My eyes deceived me) rise in the air,
A little vapour and subtle smoke
Rotating a little from the wind’s drag;
From there could be seen a tube extending
To the very heavens, but so slender
The eye could scarcely make it out; it seemed
Tenuous as a mist or something dreamed.
20 It went on growing little by little
To the thickness of a mast-head;
Though here narrow, and there wider as
It drew up great gulps of water;
Its foot undulated with the waves;
On the top, a black cloud condensed,
Growing heavier by the moment and suppurating
with the huge volume taken up.
21 As a purple leech may be seen swelling
On the lips of some beast (who casually
Picked it up from a cool fountain)
Slaking its thirst with another’s blood;
The more it sucks, the bigger it grows,
Gorging itself to bursting-point:
So the swollen, dropsical column swelled
Together with the black cloud it upheld.
22 Then, sated and replete, it drew up
The foot it still retained in the sea,
And drifted away across the heavens
Spattering the sea with a shower;
It returned to the water the water it took
But held back all traces of salt:
Witness then, experts in nomenclature
What wonders exist in unlettered Nature!
23 If philosophers of old, who visited
So many lands to study their secrets,
Had witnessed the marvels I witnessed,
Spreading my sail to such different winds,
What great writings they would have left us!
What revelations about the heavens,
What marvellous testimonies to Nature’s youth!
And all without hyperbole. Plain truth!
24 By now the moon at her shifting post
In the first sphere had five times shown
Her crescent face, five times her full,
Since the fleet began our long voyage,
When from the topmost lookout
A keen-eyed sailor holloed: ‘Land! Land!’
Impatiently, our people rushed on deck
All peering eastwards at the tiny speck.
25 Looking at first like clouds, the range
Of mountains we had glimpsed grew clearer;
The heavy anchors were prepared;
As we approached we struck sails;
Then in order to discover in parts
So remote, precisely where we were,
Using the astrolabe,* that instrument
It took skill and ingenuity to invent,
26 We went ashore* at an open stretch,
Where our men quickly scattered
To reconnoitre this welcome land
Where no one seemed to have ventured;
But I, eager to know where I was,
Stayed on the sandy beach with the pilots
To measure the sun’s height, and use our art
To fix our bearing on the cosmic chart.
27 We found we had long ago left behind
The southern Tropic of Capricorn,
Being between it and the Antarctic,
That least-known region of the world.
At this, my companions returning,
I saw a stranger with a black skin
They had captured, making his sweet harvest
Of honey from the wild bees in the forest.
28 He looked thunderstruck, like a man
Never placed in such an extreme;
He could not understand us, nor we him
Who seemed wilder than Polyphemus.*
I began by showing him pure gold
The supreme metal of civilization,
Then fine silverware and hot condiment:
Nothing stirred in the brute the least excitement.
29 I arranged to show him simpler things:
Tiny beads of transparent crystal,
Some little jingling bells and rattles,
A red bonnet of a pleasing colour;
I saw at once from nods and gestures
That these had made him very happy.
I freed him and let him take his pillage,
Small as it was, to his nearby village.
30 The next day his fellows, all of them
Naked, and blacker than seemed possible,
Trooped down the rugged hillside paths
Hoping for what their friend had obtained.
They were so gentle and well disposed
It caused our friend Fernão Veloso*
To try his hand as anthropologist
And discover how such people could exist.
31 Trusting to his strong arm, Veloso
Was too confident he would be safe;
But after much time had elapsed
While I watched for some signal,
I was scanning the horizon anxiously
For the adventurer, when he appeared
On the rough track scurrying to the shore
A great deal faster than he went before.
32 Coelho’s* boat was quick to take him
Off, but before it could make a landing,
A bold Ethiopian* grappled with him
To prevent him making an escape;
More and more came after Veloso,
By now surrounded and helpless;
We sprang to the oars but, as we bent our backs,
There sprang from ambush a battalion of blacks;
33 Countless arrows and stones rained
On the rest of us in a thick cloud,
And not tossed to the wind aimlessly
For it was there I got this leg wound;
But we, as the aggrieved people,
Returned so superadded a reply
It was not just those bonnets that they wear
Were crimson at the end of this affair!
34 As soon as Veloso was safe and sound
We rowed quickly back to the ships,
For, given this people’s bad faith
And brutish lack of courtesies,
We were not likely to obtain from them
Any news of the India we desired
Except that it was many moons away,
So I ordered full sail without delay.
35 Soon, one of the men said to Veloso
(As everyone was relaxing, laughing):
—‘Veloso my friend, that hill’s obviously
Better to come down than go up . . .’
—‘Absolutely,’ said the bold adventurer
‘But up there, when I saw so many
Of those dogs approaching, I looked about me,
Knowing you’d be scared to death without me.’
36 He said that as soon as they mounted
The crest, the black men of whom I speak
Refused to let him proceed, threatening
To kill him if he persisted;
When he turned back, they laid an ambush
So when we sought to rescue him,
They could dispatch us to eternity
And rob our corpses with complete security.
37 Five more suns had risen and set
Since we embarked from that beach,
Cutting seas no other nation had braved,
With the winds gusting favourably,
When that night as we kept watch
At the sharp prow and at our ease,
A cloud above the mast loomed huge and high
Blackening out completely the night sky.
38 So fearful it looked, so overpowering,
It put great terror in our hearts;
The dark, invisible waters roared
As if frustrated, pounding on some reef.
‘Oh Omnipotent and Sublime,’ I cried,
‘
What demon does this region hold,
Rising before us in this dreadful form
For it seems something mightier than a storm?’
39 Even as I spoke, an immense shape*
Materialized in the night air,
Grotesque and of enormous stature,
With heavy jowls, and an unkempt beard,
Scowling from shrunken, hollow eyes,
Its complexion earthy and pale,
Its hair grizzled and matted with clay,
Its mouth coal black, teeth yellow with decay.
40 So towered its thick limbs, I swear
You could believe it a second
Colossus of Rhodes,* that giant
Of the ancient world’s seven wonders.
It spoke with a coarse, gravelly voice
Booming from the ocean’s depths;
Our hair was on end, our flesh shuddering,
Mine and everyone’s, to hear and behold the thing.
41 It addressed us: ‘O reckless people,
Bolder than any the world has known,
As stubborn in your countless,
Cruel wars as in vainglorious quests;
Because you have breached what is forbidden,
Daring to cross such remote seas,
Where I alone for so long have prevailed
And no ship, large or small, has ever sailed,
42 ‘Because you have desecrated nature’s
Secrets and the mysteries of the deep,
Where no human, however noble
Or immortal his worth, should trespass,
Hear from me now what retribution
Fate prescribes for your insolence,
Whether ocean-borne, or along the shores
You will subjugate with your dreadful wars;
43 ‘No matter how many vessels attempt
The audacious passage you are plotting,
My cape will be implacably hostile
With gales beyond any you have encountered;
On the next fleet* which broaches
These turbulent waters, I shall impose
Such retribution and exact such debts
The destruction will be far worse than my threats.
44 ‘Here, in my reckoning, I’ll take sweet revenge
On Dias* who betrayed me to the world,
Nor is he the only Portuguese
Who will pay for your foolish persistence;
If what I imagine comes to pass,
Year by year your fleets will meet
Shipwreck, with calamities so combined
That death alone will bring you peace of mind.
45 ‘As for your first viceroy,* whose fame
Fortune will beacon to the heavens,
Here will be his far-flung tomb
By God’s inscrutable judgement,
Here he will surrender the opulent
Trophies wrung from the Turkish fleet,
And atone for his bloody crimes, the massacre
Of Kilwa, the levelling of Mombasa.
46 ‘Another will come,* a man of honour,
Noble, generous, and a lover
Bringing with him a beautiful lady,
Love’s due reward for his virtues;
Vindictive fate will deliver them,
To these harsh, implacable shores;
They will have time to contemplate my curse,
Weathering shipwreck to endure far worse.
47 ‘They will watch their dear children,
Fruits of such love, perish of hunger;
They will see harsh, grasping people
Tear her clothes from the lovely lady,
And her body of such crystal beauty
Exposed to frost and the scorching winds,
After marching so far in the terrible heat,
Tramping the rough sand with her delicate feet.
48 ‘Those who avoid their dreadful fate
Must witness further sufferings,
Two hapless lovers falling victim
To the parched, relentless bush;
After softening the very rocks
With tears distilled from grief and pain,
They lie embraced, their souls already flown
Their wretched gaol of exquisite flesh and bone.’
49 The fearsome creature was in full spate
Chanting our destiny when, rising
I demanded: ‘Who are you, whose
Outlandish shape utterly dumbfounds me?’
His mouth and black eyes grimaced
Giving vent to an awesome roar,
Then answered bitterly, with the heavy voice
Of one who speaks compelled and not by choice:
50 —‘I am that vast, secret promontory
You Portuguese call the Cape of Storms,*
Which neither Ptolemy, Pompey, Strabo,
Pliny, nor any authors knew of.
Here Africa ends. Here its coast
Concludes in this, my vast inviolate
Plateau, extending southwards to the Pole
And, by your daring, struck to my very soul.
51 ‘I was one of those rugged Titans*
With Enceladus, Aegeon, and Briareus;
I am called Adamastor, and we fought
With the Shaker of Vulcan’s thunderbolts.
No, I could not hurl mountain on mountain
But choosing to fight on the waters,
I was Lord of the sea. Whatever tactic
Neptune attempted, I was on his track.
52 ‘Desire for Peleus’ immortal wife*
Entangled me hopelessly in this affair;
I spurned all heaven’s goddesses
For love of the princess of the ocean.
My whole being became enslaved
When I saw her with the daughters
Of Nereus, advancing naked up the shore
And to this day there is nothing I want more.
53 ‘But knowing I could never win her
With an ugly, swollen face like mine,
I resolved to seize her by force
Telling Doris, her mother, of my plans;
In her fear, the goddess spoke to Tethys,
But she, practical in her beauty,
Laughed, “What loves could any nymph devise
To satisfy a monster of such size?
54 ‘“Yet to keep the oceans secure from war
I will do what’s unavoidable
Though preserving my honour intact.”
This was my go-between’s reply;
I could not tumble to any deceit
(For who is so blind as a lover?)
But believed myself blessed and set apart,
Such hopes and longings quickened in my heart.
55 ‘Like a poor fool, I abandoned the war,
And one night, as Doris had sworn
Tethys approached, with her glorious
Face and her naked, matchless body;
Like a madman I ran, with arms
Outstretched, to her who was my
Soul’s life, heart’s joy, body’s prayer
Kissing her lovely eyes, her cheeks, her hair.
56 ‘But, oh, what words for my chagrin!
Convinced my beloved was in my arms,
I found myself hugging a hillside
Of undergrowth and rough bush;
I was cheek to cheek with a boulder
I had seized as her angelic face,
Unmanned utterly, dumb and numb with shock,
A rock on an escarpment, kissing rock!
57 ‘O nymph, loveliest of all the ocean,
Though my existence gave you no joy,
What did it cost you to beguile me
With mountain, cloud, dream, or void?
I stormed off, all but insane
With hurt and my humiliation
To find some world where she would not resort
Who turned my grief into such splendid sport.
58 ‘By this time, my Titan brothers<
br />
Had been conquered and expelled,
Pinned beneath various mountains
So the Gods could live in peace;
No hand can prevail against the heaven,
And I, tormented by my tears,
Slowly began to feel what heavy state
Was planned for my audacity by Fate.
59 ‘My flesh was moulded to hard clay,
My bones compressed to rock;
These limbs you see, and this trunk
Were stretched out over the waters;
The gods moulded my great bulk
Into this remote promontory;
And of all tortures, the most agonizing
Is that Tethys surrounds me, tantalizing.’
60 So he finished, and sighing dreadfully
Vanished suddenly from our sight;
The black clouds dispersed and a resonant
Moaning echoed over the sea.
Raising my hands to the sacred chorus
Of angels, who had long watched over us,
I prayed to God that He should turn aside
The evils Adamastor prophesied.
61 By now Apollo’s team of four
Were bringing back the sun’s chariot
And Table Mountain was revealed to us
To which the giant was transformed.
At long last, hugging this coast,
Our prows were pointing eastwards;
I followed it some miles, and once again
Turned for the shore and landed with my men.
62 The people who owned the country* here,
Though they were likewise Ethiopians,
Were cordial and humane, unlike
Those others who proved so treacherous;
They came towards us on the sandy beach
With dancing and an air of festival,
Their wives along with them, and they were driving
Humped cattle which looked sleek and thriving.
63 Their wives, black as polished ebony,
Were perched on gently lumbering oxen,
Beasts which, of all their cattle
Are the ones they prize the most.
They sang pastoral songs in their own
Tongue, sweetly and in harmony,
Whether rhymed, or in prose, we could not gauge
But like the pipes of Virgil’s golden age.
64 These, as their smiling faces promised,
Dealt with us as fellow humans,
Bringing sheep and poultry to barter
For the goods we had on board;
But as for news of what we sought,
For all our desire to converse with them,
Neither with words nor signs could we prevail,
So we once again raised anchor and set sail.
65 By now we had made a complete circuit
Of black Africa’s coast, pointing
Our prows towards the equator,
Leaving the Antarctic in our wake.
We passed Santa Cruz* where Dias,
Having rounded the Cape of Storms,
The Lusiads (Oxford World's Classics) Page 14
