7

Pierced by the whizzing shafts, deep sighs the air,
And answering sighs the wounds of love declare.
Though various featur'd, and of various hue,
Each nymph seems loveliest in her lover's view;
Fir'd by the darts, by novice archers sped,
Ten thousand wild, fantastic loves are bred:
In wildest dreams the rustic hind aspires,
And haughtiest lords confess the humblest fires.

The snowy swans of love's celestial queen
Now land her chariot on the shore of green;
One knee display'd, she treads the flow'ry strand,
The gather'd robe falls loosely from her hand;
Half-seen her bosom heaves the living snow,
And on her smiles the living roses glow.
The bowyer god,1 whose subtle shafts ne'er fly
Misaim'd, in vain, in vain on earth or sky,
With rosy smiles the mother power receives;
Around her climbing, thick as ivy leaves,
The vassal loves in fond contention join
Who, first and most, shall kiss her hand divine.
Swift in her arms she caught her wanton boy,
And, "Oh, my son," she cries, my pride, my joy!
Against thy might the dreadful Typhon fail'd,
Against thy shaft nor heav'n, nor Jove prevail'd;
Unless thine arrow wake the young desires,
My strength, my power, in vain each charm expires:
My son, my hope, I claim thy powerful aid,
Nor be the boon thy mother sues delay'd:
Where'er-so will th' eternal fates-where'er
The Lusian race the victor standards rear,
There shall my hymns resound, my altars flame,
And heav'nly Love her joyful lore proclaim,
My Lusian heroes, as my Romans, brave,
Long toss'd, long hopeless on the storm-torn wave,
Wearied and weak, at last on India's shore
Arriv'd, new toils, repose denied, they bore;
For Bacchus there with tenfold rage pursued
My dauntless sons, but now his might subdued,

1 Cupid.

pubre

house

Amid these raging seas, the scene of woes,
Theirs shall be now the balm of sweet repose;
Theirs ev'ry joy the noblest heroes claim,
The raptur'd foretaste of immortal fame.
Then, bend thy bow and wound the Nereid train,
The lovely daughters of the azure main;

And lead them, while they pant with am'rous fire,
Right to the isle which all my smiles inspire:
Soon shall my care that beauteous isle supply,

Where Zephyr, breathing love, on Flora's lap shall sigh.
There let the nymphs the gallant heroes meet,
And strew the pink and rose beneath their feet :
In crystal halls the feast divine prolong,
With wine nectareous and immortal song:
Let every nymph the snow-white bed prepare,
And, fairer far, resign her bosom there;
There, to the greedy riotous embrace

Resign each hidden charm with dearest grace.
Thus, from my native waves a hero line

Shall rise, and o'er the East illustrious shine;1
Thus, shall the rebel world thy prowess know,
And what the boundless joys our friendly powers bestow."

She said; and smiling view'd her mighty boy;
Swift to the chariot springs the god of joy ;
His ivory bow, and arrows tipp'd with gold,
Blaz'd to the sun-beam as the chariot roll'd:
Their silver harness shining to the day,
The swans, on milk-white pinions, spring away,
Smooth gliding o'er the clouds of lovely blue;
And Fame (so will'd the god) before them flew :

1 Thus from my native waves a hero line

Shall rise, and o'er the East illustrious shine.—

"By the line of heroes to be produced by the union of the Portuguese with the Nereids, is to be understood the other Portuguese, who, following the steps of GAMA, established illustrious colonies in India."CASTERA.

2 And Fame-a giant-goddess.-This passage affords a striking instance of the judgment of Camoëns. Virgil's celebrated description of Fame is in his eye, but he copies it, as Virgil, in his best imitations, copies after Homer. He adopts some circumstances, but, by adding others, he makes a new picture, which justly may be called his own.

A giant goddess, whose ungovern'd tongue
With equal zeal proclaims or right or wrong;
Oft had her lips the god of love blasphem'd,
And oft with tenfold praise his conquests nam'd:
A hundred eyes she rolls with ceaseless care,
A thousand tongues what these behold declare :
Fleet is her flight, the lightning's wing she rides,
And, though she shifts her colours swift as glides
The April rainbow, still the crowd she guides.
And now, aloft her wond'ring voice she rais'd,
And, with a thousand glowing tongues, she prais'd
The bold discoverers of the eastern world-
In gentle swells the list'ning surges curl'd,
And murmur'd to the sounds of plaintive love
Along the grottoes where the Nereids rove.
The drowsy power on whose smooth easy mien
The smiles of wonder and delight are seen,
Whose glossy, simp'ring eye bespeaks her name,
Credulity, attends the goddess Fame.

Fir'd by the heroes' praise, the wat'ry gods,'
With ardent speed forsake their deep abodes;
Their rage by vengeful Bacchus rais'd of late,
Now stung remorse, and love succeeds to hate.
Ah, where remorse in female bosom bleeds,
The tend❜rest love in all its glow succeeds.
When fancy glows, how strong, O Love, thy power!
Nor slipp'd the eager god the happy hour;
Swift fly his arrows o'er the billowy main,
Wing'd with his fires, nor flies a shaft in vain :

}

The wat❜ry gods. To mention the gods in the masculine gender, and immediately to apply to them—

"O peito feminil, que levemente

Muda quaysquer propositos tomados.”

The ease with which the female breast changes its resolutions, may to the hypercritical appear reprehensible. The expression, however, is classical, and therefore retained. Virgil uses it, where Eneas is conducted by Venus through the flames of Troy :

"Descendo, ac ducente Deo, flammam inter et hostes

Expedior."

This is in the manner of the Greek poets, who use the word Oeds for god or goddess.

Thus, ere the face the lover's breast inspires,
The voice of fame awakes the soft desires.
While from the bow-string start the shafts divine,
His ivory moon's wide horns incessant join,
Swift twinkling to the view: and wide he pours,
Omnipotent in love, his arrowy showers.
E'en Thetis' self confess'd the tender smart,
And pour'd the murmurs of the wounded heart.
Soft o'er the billows pants the am'rous sigh;
With wishful languor melting on each eye
The love-sick nymphs explore the tardy sails
That waft the heroes on the ling'ring gales.

1

Give way, ye lofty billows, low subside,
Smooth as the level plain, your swelling pride,
Lo, Venus comes! Oh, soft, ye surges, sleep,
Smooth be the bosom of the azure deep,
Lo, Venus comes! and in her vig'rous train
She brings the healing balm of love-sick pain.
White as her swans, and stately as they rear
Their snowy crests when o'er the lake they steer,
Slow moving on, behold, the fleet appears,
And o'er the distant billow onward steers.
The beauteous Nereids, flush'd in all their charms,
Surround the goddess of the soft alarms :
Right to the isle she leads the smiling train,
And all her arts her balmy lips explain;
The fearful languor of the asking eye,
The lovely blush of yielding modesty,

The grieving look, the sigh, the fav'ring smile,
And all th' endearments of the open wile,

She taught the nymphs-in willing breasts that heav'd To hear her lore, her lore the nymphs receiv'd.

1 White as her swans.-A distant fleet compared to swans on a lake is certainly a happy thought. The allusion to the pomp of Venus, whose agency is immediately concerned, gives it besides a peculiar propriety. This simile, however, is not in the original. It is adopted from an uncommon liberty taken by Fanshaw :

"The pregnant sails on Neptune's surface creen,
Like her own swans, in gate, out-chest, and fether,"

As now triumphant to their native shore Through the wide deep the joyful navy bore, Earnest the pilot's eyes sought cape or bay, For long was yet the various wat'ry way;

Love

Sought cape or isle, from whence their boats might bring
The healthful bounty of the crystal spring:
When sudden, all in nature's pride array'd,
The Isle of Love its glowing breast display'd
O'er the green bosom of the dewy lawn
Soft blazing flow'd the silver of the dawn,
The gentle waves the glowing lustre share,
Arabia's balm was sprinkled o'er the air.
Before the fleet, to catch the heroes' view,
The floating isle fair Acidalia drew:

Soon as the floating verdure caught their sight,"
She fix'd, unmov'd, the island of delight.
So when in child-birth of her Jove-sprung load,
The sylvan goddess and the bowyer god,
In friendly pity of Latona's woes,

2

Amid the waves the Delian isle arose.

And now, led smoothly o'er the furrow'd tide,
Right to the isle of joy the vessels glide:
The bay they enter, where on ev'ry hand,
Around them clasps the flower-enamell❜d land;
A safe retreat, where not a blast may shake
Its flutt'ring pinions o'er the stilly lake.

1

1 Soon as the floating verdure caught their sight.-As the departure of GAMA from India was abrupt, he put into one of the beautiful islands of Anchediva for fresh water. "While he was here careening his ships," says Faria," a pirate named Timoja, attacked him with eight small vessels, so linked together and covered with boughs, that they formed the appearance of a floating island." This, says Castera, afforded the fiction of the floating island of Venus. "The fictions of Camoëns," says he, "are the more marvellous, because they are all founded in history. It is not difficult to find why he makes his island of Anchediva to wander on the waves; it is an allusion to a singular event related by Barros." He then proceeds to the story of Timoja, as if the genius of Camoëns stood in need of so weak an assistance.

2 In friendly pity of Latona's woes.—Latona, pregnant by Jupiter, was persecuted by Juno, who sent the serpent Python in pursuit of her. Neptune, in pity of her distress, raised the island of Delos for her refuge, where she was delivered of Apollo and Diana.OVID, Met.

T