The Lusiad; Or, The Discovery of India, an Epic Poem
the Tartars of Thibet adore a real living god. He sits cross-legged on
his throne, in the great temple, adorned with gold and diamonds. He
never speaks, but sometimes elevates his hand in token that he approves
of the prayers of his worshippers. He is a ruddy well-looking young man,
about 25 or 27, and is the most miserable wretch on earth, being the
mere puppet of his priests, who dispatch him whenever age or sickness
make any alteration in his features; and another, instructed to act his
part, is put in his place. Princes of very distant provinces send
tribute to this deity and implore his blessing, and, as Voltaire has
merrily told us, think themselves secure of benediction if favoured with
something from his godship, esteemed more sacred than the hallowed
cow-dung of the Brahmins.
[663] _How bright a silver mine._--By this beautiful metaphor (omitted
by Castera) Camoëns alludes to the great success, which in his time
attended the Jesuit missionaries in Japan. James I. sent an embassy to
the sovereign, and opened a trade with this country, but it was soon
suffered to decline. The Dutch are the only Europeans who now traffic
with the Japanese, which it is said they obtain by trampling on the
cross and by abjuring the Christian name. In religion the Japanese are
much the same as their neighbours of China. And in the frequency of
self-murder, says Voltaire, they vie with their brother islanders of
England.
[664] _The ground they touch not._--These are commonly called the birds
of Paradise. It was the old erroneous opinion that they always soared in
the air, and that the female hatched her young on the back of the male.
Their feathers bear a mixture of the most beautiful azure, purple, and
golden colours, which have a fine effect in the rays of the sun.
[665] _From hence the pilgrim brings the wondrous tale._--Streams of
this kind are common in many countries. Castera attributes this quality
to the excessive coldness of the waters, but this is a mistake. The
waters of some springs are impregnated with sparry particles, which
adhering to the herbage, or the clay, on the banks of their channel,
harden into stone, and incrust the original retainers.
[666] _Here from the trees the gum._--Benzoin, a species of
frankincense. The oil mentioned in the next line, is that called the
rock oil, petroleum, a black fetid mineral oil, good for bruises and
sprains.
[667] _Wide forests there beneath Maldivia's tide._--A sea plant,
resembling the palm, grows in great abundance in the bays about the
Maldivian islands. The boughs rise to the top of the water, and bear a
kind of apple, called the coco of Maldivia, which is esteemed an
antidote against poison.
[668] _The tread of sainted footstep._--The imprint of a human foot is
found on the high mountain, called the Pic of Adam. Legendary tradition
says, that Adam, after he was expelled from Paradise, did penance 300
years on this hill, on which he left the print of his footstep. This
tale seems to be Jewish, or Mohammedan; for the natives, according to
Captain Knox (who was twenty years a captive in Ceylon), pretend the
impression was made by the god Budha, when he ascended to heaven, after
having, for the salvation of mankind, appeared on the earth. His priests
beg charity for the sake of Budha, whose worship they perform among
groves of the Bogahah-tree, under which, when on earth, they say he
usually sat and taught.
[669] _And lo, the Island of the Moon._--Madagascar is thus named by the
natives.
[670] The kingfishers.
[671] _Now to the West, by thee, great chief, is given._--The sublimity
of this eulogy on the expedition of the Lusiad has been already
observed. What follows is a natural completion of the whole; and, the
digressive exclamation at the end excepted, is exactly similar to the
manner in which Homer has concluded the Iliad.
[672] _Near either pole._--We are now presented with a beautiful view of
the American world. Columbus discovered the West Indies before, but not
the continent till 1498--the year after GAMA sailed from Lisbon.
[673] _The first bold hero._--Cabral, the first after GAMA who sailed to
India, was driven by tempest to the Brazils, a proof that more ancient
voyagers might have met with the same fate. He named the country Santa
Cruz, or Holy Cross; it was afterwards named Brazil, from the colour of
the wood with which it abounds. It is one of the finest countries in the
new world.
[674] _To match thy deeds shall Magalhaens aspire._--Camoëns, though he
boasts of the actions of Magalhaens as an honour to Portugal, yet
condemns his defection to the King of Spain, and calls him--
_O Magalhaens, no feito com verdade
Portuguez, porèm naó na lealdade._
"In deeds truly a Portuguese, but not in loyalty." And others have
bestowed upon him the name of traitor, but perhaps undeservedly. Justice
to the name of this great man requires an examination of the charge. Ere
he entered into the service of the King of Spain by a solemn act, he
unnaturalized himself. Osorius is very severe against this unavailing
rite, and argues that no injury which a prince may possibly give, can
authorize a subject to act the part of a traitor against his native
country. This is certainly true, but it is not strictly applicable to
the case of Magalhaens. Many eminent services performed in Africa and
India entitled him to a certain allowance, which, though inconsiderable
in itself, was esteemed as the reward of distinguished merit, and
therefore highly valued. For this Magalhaens petitioned in vain. He
found, says Faria, that the malicious accusations of some men had more
weight with his sovereign than all his services. After this unworthy
repulse, what patronage at the Court of Lisbon could he hope? And though
no injury can vindicate the man who draws his sword against his native
country, yet no moral duty requires that he who has some important
discovery in meditation should stifle his design, if uncountenanced by
his native prince. It has been alleged, that he embroiled his country in
disputes with Spain. But neither is this strictly applicable to the
neglected Magalhaens. The courts of Spain and Portugal had solemnly
settled the limits within which they were to make discoveries and
settlements, and within these did Magalhaens and the court of Spain
propose that his discoveries should terminate. And allowing that his
calculations might mislead him beyond the bounds prescribed to the
Spaniards, still his apology is clear, for it would have been injurious
to each court, had he supposed that the faith of the boundary treaty
would be trampled upon by either power. If it is said that he
aggrandized the enemies of his country, the Spaniards, and introduced
them to a dangerous rivalship with the Portuguese settlements; let the
sentence of Faria on this subject be remembered: "Let princes beware,"
says he, "how by neglect or injustice they force into desperate actions
the men who have merited rewards."
In the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries, the spirit
of discovery broke forth in its greatest vigour. The East and the West
had been visited by GAMA and Columbus; and the bold idea of sailing to
the East by the West was revived by Magalhaens. Revived, for misled by
Strabo and Pliny, who place India near to the west of Spain, Columbus
expecting to find the India of the ancients when he landed on
Hispaniola, thought he had discovered the Ophir of Solomon. And hence
the name of Indies was given to that and the neighbouring islands.
Though America and the Moluccas were now found to be at a great
distance, the genius of Magalhaens still suggested the possibility of a
western passage. And accordingly, possessed of his great design, and
neglected with contempt at home, he offered his service to the court of
Spain, and was accepted. With five ships and 250 men he sailed from
Spain in September, 1519, and after many difficulties, occasioned by
mutiny and the extreme cold, he entered the great Pacific Ocean or South
Seas by those straits which bear his Spanish name Magellan. From these
straits, in the 52-1/2 degree of southern latitude, he traversed that
great ocean, till in the 10th degree of north latitude he landed on the
island of Subo or Marten. The king of this country was then at war with
a neighbouring prince, and Magalhaens, on condition of his conversion to
Christianity, became his auxiliary. In two battles the Spaniards were
victorious, but in the third, Magalhaens, together with one Martinho, a
judicial astrologer, whom he usually consulted, was unfortunately
killed. Chagrined with the disappointment of promised victory, the new
baptised king of Subo made peace with his enemies, and having invited to
an entertainment the Spaniards on shore, he treacherously poisoned them
all. The wretched remains of the fleet arrived at the Portuguese
settlements in the isles of Banda and Ternate, where they were received,
says Faria, as friends, and not as intruding strangers; a proof that the
boundary treaty was esteemed sufficiently sacred. Several of the
adventurers were sent to India, and from thence to Spain, in Portuguese
ships, one ship only being in a condition to return to Europe by the
Cape of Good Hope. This vessel, named the _Victoria_, however, had the
honour to be the first which ever surrounded the globe; an honour by
some ignorantly attributed to the ship of Sir Francis Drake. Thus
unhappily ended, says Osorius, the expedition of Magalhaens. But the
good bishop was mistaken, for a few years after he wrote, and somewhat
upwards of fifty after the return of the _Victoria_, Philip II. of Spain
availed himself of the discoveries of Magalhaens. And the navigation of
the South Seas between Spanish America and the Asian Archipelago, at
this day forms the basis of the power of Spain: a basis, however, which
is at the mercy of Great Britain, while her ministers are wise enough to
preserve her great naval superiority. A Gibraltar in the South Seas is
only wanting. But when this is mentioned, who can withhold his eyes from
the isthmus of Darien--the rendezvous appointed by nature for the fleets
which may one day give law to the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans: a
settlement which to-day might have owned subjection to Great Britain, if
justice and honour had always presided in the cabinet of William the
Third?
[675] _A land of giants._--The Patagonians. Various are the fables of
navigators concerning these people. The Spaniards who went with
Magalhaens affirmed they were about ten feet in height, since which
voyage they have risen and fallen in their stature, according to the
different humours of our sea wits.
[676] _The goddess spake._--We are now come to the conclusion of the
fiction of the island of Venus, a fiction which is divided into three
principal parts. In each of these the poetical merit is obvious, nor
need we fear to assert, that the happiness of our author, in uniting all
these parts together in one great episode, would have excited the
admiration of Longinus. The heroes of the Lusiad receive their reward in
the Island of Love. They are led to the palace of Thetis, where, during
a divine feast, they hear the glorious victories and conquests of the
heroes who are to succeed them in their Indian expedition, sung by a
siren; and the face of the globe itself, described by the goddess,
discovers the universe, and particularly the extent of the eastern
world, now given to Europe by the success of GAMA. Neither in grandeur,
nor in happiness of completion, may the Æneid or Odyssey be mentioned in
comparison. The Iliad alone, in epic conduet (as already observed) bears
a strong resemblance. But however great in other views of poetical
merit, the games at the funeral of Patroclus, and the redemption of the