The Lusiad; Or, The Discovery of India, an Epic Poem
body of Hector, considered as the interesting conclusion of a great
whole, can never in propriety and grandeur be brought into competition
with the admirable episode which concludes the poem on the discovery of
India.
Soon after the appearance of the Lusiad, the language of Spain was also
enriched with an heroic poem, the author of which has often imitated the
Portuguese poet, particularly in the fiction of the globe of the world,
which is shown to GAMA. In the _Araucana_, a globe, surrounded with a
radiant sphere, is also miraculously supported in the air; and on this
an enchanter shows to the Spaniards the extent of their dominions in the
new world. But Don Alonzo d'Arcilla is in this, as in every other part
of his poem, greatly inferior to the poetical spirit of Camoëns. Milton,
whose poetical conduct in concluding the action of his Paradise Lost, as
already pointed out, seems formed upon the Lusiad, appears to have had
this passage particularly in his eye. For, though the machinery of a
visionary sphere was rather improper for the situation of his
personages, he has, nevertheless, though at the expense of an impossible
supposition, given Adam a view of the terrestrial globe. Michael sets
the father of mankind on a mountain--
"From whose top
The hemisphere of earth in clearest ken
Stretch'd out to th' amplest reach of prospect lay....
His eye might there command wherever stood
City of old or modern fame, the seat
Of mightiest empire, from the destin'd walls
Of Cambalu ...
On Europe thence and where Rome was to sway
The world."
And even the mention of America seems copied by Milton:--
"In spirit perhaps he also saw
Rich Mexico, the seat of Montezume,
And Cusco in Peru, the richer seat
Of Atabalipa, and yet unspoil'd
Guiana, whose great city Geryon's sons
Call El Dorado."
It must also be owned by the warmest admirer of the Paradise Lost, that
the description of America in Camoëns--
"Vedes a grande terra, que contina
Vai de Calisto ao sen contrario polo--
To farthest north that world enormous bends,
And cold beneath the southern pole-star ends,"
conveys a bolder and a grander idea than all the names enumerated by
Milton.
Some short account of the writers whose authorities have been adduced in
the course of these notes may not now be improper. Fernando Lopez de
Castagneda went to India on purpose to do honour to his countrymen, by
enabling himself to record their actions and conquests in the East. As
he was one of the first writers on that subject, his geography is often
imperfect. This defect is remedied in the writings of John de Barros,
who was particularly attentive to this head. But the two most eminent,
as well as fullest, writers on the transaction of the Portuguese in the
East, are Manuel de Faria y Sousa, knight of the Order of Christ, and
Hieronimus Osorius, bishop of Sylves. Faria, who wrote in Spanish, was a
laborious inquirer, and is very full and circumstantial. With honest
indignation he rebukes the rapine of commanders and the errors and
unworthy resentments of kings. But he is often so drily particular, that
he may rather be called a journalist than an historian. And by this
uninteresting minuteness, his style, for the greatest part, is rendered
inelegant. The Bishop of Sylves, however, claims a different character.
His Latin is elegant, and his manly and sentimental manner entitles him
to the name of historian, even where a Livy or a Tacitus are mentioned.
But a sentence from himself, unexpected in a father of the communion of
Rome, will characterize the liberality of his mind. Talking of the edict
of King Emmanuel, which compelled the Jews to embrace Christianity under
severe persecution: "Nec ex lege, nec ex religione factum ... tibi
assumas," says he, "ut libertatem voluntatis impedias, et vincula
mentibus effrenatis injicias? At id neque fleri potest, neque Christi
sanctissimum numen approbat. Voluntarium enim sacrificium non vi malo
coactum ab hominibus expetit: neque vim mentibus inferri, sed voluntates
ad studium veræ religionis allici et invitari jubet."
It is said, in the preface to Osorius, that his writings were highly
esteemed by Queen Mary of England, wife of Philip II. What a pity is it,
that this manly indignation of the good bishop against the impiety of
religious persecution, made no impression on the mind of that bigoted
princess!
[677] _And the wide East is doom'd to Lusian sway._--Thus, in all the
force of ancient simplicity, and the true sublime, ends the poem of
Camoëns. What follows is one of those exuberances we have already
endeavoured to defend in our author, nor in the strictest sense is this
concluding one without propriety. A part of the proposition of the poem
is artfully addressed to King Sebastian, and he is now called upon in an
address (which is an artful second part to the former), to behold and
preserve the glories of his throne.
[678] _And John's bold path and Pedro's course pursue._--John I. and
Pedro the Just, two of the greatest of the Portuguese monarchs.
[679] _Reviv'd, unenvied._--Thus imitated, or rather translated into
Italian by Guarini:--
"Con si sublime stil' forse cantato
Havrei del mio Signor l'armi e l'honori,
Ch' or non havria de la Meonia tromba
Da invidiar Achille."
Similarity of condition, we have already observed, produced similarity
of complaint and sentiment in Spenser and Camoëns. Each was unworthily
neglected by the grandees of his age, yet both their names will live,
when the remembrance of the courtiers who spurned them shall _sink
beneath their mountain tombs_. These beautiful stanzas from Phinehas
Fletcher on the memory of Spenser, may also serve as an epitaph for
Camoëns. The unworthy neglect, which was the lot of the Portuguese bard,
but too well appropriates to him the elegy of Spenser. And every reader
of taste, who has perused the Lusiad, will think of the Cardinal
Henrico, and feel the indignation of these manly lines:--
"Witness our Colin{*}, whom tho' all the Graces
And all the Muses nurst; whose well-taught song
Parnassus' self and Glorian{**} embraces,
And all the learn'd and all the shepherds throng;
Yet all his hopes were crost, all suits denied;
Discouraged, scorn'd, his writings vilified:
Poorly (poor man) he liv'd; poorly (poor man) he died.
"And had not that great hart (whose honoured head{***}
All lies full low) pitied thy woful plight,
There hadst thou lien unwept, unburied,
Unblest, nor graced with any common rite;
Yet shalt thou live, when thy great foe{****} shall sink
Beneath his mountain tombe, whose fame shall stink;
And time his blacker name shall blurre with blackest ink."
{*} Colin Clout, Spenser.
{**} Glorian, Elizabeth in the Faerie Queen.
{***} The Earl of Essex.
{****} Lord Burleigh.
[680] Achilles, son of Peleus.