There are many translators of Camões yet to come. We are an ephemeral race, each one struggling to trample down his elder brother, like the Simoniacal Popes in the Malebolge-pit. My first excuse for adding to the half-dozen translations in the field, must be my long studies, geographical and anthropological: I can at least spare future writers the pains and penalties of saddling the exactest of poets with bad ethnology and worse topography. These may be small matters, but in local colouring every touch tells.
My chief qualifications for the task, however, are a thorough appreciation of the Poem and a hearty admiration for the Poet whom I learned to love in proportion as I learned to know him. His Lusiads has been described as une lecture saine et fortifiante. I would say far more. The Singer’s gracious and noble thoughts are reviving as the champagne-air of the mountain-top. His verse has the true heroic ring of such old ballads as:—
S’en assaut viens, devant ta lance,
En mine, en échelle, en tous lieux,
En prouesse les bons avance,
Ta dame t’en aimera mieux.
And with this love and sympathy of mine mingles not a little gratitude. During how many hopeless days and sleepless nights Camões was my companion, my consoler, my friend;—on board raft and canoe; sailer and steamer; on the camel and the mule; under the tent and the jungle-tree; upon the fire-peak and the snow-peak; on the Prairie, the Campo, the Steppe, the Desert!
Where no conversable being can be found within a march of months; and when the hot blood of youth courses through the brain, Ennui and Nostalgia are readily bred, while both are fatal to the Explorer’s full success. And, preferring to all softer lines the hard life of Discovery-travel:—
Where things that own not man’s dominion dwell,
Where foot of mortal man hath never been;—
a career which combines cultivation and education with that resistless charm, that poetry-passion of the Unknown; whose joy of mere motion lightens all sorrows and disappointments; which aids, by commune with Nature, the proper study of Mankind; which enlarges the mental view as the hill-head broadens the horizon; which made Julian a saint, Khizr a prophet, and Odin a god: this Reiselust, I say, being my ruling passion, compelled me to seek a talisman against homesickness and the nervous troubles which learned men call Phrenalgia and Autophobia.
I found this talisman in Camões.
And, if it be true that by virtue of his perfect affection and veneration for Homer, whom he loved as a second self, Chapman was enabled to reflect a something of the old Greek’s magic force and fire, I also may be permitted to hope that complete sympathy with my Poet will enable me to present the public with a copy not unworthy of Camões’ immortal work.
After all, to speak without undue modesty, my most cogent reason for printing this translation of my Master is, simply because I prefer it to all that have appeared. Others will think otherwise; and there is a Judge from whose sentence lies no present appeal. I have spared no labour on the work; I have satisfied myself if not Malebouche; and I repeat my motto: poco spero, nulla chiedo. If a concurrence of adverse trifles prevent my being appreciated now, the day will come, haply somewhat late, when men will praise what they now pass by.
The Lusiads
Canto I
The Portugueze navigate the Eastern Seas: The Gods hold their Council: Bacchus opposeth himself to this navigation: Venus and Mars favour the navigators: They arrive at Mozambíque, the Governor whereof attempteth to destroy them: Encounter and first military Action of our People with the Gentiles: They weigh anchor; and, passing Quiloa, they ride in the roadstead of Mombasah.
The Gods hold council Heaven’s high court within, (20–41)
Bacchus our Lusian braves to thwart doth seek (73–81)
Who meed of Mars, and grace of Venus gain,
Till cast the ferreous tooth in Mozambíque:
Thence, when their arm of pow’r display’d had been, (85)
Death and destruction on the foe to wreak;
Fareth the fleet where red Aurora bideth;
And, reach’d Mombasah-town, outside it rideth. (103)
1
The feats of Arms, and famed heroick Host,
from occidental Lusitanian strand,
who o’er the waters ne’er by seaman crost,
farèd beyond the Taprobáne-land,1
forceful in perils and in battle-post,
with more than promised force of mortal hand;
and in the regions of a distant race
rear’d a new throne so haught in Pride of Place:
2
And, eke, the Kings of mem’ory grand and glorious,
who hied them Holy Faith and Reign to spread,
converting, conquering, and in lands notorious,
Africk and Asia, devastation made;
nor less the Lieges who by deeds memorious
brake from the doom that binds the vulgar dead;
my song would sound o’er Earth’s extremest part
were mine the genius, mine the Poet’s art.
3
Cease the sage Grecian, and the Man of Troy
to vaunt long Voyage made in bygone day:
Cease Alexander, Trajan cease to ’joy
the fame of vict’ories that have pass’d away:
The noble Lusian’s stouter breast sing I,
whom Mars and Neptune dared not disobey:
Cease all that antique Muse hath sung, for now
a better Brav’ry rears its bolder brow.
4
And you, my Tagian Nymphs,2 who have create
in me new purpose with new genius firing;
if ’twas my joy whilere to celebrate
your founts and stream my humble song inspiring;3
Oh! lend me here a noble strain elate,
a style grandiloquent that flows untiring;
so shall Apollo for your waves ordain ye
in name and fame ne’er envy Hippokréné.
5
Grant me sonorous accents, fire-abounding,
now serves ne peasant’s pipe, ne rustick reed;
but blast of trumpet, long and loud resounding,
that ’flameth heart and hue to fiery deed:
Grant
