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Some Account of the Spanish and Portuguese Literature

Voltaire, in his Essay on Epic Poetry, having criticised the Lusiad of Camoens, and the Araucana of Ercilla de Zúñiga, which are the best epic poems of the two nations, the first of which is written in the Portuguese, and the second in the Spanish language; I shall begin with them, availing myself of all his remarks, when I find them consonant with those of the writers of their respective nations.

Lewis de Camoens was born in Lisbon, about the year 1523, of an ancient Portuguese family, whilst John III. reigned in Portugal. His successor, Don Emanuel, who was determined to pursue the scheme which had so often proved abortive, of opening a route to the East Indies, by way of the ocean, sent Vasco de Gama, in 1497, with a fleet for that celebrated enterprize, which having succeeded, laid the foundation for the commerce which Europe still carries on by sea with the Indies. In 1553, Camoens went to the Indies; a vague desire for travelling and making his fortune; the danger to which his indiscreet gallantries at Lisbon had exposed him; his discontented situation at the court; and above all, that curiosity which mostly attends a great genius, were the motives which concurred to induce him to leave his country. He first served as a volunteer on board a ship, and lost an eye in a naval combat in the Straits of Gibraltar. The Portuguese had already a viceroy in the Indies. Camoens, when at Goa, was exiled by that viceroy, because he had satirized some principal persons residing there, and languished several years in an obscure corner on the frontiers of China, where the Portuguese had a small factory, and where they had begun to build the town of Macao. There it was that he composed his poem on the discovery of the Indies, which he intitled the Lusiada, a title which is but little applicable to its subject, and which properly signifies Portugada. He obtained a small place in Macao, and returning from thence to Goa, he was shipwrecked on the coast of China, and is said to have saved his life by swimming with one hand, and holding his poem, which was his all, in the other. On his arrival at Goa he was cast into prison, from whence he was released only to undergo a greater misfortune, which was that of following a petty, proud, and avaricious governor to Sofala in Africa. He returned at last to Lisbon with his poem, which was his whole fortune: he printed it in 1572, and obtained a pension of about thirty pounds of our money, which was soon taken from him. He had then no other retreat than an hospital, where he passed the rest of his life; and, in 1579, died abandoned by all. He was scarcely dead, when many honourable epitaphs were made on him, and he was placed in the rank of great men. Several towns disputed the honour of having given birth to him: so that he experienced Homer’s fate in every thing: he travelled like Homer, he lived and died poor, and gained no reputation till after his death. These examples ought to teach men of genius, that it is not by genius that a man acquires a fortune and lives happily.

The subject of the Lusiada is neither a war, the quarrel of a hero, nor the world in arms for a woman, but only a new country discovered by the assistance of navigation. The poet sets off thus: 1

“I sing the signalized men, who from the occidental coast of Lusitania, over seas never before navigated, passed even beyond Taprobana (Ceylon), and in a remote country founded a new kingdom.Let the navigations of the sage Grecian, and of the Trojan be no more wondered at. Let the fame of the victories of Alexander and Trajan cease, for I sing the illustrious Lusitanian whom Neptune and Mars obeyed: let the ancient Muses be silent, for his valour surpasses all they have sung of others; and. you, nymphs of the Tagus, if ever I celebrated in humble verse your beautiful river, grant me an elevated and flowing style, for Phoebus has ordained that your waters shall not envy those of Hypocrena, &c. &c.”

The poet conducts the Portuguese fleet to the mouth of the Ganges, by way of the Cape of Good Hope: he describes the different nations inhabiting the coasts of Africa: he artfully intermixes the history of Portugal in that description. In the third canto, stanza 118, is the story of Dona Ignez de Castro: this part Voltaire esteems to be the most beautiful in the whole poem, and says, that there are few parts in Virgil more affecting or better written.

Voltaire thus continues: The simplicity of the poem is ennobled by fictions as novel as the subject. The following one, I venture to affirm, will be admired in all times, and by all nations.

“When the fleet is on the point of doubling the Cape of Good-Hope, at that time called the Promontory of Tempests, a formidable object is discovered: it is a phantom which rises out of the bottom of the sea; his head touches the clouds; tempests, winds, and thunders environ him; his arms extend over the whole surface of the waters: this monster, or this god, is the guardian of this ocean, of which the waves had never yet been ploughed by any vessel; he threatens the fleet, he complains of the audacity of the Portuguese, who are come to dispute the empire of those seas with him, and announces all the calamities which they are to suffer in the prosecution of their enterprise.”

Canto v. stanza 39.

The literal translation of part of the above passage is as Follows:

“One night a cloud, which darkened the air, appeared over our heads, the tempestuous sea roared horribly, so that our hearts trembled; a phantom was then seen in the air, of an enormous stature and deformed human shape, his size surpassed that of the Colossus of Rhodes, his beard was squalid, his eyes sunk in his head, his hair clotted with earth, his complexion pallid, his mouth black, and his teeth yellow; his horrid voice, which caused our hair to stand on end, seemed to issue from the bottom of the sea, &c.”

Another fiction in this poem is much admired by the Portuguese, and conforms to the Italian genius: it is an enchanted island, which appears at sea, in order to refresh Gama and his fleet. 2 This island is said to have served as a model for the island of Armida, described by Tasso a few years afterwards. There Venus, aided by the counsels of the Eternal Father, and, at the same time, seconded by the arrows of Cupid, causes the Nereides to fall in love with the Portuguese; each of whom embraces a Nereid, and Vasco de Gama falls to the lot of Thetis. In the ninth canto, that goddess transports him to the top of a high mountain, situated in the most delicious part of the island, from thence she sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and in the tenth and last, foretels the destiny of Portugal.

Camoens, after having abandoned himself without reserve to the voluptuous description of the island, and of the pleasures into which the Portuguese are plunged, thinks proper to inform the reader, that this whole fiction only implies the pleasure that an honest man feels in doing his duty.

The principal aim of the Portuguese, after the establishment of their commerce, is the propagation of the faith, and Venus takes the success of that enterprize upon herself. To speak seriously, such an absurd miracle disfigures the whole work in the eyes of a sensible reader; but the beauty of the style, and the imagination in the expression, have sustained the reputation of this poem. Thus the beauties of execution have classed Paul Veronese among the greater painters, though he has placed Benedictine monks and Swiss soldiers in subjects taken from the Old Testament. Camoens is perpetually guilty of the like absurdities; he quotes Ulysses and Æneas to the king of Melinda, as if an African barbarian understood Homer and Virgil. But of all the defects in this poem, the greatest is the little connection its parts have with each other; it resembles the voyage it describes. On the whole, the work contains many beauties, and has delighted the Portuguese nation for these last two hundred years. 3

In the 6th canto, (stanza 43 to 68), a tale is told as how twelve Portuguese knights went to England, towards the end of the fourteenth century, and fought with, and vanquished twelve English knights, who had aspersed the fame of the like number of English ladies, and had

“Said they would prove that such and such of them,
Had been too lavish of their honor’s gem.”
FANSHAW.

The whole poem is comprised in ten cantos, and the total number of stanzas is 1102; each stanza consisting of eight lines.

There is an old Spanish translation of the Lusiad extant, but I never could meet with it.

In 1655, an English translation of the Lusiad was published by Richard Fanshaw. This is a thin folio, without any notes, but ornamented with the portraits of Camoens, Don Henry of Portugal, and Vasco de Gama. In p. 299 of the present work, I have inserted a stanza from Camoens, which is thus translated by Mr. Fanshaw:

So a brisk lover in the bloody place
(His beauteous mistress by, in a balcon)
Seeks out the bull, and (planted face to face)
Curvets, runs, whistles, waves, and toles him on;
But the stern bruite, ev’n in a moment’s space
(His horned brow low’d to the earth) doth run
Bellowing about like mad; and (his eyes shut)
Dismounts, strikes, kills, and tramples under-foot.

As this translation is very difficult to be met with, I shall add another stanza, as a specimen of the author’s versification.

Canto IX. v. 83.

O what devouring kisses (multiply’d).
What pretty whimp’rings did the grove repeat!
What flatt’ring force! what anger which did chide
Itself, and laught when it began to threat!
What more than this, the blushing morning spy’d,
And Venus, (adding her’s to the noon’s heat)
Is better try’d then guess’d, I must confess:
But those who cannot try it, let them guess.

The original runs thus:

O que famintos beijos na floresta,
E que mimoso choro, que foava,
Que afagos tão suaves, que ira honesta,
Que em risinhos alegres se tornava!
O que mais passão na menãa, & na sesta,
Que Venus com prazeres inflamava,
Melhor he experimentalo, que julgalo,
Mas julgueo, que não pode exprimentalo.

In justice to Camoens and to Fanshaw, I beg leave to add part of Dona Ignez’s pathetic supplication to her husband’s father, who was determined to have her put to death.

Para o ceo cristalino levantando
Com lagrimas os olhos piedosos,
Os olhos, porque as mãos lhe estava atando
Hum dos duros ministros rigurosos:
E depois nos mininos atentando,
Que tão queridos tinha, & tao mimosos,
Cuja orfandade como mãy temia,
Para o avo cruel assi dizia.

O’ tu, que tens de humano o gesto, & peito,
(Se de humano he matar huma donzella
Fraca, & sem força, so por ter sugeito
O coração, a quem soube vencella)
A estas criancinhas tem respeito,
Pois não tens a morte escura della,
Movate a piedade sua, & minha,
Pois te não move a culpa, que não tinha.

Thus translated:

Lifting unto the azure firmament
Her eyes, which in a sea of tears were drown’d;
Her eyes, for one of those malevolent
And bloody instruments, her hands had bound;
And then, the same on her dear infant’s bent,
Who them with similing innocence surround,
By whom poor orphans they will streight be made,
Unto their cruel grandfather thus said:

O thou, whose superscription speaks thee, man,
(That the contents were suited to the cover!
A feeble maid thou wouldst not murther than,
Onely for loving him, who first did love her)
Pity these babes (the babes about him ran)
In thy hard doom since I am spot all over,
Spare, for their sakes, their lives, and mine: and see
Whiteness in them, though thou wilt not in me.

I am informed that a Mr. Mickle of Oxford intends shortly to publish another translation of this poem.

A French translation (in prose) of the Lusiad, was published by Duperon de Castera, in three octavo volumes, with remarks. This is the most despicable translation that has ever disgraced any work, and I shall leave the reader to judge of the demerit of the notes and explanations, by quoting a few of them. “In this poem, Venus represents the Christian religion; Bacchus, the devil; Mercury, the angels, who are the messengers of God, in our religion, as he was the messenger of Jupiter, in that of the pagans.

“Mars represents Jesus Christ: the allusion is natural enough; Jesus Christ has shed his blood, he has fought for us, and his goodness has furnished us with arms to combat vice; we may, without a crime, call him the god of war, especially after what St. John says in the first chapter of the Revelations: ‘His voice was as the sound of many waters: and he had in his right-hand seven stars; and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword.’ This description does not ill become a warrior. As to what Camoens adds about the ancient love of Mars to Venus, it must be understood of the love of Jesus Christ to the church. Cupid represents divine love, and ought always to accompany religion, which would without it be a mere lifeless beauty.”

In the second canto, the story of Acteon is introduced, and our ingenious commentator says, “the mystical sense of this fable, is, that if Acteon, and others who, like him, give a loose to violent passions, were to discover the beauties of true religion, they would be charmed with them. Mars, who is Jesus Christ, feels his heart penetrated with tenderness on beholding the beauties of his religion. Vulcan, who is a Demon as well as Bacchus, conceives a cruel jealousy on that account. All this is as it ought to be; and far from criticising our author, ought we not rather to admire the delicacy of his emblems, and the excellent use he makes of fabulous history?”

In the notes on the ninth canto, after the description of the island where the Nereids amuse themselves with the Portuguese sailors, the explanator says, “Poetry has always had a right to make use of corporal images, in order to teach us moral and metaphysical knowledge; not only Grecian and Latin authors, but even the Psalms of David, the Canticles of Solomon, &c. abound in the like allegories, &c.”

By this time I imagine the reader is sufficiently disgusted with this kind of remarks, so that I shall only add, that in one of the notes on the sixth canto, its worthy author has commemorated the names of the dozen knights who so valiantly fought for the English ladies; says he, “I thought I should have acted unjustly by those great men, if I had passed over their names in silence; so many personages are transmitted to posterity who do not deserve to be remembered, and should we refuse a few lines to the memory of those who ought to serve us for models?” And this book was printed in Paris in 1768!

The new Paris edition of the works of Camoens, in three duodecimo volumes, 1759 (in Portuguese), contains, in the first volume the Lusiad and, in the two others, upwards of 300 sonnets. A poem in three cantos, entitled, Of the Creation and Composition of Man, in 201 stanzas. Two comedies in verse, each of a single act: the one entitled, King Seleucus, and the other, The Amphitrions; and several pieces of miscellaneous poetry.

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