[368] Doris, the sister and spouse of Nereus, and mother of the Nereides. By Nereus, in the physical sense of the fable, is understood the water of the sea, and by Doris, the bitterness or salt, the supposed cause of its prolific quality in the generation of fishes.
[369] And give our wearied minds a lively glow.—Variety is no less delightful to the reader than to the traveller, and the imagination of Camoëns gave an abundant supply. The insertion of this pastoral landscape, between the terrific scenes which precede and follow, has a fine effect. "Variety," says Pope, in one of his notes on the Odyssey, "gives life and delight; and it is much more necessary in epic, than in comic or tragic, poetry, sometimes to shift the scenes, to diversify and embellish the story."
The Portuguese, sailing upon the Atlantic Ocean, discovered the most southern point of Africa: here they found an immense sea, which carried them to the East Indies. The dangers they encountered in the voyage, the discovery of Mozambique, of Melinda, and of Calecut, have been sung by Camoëns, whose poem recalls to our minds the charms of the Odyssey, and the magnificence of the Æneid.—Montesquieu, Spirit of Laws, bk. xxi. c. 21.
[370] Virgil.
[371] A small island, named Santa Cruz by Bartholomew Diaz, who discovered it. According to Faria y Sousa, he went twenty-five leagues further, to the river Del Infante, which, till passed by Gama, was the utmost extent of the Portuguese discoveries.
[372] It was the force of this rushing current which retarded the further discoveries of Diaz. Gama got over it by the assistance of a tempest. The seasons when these seas are safely navigable, are now perfectly known.
[373] The wise men of the East, or magi, whom the Roman Catholic writers will have to have been kings.—Ed.
[374] The Epiphany.—Ed.
[375] Dos Reis, i.e., of the kings.—Ed.
[376] The frequent disappointments of the Portuguese, when they expect to hear some account of India, is a judicious imitation of several parts of Virgil; who, in the same manner, magnifies the distresses of the Trojans in their search for the fated seat of Empire:—