The Lusiads (Oxford World's Classics)
Page 15
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,