The Lusiads (Oxford World's Classics)

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The Lusiads (Oxford World's Classics) Page 15

by Luis Vaz de Camoes

And planted a memorial column,

  Not knowing of his triumph, turned for home.

  66 From here we sailed on many days

  Into both fair and wretched weather,

  Charting a new course on the ocean,

  Swept along only by our hopes,

  At times fighting the sea itself

  As, changing its moods wilfully,

  It conjured up a current of such force

  Our ships could make no headway in their course.

  67 So overbearing was its pressure

  It drove us backward in our tracks,

  The whole sea running against us

  Though the breeze was in our favour;

  But at this, the south and south-west

  Winds, as though whipped to anger by

  The sea’s challenge, unleashed a furious gale,

  So what dragged the hull was conquered by the sail.

  68 The sun dawned on that holy day

  On which three kings from the Orient*

  Came in search of a King, newly born,

  Who is One, and yet Three in One;

  We made landfall once again, among

  Equally gentle people, at the mouth

  Of a river to which we gave the name

  Epiphany, to match the day we came.

  69 Once more, we were offered without stint

  Fresh food, and water from the river,

  But no sign of India, for with them

  It was again as if we were dumb.

  Consider, O King, how far we had voyaged

  Encountering only pastoral people,

  Without any precise news, nor the least

  Rumour of what we searched for in the East!

  70 Reflect how close by now we were,

  To defeat, emaciated by hunger,

  Exhausted by storms, by climates

  And seas beyond all our experience,

  So weary of promises dashed, so

  Often driven to despair beneath

  Heavens with scarcely one familiar star

  And hostile to the kind of men we are!

  71 Our provisions were thoroughly rancid;

  To consume them made our bodies worse,

  While nothing brought any comfort

  In pursuing such fleeting hopes!

  Would you believe that had our company

  Of soldiers not been Portuguese,

  They would have remained so long obedient

  To their king and to me, their king’s agent?

  72 Do you imagine if I, their captain,

  Opposed them, they would not have mutinied,

  Driven to become pirates out of sheer

  Rage and desperation and hunger?

  Truly, their metal has been tested;

  There is no trial so great could turn

  Such soldiers from their natural qualities

  Of discipline, of being Portuguese.

  73 So we left that haven of sweet water

  To resume ploughing the salt seas;

  We stood off a little from the coast,

  Heading out of sight of land

  For the cool, southern breezes

  Might have becalmed us in that bay

  Where the coast turns eastwards to a famous town,

  Ancient Sofala,* where the gold comes down.

  74 Once past, however, we swung the helm,

  With a fervent prayer to St Nicholas,*

  Pointing our prow with the other ships

  To where breakers roared on the coast.

  Our hearts were torn with fear and desire,

  Aware of the feeble planks beneath us

  And of hopes thwarted. Then, approaching shore,

  We saw a sight to make our spirits soar.

  75 It happened that, being close to land

  So that bays and beaches were visible,

  On a river flowing to the open sea*

  Boats with sails were coming and going.

  Our rejoicing knew no bounds, for

  Surely, coming upon a people skilled

  In the art of navigation, we thought

  They must know of the India we sought.

  76 These, too, were Ethiopians,* but seemed

  More in touch with the larger world;

  Some Arabic words* were mingled

  With the language they were speaking;

  They covered their heads with turbans

  Of fine cotton-weave fabric,

  And round their privy parts, as a further clue,

  They wore a length of cotton coloured blue.

  77 In the little Arabic they could manage

  And which Fernão Martins spoke fluently,

  They said their sea was crossed and recrossed

  By ships equalling ours in size;

  They appeared from where the sun rises,

  Sailing south to where the coast bulges,

  Then back towards the sun where (as they say)

  Live people like us ‘the colour of the day’.

  78 So overjoyed were we at meeting

  These people, and even more by their news,

  From the omens we encountered there,

  We named that river the Good Signs,

  And we raised up a stone column

  (We carried a number to mark

  Such places), naming it for St Raphael,*

  Tobias’s gracious guide to Gabael.

  79 Here we careened the ships, scraping

  The hulls clean of six months’ sludge,

  And barnacles and limpets, harmful

  Parasites of an ocean voyage;

  From the friendly people nearby we had,

  In that glad time, every kindness,

  Furnishing our food, and generously,

  Without a hint of guile or treachery.

  80 But for all the joy and fervent hope

  That harbour gave us, pleasure was not

  Unsullied, for Fortune, to compensate,

  Struck us with further hardship.

  So serene heaven dispenses;

  We are born with this onerous

  Condition—that suffering is persistent

  While joy, by its nature, is transient.

  81 From a disease more cruel* and loathsome

  Than I ever before witnessed, many

  Slipped from life, and in an alien land

  Their bones are forever sepulchred.

  Would any credit without seeing it?

  It attacked the mouth. The gums

  Swelled horribly, and the flesh alongside

  Turned tumid and soon after putrefied.

  82 Putrefied with a foetid stench

  Which poisoned the surrounding air.

  We had no learned doctor with us,

  Still less an experienced surgeon;

  But some, with some little knowledge

  Of this art, cut away the rotting meat

  As if they were corpses, for as we said,

  If it remained they were as good as dead.

  83 And so in that unmapped wilderness,

  We left, for all eternity, comrades

  Who, in all our trials and misfortunes,

  Had always risked all at our side.

  How simple it is to bury a man!

  Any wave of the sea, any foreign

  Mound, as with our friends, will accommodate

  Flesh, no matter how lowly or how great.

  84 So we departed from that estuary

  With great hope and greater grief,

  And hugging the coast we cut the sea

  In search of more certain news;

  We came at length to Mozambique

  Of whose treachery and bad faith

  You, O King, are already a connoisseur,

  Likewise of inhospitable Mombasa.

  85 At long last, to this safe anchorage,

  This welcoming harbour which gives health

  To the living and life to the dead,

  God in his mercy piloted us.

  Here, O King, rest after
labour,

  Sweet solace and peace of mind

  You provided. Now I lay down my task,

  Having answered everything I heard you ask.

  86 Did you think, O King, the world contained

  Men who would tackle such a journey?

  Do you imagine that Aeneas and subtle

  Ulysses ever ventured so far?

  Did either of them dare to embark on

  Actual oceans? For all the poetry

  Written about them, did they see a fraction

  Of what I know through strategy and action?

  87 Homer so drank of the Aonian spring,*

  That Rhodes, Smyrna, Ios, and Athens,

  Colophon, Arcos, and Salamis claim

  The honour of being his birthplace;

  Virgil brought fame to all Italy;

  Hearing his exalted voice,

  In pastoral mode, his native Mincius sighed,

  While his epic made the Tiber swell with pride;

  88 Let them sing on,* piling praises

  On their more-than-human heroes,

  Inventing Circe and Polyphemus,

  Sirens who make men sleep with song;

  Let them sail under canvas and oar

  To the Cicones, leaving their

  Shipmates in that lotus-befuddled realm,

  Losing even their pilot at the helm;

  89 Let them fantasize, of winds leaping

  From wine-skins, and of amorous Calypsos;

  Harpies who foul their own banquets;

  Pilgrimages to the underworld;

  However they polish and decorate

  With metaphor such empty fables,

  My own tale in its naked purity

  Outdoes all boasting and hyperbole.

  90 All the Malindians were spellbound

  By the eloquent captain’s words,

  As he brought to an end his long account

  Of exalted and heroic deeds.

  The king spoke of the high courage

  Of the kings made famous by such wars;

  Of the people he praised their fealty,

  Their strength of spirit and nobility.

  91 As they went their ways, they recounted

  The episodes each was most struck by;

  None could take his eyes from the heroes

  Who had rounded such horizons.

  But now Apollo guided the reins,

  Once steered so recklessly by Phaethon,

  To rest in the lovely arms of Tethys,

  And the king’s barge returned him to his palace.

  92 How sweet is the praise and the glory

  Of our exploits, when it rings true!

  True nobility strives to leave

  A name surpassing the ancients.

  So often it happens that greatness

  Springs from emulation of the great;

  What brave man, committed to what cause

  Will not be given fresh impulse by applause?

  93 It was not Achilles’ glorious deeds

  Alexander held in such high regard

  But great Homer’s harmonious numbers;

  It was these he praised and coveted.

  The fame of Miltiades at Marathon

  Roused Themistocles only to envy;

  Nothing, he said, could give him any pleasure

  Till his own deeds were praised in equal measure.

  94 Vasco da Gama laboured to prove

  Those odysseys the world acclaims

  Did not merit as much fame and glory

  As his own, which shook heaven and earth.

  True. Yet only as Emperor Augustus

  Esteemed, honoured, and recompensed

  The Mantuan, could Aeneas’ story

  Give resonance and wings to Rome’s glory.

  95 Portugal has had her Alexander,

  Her Caesar, Scipio, and Octavius,

  But she did not bestow such talents

  As would have made them men of culture.

  Augustus, even when facing defeat,

  Wrote verses, graceful and to the point;

  As Fulvia found,* over her behaviour

  When Antony abandoned her for Glaphyra.

  96 Caesar campaigned to conquer France,

  But war did not impede his learning,

  As pen in one hand, sword in the other,

  He equalled Cicero in eloquence.

  It is known of Scipio* he attained

  Great facility in his comedies,

  For even generals may be impressed:

  His Homer was Alexander’s head-rest.

  97 It is hard to think of a great commander

  Whether Roman, Greek, or Barbarian,

  Who was not also skilled in learning

  Unless, that is, among us Portuguese.

  I cannot admit without reproach

  The reason we have so few poets

  Is that poetry is not an art we love;

  For who can cherish what he’s ignorant of?

  98 For this, not any fault in nature,

  We have no Virgil nor Homer among us;

  Nor will there be, if this continues,

  Any pious Aeneas or fierce Achilles.

  Worst of all is that harsh circumstance

  Has made each of us in turn so harsh,

  And in matters of genius so remiss

  That, for most of us, ignorance is bliss.

  99 Let da Gama be grateful to the muses

  That they love his country as they do,

  Being constrained to honour in poetry

  His title, fame, and exploits in war;

  For in truth, neither he nor his lineage

  Condescend to be Calliope’s friend,

  Nor encourage the nymphs of Tagus to trim

  Their cloths of gold and sing instead of him.

  100 Sheer sisterly love and the pure desire

  To honour with due and measured praise

  The achievements of the Portuguese

  Are what move the Tagus nymphs;

  So let no one with great deeds

  In his heart cease to persevere,

  Or neglect to keep some lofty goal in view,

  Lest he fail to reap the honour that’s his due.

  Canto Six

  1 The Muslim king was at his wits’ end

  How to entertain the brave mariners,

  To gain the Christian king’s alliance

  And the friendship of such strong people.

  He spoke of his grief he was lodged so far

  From the abundant lands of Europe,

  Lamenting fortune had not placed his villas

  Much nearer Hercules’ illustrious pillars.*

  2 With games, dances, and other pleasures

  Very Malindian in their fashion,

  And with pleasant fishing excursions

  As when the Egyptian beguiled Antony,

  Every day the distinguished Sultan

  Feasted his Lusitanian guests,

  With banquets of game and fowl and fish,

  Strange fruits, and many an unknown dish.

  3 But the captain, aware he was lingering

  Too long, with the fresh winds urging

  Departure, and being supplied with pilots

  And fresh provisions from the land,

  Resolved to stay no longer, having

  Much of the silver ocean to travel.

  He took his leave of the kindly, generous Moor

  Who urged that this new friendship should endure.

  4 The Sultan begged further, that his port

  Should always be honoured by their ships,

  That he wished no less than to offer

  Such heroes his throne and his kingdom,

  And that while his soul ruled his body,

  He would be ready to sacrifice

  His country and his life at any time

  To a king so good, a people so sublime.

  5 With similar ornament, the captain

  Replied then, spreading canvas,
>
  Set sail once more for the lands of the dawn

  That had so long been his goal.

  In his new pilot* there was no deceit,

  Just an expert knowledge of the course,

  So he cruised now with greater ease of mind

  Than in the latitudes they left behind.

  6 They were now in the waters of the orient,

  Crossing the Indian Ocean, glimpsing

  The sun’s cradle where it dawns in fire;

  They had all but achieved their purpose;

  But wicked Bacchus,* struck to his soul

  By the good fortune which awaited

  The worthy Portuguese, began to rage,

  Burn, blaspheme, babble, and rampage.

  7 He saw heaven was fully resolved

  To make of Lisbon a second Rome;

  He could not halt what was determined

  By that higher, absolute power.

  He abandoned Olympus in desperation;

  He sought help on earth, plunging to the court

  Of the underwater god,* whose devotions

  Govern the activity of the oceans.

  8 In the deep chambers of the innermost

  Vaulted caverns where the sea retreats,

  There, whence the waves leap in fury

  When the sea responds to the winds’ challenge,

  Is Neptune’s home, and the cheerful

  Nereids’, and other gods the ocean

  Recognizes, granting its damp deities

  Enough space for their underwater cities.

  9 There in the undiscovered depths

  Bacchus found sands of the finest silver;

  He saw, on an open plain, tall towers

  Of pure translucent crystal;

  Though the closer the eye approached

  So much less could it be sure

  If any crystal could be so transparent,

  Or any diamond so clear and radiant.

  10 The doors were of gold, richly inlaid

  With those pearls that are born in shells,

  And were worked with gorgeous carvings

  On which angry Bacchus feasted his gaze;

  First, he saw in various colours

  The confused face of primeval chaos;*

  Then the four basic elements, displayed

  Going about their tasks, were each portrayed.

  11 Highest of all was Fire, sublimity’s

  Very essence, and self-sustaining;

  It has animated all living things

  Since Prometheus first stole it.

  Beyond, also sublime but invisible,

  Was Air, which disperses rapidly,

  And in heat or cold displays such acumen

  That no part of the globe is left a vacuum.

  12 There was Earth, covered with mountains

  With green meadows and flourishing trees,

  Supplying pasture and sustaining life

  For the myriad creatures springing there.

  And the bright form was also carved

  Of Water, dividing the continents,

 

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