With prowess more than human forc'd their way
To the fair kingdoms of the rising day:

What wars they wag'd, what seas, what dangers pass'd,
What glorious empire crown'd their toils at last,
Vent'rous I sing, on soaring pinions borne,
And all my country's wars 1 the song adorn;
What kings, what heroes of my native land
Thunder'd on Asia's and on Afric's strand:
Illustrious shades, who levell'd in the dust
The idol-temples and the shrines of lust:
And where, erewhile, foul demons were rever'd,
To Holy Faith unnumber'd altars rear'd:
Illustrious names, with deathless laurels crown'd,
While time rolls on in every clime renown'd!

4

2

Let Fame with wonder name the Greek3 no more,
What lands he saw, what toils at sea he bore;
Nor more the Trojan's wand'ring voyage boast,
What storms he brav'd on many a perilous coast:
No more let Rome exult in Trajan's name,
Nor Eastern conquests Ammon's pride proclaim;
A nobler hero's deeds demand my lays

5

Than e'er adorn'd the song of ancient days,
Illustrious GAMA," whom the waves obey'd,

And whose dread sword the fate of empire sway'd.

other nations might not become partakers of their lucrative traffic.— See the Periplus of Hanno, in Cory's Ancient Fragments.-Ed.

1 And all my country's wars.—He interweaves artfully the history of Portugal.-VOLTAIRE.

2 To Holy Faith unnumber'd altars rear'd.-In no period of history does human nature appear with more shocking, more diabolical features than in the wars of Cortez, and the Spanish conquerors of South America. Zeal for the Christian religion was esteemed, at the time of the Portuguese grandeur, as the most cardinal virtue, and to propagate Christianity and extirpate Mohammedanism were the most certain proofs of that zeal. In all their expeditions this was professedly a principal motive of the Lusitanian monarchs, and Camoëns understood the nature of epic poetry too well to omit it.

3 Ulysses, who is the subject of the Odyssey.

4 The voyage of Æneas, described in the Æneid of Virgil.

5 Alexander the Great, who claimed to be the son of Jupiter Ammon.

6 Vasco de Gama is, in a great measure, though not exclusively, the hero of the Lusiad.

And you, fair nymphs of Tagus, parent stream,
If e'er your meadows were my pastoral theme,
While you have listen'd, and by moonshine seen
My footsteps wander o'er your banks of green,
O come auspicious, and the song inspire
With all the boldness of your hero's fire:
Deep and majestic let the numbers flow,
And, rapt to heaven, with ardent fury glow,
Unlike the verse that speaks the lover's grief,
When heaving sighs afford their soft relief,
And humble reeds bewail the shepherd's pain;
But like the warlike trumpet be the strain
To rouse the hero's ire, and far around,
With equal rage, your warriors' deeds resound.

And thou,1 O born the pledge of happier days,
To guard our freedom and our glories raise,

1 King Sebastian, who came to the throne in his minority. Though the warm imagination of Camoëns anticipated the praises of the future hero, the young monarch, like Virgil's Pollio, had not the happiness to fulfil the prophecy. His endowments and enterprising genius promised, indeed, a glorious reign. Ambitious of military laurels, he led a powerful army into Africa, on purpose to replace Muley Hamet on the throne of Morocco, from which he had been deposed by Muley Molucco. On the 4th of August, 1578, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, he gave battle to the usurper on the plains of Alcazar. This was that memorable engagement, to which the Moorish Emperor, extremely weakened by sickness, was carried in his litter. By the impetuosity of the attack, the first line of the Moorish infantry was broken, and the second disordered. Muley Molucco on this mounted his horse, drew his sabre, and would have put himself at the head of his troops, but was prevented by his attendants. His emotion of mind was so great that he fell from his horse, and one of his guards having caught him in his arms, conveyed him to his litter, where, putting his finger on his lips to enjoin them silence, he immediately expired. Hamet Taba stood by the curtains of the carriage, opened them from time to time, and gave out orders as if he had received them from the Emperor. Victory declared for the Moors, and the defeat of the Portuguese was so total, that not above fifty of their whole army escaped. Hieron de Mendoça and Sebastian de Mesa relate, that Don Sebastian, after having two horses killed under him, was surrounded and taken; but the party who had secured him, quarrelling among themselves whose prisoner he was, a Moorish officer rode up and struck the king a blow over the right eye, which brought him to the ground; when, despairing of ransom, the others killed him. About twenty years after this fatal defeat there appeared a stranger

Given to the world to spread Religion's sway,
And pour o'er many a land the mental day,
Thy future honours on thy shield behold,
The cross and victor's wreath emboss'd in gold:
At thy commanding frown we trust to see,
The Turk and Arab bend the suppliant knee:
Beneath the morn,1 dread king, thine empire lies,
When midnight veils thy Lusitanian 2 skies;

at Venice, who called himself Sebastian, King of Portugal, whom he so perfectly resembled, that the Portuguese of that city acknowledged him for their sovereign. He underwent twenty-eight examinations before a committee of the nobles, in which he gave a distinct account of the manner in which he had passed his time from the fatal defeat at Alcazar. It was objected, that the successor of Muley Molucco sent a corpse to Portugal which had been owned as that of the king by the Portuguese nobility who survived the battle. To this he replied, that his valet de chambre had produced that body to facilitate his escape, and that the nobility acted upon the same motive, and Mesa and Baena confess, that some of the nobility, after their return to Portugal acknowledged that the corpse was so disfigured with wounds that it was impossible to know it. He showed natural marks on his body, which many remembered on the person of the king whose name he assumed. He entered into a minute detail of the transactions that had passed between himself and the republic, and mentioned the secrets of several conversations with the Venetian ambassadors in the palace of Lisbon. He fell into the hands of the Spaniards, who conducted him to Naples, where they treated him with the most barbarous indignities. After they had often exposed him, mounted on an ass, to the cruel insults of the brutal mob, he was shipped on board a galley, as a slave. He was then carried to St. Lucar, from thence to a castle in the heart of Castile, and never was heard of more. The firmness of his behaviour, his singular modesty and heroical patience, are mentioned with admiration by Le Clede. To the last he maintained the truth of his assertions; a word never slipped from his lips which might countenance the charge of imposture, or justify the cruelty of his persecutors.

1 Portugal, when Camoëns wrote his Lusiad, was at the zenith of its power and splendour. The glorious successes which had attended the arms of the Portuguese in Africa, had gained them the highest military reputation. Their fleets covered the ocean. Their dominions and settlements extended along the western and eastern sides of the vast African continent. From the Red Sea to China and Japan, they were sole masters of the riches of the East; and in America, the fertile and extensive regions of Brazil completed their empire.

2 Lusitania is the Latin name of a Roman province which comprised the greater part of the modern kingdom of Portugal, besides a considerable portion of Leon and Spanish Estremadura.-Ed.

1

And when, descending in the western main,
The sun still rises on thy length'ning reign:
Thou blooming scion of the noblest stem,
Our nation's safety, and our age's gem,
O young Sebastian, hasten to the prime
Of manly youth, to Fame's high temple climb:
Yet now attentive hear the Muse's lay
While thy green years to manhood speed away:
The youthful terrors of thy brow suspend,
And, oh, propitious to the song attend-
The num❜rous song, by patriot-passion fir'd,
And by the glories of thy race inspir'd:
To be the herald of my country's fame
My first ambition and my dearest aim:
Nor conquests fabulous nor actions vain,
The Muse's pastime, here adorn the strain:
Orlando's fury, and Rugero's rage,

And all the heroes of th' Aonian page,2

The dreams of bards surpass'd the world shall view,
And own their boldest fictions may be true;

Surpass'd and dimm'd by the superior blaze

Of GAMA's mighty deeds, which here bright Truth displays.
Nor more let History boast her heroes old,

Their glorious rivals here, dread prince, behold:
Here shine the valiant Nunio's deeds unfeign'd,
Whose single arm the falling state sustain'd;

1The sun.-Imitated, perhaps, from Rutilius, speaking of the Roman EmpireVolvitur ipse tibi, qui conspicit omnia, Phœbus, Atque tuis ortos in tua condit equos;

or, more probably, from these lines of Buchanan, addressed to John III. King of Portugal, the grandfather of Sebastian

Inque tuis Phoebus regnis oriensque cadensque
Vix longum fesso conderet axe diem.
Et quæcunque vago se circumvolvit Olympo
Affulget ratibus flamma ministra tuis.

2 i.e. poetic. Aonia was the ancient name of Boeotia, in which country was a fountain sacred to the Muses, whence Juvenal sings of a poet

"Enamoured of the woods, and fitted for drinking

At the fountains of the Aonides."

Juv. Sat. vii, 58.-Ed.

1

Here fearless Egas' wars, and, Fuas, thine,
To give full ardour to the song combine;
But ardour equal to your martial ire
Demands the thund'ring sounds of Homer's lyre.
To match the Twelve so long by bards renown'd,
Here brave Magricio and his peers are crown'd
(A glorious Twelve !) with deathless laurels, won
In gallant arms before the English throne.
Unmatch'd no more the Gallic Charles shall stand,
Nor Cæsar's name the first of praise command:
Of nobler acts the crown'd Alonzo2 see,
Thy valiant sires, to whom the bended knee
Of vanquish'd Afric bow'd. Nor less in fame,
He who confin'd the rage of civil flame,
The godlike John, beneath whose awful sword
Rebellion crouch'd, and trembling own'd him lord.
Those heroes, too, who thy bold flag unfurl'd,
And spread thy banners o'er the Eastern world,
Whose spears subdu'd the kingdoms of the morn,
Their names and glorious wars the song adorn:
The daring GAMA, whose unequall'd name
(Proud monarch) shines o'er all of naval fame :
Castro the bold, in arms a peerless knight,
And stern Pacheco, dreadful in the fight:
The two Almeydas, names for ever dear,
By Tago's nymphs embalm'd with many a tear;
Ah, still their early fate the nymphs shall mourn,
And bathe with many a tear their hapless urn :
Nor shall the godlike Albuquerque restrain
The Muse's fury; o'er the purpled plain
The Muse shall lead him in his thund'ring car
Amidst his glorious brothers of the war,
Whose fame in arms resounds from sky to sky,
And bids their deeds the power of death defy.
And while, to thee, I tune the duteous lay,
Assume, O potent king, thine empire's sway;

1 To match the Twelve so long by bards renown'd.-The Twelve Peers of France, often mentioned in the old romances. For the episode of Magricio and his eleven companions, see the sixth Lusiad. 2 Afonso in Portuguese. In the first edition Mickle had Alfonso, which he altered to Alonzo in the second edition.