Chapter 23

"And greater ill—the other blow destroyedThe gentle one, whom I so deeply loved,Perpetual Recollection of my soul!"[153]

Of Catarina's story we may say, as Shakspeare's Viola does of her own history, it was "a blank." She loved, she wept, she died. Her lover won her heart, and then was driven by fate to other lands at an immeasurable distance, and the course of long years promised no return. He fondly laments and commemorates her loss in poems which breathe tenderness and love in all its purity and truth.[154]He addressed her in that heavenwhich she had reached, and adjured her:—

"Prefer thy prayerTo God, who took thee early to his rest,That it may please him soon amid the blestTo summon me, dear maid, to meet thee there."

He had lost all; poverty clung to him, and the last hope of seeing her he loved again, was taken away. Fame and glory only remained. His poem was finished; and weary of hard services in wars—whose objects he condemned, and in reward for which he received but the slender pay of a volunteer—he desired to return to his native country, to publish his poem, and to receive the welcome of his friends, and perhaps the reward of his sovereign. He had left Portugal with an embittered spirit; but his misfortunes in India made him turn with a longing eye to his native land, where he might hope that his enemies would cease to persecute him, and he obtain favour from his sovereign.

Pedro Barreto (a name unlucky for the poet) was appointed governor of Sofala, in the Mozambique, and invited Camoens to accompany him. Whether he offered him an office, or only allured him with the hope of facilitating his return to Portugal, Sofala being on the way, we are not told. It seems likely that Camoens went, induced by the latter motive, and trusting to the friendship of a low-minded and hard-hearted man. Arrived at Sofala, he obtained no situation; it was his place to dine at the governor's table, to follow in his train, and to tell the world that he, a gallant soldier and a poet, who inherited immortality, was the dependant of Pedro Barreto. His proud spirit revolted, and he was content to endure the extreme of poverty, rather than play the servile part of parasite and hanger-on. It is probable that some absolute quarrel ensued, or at least that Barreto was so ill pleased with the independent deportment of the man whom he believed that he held in his power, that he expressed his dissatisfaction with an insolence which Camoens resented. At this juncture some of his Indian friends arrived inthe Santa Fé; they found him in a most deplorable condition, dependent on others for his subsistence; in want of clothes and every necessary. They supplied his wants, and invited him to accompany them, a proposal Camoens gladly accepted; when the dastardly and malevolent Barreto refused to permit his departure, until he had been paid 200 ducats, which he alleged he had spent in his behalf. The newly-arrived gentlemen, indignant at this meanness, were only the more eager to rescue their friend out of such a person's hands: they subscribed the money, and as Faria expresses it, "ransomed him; so that at the same time the person of Luis Camoens, and the reputation of Pedro Barreto, were bought and sold at the same price;" and if, as men of genius and virtue fondly think, renown for good or ill in this world is an acquisition to be sought, or to be avoided, even with the loss of life, Pedro Barreto, as he counted his paltry ducats, had better have cast them and himself into the sea, than have put them into his pocket; but even the sea could not have washed out the stain of moral infamy. These friends of Camoens were cavaliers, who loved literature and honoured the writer. Their names have been preserved: Hector da Sylveira, Duarte de Abreu, Diogo de Couto, Antonio Cabral, Antonio Serram, and Luis de Veyga. He was the intimate friend of Hector da Sylveira, who showed himself the most active and friendly, and who contributed the largest share to the payment of the debt, even if he did not, as has been asserted, pay the whole. Sylveira is mentioned in a Barmecide feast, Camoens describes as having given at Goa; and they composed redondillhas and other light verses together. The reputation of Couto is known. He was an historian of great merit.

Camoens felt keenly the depth of adversity in which he had sunk. "Oh, how long drawn out," he exclaims in a sonnet, "year by year, is my weary pilgrimage! I go hastening towards age, while my ills increase; everybright hope becomes a dark deceit, and I follow a good which I never reach. I fail midway in the path, yet falling a thousand times, I have still hoped." And in another, driven by despair into feelings unlike his natural ones, he asks, "where he may find a desert place, unvisited even by the brute creation; some gloomy wood or darksome forest—a place as dismal as his own thoughts, wherein to dwell for ever!"

During the voyage home, however, his spirit revived, refreshed by the kindness and admiration of his friends. They read, they praised, and anticipated success for the "Lusiad." Couto wrote a commentary on it, which was unfortunately lost; and the same writer tells us that Camoens employed himself, on the passage, in composing a work of great erudition and philosophy, which he entitled "Parnasso de Luis Camoens," and which Couto says was stolen from him, and irretrievably lost. Late commentators suppose that this must have been a collection of his minor poems: but as Couto speaks of its erudition, and had read it, he would have been aware of this, and expressed himself differently.

The sanguine spirit of the poet, to whom kindness was medicine, and the hope of fame the dearest joy, again dared look forward—again he trusted.1569.Ætat.45.A young and gallant monarch had just ascended the throne, and he hoped to propitiate his favour by his patriotic work. The moment of his landing, however, was unfavourable; for the plague was raging at Lisbon, and the minds of even the great and prosperous were absorbed by the fear of death. The political state of the kingdom was also disadvantageous. Sebastian had succeeded to the crown when only three years old. The queen, Catherine of Austria, had been appointed regent by the will of the late king; but the cardinal Henrique, uncle to the infant sovereign, so disgusted her with his intrigues, that she resigned her power in his favour. Henrique did not show himself unworthy of the trust; but as Sebastian grew up, the courtiers around him were eager that he shouldtake the government of the kingdom into his own hands. Sebastian's own heart was set on military glory and conquests in Africa: a project favoured by all the young and ambitious, and deprecated by the experienced, who saw only a useless expenditure of life and money in the design. The cardinal, meanwhile, endeavoured to prolong his sway. Camoens must have found it difficult to trim his sail between the actual power of the cardinal and the anticipated influence of the favourites of the king. He wrote the verses in which he dedicates his poem to the young monarch; he corrected and polished it; but the publication lingered, and it was two years after his return to his native country before it appeared. It was hailed with enthusiasm, and reprinted within the year.1571.Ætat.47.The king heard of it, it is said, and granted the poet a pension of 15,000 reis—about five pounds sterling—and required him to live within the precincts of the court, and obtain its payment half-yearly. A soldier who had fought as Camoens had done for his country, would have had his sufferings and mutilation better rewarded. It has been impossible to discover what occasioned the paltriness of the grant; if, indeed, it was not his half-pay as a military man, rather than a pension given to the poet. Some commentators fancy that the cardinal scowled on the poem, as likely to excite the martial ardour of the king, which he wished to repress. This fear almost seems to have gone the length of withholding the book altogether; for had Sebastian read the poem, he would surely have found in it a voice that echoed the emotions of his own heart, and would have regarded its writer with more favour; and when he sailed on his ill-fated expedition to Africa, and selected Diego Bernardes to accompany him as his poet, he would rather have chosen a man who could so well achieve and so well describe deeds of arms, as Camoens had proved that he could do.[155]

But in mentioning this we anticipate. Sebastian did not undertake his fatal expedition until the lapse of several years. Meanwhile the darkest shadows clouded the poet's fate. No court favour, no preferment was extended to him. Her he loved was dead; his poem was finished, published, read, admired; yet it proved barren of any advantage, except what he must have felt to be empty reputation, to its unfortunate writer. The poetry of his life faded before realities the most heartbreaking and oppressive. He continued to reside at Lisbon. He did not write, for he had fallen into a state of ill-health, the consequence of the many hardships he had endured, and the climate of India. He lived, he says, "in the knowledge of many, and the society of few." He enjoyed the acquaintance and conversation of some learned men, who belonged to the convent of S. Domingos de Lisboa, near which he lived.

The most melancholy circumstances attended his last days. He was sick and poor; his very life was supported by charity. His servant Antonio, a native of Java, by whom some say his life was saved when wrecked on the coast of Cochin, whom he had brought with him from India, was accustomed to steal out at night, and beg for bread, to support his miserable master during the following day.

While in this afflicting state, a fidalgo, Ruy Diaz de Camara, paid him a visit in his wretched dwelling, to complain that he had not fulfilled a promise which the poet had made of translating the penitential psalms.Camoens regarded with resentment the man who could urge him to write while starving. "When I wrote those verses," he replied, "I was young, well off, and in love; I possessed the affection of many friends, and was favoured of ladies, which imparted a poetic fire. Now I have neither spirit nor peace of mind for any thing. There stands my Javanese, who asks me for two pieces, to buy fuel, and I have none to give him." We are told, though it seems incredible, that "the cavalier closed his heart and purse and quitted the room." Thus shewing himself as base-minded as he was silly. Yet even in this state, so keen and patriotic were the poet's feelings, that his illness is said to have been increased by the tidings of Sebastian's overthrow and death in Africa.

Prophesying that the ruin of his country would result from this defeat, he says, in a letter written at that time,—"At least I shall die with it!"—and this sad reflection was a consolation. Southey conjectures that those friends who were kindest to him perished in this defeat, and that thus he lost that aid which had hitherto stood between him and absolute want.

1778.Ætat.54.

At length illness and suffering reduced him to so low a state that he was incapable of all exertion. He felt that his death was near, and, as a last effort, he expressed in a letter some of the bitter feelings excited by the miserable circumstances with which it came attended.1779.Ætat.55."Who ever heard," he says, "that fortune should wish to represent such vast misfortunes on the little theatre of a poor bed! and I, as if they were not sufficient, make myself her ally; for it would appear effrontery to attempt to resist such ill."

But the last scene was saddest of all. He breathed his last in an hospital. The month and day of his decease are alike unknown. The sheet in which he was shrouded was the gift of a noble, Don Francisco de Portugal, whose name deserves no praise for so meagre an offering to the dead, whose life a small portion of wealth might have rendered easy. A moralising monk watched his last hours. "How miserable a thing," hewrites, "to see so great a genius so ill rewarded! I saw him die in a hospital at Lisbon, without possessing a shroud to cover his remains, after having borne arms victoriously in India, and having sailed 5500 leagues:—a warning for those who weary themselves by studying night and day without profit, as the spider who spins his web to catch flies."[156]

After his death his body was removed to the church of Santa Anna, where he was interred; but no tomb or monumental inscription marked the spot, till sixteen years after his death, don Gonçalo Coutinho placed a stone to his memory, with this inscription—

HERE LIES LOUIS DE CAMOENS,PRINCE OF THE POETS OF HIS TIME.HE LIVED POOR AND MISERABLE,AND THUS DIED,IN THE YEAR MDLXXIX.D. GONÇALO COUTINHO ORDEREDTHIS STONE TO BE PLACED HERE,UNDER WHICHNO OTHER PERSON SHOULD BE BURIED.[157]

We are told that Camoens was handsome in person; and Faria y Sousa speaks of him as elegant and prepossessing in person before he went to India. Hardships and disappointments on his return bowed him down, destroyed his cheerfulness, and made him old before his time.

Camoens was a great man, not only as poet, but in the qualities of his mind and heart. He entered life full of aspiration after the good and beautiful. He loved tenderly and fondly one who was as pure and good as she was lovely; and in absence, and through hardship and sorrow, still he worshipped her idea and mourned her fate. He was gallant and brave in doing, as well as in the harder task of bearing. No mean, no servile, no even dubious act is recorded of him, during the course of many misfortunes, when spirits less high might have bowed before the rich and powerful. He was naturally cheerful, friendly, and fond of society, which he enlivened and adorned by his wit and genius. Fortune warred with him long in vain, but she conquered at last, when poor, and sick, and friendless, he grew melancholy and despairing. At the commencement we compared his fortunes with those of Cervantes; but the career of Camoens was the most disastrous. Every act of his life had an adverse termination. In the early season of youth he loved tenderly and ardently; and this feeling had not injured his fortunes, if his attachment had not been returned. A modern poet asks, "What makes it fatal in this world of ours, to be loved?" It was the love that Dona Catarina bore the poet, that awakened the enmity of her powerful relations, and cast his whole life into shadow. From the hour he was banished for her sake, he succeeded in nothing. He fought for his country in Africa, only to be maimed and deformed for life. He visited India only to encounter the same hardships in a worse climate; he amassed a fortune, and lost it in shipwreck; he trusted to the kind feelings of the powerful, and found himself reduced to absolute want. The most adverse period of Cervantes' life was his captivity at Algiers[158], when he had the spirit of early manhood, the love and admiration of his companions, his own conscience, and stirring hopes andfears to animate him. The happiest portion of Camoens' existence, we are told, were the years he spent at Macao, away from every friend, with hope only to cheer him, and his imagination, while he looked over the wide distant sea that separated him from the dearest objects of life. In his last moments, Cervantes had wife and relation near; and, when dying, he said farewell, to joy; farewell to his friends. In Camoens' last hour his spirit was broken: want and penury, in their most loathsome guise, were his death-bed companions, in a wretched hospital. Southey justly remarks, however, that he is not to be considered a martyr to literature; for he in no way depended on that for bread. He was a martyr to that political system which created a body of men, (the younger sons of the nobility), who, if they inherited no property, could acquire a livelihood only by court favour; and that is never bestowed upon the worthiest. He sought advancement, as well as the "bubble, honour, at the cannon's mouth." He gained the latter only; and unless his spirit now enjoys the fame which he desired during life, it was a bubble indeed, without substance to support him in his necessity. Had he lived a little longer, we are told Philip II. desired to see him when at Lisbon; and he would have found assistance in him. Many is the reprieve fate sends to the suffering after they are dead, as if to show her power, and to impress us with the idea that all depends on her fiat. Wherefore Heaven has established a law, that the best men are to suffer most in this life, is a mystery. All we know is, that so it is, and so learn at least to revere those cast in adversity, and to glory rather than feel shame in the frowns of fortune.[159]

It seems strange that men should let a fellow-creature die as Camoens died; a man, too, who possessed the much-coveted advantage of birth, whohad fought for his country, and celebrated her glories in his verse. Long did these very verses—the "Lusiad," and the reputation it promised—bear him up; yet some hope he lost as he concluded it, and at last he breaks off impatiently,—

"No more, my Muse, no more; my harp's ill strung,Heavy and out of tune, and my voice hoarse—And not with singing, but to see I've sungTo a deaf people, and without remorse.Favour that wont t'inspire the poet's tongue,Our country yields not: she minds the purseToo much; exhaling from her gilded mudNothing but dross and melancholy blood.Nor know I by what fate or duller chance,Men have not now the life or general gust,Which made them with a cheerful countenance,Themselves into perpetual action thrust.* * * *While I, who speak in rude and humble rhyme,Nor known, or dreamt of by my king at all,Know yet from mouths of little ones sometimeThe praise of great ones does completely fallI want not honest studies for my prime,Nor long experience, since to mix withal;I want not wit, such as in this you see,Three things which rarely in conjunction be."An arm to serve you, trained in war have I,A soul, to sing you, to the Muses bent;Only I want acceptance in your eye,Who owe to virtue fair encouragement

Nor know I by what fate or duller chance,Men have not now the life or general gust,Which made them with a cheerful countenance,Themselves into perpetual action thrust.* * * *While I, who speak in rude and humble rhyme,Nor known, or dreamt of by my king at all,Know yet from mouths of little ones sometimeThe praise of great ones does completely fallI want not honest studies for my prime,Nor long experience, since to mix withal;I want not wit, such as in this you see,Three things which rarely in conjunction be."

An arm to serve you, trained in war have I,A soul, to sing you, to the Muses bent;Only I want acceptance in your eye,Who owe to virtue fair encouragement

We have dwelt so long on the various and melancholy circumstances of Camoens' lot, that small space is left to speak of his works. Of his lesser poems, his lyrics, and sonnets, such mention has been made in the foregoing pages as have informed the reader of their high merit. Impassioned yet tender, earnest, yet soft—full of heart, and all the better feelings of the soul, they are the type of Camoens, and deserve the same praise as he himself merits.

Patriotism, warmed by the heroic deeds of the discoverers of the passage to India, inspired him with the idea of the Lusiad. He named it "Os Lusitanos," that is to say, the Lusitanians or Portuguese. It opens with the arrival of Vasco de Gama in the Mozambique; it carries him thence, after many dangers, to Calicut, and brings him thence home. Episodicalnarrations vary the poem. It has faults.[160]Its mythology is clumsy. While bringing forward Christians as Moslems in contention, the introduction of the heathen deities, of Bacchus and Venus, is ridiculous; yet the description of Venus presenting herself to Jupiter, in the second canto, may make any lover of the beautiful pardon the incongruity. The Lusiad is full of beauties: stanzas that rise to sublimity, touch the heart by their pathos, or charm it by descriptive beauties, abound. Above all, there is fire, a heart, a soul—flesh and blood, enthusiasm, and the poet's best spirit, to adorn it with magnanimous sentiments, patriotism, and piety.

As such, the Lusiad is an immortal poem, and Camoens a poet that the world may be proud to have brought forth. He has been considered such, and his poem translated into many languages. In English Mickles' is the modern and popular one; but it has no pretension to fidelity; and, though Mickle was a man of taste and a poet, we turn impatiently from his paraphrase to the truer, though uncouth version of Fanshaw.[161]

[127]Experimentou-se alguã horaDa Ave que chamaõ Camaõ,Que, se da Casa, onde mora,Ve adultera a Senhora,Morre de pura paixaõ.

[127]

Experimentou-se alguã horaDa Ave que chamaõ Camaõ,Que, se da Casa, onde mora,Ve adultera a Senhora,Morre de pura paixaõ.

[128]Lord Strangford dates the migration of this family from the time of this Ancestor Ruy de Camoens—and speaks of him as a follower of king Fernando. Ferreira is his authority, but other commentators give a different account See Vida del Poeta por Faria y Sousa, III. IV.

[129]Faria y Sousa, in his second life of Camoens appended to his "Rimas," mentions having found, in the registers of the Portuguese India House, a list of all the chief persons who sailed to India. In the list for 1550, there is this entry: "Luis de Camoens, son of Simon Vaz and Ana de Sa," inhabitants of Lisbon, in the quarter of la Monraria, escudeiro (a name equivalent to our esquire), with a red beard; he gave his father as surety—and sails in the ship San Pedro los Burgalezes.

[130]Lusiad, Canto VII. 78. Further mention will be made hereafter of this passage.

[131]It is curious to compare the smooth, even, and (so to speak)unindividualizedverses of Mickle with the rugged and even uncouth stanza of Fanshaw. Both are unlike Camoens. He wrote with fire, and each word bore stamp of the man; but his style is elevated and truly poetic—different from the Pope—like flow of Mickle, and the almost vulgar idiom that Fanshaw too often adopts. This is the stanza in the original Portuguese:Fez primeiro em Coimbra exercitarseO valeroso officio de Minerva;E de Helicona as Musas fez passar se,A pizar de Mondego a fertil herva.Quanto pode de Athenas desejarseTudo o soberbo Apollo aqui reserva:Aqui as capellas dá tecidas de ouro,Do baccharo, e do sempre verde louro.CantoIII. 97."He was the first that made Coimbra shineWith liberal sciences, which Pallas taught;By him from Helicon the Muses nine,To bruise Mondego's grassy brink were brought:Hither transferr'd Apollo that rich mine,Which the old Greeks in learned Athens wrought:There ivy wreaths with gold he interweaves,And the coy Daphne's never fading leaves."Fanshaw's Translation.

Fez primeiro em Coimbra exercitarseO valeroso officio de Minerva;E de Helicona as Musas fez passar se,A pizar de Mondego a fertil herva.Quanto pode de Athenas desejarseTudo o soberbo Apollo aqui reserva:Aqui as capellas dá tecidas de ouro,Do baccharo, e do sempre verde louro.CantoIII. 97.

CantoIII. 97.

"He was the first that made Coimbra shineWith liberal sciences, which Pallas taught;By him from Helicon the Muses nine,To bruise Mondego's grassy brink were brought:Hither transferr'd Apollo that rich mine,Which the old Greeks in learned Athens wrought:There ivy wreaths with gold he interweaves,And the coy Daphne's never fading leaves."Fanshaw's Translation.

Fanshaw's Translation.

[132]Cancam, VII. See also Cancam, II.

[133]Soneto, VI.

[134]The translation is from Mr. Adamson's pages; it has the fault of being in longer measure than the original, and therefore losing some of its simplicity.

[135]Lord Strangford's translation, p. 94.

[136]Faria y Sousa, says 1542—other commentators give 1545. The latter seems the more likely date.

[137]Mr. Adamson says, that "The sonnet does not allude to any particular situation but certainly the lineEu crendo que o lugar me defendia,alludes to its being a church, which, as is well known, is in Catholic counties, where young ladies are so much shut up, a usual place for falling in love.—Lope de Vega alludes to this circumstance and the similarity between the loves of Petrarch and Camoens—El culto celestial se celebravaDel mayor Viernes en la Iglesia pia,Quando por Laura Franco se encendia,y Liso por Natercia se inflamava.Liso and Natercia were the anagrams which Camoens framed of his own and his lady's Christian name—his own, Luis, being frequently spelt Lois.

[137]Mr. Adamson says, that "The sonnet does not allude to any particular situation but certainly the line

Eu crendo que o lugar me defendia,

alludes to its being a church, which, as is well known, is in Catholic counties, where young ladies are so much shut up, a usual place for falling in love.—Lope de Vega alludes to this circumstance and the similarity between the loves of Petrarch and Camoens—

El culto celestial se celebravaDel mayor Viernes en la Iglesia pia,Quando por Laura Franco se encendia,y Liso por Natercia se inflamava.

Liso and Natercia were the anagrams which Camoens framed of his own and his lady's Christian name—his own, Luis, being frequently spelt Lois.

[138]Soneto 25.

[139]Lord Strangford's translation is not literal, but it retains all the feeling of the original, and is very beautiful:—"Till lovers' tears at parting cease to flow,Nor sundered hearts by strong despair be torn,So long recorded be that April mornWhen gleams of joy were dashed with showers of woe.Scarce had the purpling east began to glow,Of mournful men, it saw me most forlorn;Saw those hard pangs by gentle bosom borne,(The hardest, sure, that gentle bosoms know!)But oh, it saw love's charming secret toldBy tears fast dropping from celestial eyes,By sobs of grief, and by such piteous sighsAs e'en might turn th' infernal caverns coldAnd make the guilty deem their sufferings ease,Their torments luxury—compared to these!"

[139]Lord Strangford's translation is not literal, but it retains all the feeling of the original, and is very beautiful:—

"Till lovers' tears at parting cease to flow,Nor sundered hearts by strong despair be torn,So long recorded be that April mornWhen gleams of joy were dashed with showers of woe.Scarce had the purpling east began to glow,Of mournful men, it saw me most forlorn;Saw those hard pangs by gentle bosom borne,(The hardest, sure, that gentle bosoms know!)But oh, it saw love's charming secret toldBy tears fast dropping from celestial eyes,By sobs of grief, and by such piteous sighsAs e'en might turn th' infernal caverns coldAnd make the guilty deem their sufferings ease,Their torments luxury—compared to these!"

[140]These verses are peculiarly beautiful in the original. The translation, though flowing, does not embody the ideas of the Portuguese with exactitude, or with equal energy of expression.

[141]While Camoens was in Africa his father sailed to India, and died at Goa on his arrival. Is it not possible that Simon Vaz, instead of being in Africa, was in Lisbon, as indeed seems certain, as he was surety for his son; and that his projected voyage caused Luis to entertain the design of going to India also, though hopes of preferment induced him rather to wish to sail with the viceroy than on board his father's vessel. But the invitation of his youthful friend, the reluctance he felt to give up every hope of seeing dona Caterina again, made him prefer an expedition to Africa. Simon Vaz died on his arrival at Goa, but voyages in those days were long and uncertain: and when Luis actually sailed for India, he probably had not heard of his father's fate, and went out with the intention of joining him.

[142]Don Jose Maria de Sousa.

[143]There is a singular story told by Faria y Sousa, that he found among the old books on the stall of Pedro Coelho, at Madrid, a MS. copy of the first six cantos of the Lusiad, written before Camoens went to India. The copy at the conclusion contained this note: "These six cantos were purloined from Luis de Camoens, from the work which has commenced on the discovery and conquest of India by the Portuguese: they are all finished except the sixth;—the conclusion of that is here given, yet it wants the story of the history of his loves that Leonardo relates during his watch, which ought to follow at stanza 46., where the loss of it is felt, for the conversation of those on watch becomes in consequence shorter and duller, and the canto is shorter than the others." Faria y Sousa adds that he found several stanzas in this MS. wanting in the printed copies, but as the Lusiad was published under the inspection of Camoens, it is to be doubted, whether a late commentator (Sousa) is right in reproaching his predecessor for not preserving the new ones, since it would appear that they were expunged by Camoens himself.

[144]The sonnet has been translated by lord Strangford.

[145]These lines are quoted from the first eclogue of Garcilaso de la Vega. It is supposed that Camoens meant, that his enemies were angry to see the reputation they coveted, possessed by him. The language and style of this letter is so very obscure as to be almost untranslatable.

[146]A place a few miles from Lisbon, where bulls are bred for the bull-fights. He seems to use these expressions ironically.

[147]A discussion has arisen concerning the cause of Camoens' banishment. Fario y Sousa, who lived near the time of Camoens, (he was born in 1590,) says that Barreto took offence at this second satire, and adds with great candour and good feeling: "There is not anything reprehensible in all my master's actions, except his having written these satires, for in doing so he lost sight of prudence, independence, and the bearing of a cavalier; as not any of these qualities belong to a satirist. Barreto, likewise, who was a man possessing a great mind, did not appear to advantage in revenging himself so sternly upon a man of such abilities, and in treating him with such rigour." The late biographer Sousa resents this account. He says, "the satire was falsely attributed to Camoens, since no spark of his genius appears,—nor is he found either before, or after that time, indulging in that species of composition." Southey warmly takes Faria's part, (whom he names one of the most upright and high-minded men that ever ended his days in honourable poverty) and blames Camoens. Adamson is inclined to side with Sousa. We must remember that Barreto was a cruel, arbitrary, and extortionate man: and the sense Camoens evinces of his banishment, makes us willing to believe that he was supported by a lofty sense of innocence. He calls his banishment an unjust decree, in the Lusiad,—and in more energetic language in another poem, he wishes that the remembrance of his exile might, in punishment of those by whom it was obtained, be sculptured in rock or adamant.

[148]The description which he gives of the place where he spent the greater part of his exile, as doctor Southey justly remarks, applies decidedly to Macao and not to Ternate, as Mr. Adamson supposes.Cercada esta de hum rio,De maritimas aguas saudosas,Das herbas que aqui nascem,Os gados juntamente, y es olhos passeml,Aqui minha venturaQuiz que huma grande parte,Da vida——se passasse."It is surrounded by an ocean-stream of salt water. On the herbage that it produces the flock and the eye jointly pasture. Here fortune willed that a considerable part of my life should be passed."

Cercada esta de hum rio,De maritimas aguas saudosas,Das herbas que aqui nascem,Os gados juntamente, y es olhos passeml,Aqui minha venturaQuiz que huma grande parte,Da vida——se passasse.

"It is surrounded by an ocean-stream of salt water. On the herbage that it produces the flock and the eye jointly pasture. Here fortune willed that a considerable part of my life should be passed."

[149]That Camoens, banished by Barreto, held a profitable situation under him seems a contradiction; yet since he amassed a sum of money that seemed wealth to him, he must have been appointed during the governorship of Barreto. The Quarterly Review, bent on admiring the virtues of power, deduces arguments in favour of Barreto: but Camoens could not have denounced him as he did had he been under obligations to him, obligations too, which the whole world in India would have considered full compensation for his exile from Goa. Sousa considers that his stay was of longer duration at Ternate than we assign, and that he did not fill the place at Macao till a later period, when it was given him by Barreto's successor. But then he would not have had time to amass a fortune. Here therefore is an enigma, whose solution we cannot discover, unless it be (and it seems the probable conjecture) that the local governor of Macao preferred Camoens to this place, and Barreto had nothing at all to do with it.

[150]To this wreck, and to his escape he refers in the prophetic song in the tenth Lusiad when he speaks of the river Mecon—"Upon his soft and charitable brimThe wet and shipwrecked song receive shall he,Which in a lamentable plight shall swimFrom shoals and quicksands of tempestuous sea,The dire effect of exile,—when onhimIs executed the unjust decree,Whose repercussive lyre shall have the fateTo be renowned more than fortunate."Lusiad, canto X. stanza 128.—Fanshaw's Translation.

[150]To this wreck, and to his escape he refers in the prophetic song in the tenth Lusiad when he speaks of the river Mecon—

"Upon his soft and charitable brimThe wet and shipwrecked song receive shall he,Which in a lamentable plight shall swimFrom shoals and quicksands of tempestuous sea,The dire effect of exile,—when onhimIs executed the unjust decree,Whose repercussive lyre shall have the fateTo be renowned more than fortunate."Lusiad, canto X. stanza 128.—Fanshaw's Translation.

Lusiad, canto X. stanza 128.—Fanshaw's Translation.

[151]We cannot help preferring the faithful and nervous, though uncouth and even obsolete, translation of Fanshaw to the more diluted stream of Mickle's heroics. Southey speaks of "the elaborate and curious infidelity of Mickle's version;" at the same time that he praises it highly. Desirous of understanding the soul of Camoens, it is not from his smooth expressions, that the reader unacquainted with Portuguese can be informed.

[152]Don Joze Faria y Souza, the latest Portuguese commentator, first suggested this as the probable epoch of dona Catarina's death, in contradistinction to all other biographers, who place it on his return from Ceuta. He founds his notion on the internal evidence of Camoens' lyrics and sonnets, and has made converts of Adamson and Southey, and will of all future biographers. There is this of agreeable also; that Camoens is rescued from the charge, that otherwise lies at his door (and is mentioned by Lord Strangford), of forgetting dona Catarina as soon as she was no more, and addressing another lady in the language of constant love. But these poems show by their context that they were addressed to his first love, who still lived.

[153]Perpetuo saudade da alma mia. The wordsaudadeis peculiar to the Portuguese language—it includes much—a recollection accompanied by affection, and regret, and pleasure: friends when they write, send saudades instead of our remembrances to others, and it speaks of more tender and kind feeling.

[154]One of the most perfect and beautiful of Camoens' poems, is a sonnet which many have preferred to the one of Petrarch on the same subject, or even to his Trionfa, which also narrates the visionary visit of his lost love. The following is Mr. Hayley's translation:—"While prest with woes from which it cannot flee,My fancy sinks, and slumber seals my eyes,Her spirit hastens in my dreams to rise,Who was in life but as a dream to me.O'er the drear waste, so wide no eye can seeHow far its sense-evading limit lies,I follow her quick step; but ah, she flies!Our distance wid'ning by fate's stern decree.'Fly not from me, kind shadow,' I exclaim;She with fixed eyes, that her soft thoughts reveal,And seemed to say, 'Forbear thy fond design,'—Still flies.—I call her, but her half-formed nameDies on my falt'ring tongue.—I wake and feelNot e'en one short delusion can be mine."

"While prest with woes from which it cannot flee,My fancy sinks, and slumber seals my eyes,Her spirit hastens in my dreams to rise,Who was in life but as a dream to me.O'er the drear waste, so wide no eye can seeHow far its sense-evading limit lies,I follow her quick step; but ah, she flies!Our distance wid'ning by fate's stern decree.'Fly not from me, kind shadow,' I exclaim;She with fixed eyes, that her soft thoughts reveal,And seemed to say, 'Forbear thy fond design,'—Still flies.—I call her, but her half-formed nameDies on my falt'ring tongue.—I wake and feelNot e'en one short delusion can be mine."

[155]Southey has given the following account of his rival:—"Diego Bernardes, one of the best of the Portuguese poets, was born on the banks of the Lima, and passionately fond of its scenery. Some of his poems will bear comparison with the best poems of their kind. There is a charge of plagiarism against him, for having printed several of Camoen's sonnets as his own: to obtain any proof on this subject would be very difficult: this, however, is certain, that his own undisputed productions resemble them so much in affecting tenderness and sweetness of diction, that the whole appear like the works of one author."—Notes to Southey's Don Roderick.Bernardes, however, had no reason to congratulate himself on the choice having fallen on him. He was taken prisoner in the battle in which Sebastian fell; and then he blamed the unfortunate king, and deplored his own fate—a captive doomed to labour and chains. He obtained his liberty, and died at Lisbon in 1596, and was buried in the same church a Camoens. Vide Adamson.

[156]Lord Holland possesses a copy of the first edition of the Lusiad, in which these words were written by the friar Josepe Judio, who left it in the convent of the barefooted Carmelites of Guadalaxara.

[157]This admirable inscription runs thus in its own native Portuguese on the stone itself—AQUI JAZ LUIS DE CAMÕES,PRINCIPE DOS POETAS DE SEU TEMPO,VIVEO POBRE E MISERAVELMENTE,E ASSI MORREO,ANNO DE MDLXXIX.ESTA CAMPA LHE MANDA AQUI,POR D. GONÇALO COUTINHO,NA QUAL SE NAÕ ENTERRARAPESSOA ALGUMA.

[157]This admirable inscription runs thus in its own native Portuguese on the stone itself—

AQUI JAZ LUIS DE CAMÕES,PRINCIPE DOS POETAS DE SEU TEMPO,VIVEO POBRE E MISERAVELMENTE,E ASSI MORREO,ANNO DE MDLXXIX.ESTA CAMPA LHE MANDA AQUI,POR D. GONÇALO COUTINHO,NA QUAL SE NAÕ ENTERRARAPESSOA ALGUMA.

[158]We may remark that Camoens died while Cervantes was still a captive at Algiers. He was dead when the Spaniard joined the army at Lisbon two or three years after.

[159]"The poet's life is one of want and suffering, and often of mortification—mortification, too, that comes terribly home; but far be it from me to say that it has not its own exceeding great reward. It may be late in coming, but the claim on universal sympathy is at last allowed. The future, glorious and calm, brightens over the grave; and then, for the present, the golden world of the imagination is around it Not one emotion of your own beating heart but is recorded in music."—L. E. L.

[160]Doctor Southey has, in his article on the 'life of Camoens', in the twenty-seventh volume of the "Quarterly Review," given an account of the attack made by Jose Agostinho de Macedon on the Lusiad, and the poem he wrote in rivalship on the same subject. Macedo was an acute critic: as such, he could more readily detect defects than beauties. He saw with discerning eye the faults of plan in the Lusiad;—but he was not warmed by its fire, nor elevated by its genius. The most entire vengeance a friend of Camoens could take, he himself achieved when he wrote his poem, whose machinery and plan are no better, and which possesses none of the transcendant merits of its predecessor. To subvert a national idol, is an invidious task—to set himself upon the same pedestal, a ridiculous pretension. A poet of the present day, whom the Portuguese, of whatever political creed, agree in admiring, Almeida Garrett, has written a poem, entitled "Camoens," worthy of his great countryman.

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