The Lusiad Part 44

[482] _Had Semele beheld the smiling boy._--The Theban Bacchus, to whom the Greek fabulists ascribed the Indian expedition of Sesostris, king of Egypt.

[483] Semiramis.

[484] _Call'd Jove his father._--The bon-mot of Olympias on this pretension of her son Alexander, was admired by the ancients. "This hot-headed youth, forsooth, cannot be at rest unless he embroil me in a quarrel with Juno."--QUINT. CURT.

[485]

_The tap'stried walls with gold were pictur'd o'er, And flow'ry velvet spread the marble floor.--_

According to Osorius.

[486] _A leaf._--The Betel.

[487] _More now we add not._--The tenor of this first conversation between the zamorim and GAMA, is according to the truth of history.

[488] _What terrors oft have thrill'd my infant breast._--The enthusiasm with which Monzaida, a Moor, talks of the Portuguese, may perhaps to some appear unnatural. Camoens seems to be aware of this by giving a reason for that enthusiasm in the first speech of Monzaida to Gama--

_Heav'n sent you here for some great work divine, And Heav'n inspires my breast your sacred toils to join._

And, that this Moor did conceive a great affection to GAMA, whose religion he embraced, and to whom he proved of the utmost service, is according to the truth of history.

[489] _The ruddy juice by Noah found._--Gen. ix. 20. "And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard, and he drank of the wine,"

etc.

[490]

_His faith forbade with other tribe to join The sacred meal, esteem'd a rite divine.--_

The opinion of the sacredness of the table is very ancient in the East.

It is plainly to be discovered in the history of Abraham. When Melchizedek, a king and priest, blessed Abraham, it is said, "And he brought forth bread and wine and he blessed him."--Gen. xiv. 18. The patriarchs only drank wine, according to Dr. Stukely, on their more solemn festivals, when they were said _to rejoice before the Lord_.

Other customs of the Hindoos are mentioned by Camoens in this book. If a n.o.ble should touch a person of another tribe--

_A thousand rites, and was.h.i.+ngs o'er and o'er, Can scarce his tainted purity restore._

Nothing, says Osorius, but the death of the unhappy commoner can wipe off the pollution. Yet we are told by the same author, that Hindoo n.o.bility cannot be forfeited, or even tarnished by the basest and greatest of crimes; nor can one of mean birth become great or n.o.ble by the most ill.u.s.trious actions. The n.o.blemen, says the same writer, adopt the children of their sisters, esteeming there can be no other certainty of the relations.h.i.+p of their heirs.

[491] _The warlike song._--Though Camoens began his Lusiad in Portugal, almost the whole of it was written while on the ocean, while in Africa, and in India.--See his Life.

[492] _As Canace._--Daughter of Eolus. Her father, having thrown her incestuous child to the dogs, sent her a sword, with which she slew herself. In Ovid she writes an epistle to her husband-brother, where she thus describes herself:--

_Dextra tenet calamum, strictum tenet altera ferrum._

[493]

_Soon I beheld that wealth beneath the wave For ever lost.--_

See the Life of Camoens.

[494] _My life, like Judah's Heaven-doom'd king of yore._--Hezekiah.--See Isaiah x.x.xviii.

[495] _And left me mourning in a dreary jail._--This, and the whole paragraph from--

_Degraded now, by poverty abhorr'd,_

alludes to his fortunes in India. The latter circ.u.mstance relates particularly to the base and inhuman treatment he received on his return to Goa, after his unhappy s.h.i.+pwreck.--See his Life.

[496] _Who spurns the muse._--Similarity of condition has produced similarity of sentiment in Camoens and Spenser. Each was the ornament of his country and his age, and each was cruelly neglected by the men of power, who, in truth, were incapable to judge of their merit, or to relish their writings. We have seen several of the strictures of Camoens on the barbarous n.o.bility of Portugal. The similar complaints of Spenser will show, that neglect of genius, however, was not confined to the court of Lisbon:--

"O grief of griefs! O gall of all good hearts!

To see that virtue should despised be Of such as first were raised for virtue's parts, And now, broad spreading like an aged tree, Let none shoot up that nigh them planted be.

O let not those of whom the muse is scorn'd, Alive or dead be by the muse adorn'd."

RUINS OF TIME.

It is thought Lord Burleigh, who withheld the bounty intended by Queen Elizabeth, is here meant. But he is more clearly stigmatized in these remarkable lines, where the misery of dependence on court favour is painted in colours which must recall several strokes of the Lusiad to the mind of the reader:--

"Full little knowest thou that hast not tried, What h.e.l.l it is, in suing long to bide; To lose good days, that might be better spent, To waste long nights in pensive discontent; To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow, To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow; To have thy princess' grace, yet want her peers'; To have thy asking, yet wait many years.

To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares, To eat thy heart thro' comfortless despairs; To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run, To spend, to give, to want, to be undone."

MOTHER HUBBERD'S TALE.

These lines exasperated still more the inelegant, illiberal Burleigh. So true is the observation of Mr. Hughes, that, "even the sighs of a miserable man are sometimes resented as an affront by him that is the occasion of them."

[497] Kotwal, a sort of superintendent or inspector of police.--FORBES'

Hindustani Dictionary.

[498] Lusus.

[499] _His cl.u.s.ter'd bough, the same which Bacchus bore._--Camoens immediately before, and in the former book, calls the ensign of Lusus a bough; here he calls it the green thyrsus of Bacchus:--

_O verde Tyrso foi de Bacco usado._

The thyrsus, however, was a javelin twisted with ivy-leaves, used in the sacrifices of Bacchus.

[500] _In those fair lawns the bless'd Elysium feign'd._--In this a.s.sertion our author has the authority of Strabo. a foundation sufficient for a poet. Nor are there wanting several Spanish writers, particularly Barbosa, who seriously affirm that Homer drew the fine description of Elysium, in his fourth Odyssey, from the beautiful valleys of Spain, where, in one of his voyages, they say, he arrived.

Egypt, however, seems to have a better t.i.tle to this honour. The fable of Charon, and the judges of h.e.l.l, are evidently borrowed from the Egyptian rites of burial, and are older than Homer. After a ferryman had conveyed the corpse over a lake, certain judges examined the life of the deceased, particularly his claim to the virtue of loyalty, and, according to the report, decreed or refused the honours of sepulture.

The place of the catacombs, according to Diodorus Siculus, was surrounded with deep ca.n.a.ls, beautiful meadows, and a wilderness of groves. It is universally known that the greatest part of the Grecian fables were fabricated from the customs and opinions of Egypt. Several other nations have also claimed the honour of affording the idea of the fields of the blessed. Even the Scotch challenge it. Many Grecian fables, says an author of that country, are evidently founded on the reports of the Phnician sailors. That these navigators traded to the coasts of Britain is certain. In the middle of summer, the season when the ancients performed their voyages, for about six weeks there is no night over the Orkney Islands; the disk of the sun, during that time, scarcely sinking below the horizon. This appearance, together with the calm which usually prevails at that season, and the beautiful verdure of the islands, could not fail to excite the admiration of the Phnicians; and their accounts of the place naturally afforded the idea that these islands were inhabited by the spirits of the just. This, says our author, is countenanced by Homer, who places his "islands of the happy"

at the extremity of the ocean. That the fables of Scylla, the Gorgones, and several others, were founded on the accounts of navigators, seems probable; and, on this supposition, the Insulae Fortunatae, and Purpurariae, now the Canary and Madeira islands, also claim the honour of giving colours to the description of Elysium. The truth, however, appears to be this: That a place of happiness is reserved for the spirits of the good is the natural suggestion of that anxiety and hope concerning the future which animates the human breast. All the barbarous nations of Africa and America agree in placing their heaven in beautiful islands, at an immense distance over the ocean. The idea is universal, and is natural to every nation in a state of barbarous simplicity.

[501] The G.o.ddess Minerva.

[502] _The heav'n-built towers of Troy._--Alluding to the fable of Neptune, Apollo, and Laomedon.

[503]

_On Europe's strand, more grateful to the skies, He bade th' eternal walls of Lisbon rise.--_

For some account of this tradition, see the note on Lusiad, bk. iii. p.