We have already seen the warm encomium paid by Tasso to his contemporary, Camoëns. That great poet, the ornament of Italy, has also testified his approbation by several imitations of the Lusiad. Virgil, in no instance, has more closely copied Homer, than Tasso has imitated the appearance of Bacchus, or the evil demon, in the dream of the Moorish priest. The enchanter Ismeno thus appears to the sleeping Solyman:—
"Soliman' Solimano, i tuoi silenti
Riposi à miglior tempo homai riserva:
Che sotto il giogo de straniere genti
La patria, ove regnasti, ancor' e serva.
In questa terra dormi, e non rammenti,
Ch'insepolte de' tuoi l'ossa conserva?
Ove si gran' vestigio e del tuo scorno,
Tu neghittoso aspetti il nuovo giorno?"
Thus elegantly translated by Mr. Hoole:—
"Oh! Solyman, regardless chief, awake!
In happier hours thy grateful slumber take:
Beneath a foreign yoke thy subjects bend,
And strangers o'er thy land their rule extend:
Here dost thou sleep? here close thy careless eyes,
While uninterr'd each lov'd associate lies?
Here where thy fame has felt the hostile scorn,
Canst thou, unthinking, wait the rising morn?"
The conclusion of this canto has been slightly altered by the translator. Camoëns, adhering to history, makes Gama (when his factors are detained on shore) seize upon some of the native merchants as hostages. At the intreaty of their wives and children the zamorim liberates his captives; while Gama, having recovered his men and the merchandise, sailed away, carrying with him the unfortunate natives, whom he had seized as hostages.
As there is nothing heroic in this dishonourable action of Gama's, Mickle has omitted it, and has altered the conclusion of the canto.—Ed.
[550] Mickle, in place of the first seventeen stanzas of this canto, has inserted about three hundred lines of his own composition; in this respect availing himself of the licence he had claimed in his preface.—Ed.
[551] Thy sails, and rudders too, my will demands.—According to history.
[552] My sov'reign's fleet I yield not to your sway.—The circumstance of Gama's refusing to put his fleet into the power of the zamorim, is thus rendered by Fanshaw:—
"The Malabar protests that he shall rot
In prison, if he send not for the ships.
He (constant, and with noble anger hot)
His haughty menace weighs not at two chips."