From this period the life of Camoens exhibits a chain of successive adventures and calamities; but fate watched over him with miraculous care, and seemed to rescue him from every danger in order that he might complete his poetic career. The squadron with which he sailed to India consisted of four ships. Three were lost in a storm, but Camoens arrived on board the fourth, in the port of Goa. From this circumstance he augured that fortune was now about to smile on him. He soon found, however, that employment was not to be obtained at Goa, and he entered as a volunteer in a military corps, forming part of an expedition which the Portuguese viceroy was fitting out for the aid of an Indian prince. On the arrival of the troops at the place of their destination, a great portion of the Portuguese fell a sacrifice to the insalubrity of the climate; but Camoens returned in safety to Goa after the object of the expedition had been attained. In the situation in which he then stood, there remained for him no other alternative than to embark in a new expedition which was about to sail for the Red Sea to attack the Arabian corsairs. At the island of Ormus, where he passed the winter, Camoens again found leisure to indulge in the workings of his imagination. His mind gave a poetic colouring to every thing which he saw or heard; and the ardour of his patriotism continued to increase in proportion as he became more intimately acquainted with the theatre of the Portuguese atchievements in India. But many circumstances which came within his observation induced him also to indulge in satirical sports of wit. The government of Goa had hitherto done nothing for him. He did not, however, try to promote his interest by flattery. On the contrary, he ridiculed the disparates na India, (follies in India) as he unceremoniously styled some portion of the proceedings of the government of Goa. The viceroy, who took particular umbrage at this satire, banished Camoens to the Chinese island of Macao. The fate of the unfortunate hero and poet was now more deplorable than ever. He however gained permission to quit Macao and visit the Molucca islands, where he collected fresh materials for pictorial poetry; but he could no longer, as the lines beneath his portrait express, “bear in one hand the sword, in the other the pen.[132]” He was glad to accept the very unpoetic and unheroic post of provedor mòr dos defuntos, (administrator of the effects of deceased persons) by the emoluments of which he was enabled to subsist. Whenever circumstances permitted he turned his attention to his heroic poem, and thus indemnified himself in the ideal world for the part which he was compelled to perform in real life. At length, on the arrival of a new viceroy at Goa, he obtained permission to return to that island, but in the passage thither was shipwrecked on the coast of Camboya. With difficulty he saved his life, and also his poem, the manuscript of which, soaked with sea-water, he brought to land. This circumstance is noticed in the work itself.[133] The story of his swimming ashore with his poem in one hand, while he supported himself by the action of the other, and thus saving his Lusiadas as Cæsar saved his commentaries, has obtained currency through the statement of a German writer, who seems to have misunderstood a very intelligible passage of a Portuguese author.[134] On his return to Goa, Camoens was well received; but he had not long enjoyed the smiles of fortune, when another change took place in the viceroyship. The new viceroy lent a ready ear to the enemies of the poet, who was now publicly accused of malversation in the discharge of the office which he had filled at Macao. Camoens was thrown into prison, and there left to work out his justification. It appears he fully cleared himself of the charges which had been brought against him; but he was still detained because he was unable to satisfy the demands of his creditors. A poem, which he addressed to the viceroy, at length procured his liberation. After experiencing many other disagreeable adventures he ardently wished to return to Europe, but it was not in his power to defray the expence of his passage. Even when prepared to embark he was stopped by a demand for the re-payment of a loan, and was nearly reduced to despair, but several liberal individuals stepped forward and provided the sum necessary for his relief. Finally, in the year 1569, Camoens, after an absence of nearly sixteen years, arrived at Lisbon, from the rich shores of India, well in health, but in a state of the most abject poverty.
The third part of the history of this ill-fated poet is the most melancholy. On his return he found Lisbon ravaged by the plague. During this calamity it was not to be expected that much regard should be paid to poetry, and the last hope of Camoens rested on his poem, the only treasure which he had brought with him from India. Considerable changes had likewise taken place at the court. King Sebastian was concerting the plan of his unfortunate expedition to Morocco. In so romantic an enterprise Camoens was predisposed to take an interest, and it served to stimulate his zeal in dedicating his poem to the youthful sovereign. The dedication was graciously received, but the poet obtained no other reward than a wretched pension, just sufficient to mark but not to relieve his misery. The honour was conceded to him of constantly accompanying the court, while he wanted means to procure the necessaries of life. It is said that a faithful slave who had accompanied him to Europe, begged in the streets of Lisbon at night, in order to enable the poet, whose name was now celebrated throughout Portugal and Spain, to appear decently in public during the day. The last blow which the patriotic heart of Camoens received, was the fatal issue of the African expedition. The poet’s hitherto robust constitution now sank under the pressure of sorrow and indigence. His last hope had vanished, and overwhelmed with affliction, he withdrew himself from the world. A few monks were the last individuals with whom he maintained any intercourse. Shortly before his death, he is said to have written a letter, which, if it be genuine, proves that he himself considered his misfortunes unparalleled. He styles it a sort of presumptuousness to attempt to oppose that fate, which had at length compressed all his sorrows within the narrow limits of a sick-bed. It appears that he ended his life in an hospital, in the year 1579, at the age of fifty-five. It was not until sixteen years after his decease that the spot where his ashes repose, was distinguished by a monument erected by one of his admirers. During the same year the learned Rodriguez Lobo Zurupita, who must not be confounded with the poet Rodriguez Lobo, published the first collection of the hitherto scattered poems of Camoens.[135]
The life of Camoens constitutes an essential part of the history of Portuguese poetry. With the exception of Dante no poet of the first rank has in his works so fully represented his own inward feelings combined with every extraordinary circumstance that came within his observation. His poems can only be perfectly intelligible to the reader who never loses sight of the poet; for his character is precisely theirs. But the poetry of Camoens must not on this account be confounded with the self-subjective effusions of certain enthusiasts who express their feelings clearly enough in verse, though not in poetry, except, perhaps, in their own opinion. Among the poets of all ages Camoens is one of the most eminent; and though to a foreigner it may at first sight seem strange that he has permanently obtained in the literature of his country the surname of O Grande (the Great), a title given in history only to a few distinguished sovereigns, yet in the unbounded homage which the Portuguese render to the name of the man, who during his life was suffered to languish in penury, the citizen of the world will readily recognize a general desire to compensate for the injustice with which he was treated by his contemporaries. On this side of the Pyrenees, indeed, however frequently the name of Camoens may be mentioned and written, as a poet he is still scarcely known except by name. But to form a just appreciation of his merit, he must, like Homer, be viewed in the spirit of his nation and his age. It was the ambition of Camoens to be to the Portuguese what Homer was to the Greeks, the first and at the same time the most national of poets; and if he did not entirely attain his end, he nevertheless so far approached it that no other modern poet has been able to combine all the national interests of his country, with the fulness of poetic spirit exhibited in the Lusiad. But it must be recollected that at the period when Camoens wrote, the more correct style, formed on the ancient and Italian models, had just penetrated into Portuguese literature, and that it had not yet taken deep root. Under these circumstances, Camoens, in sketching the plan of his national Epopœia, stood, as it were, severed from the age in which he lived. Modern literature contained no similar work, and, generally speaking, no epic poem worthy of perusal, except the chivalrous compositions of Bojardo and Ariosto. From Trissino Camoens could learn nothing; from Bojardo and Ariosto he might have learned much, but assuredly not the spirit and style of a serious national heroic poem; and Camoens was numbered with the dead before Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered appeared in print.[136] Camoens was the first modern who succeeded in the production of a serious heroic poem. But with all his endeavours to attain classic perfection, he was a Portuguese in the spirit of his age, and too good a patriot to wish to be any thing else. He rose to the height at which he aimed only by flights; having reached it he sank, rose to it again, and again fell from it. He was unable to produce a classically perfect whole of any extent. But the more beautiful passages of his poems, particularly of his Lusiad, will stand the test of the most rigid criticism according to the rules of pure poetry and classic excellence.
Every style of poetic composition of which he had formed a definite idea was attempted by Camoens. But the Lusiad rises so vastly above his other works, and bears such powerful and various traces of the peculiar character of his poetry, that all his lesser compositions must be considered merely as inferior scions sprung from the same root.
The Lusiad of Camoens is a heroic poem; but so essentially different in the unity of the epic plan from all other heroic poems, that to avoid falling into the unwarrantable misconception with which this noble work is every where judged except in Portugal and Spain, it is necessary in considering it, to drop the ordinary rules of comparison, and to proceed upon the general idea of epic poetry unmodified by any prepossession for known models.[137] Camoens struck out a totally new path in the region of epopœia. The style of his poem is indeed formed chiefly on the ancient models, and in his diction he has imitated the elegant stanzas of the Italians; but the epic idea of the work is entirely his own; and the kind of composition, which forms its groundwork, was something entirely new in poetic literature. The object of Camoens was to recount in epic strains, with pure poetic feeling, the atchievements of the heroes and great men of Portugal in general, not of any individual in particular, and consequently not of Vasco da Gama, who is commonly considered the hero of the Lusiad. He was not to be satisfied with drawing up a poetically adorned official report, like the Spanish Araucana, written at a later period by Ercilla.[138] The title which Camoens gave to his heroic poem sufficiently denotes the nature of its subject. He named it Os Lusiadas, that is to say, the Lusitanians, or Portuguese. This choice of a title was doubtless influenced by the prevailing taste of the Portuguese poets of that age, to whom the common name of their nation appeared unpoetic, and also by the popular notion that the favourite term Lusitania was derived from a certain mythological hero, named Lusus, who visited Portugal in company with Ulysses, and who conjointly with the Greek warrior, built the city of Lisbon (Ulyssipolis). Camoens is not to blame if the editors of his poem, wishing to reconcile its somewhat unusual title with the names of other epic compositions, have converted the Lusiadas into the Lusiada.[139] But the poem may be designated by its common title without offence to its spirit or its subject. At the same time it must not be forgotten that the Lusiad is a totally different kind of heroic poem from all those epopees, whether successful or unsuccessful, in which a single hero is the main spring of the whole epic action. According to the plan which Camoens sketched for his national poem, he was enabled to dispense with the choice of a hero whose atchievements should throw those of all others into the shade, and form the sole source of epic interest. To this plan, however, an essential beauty of epic poetry was necessarily sacrificed. The composition lost the advantage of those little groupes of characters which would otherwise have been assembled around the principal character. From its plan, therefore, the Lusiad cannot be accounted such a model of epic perfection as the Iliad, or even as the Æneid, in which that perfection more faintly presented is still to be found. But as a narrative poem, deriving a total effect from the union of its parts, the Lusiad may be considered an epic whole, and consequently, a poem entirely different in kind from the Metamorphoses of Ovid, or even the Divina Comedia of Dante. A poetic and epic grouping of all the great and most interesting events in the annals of his native country, was what Camoens wished to accomplish. He therefore very happily selected the event which constitutes the most brilliant epoch in Portuguese history, as a common keeping point for all the different parts of his epic picture. The discovery of the passage to India by Vasco da Gama was certainly not an heroic atchievement in the usual sense of the term, but in that age, when such adventures bordered on the incredible, it was a truly heroic enterprize. Camoens made this event the groundwork of the epic unity of his poem. But in that unity Vasco da Gama is merely the spindle round which the thread of the narrative is wound. His dignity, as the leader of his intrepid countrymen, renders him in some degree conspicuous; but in other respects he is not distinguished, and the interest of the whole poem depends no more on him than on his companions. The heroes who shine with the greatest lustre in the Lusiad, even the Constable, Nuno Alvarez Pereira, who is the most remarkable among them, are all introduced in what are styled the episodes. But the Lusiad has in reality no episode, except the short story of the giant Adamastor. Another portion of the work, which is commonly called an episode, is a poetic sketch from the ancient history of Portugal, and belongs as essentially to the whole as any of the other principal parts of the great picture. It even occupies nearly one half of the poem. It is precisely on these parts, called episodes, that the epic grandeur of the whole composition rests; and in them the finest passages of the poem occur. Unless the idea of the plan of the Lusiad be rightly seized, the composition will appear in a false light on whatever side it may be viewed.
The Lusiad, designated as a whole, may therefore be termed an epic national picture of Portuguese glory, something greater than a mere gallery of poetic stories, but less than a perfect epopee. The principles of the composition are exceedingly simple; but that they may not be misconceived, it is necessary to understand the epic machinery of the poem, as the poet himself would have it understood, and as it was understood in the spirit of the age by his contemporaries. Camoens was too truly a poet to exclude from his Lusiad the charm of the marvellous and the co-operation of supernatural beings. But he was either accidentally less happy than Tasso in the choice of epic machinery for a modern heroic poem, or he purposely preferred the Greek mythology as the most beautiful. Nothing prevented him from assigning the necessary parts in his machinery to the good and bad agents of popular christian belief; and the subject seems particularly calculated for such an application as the diffusion of christianity by the discoveries and conquests of the Portuguese is in the poem itself made the highest merit of the nation. Camoens, however, appears to have been of opinion that an epic poem, such as he had planned, should be adorned with learning, and particularly mythological learning; and besides, by the introduction of the Greek deities the whole composition seemed to be raised to the true poetic region of the ancient epopœia. Thus there remains the singular incongruity of the Greek mythology and the atchievements of the Portuguese christians, who, on no occasion neglect to act and discourse in the true spirit of their faith. But in the mind of Camoens this incongruity was removed by the opinion, which he shared in common with his contemporaries, that the machinery in epopœia was merely a poetic figure, and that all the heathen deities might be introduced as allegorical characters, in modern narrative poetry, by the same privilege which enables Cupid to retain his place in the lyric compositions of christian poets, without any theological or literary offence. Thus Camoens allegorically introduced Olympus into his poem. The erroneous opinion which misled the poet does not, it is true, redeem this defect in the poem, though it contributes to cast a veil over it. But if the reader admits this opinion, which he must do in order to understand the poet in his own sense, then will even the offence against taste be found to vanish imperceptibly. This compromise once made, the whole poem becomes not only singular, but even wonderful in its singularity, particularly where Vasco da Gama and his companions sport with Thetis and her nymphs allegorically, and yet in good earnest; and the historical material begins, as if suddenly ennobled by magic, to shine in the full light of poetry.
The Lusiad assumes a mythological character immediately after the introductory stanzas. Vasco da Gama with his squadron has already doubled the Cape of Good Hope; and steering along the eastern coast of Africa, he approaches the Indian seas. The gods are then assembled on Olympus, to deliberate on the fate of India. Venus and Bacchus form two parties, the former in favour of the Portuguese, and the latter against them. In this application of the allegory, the poet, doubtless, gratified his patriotic pride; for Portugal was, even by the Spaniards, styled the native land of love; and temperance in the use of wine, was a national virtue of the Portuguese. In order to give a still higher import to this allegory, Venus is made to consider the Portuguese as modern Romans, and to entertain for them the same regard which she formerly extended to the people of ancient Rome: but Bacchus recollects his expedition in India, and is indignant at the Portuguese, whose enterprize threatens to eclipse his glory. Among the gods who declare themselves friendly to the Portuguese, Mars is particularly conspicuous. Meanwhile Vasco da Gama’s fleet touches at several places on the coast of eastern Africa. Vasco endeavours to enter into amicable relations with the King of Mombaza; but Bacchus transforms himself into a Mahometan priest, and by treacherous tokens of friendship plans the destruction of the Portuguese in Mombaza. Venus, however, discovers the treachery in time to prevent it. She appeals to Jupiter. Her prayers for the Portuguese fleet are heard. Mercury warns Vasco da Gama in a dream, and Vasco escapes the danger that is prepared for him. He sails onward to the African kingdom of Melinda. The King of Melinda, though also a Mahometan, gives a hospitable reception to the Portuguese, whose courage and national glory excite his warmest admiration. Here the poet connects the thread of those narratives which have been erroneously regarded as the episodes of the Lusiad. At the request of the King of Melinda, Vasco da Gama relates the most interesting incidents of Portuguese history, and closes his patriotic narrative with a description of his own voyage up to the period of his arrival at Melinda. The King of Melinda now becomes the enthusiastic friend of the Portuguese; and here the second half of the poem commences. Vasco da Gama proceeds on his voyage with the pilots, who are to shew him the nearest course to India. Bacchus, however, descends to the bottom of the sea, and implores the gods and goddesses of Neptune’s kingdom, to assist him in destroying the Portuguese fleet before it shall reach India. A dreadful storm arises, and seems to promise the accomplishment of Bacchus’s wish: but at the critical moment Venus again rescues her favourites, and the Portuguese arrive in safety at the kingdom of Calicut, on the coast of Malabar. Vasco da Gama is at first very favourably received by the Zamorim, or Prince of Calicut. This opportunity is seized by Camoens to supply a sort of supplement to the poetic narrative of the events of Portuguese history; for he makes Paulo da Gama, the brother of the admiral, explain to the Catual, or Indian governor of Calicut, the historical tapestries and pictures on board the Portuguese ships. At length, Bacchus, who is not yet weary of playing the part of a Mussulman, for the annoyance of the Portuguese, stirs up such a misunderstanding between Vasco da Gama and the Zamorim of Calicut, that the projected commercial treaty between Calicut and Portugal is set aside, and the Portuguese fleet is once more exposed to the risk of destruction. But the grand object of the voyage is now attained, and Vasco da Gama weighs anchor, and directs his course back to Europe. During the homeward voyage Venus prepares for the enterprizing navigators a brilliant festival on an enchanted island in the great ocean, where goddesses and sea nymphs, wounded by Cupid’s darts, become enamoured of the Portuguese who land on the island. The voluptuous magic festival, at which the goddess Thetis, or Tethys, (for both names denote the same deity), becomes the bride of Vasco da Gama, affords the poet the last opportunity of completing his picture of Portuguese national glory; for a prophetic nymph relates the most conspicuous atchievements of the Portuguese commanders in India, and Thetis taking Vasco to the top of a high mountain, explains to him on a magic globe the geographical positions of the different countries.
All the objections which may be urged against an epic composition of this kind, are so very obvious, that from a mere sketch of the contents of the Lusiad, it is impossible to conceive how a poet, even of the most uncommon talents, could form a grand and beautiful whole on a plan at once so trivial and so irregular. But the plan of the composition of this poem resembles a scaffolding, which is surrounded and concealed by the beauty and grandeur of the building; and which serves to connect the parts in a singular kind of union, yet has no share in producing the unity of the effect. The unity of effect, and consequently of the poem, rests wholly and solely on the execution of the plan, out of which only a poet like Camoens could have created a Lusiad. But the historian of Portuguese poetry, who is not inclined to concede the just claims which this poem possesses on the admiration of all ages, must present to his readers another and a totally different analysis of the work from that which has just been given. A suitable opportunity will thus be afforded for more particularly noticing the beauties with which the Lusiad abounds, and the faults in which it is not deficient.
The introductory stanzas mark with sufficient precision the tone which the poem maintains to its close. “Arms and the renowned men, who from the western shore of Lusitania, penetrated beyond Taprobana by seas never before navigated; who amidst frightful dangers and warfare accomplished more than could be expected from human powers, and in a remote region of the world founded and raised a new kingdom: also the glorious atchievements of those kings, who extended their faith and their dominion, and spread terror through the wicked regions of Africa and Asia; and others whose glorious deeds have raised them above the laws of mortality;” are announced as the objects of the poet’s strains.[140] Then follows an effusion which has more of a patriotic than a poetic character, combined with a panegyrical dedication to King Sebastian, containing no less than sixteen stanzas. The narrative which commences with the nineteenth stanza opens amidst the course of the events, and in a truly epic strain.[141] The reader may now readily perceive that he must not expect to find in the Lusiad a work written in the spirit and the style of classic antiquity. It betrays indeed a certain degree of loquacity which seems to run counter to the effect of the lofty epic. But there is something captivating in the enthusiasm of the poet’s manner; his patriotism rouses sympathetic feelings; we expect to find his poem the offspring of an overflowing heart; we are charmed with the natural, elegant and noble language of the work; and as soon as the narrative begins, the poetic point of view seems likewise to be fixed. The mythological machinery which Camoens conceived to be indispensably necessary to epic dignity, forms a peculiar kind of ornament, for which indeed the reader is prepared from the commencement of the poem. The description of the council of the gods on Olympus, with which the narrative opens, though somewhat at variance with the ancient costume, is nevertheless pleasing and not devoid of dignity. Here the poetic spirit of Camoens is evinced in some picturesque comparisons in which he vies even with Homer. All these similies bear the impress of the poet’s powers of active perception and representation. They are neither far fetched nor common, and they abound in poetic truth and energy.[142] In the forty-fourth stanza, Vasco da Gama is for the first time mentioned, and in few words characterized as a man of “proud and lofty spirit, on whom fortune ever smiled.”[143] But there soon occur passages in which the poetic light of the representation is totally extinguished.[144] Passages of this kind are afterwards frequently repeated, and their prosaic dryness is the more displeasing when contrasted with the deep poetic spirit which pervades the more beautiful parts of the composition. The description of the first engagement between the Portuguese of Gama’s fleet and the treacherous Moors of Mosambique, affords the poet another opportunity of displaying his talent in picturesque comparison. But it becomes obvious that this talent must have been formed on the model of Ariosto rather than on that of Homer. There occur indeed in his representations of the tumult of the battle, some imitations of Ariostic exuberance, which do not strictly harmonize with the prevailing style of the Lusiad.[145]
In the second canto the singularity of the mythological machinery becomes still more remarkable, when at Mombassa, on the coast of Africa, Bacchus assumes the disguise of a Christian priest, and on an enchanted altar goes through the ceremony of the christian worship for the purpose of deceiving the Portuguese.[146] But the grotesque application of the machinery in this passage, prepares the mind for scenes of a similar character, and thus the comic effect of subsequent parts of the poem is in anticipation softened. The reader who enters into the spirit of the poet becomes unconsciously accustomed to this view of the ancient mythology; and he is even soon reconciled to the incongruity of Vasco da Gama offering up prayers as a christian to Providence, and those prayers being heard by Venus. The description of Venus, who once more intercedes with Jupiter in favour of the Portuguese, resembles Ariosto’s description of Alcina. Here the poet for the first time evinces his predilection for voluptuous pictures of beauty. This charming description may be said to possess a nationally classic character.[147] The speech by which Vasco da Gama’s ambassador gains the King of Melinda to the interests of the Portuguese is excellent, and the pompous meeting of the king with Vasco, on board the Portuguese admiral ship, is elegantly and picturesquely described.