It has lost that pride, that zest for life,
Which lifts the spirits unfailingly
And welcomes duty with a smiling face.
In this regard, my King, whom Divine
Will has set on the royal throne,
Take note of other nations, and applaud
The excellence of those who call you lord.
147 See how cheerfully they venture forth
Like rampant lions or wild bulls,
Yielding their flesh to hunger and vigils,
To iron and fire, arrow and cannon-ball,
To burning tropic and Antarctic cold,
The blows of idolaters and of Muslims,
To Nature’s every hazard and caprice,
Shipwreck, Leviathan, even to the abyss!
148 Ready for anything in your service;
Obedient, no matter how far flung,
To your every order, however rigorous,
Willingly and without question.
Only because they know you are watching
They will, without demur, attack
Infernal demons, burning in their heat
To bring you victory, never defeat.
149 Rain favour on them and gladden them
With your humane and gracious presence;
Ease their burden of harsh laws
And so lay open the road to virtue;
Promote only men of experience,
As your counsellors, who join shrewdness
With benevolence, for such men best know
The how, the why, the where affairs will go.
150 Show favour in their professions to all
As they bring their talents to bear:
And let holy men make observances
Of fasting and due penance, bringing
Blessings on your reign, checking vice,
And treating ambition as the wind,
For the truly religious man is empty
Of all desire for estates and glory.
151 Hold your knights in high esteem
For their bloody and intrepid fervour
Extends not only the Holy Faith,
But the boundaries of your great empire;
For those who venture in your service
Gladly to the earth’s uttermost ends
Must overcome two enemies: the living
And (much harder) the pain of persevering.
152 So rule, my lord, that no wondering
German, French, Italian, or Englishman
Can boast Portugal is more commanded
Than given to exercise command.
Take counsel only of those with many
Months and years of experience;
For all the knowledge studying bestows,
In particulars it is the expert knows.
153 Phormio,* that elegant metaphysician,
Was ridiculed by Hannibal when,
In his presence, he philosophized
At length about war and its conduct.
The useful discipline of war
Is not learned, my lord, in the mind
Through dreams or books or visionary lore,
But watching, rehearsing, and waging war.
154 But whose is this rough, unworthy voice
Unknown, even undreamed of by you?
Yet from out of the mouths of babes,
Praise may at times be perfected;
I am not without honest study,
Conjoined with long experience,
Nor genius, here amply demonstrated,
Qualities almost never found conflated.
155 In your service, an arm inured to battle;
In your praise, a mind given to the Muses;
All I lack is due approval where
Merit should meet with esteem.
If heaven grants me this, and your heart
Embarks on an enterprise worthy of song
—As my prescient mind can readily divine
Seeing which way your heavenly thoughts incline—
156 Whether to petrify Mount Atlas*
More profoundly than old Medusa,
Or to destroy by way of Cape Espartel
The ramparts of Morocco or Taroudant,
My triumphant, happy Muse will extol
Your exploits throughout the world;
Alexander will share with you his bays,
No longer coveting Achilles’ praise.
EXPLANATORY NOTES
Canto One
Arms are my theme: the opening imitates Virgil’s Aeneid (‘Arma virumque cano’) but with the difference that Camões’s subject is the achievements not of one man but of ‘the Portuguese’. The challenge to the ancients, both in matter and style, is explicit in stanzas 1–3.
Taprobana: the Greek name for the eastern limit of the known world. In canto 10. 51, Camões identifies it with Ceylon.
my boy King: the dedication is to King Sebastião who came to the throne in 1568, aged 14. The only grandson of João III, and the sole means of preventing the Portuguese crown passing to Philip II of Spain, his wildness, fanaticism, and lack of interest in women are reflected in Camões’s eulogy, which is a masterpiece of controlled anxiety—praising the young king for what he is yet to accomplish, urging him to ‘anticipate his maturity’, and setting him the example of his illustrious ancestors. Even his duty to marry is hinted at in the reference to Tethys who is preparing the ‘world’s green oceans’ as a dowry (st. 16).
Ourique: a small town south of the River Tagus, said to be where Afonso Henriques defeated the Almoravids (the ‘Moors’) in 1139. The battle was of little strategic significance but, as Afonso’s first victory, became invested with the legend that Christ appeared on the battlefield promising the complete liberation of Portugal. The following year, Afonso (1140–85) became Portugal’s first king. The vision is commemorated in the arms of Portugal where five shields are said to represent Christ’s wounds on the cross. For Camões’s account of the battle, see canto 3. 42–54.
counterfeit exploits: in dismissing Boiardo’s Orlando innamorato (1486–1506) and Ariosto’s Orlando furioso (1532), Camões is again insisting on the primacy of historical truth.
Instead I give you . . . : references follow to Afonso I and his many victories; to Egas Moniz and Fuas Roupinho, his counsellors and allies; to João I (1385–1433), who defeated the Spanish at Aljubarrota in 1385, and Nuno Alvares Pereira, hero of that battle; and to the other kings who secured Portugal’s modern frontiers, João II (1481–95) and Afonso III (1248–79), IV (1325–57), and V (1438–81). Camões fulfils his promise to describe these figures in cantos 3. 28–84, 4. 2–50 and 8. 16–17 and 28–32. The story of Magriço and the twelve of England is told in canto 6. 42–70.
Those who in the lands of the Dawn: references are to soldiers and viceroys in Portuguese India. Duarte Pacheco Pereira conquered the Malabar coast; Francisco de Almeida, viceroy (1505–9) with his son Lourenço as deputy, established a chain of fortresses from Sofala to Cochin; Afonso de Albuquerque (1509–15) conquered Goa and Malacca; João de Castro was governor (1545–8) and briefly viceroy shortly before Camões arrived in India. The careers of these and others are celebrated in canto 10. 12–47 and 67–72.
Your two grandsires: Sebastião’s grandfathers were João III (1521–57), known as ‘the pious’ (he brought the Inquisition to Portugal) and the Emperor Charles V (1519–56).
Portuguese Argonauts: the first of many references to the legend of mankind’s first voyage with Jason and the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece. The legend is associated with human daring and with the end of the Golden Age (see canto 4. 102).
cattle of Proteus: seals and other sea-mammals were under the protection of the sea-god Proteus.
When the gods . . . : for Camões’s use of the Roman deities, see Introduction, pp. xiv–xviii. Venus, the patron of Virgil’s Aeneas, supports the Portuguese as the inheritors of Roman virtues. She is backed by Mars, who admires their conquests, and opposed by Bacchus, cast i
n his role as an eastern god about to be displaced by the navigators. The whole passage is redolent of the divine council in Ovid, Metamorphoses, i. 168–85.
the seven Spheres: Tethys explains the Ptolemaic system in canto 10. 79–91.
Ourique . . . Aljubarrota: see notes to pp. 4 and 5.
Viriathus: led a successful revolt against Roman occupation of Iberia until his dishonorable murder in 139 BC.
Sertorius: a rebel Roman captain who ruled Hispania (83–72 BC). Plutarch describes his use of a milk-white hind for divination (see cantos 3. 22 and 8. 6–8).
It was Bacchus who dissented: the passage imitates Virgil’s description of Juno’s anxieties in Aeneid, i. 12–33.
Ceuta: in Morocco, captured by the Portuguese in 1415 as their first foothold in Africa.
the Cytherean: Venus was venerated in a number of islands, including Cythera.
beaver: the lower face-guard of a helmet.
Lusus: companion of Bacchus and legendary founder of Portugal—hence its Roman name Lusitania and Camões’s title The Lusíads. See canto 7. 77 and 8. 2–4 for descriptions.
between Madagascar and Mozambique: we meet the navigators off the East African coast in the Mozambique Channel. Camões picks up his story in medias res not simply in imitation of Virgil but because Vasco da Gama had by now passed the Great Fish River where Bartolomeu Dias was forced to turn back in 1488 and was genuinely in uncharted waters.
Taking refuge as dolphins: Venus and Cupid changed into fish to escape the Titan Typhoeus.
Cape Corrientes: see Introduction, p. xviii.
Vasco da Gama: the first clear mention of the fleet’s captain, praised only for his unshakeable endurance and his genius for success.
From the island nearest the main: the fleet reached Mozambique Island in January 1498 and found a city state occupied by Swahili (i.e. Africanized Arab) traders, with fine houses, one of the best harbours of the whole coast, and ample supplies from the mainland close by. It was prospering from the trade in gold from the Zambesi escarpment, and was a centre of boat-building. Camões knew the island well (being stranded there, 1567–9), and much of this detail features in his description, as does the evident surprise of the navigators in encountering such a place.
Phaethon: Apollo’s son, who borrowed his father’s sun-chariot but, frightened by the signs of the Zodiac, steered too near the earth, creating drought and desert and scorching black the people of Ethiopia. Jupiter intervened with a thunderbolt, hurling him into the River Po.
Acheron: one of the four rivers of the underworld.
the one Lord: i.e. Mohammed, assumed to be descended from Abraham both through his Jewish mother and his Arab father.
Hyperion’s son: Apollo, steering the Sun’s chariot.
Vulcan’s sons: the bombardiers. Vulcan manufactured Jupiter’s thunderbolts.
born from Jove’s thigh: when Semeie, princess of Thebes, was pregnant with Bacchus, she asked to see Jupiter, the father, in all his radiance, and was scorched to death. Bacchus was rescued and hidden in Jupiter’s thigh. Hence, the joke ‘the twice born’ (see canto 2. 10).
Fate has already settled: Juno’s speech in Aeneid, i. 37–49 is again being imitated.
Philip’s precocious boy . . . : references follow to Alexander the Great, son of Philip of Macedonia, and to the the Emperor Trajan (see canto 1. 3).
With these words: the lines are based on Aeneid, i. 50–2.
Cape Corrientes: note to p. 11.
Amphitrite’s: one of Neptune’s wives (see canto 6. 22); the nereids, sea-nymphs, are daughters of the god Nereus.
lost Christian tribe: the enduring belief that somewhere in Africa was a lost Christian kingdom gained force when emissaries from Ethiopia reached Europe in the early fifteenth century, including one who visited Lisbon in 1452. Among Vasco da Gama’s commissions was a letter from King Manuel to Prester John. Sinon was the Greek who persuaded the Trojans to take in the wooden horse.
Mombasa: another of the Swahili city states, reached in April 1498. Seeing it, the Portuguese were reminded of the cities of southern Spain.
O great and grave dangers: each canto of The Lusíads ends at a point of some suspense and with some moral reflections appropriate to the situation.
Canto Two
twice-born: see canto 1. 73.
Pentecost: see Acts 2. 1–4.
Ericina: one of Venus’ temples was on Mt Eryx in Sicily.
Blocking the way: the Portuguese fleet was indeed unable to cross the dangerous bar at Mombasa. Vasco da Gama attributes this to Divine Providence (st. 30–2), Venus assumes she and the Nereids are responsible, while the Muslims mistake the sailors’ chants and oaths for war cries (st. 25).
As ants: the simile is a mock-heroic version of Aeneid, iv. 401–7.
As in a pond: in Metamorphoses, vi. 339–81, the goddess Leto, in a display of anger, murders Niobe’s children before turning the peasants of Lycia into frogs for refusing to let her drink at their lake. By contrast, Camões’s simile is obviously comic.
sixth sphere: in the Ptolemaic system, Venus is in the third and Jupiter in the sixth sphere (see cantos 1. 21 and 10. 89).
She displayed herself: the scene is a greatly enhanced version of Venus’ appeal to Jupiter in Aeneid, i. 223–304.
Paris: in the beauty competition on Mt Ida between Venus, Juno, and Minerva, Paris awarded the prize to Venus and was rewarded with Helen.
Diana: Actaeon, out hunting, stumbled upon Diana bathing and was turned into a stag and torn to pieces by his hounds.
Mars’ rekindled passion: Venus was Vulcan’s wife and Mars’ mistress.
Another Cupid: Camões takes Cupid to be the son of Jupiter and Venus.
Though Ulysses . . . : references follow to Ulysses on the island of Calypso (Ogygia); to Antenor who after the fall of Troy discovered the Adriatic Sea and the River Timavus; and to Aeneas and the rocks and whirlpools of the Straits of Messina.
a miracle: Vasco da Gama described a sea-tremor off the coast of Cambaya on his second voyage, recording his comment: ‘The sea is afraid of us.’
the island: Mozambique.
You will see . . . : all these events are described in canto 10. 12–25, 36, 40–2, 50–2, and 60–1.
Actium: the naval battle where Octavius defeated Anthony on his triumphal return from conquests in Asia and Egypt. The images echo Aeneid, viii. 675–88.
Golden Chersonese: the Malay Peninsula. Its capital, Malacca, was captured in 1511.
Magellan: Fernão de Magalhães, who set out in 1519 to circumnavigate the globe and discovered the Straits of Magellan, but in the service of Spain (cf. canto 10. 138–41).
Cyllene: a mountain in Arcadia where Mercury was born.
Malindi: the third of the Swahili city states visited by da Gama. Despite sharing a common origin and links of kinship with Mombasa, commercial rivalry led the Sultan into an alliance with the Portuguese which endured, somewhat precariously, until the end of the seventeenth century.
Diomedes: king of Thrace (one of Hercules’ labours was to feed him to his carnivorous horses).
Busiris: king of Egypt, who sacrificed all foreigners to Jupiter.
Night and day equal: Malindi is 3° south of the equator.
Taurus: it was April (with the sun in Taurus) and Easter Sunday. References are to Jupiter’s rape of Europa, disguised as a bull, and to the goat-nymph Amalthea who suckled the infant Jupiter and whose horn became the famous Cornucopia.
Malindi: see note to p. 36.
Minerva: or Pallas Athene, goddess of eloquence.
Ulysses: welcomed as a castaway by king Alcinous of the Phaeacians, to whom much of the Odyssey is narrated, just as the Sultan of Malindi is to hear Vasco da Gama’s account.
Cyclops: Vulcan’s blacksmiths (cf. canto 1. 68).
Memnon’s: son of Aurora the goddess of dawn, and king of Ethiopia.
Tyrian: from the Phoenician city of Tyre.
Iris: the rainbow.
the l
ong wars: largely the subject of cantos 3 and 4.
Hesperides: Hesperus, the evening star, sets in the far west. The term ‘Hesperian’ was applied by the Greeks to Italy and by the Romans to Spain and the Atlantic Islands. Camões uses the term Hespéria to refer at different times to Portugal or to Iberia as a whole (see st. 108, and cantos 4. 54 and 8. 61 and 69); the term Hespério for the Cape Verde islands (canto 5. 8); and the term Hespérides as here, for Morocco. The reference is to the daughters of the giant Hesperus whose golden apples were guarded by a dragon, eventually slain by Hercules.
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