young Scipio: Scipio Africanus and his rallying speech at Canosa, after Rome’s defeat by Hannibal at Cannae (see canto 3. 116).
Abrantes: on the River Tagus where it curves west above Santarém. The Tagus marshes being then impassable, all battles for Lisbon were won or lost in the northern approaches (cf. Wellington’s lines at Torres Vedras in the Peninsular War, some 40 km. from Aljubarrota).
Xerxes: king of Persia who crossed the Hellespont to attack Greece (480 BC) with an army supposedly of two million men.
Attila: see canto 3. 100. There is an untranslatable pun on Dom Nuno and o fero Huno (the fierce Hun).
Antão Vasques de Almada: one of Camões’s rare historical errors. It was Antão’s nephew, Alvaro, who fought at Aljubarrota and was later made count of Avranches (in Normandy) by Henry VI of England (see also canto 6. 69).
Cape Ortegal . . . : references follow to Cape Ortegal in north Galicia, to the Guadiana and Douro rivers in southern Spain and northern Portugal respectively, and to the Alentejo.
O Sertorius . . . : references follow to the revolts of Sertorius (see canto 3. 63), and Coriolanus (d. 488 BC), and to the conspiracy of Catiline (d. 62 BC), attacked in Cicero’s speeches.
Massylia: in North Africa.
the Seven Brothers: an unspecified range in northern Morocco, known by that name to the geographers Camões follows.
Many they dispatched: the dead included masters of the military orders of St James and Calatrava (founded in the twelfth century), together with Nuno Pereira’s two brothers (see st. 32). Souls of the dead entered the underworld by crossing the River Styx.
Cerberus: the three-headed dog who guarded the crossing of the Styx.
His fortune favoured him: Nuno won a second victory over Castile in 1385 at Valverde, near Mérida (cf. canto 8. 30–1).
English princesses: in 1387 João I of Portugal and Prince Henry (later Henry III) of Castile married Philippa and Catherine, daughters of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster (who later claimed the throne of Castile: see canto 6. 47).
Ceuta: captured in 1415, the first of Portugal’s overseas possessions. For Hercules’ Pillars, see note to p. 51. Count Julian, in legend, conspired with the Moors at the time of the first invasion of 711.
a progeny: João’s gifted sons were Duarte, his heir (1433–8), Pedro, a notably enlightened regent during Afonso V’s minority, Henry the so-called Navigator, João, and Fernando, the ‘constant prince’ (see st. 52).
Fernando: captured in Tangier in 1437 and died in captivity rather than surrender Ceuta. Accounts differ on whether Duarte gave him any choice.
Codrus . . . : references follow to Codrus, King of Athens (eleventh century BC), who sacrificed his life because the oracle had foretold that only so could the city be saved; to consul Regulus, captured by the Carthaginians, sent by them to Rome to negotiate peace, and executed on his return (251 BC) for having recommended war in Rome; to Curtius who leaped into a chasm in the Forum (300 BC), which the oracle declared could only be closed with Rome’s greatest treasure; and to the Deciians, grandfather, father, and son, who died fighting for Rome in 338, 296, and 280 BC respectively.
Afonso the Fifth: (1438–81) won victories in North Africa, capturing Alcácer-Ceguer in 1458 and Arzilla and Tangier in 1471.
Hesperides: see note to canto 2. 108.
throne of Castile: on the death of Henry IV of Castile, Afonso V, who was married to his daughter Joana, claimed the throne. The result was an Aljubarrota in reverse as the Spaniards prefered the claim of Isabella, Henry IV’s sister, and her husband Ferdinand of Aragon. At the Battle of Toro (1476), Afonso V was saved from defeat only by the intervention of his son João, later João II (1481–95). Isabella and Ferdinand became the famous ‘Catholic Monarchs’, conquerers of Granada and sponsors of Columbus.
Philippi: the two battles of Philippi in 42 BC, when Brutus and Cassius, Caesar’s assassins, were defeated.
He appointed envoys: the most famous of João’s agents were Pero de Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva, dispatched in 1487 in search of the African Christian emperor Prester John (see canto 1. 98). They followed roughly the route indicated by Camões as far as Aden, where they divided, Afonso de Paiva continuing to Ethiopia where he disappears from history, Pero de Covilhã travelling to the Persian Gulf and India (including Cannanore, Calicut, and Goa). He also visited the Swahili city states of East Africa, probably reaching as far south as Sofala. Returning in late 1490, he was intercepted in Egypt by an emissary from King João ordering him to proceed to Ethiopia. This he did, after compiling a full report on his travels. He was hospitably received by the negus or emperor and given a wife and land, but was never permitted to leave and died there over thirty years later. One of the mysteries of Portuguese history is whether his report of 1490 ever reached the king. If it did, it would explain why Vasco da Gama had orders to proceed to Calicut, the most important entrepôt of the spice trade. If it didn’t, it would explain why the Portuguese were so surprised at the sophistication of the Swahili states, and took with them such unsuitable goods for trading in India.
Parthenope: a nymph who drowned herself for love of Ulysses and was cast up on the shore where Naples was founded.
the river banks: Pompey died in 48 BC at Pelusium (now Tineh) in the Nile Delta.
Nabathean hills: see Genesis 25. 13.
Myrrha: committed incest with her father Cinyras, fled to Arabia and was turned into the fragrant shrub after giving birth to Adonis.
Tower of Babel: supposedly built beside the River Euphrates (Genesis 11).
ended all his victories: the Persian Gulf was the limit of Trajan’s conquests.
Manuel: Manuel I (1495–1521), ‘the Fortunate’, inherited the results of King João II’s efforts.
Morpheus: god of sleep.
first sphere: in the Ptolemaic system, the circle described by the moon.
flowing . . . underground: the river god Alpheus pursued Arethusa under the sea to Syracuse, mixing his waters with hers when she turned into a fountain.
accept the tribute: by contrast with João II’s fascination with Prester John, Manuel’s vision is of taxing India.
I am the famous Ganges: the Tiber gives similar advice to Aeneas (Aeneid, viii. 36).
vast labours: da Gama refers to five of the twelve labours of Hercules, imposed by the king of Mycenae, Eurystheus.
There offered to sail with me: the fleet consisted of the flagship São Gabriel, commanded by Vasco da Gama, the warship São Rafael, under his elder brother Paulo da Gama, the caravel Bérrio, under Nicolau Coelho, and a supply ship under Gonçalo Nunes. On board were Pero de Alenquer, who had been Bartolomeu Dias’s pilot in 1487–8; Fernão Martins, who spoke Arabic, and Martim Afonso, who had lived in the Congo; a certain Alvaro Velho, who kept a diary of the whole voyage as far as Guinea on the return journey; together with four masters, three ships’ clerks, and an unknown number of priests, mariners, caulkers, soldiers, and condemned prisoners (see canto 2. 7), in total somewhere between 150 and 200 men. Also mentioned in The Lusíads are Fernão Veloso (cantos 5. 31, 6. 41–69, and 9. 69), Lionardo Ribeiro (cantos 6. 40 and 9. 75–82), Alvaro Vaz de Almada (cantos 4. 25 and 6. 69), and Alvaro de Braga, the clerk, and Diogo Dias, the overseer (canto 8. 94). Paulo da Gama was apparently offered the command and turned it down in his younger brother’s favour. He died at the Azores on the return journey in 1499. Nicolau Coelho died in a shipwreck in 1504.
Ulysses’. . . harbour: see note to p. 59.
the night sky: the Argonauts’ ship, the Argo, became a constellation.
The holy chapel: built at Belém (Bethlehem), by Henry the Navigator.
But an old man: the deeply moving episode of the Old Man of Belém, denouncing the whole enterprise, reflects opposition in Portugal to King Manuel’s overseas policy. But the words Camões has given his invented character far transcend politics. They invoke a pre-lapsarian, golden age before men first ‘put dry wood on the waves with a sail’ to voyage in search
of wealth and power. It is a vision which mocks the whole imperial thrust of The Lusíads with all its religious, philosophical, and adventurous trappings, and which haunts us throughout the epic in its recurring episodes of elegy or pastoral.
heirs of that madcap Adam: having first addressed ‘Pride’ (st. 95), the Old Man addresses the ships’ company, now on board, mentioning the expulsion from Eden (Genesis 3. 22–4) and the four ages of the world, gold, silver, bronze, and iron (Ovid, Metamorphoses, i. 125–35, among many others).
afraid to die: see Matthew 26. 38–42.
Ishmaelite: see note to p. 53.
Seigneurs: Manuel did indeed assume the title ‘Lord of Guinea and of the Conquest, Navigation and Commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India’. Camões’s satire could hardly be more pointed.
nor eloquent poet: the denunciation includes, by implication, Camões himself.
Prometheus: created mankind by breathing life into clay figures, and afterwards stole fire from heaven to make man’s circumstances more tolerable.
Daedalus: the architect and sculptor made wings of feathers and wax for himself and his son Icarus, but Icarus soared too near the sun and fell into the (Icarian) sea.
Canto Five
The sun was in Leo: the fleet sailed on 8 July 1497. The sun enters Leo on 14 July (for Hercules’ labours, see note to canto 4. 80), the discrepancy being caused by Pope Gregory XIII’s reform of the calendar in 1582.
Henry: later termed the Navigator. Recent research denies his preeminent role and stresses the initiatives of his brother Pedro, the regent.
Antaeus: see note to p. 63.
Madeira: the word means ‘wood’.
Barbary: Mauretania.
Asinarius: the name is Ptolemy’s, but probably for Cape Blanco in Mauretania rather than Cape Verde in Senegal, Africa’s furthest point west.
Canary Islands: known to Roman geographers as the Fortunate Isles. Less plausible is Camões’s identification of Cape Verde archipelago with the Hesperides (cf. canto 2. 103).
Santiago: the largest of the Cape Verde islands, and the fleet’s only landfall before South Africa.
We crossed the broad gulf: heading south into the Gulf of Guinea, the fleet bypasses Senegal and the Gambia, with their Jalof and Mandingo peoples, and the Bissagos Islands off Guinea-Bissau, which Camões takes to be the islands of the Gorgons. One of these was Medusa, loved for her hair by Neptune, and cursed by Athene in revenge with ugliness and a head of writhing snakes. When Perseus beheaded her and flew back with the evidence, it shed adders across the Sahara, and the sight petrified the giant Atlas (see canto 3. 77).
Our prows pointing ever south: the fleet passes (with no further classical identifications) Sierra Leone with its lion-like mountain, Cape Palmas on the southern tip of Liberia, and the vast delta of the River Niger, before reaching São Tomé (St Thomas) island, off Gabon (for St Thomas, see John 20. 19–29 and also canto 10. 108–19).
kingdom of the Congo: not the modern territory but the old Congo kingdom of northern Angola, extending south of the River Zaire. It was not converted to Christianity until the reign of the remarkable Nzinga Nvemba (1506–43), a detail which confirms that from here until stanza 23, Camões is blending Vasco da Gama’s voyage with his own voyage fifty-six years later.
the burning line: the equator.
the Southern Cross: Camões’s knowledge of constellations was exact and detailed, and alien skies caused him far more unease than alien lands or peoples.
both tropics: Cancer and Capricorn, the limits of the sun’s course north and south of the equator.
both Bears: the Great and Little Bear, constellations near the North Pole. Callisto, one of Jupiter’s innumerable loves, and her son Arcas were changed to bears by Juno and then to constellations by Jupiter, to which Juno riposted that they should never bathe in the ocean (see Metamorphoses, ii. 171 and xiii. 293 and 726).
St Elmo’s Fire: the electrical discharge seen on mastheads. St Elmo was a patron of sailors.
the astrolabe: a forerunner of the sextant, invented by the Arabs and indispensable for the Portuguese voyages. It enabled positions to be taken by reading the height of the sun. The Portuguese were skilled navigators, incapable of the inspired blunders of Columbus.
We went ashore: the landing, five months into the voyage, was at Saint Helena Bay, north of Cape Town.
Polyphemus: the one-eyed giant Ulysses blinds to free his companions in Odyssey, ix. 180 ff.
Fernão Veloso: see also cantos 6. 41–69 and 9. 69.
Coelho: see canto 4. 82.
Ethiopian: the conventional term, from Herodotus and Pliny, for all Africans south of the Sahara (see Introduction, p. xvii).
an immense shape: for Adamastor, see Introduction, p. xvi.
Colossus of Rhodes: the statue raised to Apollo at the harbour entrance at Rhodes, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
the next fleet: Pedro Alvares Cabral was driven back from the Cape in 1500, with the loss of four ships, to become inadvertently the discoverer of Brazil.
Dias: Bartolomeu Dias, who first rounded the Cape in 1488, was aboard one of the ships which foundered in 1500.
first viceroy: Francisco de Almeida, who captured Kilwa and Mombasa in 1505 and defeated a combined Egyptian–Gujarati (not Turkish) fleet in 1509, was killed at the Cape in 1510 on his way home (cf. cantos 1. 14 and 10. 26–37).
another will come: references follow to the deaths of Manuel de Sousa de Sepulveda and his wife and children after being shipwrecked in 1552.
Cape of Storms: Dias’s original name for the Cape is said to have been overruled by João II. Ptolemy, Pomponius Mela, Strabo, and Pliny the Elder were the best known geographers of the first and second centuries AD.
I was one of those rugged Titans: references follow to the ancient myth of the war between the Titans and Jupiter (the shaker of Vulcan’s thunderbolts), when mountain was hurled on mountain and the Titans were buried.
Peleus’ immortal wife: Peleus, a man, was permitted to marry Thetis, the daughter of the sea-gods Nereus and Doris, so she could give birth to Achilles. Camões takes Thetis and Tethys to be identical.
The people who owned the country: for this episode, see Introduction, pp. xii–xiii. The landing is taken to have been at São Braz, near Mossel Bay.
Santa Cruz: Bartolomeu Dias reached the Great Fish River, reporting that the southern African coast continued endlessly eastwards. He erected a memorial cross on the island still named Santa Cruz.
three kings from the Orient: this landfall on the Feast of the Epiphany, 1498, is given variously as the mouth of the Limpopo, Inharrime, or Save rivers. The close proximity of Sofala in stanza 73 suggests the River Save.
Sofala: south of the modern port of Beira, a trading post for gold from the Manica highlands. Camões does not explain how Vasco da Gama knew of it, but see canto 4. 61.
St Nicholas: a patron of sailors.
a river flowing to the open sea: the River Kwakwa, on which Quelimane is situated, was then a mouth of the River Zambesi. Some maps still label it the ‘Bons Sinais’ (‘Good Signs’).
Ethiopians: see note to p. 104.
some Arabic words: Vasco da Gama’s (and apparently Fernão Martins’s) first encounter with the Swahili language.
naming it for St Rafael: the archangel who was Tobias’s guide in the apocryphal Book of Tobit (5. 5–21).
a disease more cruel: the symptons are those of scurvy.
the Aonian spring: Mt Helicon (see cantos 1. 4 and 3. 97) was in Aonia. Rhodes, etc. all claimed the honour of being Homer’s birthplace (as Lisbon, Coimbra, Santarém, and others compete to be Camões’s). Virgil was born in Mantua, through which runs the River Mincius.
The Lusiads (Oxford World's Classics) Page 29
