and most probable account of him is in the chronicle of Fleury, wherein
is preserved a fragment of French history, written by a Benedictine monk
in the beginning of the twelfth century, and in the time of Count Henry.
By this it appears, that he was a younger son of Henry, the only son of
Robert, the first duke of Burgundy, who was a younger brother of Henry
I. of France. Fanshaw having an eye to this history, has taken the
unwarrantable liberty to alter the fact as mentioned by his author.
_Amongst these Henry, saith the history,
A younger son of France, and a brave prince,
Had Portugal in lot.----
And the same king did his own daughter tie
To him in wedlock, to infer from thence
His firmer love._
Nor are the historians agreed on the birth of Donna Teresa, the spouse
of Count Henry. Brandam, and other Portuguese historians, are at great
pains to prove she was the legitimate daughter of Alonzo and the
beautiful Ximena de Guzman. But it appears from the more authentic
chronicle of Fleury, that Ximena was only his concubine. And it is
evident from all the historians, that Donna Urraca, the heiress of her
father's kingdom, was younger than her half-sister, the wife of Count
Henry.
[197] The Mohammedan Arabs.
[198] _Deliver'd Judah Henry's might confess'd_.--His expedition to the
Holy Land is mentioned by some monkish writers, but from the other parts
of his history it is highly improbable.
[199] Jerusalem.
[200] Godfrey of Bouillon.
[201] Don Alonzo Enriquez, son of Count Henry, had only entered into his
third year when his father died. His mother assumed the reins of
government, and appointed Don Fernando Perez de Traba to be her
minister. When the young prince was in his eighteenth year, some of the
nobility, who either envied the power of Don Perez, or suspected his
intention to marry the queen, and exclude the lawful heir, easily
persuaded the young Count to take arms, and assume the sovereignty. A
battle ensued, in which the prince was victorious. Teresa, it is said,
retired into the castle of Legonaso, where she was taken prisoner by her
son, who condemned her to perpetual imprisonment, and ordered chains to
be put upon her legs. That Don Alonso made war against his mother,
vanquished her party, and that she died in prison about two years after,
A.D. 1130, are certain. But the cause of the war, that his mother was
married to, or intended to marry, Don Perez, and that she was put in
chains, are uncertain.
[202] Guimaraens was the scene of a very sanguinary battle.--_Ed._
[203] The Scylla here alluded to was, according to fable, the daughter
of Nisus, king of Megara, who had a purple lock, in which lay the fate
of his kingdom. Minos of Crete made war against him, for whom Scylla
conceived so violent a passion, that she cut off the fatal lock while
her father slept. Minos on this was victorious, but rejected the love of
the unnatural daughter, who in despair flung herself from a rock, and in
the fall was changed into a lark.
[204] Guimaraens, the scene of a famous battle.--_Ed._
[205] Some historians having related this story of Egas, add, "All this
is very pleasant and entertaining, but we see no sufficient reason to
affirm that there is one syllable of it true."
[206] When Darius laid siege to Babylon, one of his lords, named
Zopyrus, having cut off his own nose and ears, persuaded the enemy that
he had received these indignities from the cruelty of his master. Being
appointed to a chief command in Babylon, he betrayed the city to
Darius.--Vid. Justin's History.
[207] Spanish and Portuguese histories afford several instances of the
Moorish chiefs being attended in the field of battle by their
mistresses, and of the romantic gallantry and Amazonian courage of these
ladies.
[208] Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons, who, after having signalized
her valour at the siege of Troy, was killed by Achilles.
[209] The Greek name of Troy.--_Ed._
[210] The Amazons.
[211] Thermodon, a river of Scythia in the country of the Amazons.
_Quales Threïciæ cum flumina Thermodontis
Pulsant et pictis bellantur Amazones armis:
Seu circum Hippolyten, seu cum se Martia curru