'Ambigeres raperetne rosis Aurora ruborem,
An daret, et flores tingere torta dies.'
Camoëns who had a genius rich of itself, still further enriched it at the expense of the ancients. Behold what makes great authors! Those who pretend to give us nothing but the fruits of their own growth, soon fail, like the little rivulets which dry up in the summer, very different from the floods, who receive in their course the tribute of a hundred and a hundred rivers, and which even in the dog-days carry their waves triumphant to the ocean."
[582] The hyacinth bewrays the doleful Ai.—Hyacinthus, a youth beloved of Apollo, by whom he was accidentally slain, and afterwards turned into a flower:—
"Tyrioque nitentior ostro
Flos oritur, formamque capit, quam lilia: si non,
Purpureus color huic, argenteus esset in illis.
Non satis hoc Phæbo est: is enim fuit auctor honoris.
Ipse suos gemitus foliis inscribit; et Ai, Ai,
Flos habet inscriptum: funestaque littera ducta est."
Ovid, Met.
[583] The second Argonauts.—The expedition of the Golden Fleece was esteemed, in ancient poetry, one of the most daring adventures, the success of which was accounted miraculous. The allusions of Camoëns to this voyage, though in the spirit of his age, are by no means improper.
[584] Wide o'er the beauteous isle the lovely fair.—We now come to the passage condemned by Voltaire as so lascivious, that no nation in Europe, except the Portuguese and Italians, could bear it. The fate of Camoëns has hitherto been very peculiar. The mixture of Pagan and Christian mythology in his machinery has been anathematized, and his island of love represented as a brothel. Yet both accusations are the arrogant assertions of the most superficial acquaintance with his works. His poem itself, and a comparison of its parts with the similar conduct of the greatest modern poets, will clearly evince, that in both instances no modern epic writer of note has given less offence to true criticism.
Not to mention Ariosto, whose descriptions will often admit of no palliation, Tasso, Spenser, and Milton, have always been esteemed among the chastest of poets, yet in that delicacy of warm description, which Milton has so finely exemplified in the nuptials of our first parents, none of them can boast the continued uniformity of the Portuguese poet. Though there is a warmth in the colouring of Camoëns which even the genius of Tasso has not reached: and though the island of Armida is evidently copied from the Lusiad, yet those who are possessed of the finer feelings, will easily discover an essential difference between the love-scenes of the two poets, a difference greatly in favour of the delicacy of the former. Though the nymphs in Camoëns are detected naked in the woods, and in the stream, and though desirous to captivate, still their behaviour is that of the virgin who hopes to be the spouse. They act the part of offended modesty; even when they yield they are silent, and behave in every respect like Milton's Eve in the state of innocence, who—
"What was honour knew,"
And who displayed—
"Her virtue, and the conscience of her worth,
That would be wooed, and not unsought be won."