[150]To this wreck, and to his escape he refers in the prophetic song in the tenth Lusiad when he speaks of the river Mecon—
"Upon his soft and charitable brim
The wet and shipwrecked song receive shall he,
Which in a lamentable plight shall swim
From shoals and quicksands of tempestuous sea,
The dire effect of exile,—when on him
Is executed the unjust decree,
Whose repercussive lyre shall have the fate
To be renowned more than fortunate."
Lusiad, canto X. stanza 128.—Fanshaw's Translation.
[151]We cannot help preferring the faithful and nervous, though uncouth and even obsolete, translation of Fanshaw to the more diluted stream of Mickle's heroics. Southey speaks of "the elaborate and curious infidelity of Mickle's version;" at the same time that he praises it highly. Desirous of understanding the soul of Camoens, it is not from his smooth expressions, that the reader unacquainted with Portuguese can be informed.
[152]Don Joze Faria y Souza, the latest Portuguese commentator, first suggested this as the probable epoch of dona Catarina's death, in contradistinction to all other biographers, who place it on his return from Ceuta. He founds his notion on the internal evidence of Camoens' lyrics and sonnets, and has made converts of Adamson and Southey, and will of all future biographers. There is this of agreeable also; that Camoens is rescued from the charge, that otherwise lies at his door (and is mentioned by Lord Strangford), of forgetting dona Catarina as soon as she was no more, and addressing another lady in the language of constant love. But these poems show by their context that they were addressed to his first love, who still lived.
[153]Perpetuo saudade da alma mia. The word saudade is peculiar to the Portuguese language—it includes much—a recollection accompanied by affection, and regret, and pleasure: friends when they write, send saudades instead of our remembrances to others, and it speaks of more tender and kind feeling.
[154]One of the most perfect and beautiful of Camoens' poems, is a sonnet which many have preferred to the one of Petrarch on the same subject, or even to his Trionfa, which also narrates the visionary visit of his lost love. The following is Mr. Hayley's translation:—
"While prest with woes from which it cannot flee,
My fancy sinks, and slumber seals my eyes,
Her spirit hastens in my dreams to rise,
Who was in life but as a dream to me.
O'er the drear waste, so wide no eye can see
How far its sense-evading limit lies,
I follow her quick step; but ah, she flies!
Our distance wid'ning by fate's stern decree.
'Fly not from me, kind shadow,' I exclaim;
She with fixed eyes, that her soft thoughts reveal,
And seemed to say, 'Forbear thy fond design,'—
Still flies.—I call her, but her half-formed name
Dies on my falt'ring tongue.—I wake and feel
Not e'en one short delusion can be mine."
[155]Southey has given the following account of his rival:—"Diego Bernardes, one of the best of the Portuguese poets, was born on the banks of the Lima, and passionately fond of its scenery. Some of his poems will bear comparison with the best poems of their kind. There is a charge of plagiarism against him, for having printed several of Camoen's sonnets as his own: to obtain any proof on this subject would be very difficult: this, however, is certain, that his own undisputed productions resemble them so much in affecting tenderness and sweetness of diction, that the whole appear like the works of one author."—Notes to Southey's Don Roderick. Bernardes, however, had no reason to congratulate himself on the choice having fallen on him. He was taken prisoner in the battle in which Sebastian fell; and then he blamed the unfortunate king, and deplored his own fate—a captive doomed to labour and chains. He obtained his liberty, and died at Lisbon in 1596, and was buried in the same church a Camoens. Vide Adamson.
[156]Lord Holland possesses a copy of the first edition of the Lusiad, in which these words were written by the friar Josepe Judio, who left it in the convent of the barefooted Carmelites of Guadalaxara.