All the objections which may be urged against an epic composition of this kind, are so very obvious, that from a mere sketch of the contents of the Lusiad, it is impossible to conceive how a poet, even of the most uncommon talents, could form a grand and beautiful whole on a plan at once so trivial and so irregular. But the plan of the composition of this poem resembles a scaffolding, which is surrounded and concealed by the beauty and grandeur of the building; and which serves to connect the parts in a singular kind of union, yet has no share in producing the unity of the effect. The unity of effect, and consequently of the poem, rests wholly and solely on the execution of the plan, out of which only a poet like Camoens could have created a Lusiad. But the historian of Portuguese poetry, who is not inclined to concede the just claims which this poem possesses on the admiration of all ages, must present to his readers another and a totally different analysis of the work from that which has just been given. A suitable opportunity will thus be afforded for more particularly noticing the beauties with which the Lusiad abounds, and the faults in which it is not deficient.
The introductory stanzas mark with sufficient precision the tone which the poem maintains to its close. “Arms and the renowned men, who from the western shore of Lusitania, penetrated beyond Taprobana by seas never before navigated; who amidst frightful dangers and warfare accomplished more than could be expected from human powers, and in a remote region of the world founded and raised a new kingdom: also the glorious atchievements of those kings, who extended their faith and their dominion, and spread terror through the wicked regions of Africa and Asia; and others whose glorious deeds have raised them above the laws of mortality;” are announced as the objects of the poet’s strains.140 Then follows an effusion which has more of a patriotic than a poetic character, combined with a panegyrical dedication to King Sebastian, containing no less than sixteen stanzas. The narrative which commences with the nineteenth stanza opens amidst the course of the events, and in a truly epic strain.141 The reader may now readily perceive that he must not expect to find in the Lusiad a work written in the spirit and the style of classic antiquity. It betrays indeed a certain degree of loquacity which seems to run counter to the effect of the lofty epic. But there is something captivating in the enthusiasm of the poet’s manner; his patriotism rouses sympathetic feelings; we expect to find his poem the offspring of an overflowing heart; we are charmed with the natural, elegant and noble language of the work; and as soon as the narrative begins, the poetic point of view seems likewise to be fixed. The mythological machinery which Camoens conceived to be indispensably necessary to epic dignity, forms a peculiar kind of ornament, for which indeed the reader is prepared from the commencement of the poem. The description of the council of the gods on Olympus, with which the narrative opens, though somewhat at variance with the ancient costume, is nevertheless pleasing and not devoid of dignity. Here the poetic spirit of Camoens is evinced in some picturesque comparisons in which he vies even with Homer. All these similies bear the impress of the poet’s powers of active perception and representation. They are neither far fetched nor common, and they abound in poetic truth and energy.142 In the forty-fourth stanza, Vasco da Gama is for the first time mentioned, and in few words characterized as a man of “proud and lofty spirit, on whom fortune ever smiled.”143 But there soon occur passages in which the poetic light of the representation is totally extinguished.144 Passages of this kind are afterwards frequently repeated, and their prosaic dryness is the more displeasing when contrasted with the deep poetic spirit which pervades the more beautiful parts of the composition. The description of the first engagement between the Portuguese of Gama’s fleet and the treacherous Moors of Mosambique, affords the poet another opportunity of displaying his talent in picturesque comparison. But it becomes obvious that this talent must have been formed on the model of Ariosto rather than on that of Homer. There occur indeed in his representations of the tumult of the battle, some imitations of Ariostic exuberance, which do not strictly harmonize with the prevailing style of the Lusiad.145
In the second canto the singularity of the mythological machinery becomes still more remarkable, when at Mombassa, on the coast of Africa, Bacchus assumes the disguise of a Christian priest, and on an enchanted altar goes through the ceremony of the christian worship for the purpose of deceiving the Portuguese.146 But the grotesque application of the machinery in this passage, prepares the mind for scenes of a similar character, and thus the comic effect of subsequent parts of the poem is in anticipation softened. The reader who enters into the spirit of the poet becomes unconsciously accustomed to this view of the ancient mythology; and he is even soon reconciled to the incongruity of Vasco da Gama offering up prayers as a christian to Providence, and those prayers being heard by Venus. The description of Venus, who once more intercedes with Jupiter in favour of the Portuguese, resembles Ariosto’s description of Alcina. Here the poet for the first time evinces his predilection for voluptuous pictures of beauty. This charming description may be said to possess a nationally classic character.147 The speech by which Vasco da Gama’s ambassador gains the King of Melinda to the interests of the Portuguese is excellent, and the pompous meeting of the king with Vasco, on board the Portuguese admiral ship, is elegantly and picturesquely described.
At the commencement of the third canto, a new life is infused into the poem. But to try this poetic survey of Portuguese history, as it stands in connection with the whole, by any rule of prosaic verisimilitude, would be to depart from the poetic spirit of the Lusiad. In order to understand the narrative which Vasco da Gama relates to the King of Melinda, it is necessary to possess that knowledge of the events alluded to, which Camoens presumed every Portuguese to possess, but which in all probability could not have been possessed by a sovereign of Melinda. The reader who peruses this narrative without the necessary knowledge of the history of Portugal, will be incapable of appreciating many of the most essential beauties of the Lusiad. In so far as Camoens may be denominated the Portuguese Homer, he is indebted for that title to the poetic epitome he has given of the history of his country; and this epitome is a rapid succession of pictures, which flit away like shadows, before those who are unacquainted with their historical ground work, for the poet evidently expected readers who would be gratified to observe how art was capable of elevating the events of real life to the region of epic invention. This portion of the poem, which extends from the third to the end of the fifth canto, contains passages, which in point of classic elegance leave nothing more to be desired; but even here Camoens has in some instances made an unpoetic display of his erudition. Previously to the narrative of Vasco da Gama, the poet speaks in his own character, and patriotically elevates the Portuguese nation above every other. Vasco’s narrative commences with a cold geographical enumeration of the different countries of Europe, in which the Swedes, Danes, Prussians, Russians, and Livonians are styled estranha gente, (strange people) just as a modern traveller might speak of the Ostiaks and the Samoides. Spain is denominated the head of Europe, and Portugal the crown of that head.148 Viewed in the light of probability, the invectives in which Vasco da Gama at every opportunity indulges against the Mahometans, must be supposed offensive to the King of Melinda; but Camoens, in his patriotic zeal, lost sight of many circumstances which would have claimed the consideration of any other poet. Among the most beautiful passages in these three cantos of the Lusiad, may be numbered the tribute to the memory of Egaz Moniz, the Portuguese Regulus, who, however, ended his career more happily than the Roman consul;149 the description of the battle of Ourique which laid the foundation of the kingdom of Portugal;150 the description of the visit of Queen Maria of Spain to her father the King of Portugal, to implore assistance for her husband in his contest with the Moors;151 the relation of the tragical fate of Inez de Castro, which is the most celebrated of all the exquisitely beautiful passages in the Lusiad;152 the description of the sanguinary battle of Aljuabarrota, the greatest victory the Portuguese ever gained over the Castilians:153 and some others, of the like character, which might still be enumerated. The picture of the battle of Aljuabarrota excels all the similar descriptions which occur even in the Lusiad, remarkable as that poem is for such passages. The valiant Nuno Alvares, who by his eloquence and his personal authority, no less than by his courage, saved the political existence of Portugal, shines with such conspicuous lustre at the head of the Portuguese warriors, that he with far more propriety than Vasco da Grama might be denominated the hero of the Lusiad, were it a work which ought to be judged according to the rules usually applied to epic poetry.154 Even in this great battle picture, the finest touches are unquestionably copied from nature, for the poet was no less in his place amidst the tumult of war than in the more tranquil region of the Muses.155 In the continuation of the narrative of the first discoveries of the Portuguese in the east, the particular interest which the poet took in allegoric description is again displayed in a novel manner. The two principal rivers of India, the Indus and the Ganges, are made to appear to King Emmanuel in a dream under the personification of two old men. The representation is truly excellent.156
In Vasco da Gama’s narrative of his own voyage, the following passages must always be particularly distinguished: first, the description of the farewell to the Portuguese shore:157 secondly, a sort of didactic episode, consisting of reflexions made by an old man on the vanity of human ambition, quite in the spirit of that true poetry which embraces the whole range of human existence;158 and thirdly, another kind of episode which introduces the giant Adamastor, whom Camoens conjured up from the old world of fable to render him the spirit of the Cape of Good Hope.159 In the description of this part of the voyage, Camoens for the first time uses the freedom of relieving the solemn seriousness of his narrative by some comic touches. Fernaõ Velloso is the humourist among the enterprising followers of Vasco da Gama.160 Camoens also occasionally breaks the poetic tone of the whole description by a display of his mythological and historical pedantry, and by his endeavours to express in a poetic manner things which are totally unpoetic; as for example, in alluding to the day of the departure of the fleet, he says:—“When the eternal orb of light had entered the sign of the Nemæan monster, and when the decaying world in its sixth age, moved feebly and slowly after having observed the sun’s circuitous course repeated fourteen hundred and ninety-seven times.”161 These deformities sometimes injure the beauty of the finest parts of the poem.
The chief portion of the second half of the poem, from the sixth to the tenth canto, is thrown into shade by the first half; and the essential want of a rising interest, weakens the epic character of the whole. But these last five cantos of the Lusiad abound in classically beautiful passages; and that kind of unity at which the poet aimed is on no occasion forgotten. The description of the palace of Neptune and the sea deities in the depths of the ocean is equally charming and novel; though it must be allowed that the portrait of Triton degenerates into the grotesque. In order to omit no opportunity of interweaving into the composition of the Lusiad whatever might shed a poetic lustre on the Portuguese name, Camoens makes Velloso, for the amusement of the ship’s crew, relate the history of the Lusitanian knights, who according to Portuguese tradition, are called Os doze de Inglaterra (the twelve of England.) In the description of the storm which follows, the powerful painting of the dreadful picture once more reveals the poet who had himself passed through like scenes of danger. The same stamp of truth is apparent in the succeeding descriptions of Indian objects, which no great poet, except Camoens, has sketched from nature. The poem is not injured by the long and energetic apostrophe to the European powers, with which the seventh canto commences. According to the view to be taken by a catholic christian, Camoens was justified in extolling the national glory of Portugal above that of other christian nations, on the ground that while the Portuguese by their valour, were extending the dominion of the catholic faith, and had not, for a considerable period waged war against any of the European states, those states were contending against each other, and even in a certain measure against the church of Rome. To strengthen in some degree the poetic probability by a matter of fact, Camoens has introduced, at the period when the intercourse between the Portuguese and the Indian Prince of Calecut commences, a Moor named Monzayde, whose destiny had actually conducted him over land to India. Through this mediator, who speaks Spanish, and who finally becomes a christian, the Indians are made acquainted with the power of the Portuguese and Spanish arms. This Moor is also the interpreter, who, in the eighth canto assists Paulo da Gama in explaining the historical pictures and embroideries to the Indian ambassador. In point of poetic merit, this supplement to the abstract of the history of Portugal is far inferior to the narrative in the third and fifth cantos:—but Camoens could find no other means of accomplishing his purpose; for he was equally reluctant to omit anything which he conceived to belong to his pictures of Portuguese national glory, or to crowd too many of the events of former times into one part of his poem. None of these historical descriptions, which occupy a large portion of the eighth canto, form finished pictures; they are mere sketches, and are, in general, deficient in poetic warmth; but the ninth canto makes ample amends for this fault. The magic festival, which Venus prepares to recreate her beloved navigators after the fatigues they have encountered, is boldly conceived and charmingly executed; and in this part of the composition the poet’s fancy has revelled with evident delight. Camoens, like all the Portuguese poets of his age, next to the indulgence of heroic feeling and all powerful patriotism, was fond of luxuriantly pourtraying the passion of love. Except the fate of Inez de Castro, and the atchievements of Nuno Alvarez Pereira at the battle of Aljubarota, the poet has executed no portion of his poem with such decided predilection as the visit of the navigators to the enchanted island; and to no other part of the poem is so much space allotted in proportion to the whole. The long description of the preparations for the luxuriant festival, and of the festival itself, which commences at the eighteenth stanza of the ninth, and extends into the tenth canto, is full of picturesque beauty. Its great prolixity however, must, even according to the incorrect plan which Camoens followed, be accounted a defect in the composition. But the reader, like the poet himself, soon forgets every thing except the seductive painting, which sometimes, it must be confessed, only just respects the boundaries of decorum, which yet upon the whole offends no elevated feeling, and which has not been surpassed by any later poet in the same style. The first idea of the island of love, on which Camoens makes Venus entertain the Portuguese navigators, seems borrowed from Ariosto, but Ariosto’s description of the magic gardens of Alcina scarcely affords a groundwork for the scenes and situations in the Lusiad. There is, however, little room to doubt that Tasso, when he trod in Ariosto’s footsteps in order to describe the abode of Armida, availed himself of the description of Camoens. In the tone of frank simplicity with which the festival is announced, the character of the poet is again manifested. It is described as merely “a refreshment for restoring the exhausted strength of the navigators; some interest for those fatigues which render short life still shorter.”162 Venus, in her car drawn by doves, descends from Mount Ida in quest of Cupid. She finds him with a throng of loves employed in forging arrows. The fuel used in the process of forging is allegorically and whimsically described to be human hearts, and the red-hot arrows are cooled in tears. Cupid and his little deputies are directed to wound a number of goddesses and sea nymphs, so that every individual on board Vasco da Gama’s fleet, shall on landing on the magic island, find himself in the situation of a happy lover. Meanwhile Venus adorns the island with the loveliest charms of nature.163 On first landing, the navigators know not where they are, but they are soon satisfied with the pleasing reality without concerning themselves about the nature of the miracle which has transported them to a terrestrial heaven.164 When the festival is drawing to a close, the poet for the first time explains the object of the fiction, by stating it to be an allegorical representation of the happiness which is the reward of courage and virtue. After this cold manner of dissolving the enchantment, the unprejudiced reader feels little interest in the conclusion of the poem. The stanzas in which the prophetic nymph celebrates the future atchievements of the Portuguese are historical fragments, the connection of which must be studied in order to form a just estimate of their poetic merits and demerits. The geographic supplement which is put into the mouth of Thetis is still colder, notwithstanding the singular idea of the globe which hovers in the air, and which exalts the miracle of the geographic lecture. But thus is the sympathy of the reader the more powerfully excited by the passage towards the end of the Lusiad, where Camoens speaks of himself; which he had refrained from doing in the preceding part of the work. As he approached the close of his labour he was impressed with the conviction that no earthly happiness awaited him; and now saw “his years descending, and the transition from summer to autumn near at hand; his genius frozen by the coldness of fate, and he himself borne down by sorrow into the stream of black oblivion and eternal sleep.”165 His heart then pours fourth the epiphonema of the poem, consisting of a didactic apostrophe to his sovereign, full of loyalty, but not less abounding in honest zeal for truth, justice and virtue.
An epic poem so powerfully imbued with intensity of feeling and character as the Lusiad, naturally calls to mind Dante’s Divina Comedia, and Klopstock’s Messiah. But the Lusiad bears in other respects no more resemblance to the Messiah, than to every other great poem in which the beauties make amends for the exercise of indulgence towards numerous faults. The Lusiad presents a greater similarity to the work of Dante. Both poems are epic, though neither are epopees in the strict sense of the term. Both are singular, but truly poetic in invention; and in both the full stream of purest poetry is incessantly broken by false learning and various unpoetic excrescences. But with respect to invention the Divina Comedia is, in its original plan, trivial, and only becomes grand by the poetic filling up of the vast divisions of hell, purgatory and heaven: the Lusiad is more poetic in its outline, but not so rich in its internal parts. Finally, the two poems are distinguished by the kind of feeling which prevails in each and by a total difference of style. Dante introduced all the variety of the terrestrial world, of which he had perfect command, into the mystic region of a celestial and subterraneous existence, in which he, as a Christian, placed faith; and the whole plan of his extraordinary poem has for its object the pious apotheosis of his beloved Beatrice. Camoens glowed with patriotism and heroism; and to avoid weakening the patriotic and nationally heroic character of his poem, by the force of religious interest, he preferred introducing into his terrestrial fiction the heaven of mythology, because he felt that it afforded him the finest imagery. Dante’s style is throughout energetic, frequently rude, and always characteristic of the spirit of the extraordinary writer, who stood alone, and who in a great measure himself created the language in which he expressed his feelings. Camoens, like Ariosto, was wholly the man of his age and his country; a fact which is sufficiently evident from the delicate and luxuriant style, which he partly borrowed from Ariosto, and which he only cultivated as far as was necessary for the expression of the serious epopæia.166
The other poetic works of Camoens, appeared even in the eyes of the poet himself, when compared with the Lusiad, merely secondary effusions of his feelings and his imagination. It appears, as far as the point can be ascertained, that he never collected them himself, and many may therefore be lost. Among those productions which were collected and published after the death of Camoens, by his admirer Lobo de Soropita, under the affected title of Rhythmas, there are several which were not printed from the best and latest copies. Some other poems which escaped the notice of the first collectors, and which have only been included by modern writers among the miscellaneous productions of Camoens, may be found in a somewhat different form among the poems of the pious Diogo Bernardes. This writer, who was a contemporary and admirer of Camoens, and who was the first among the celebrated Portuguese poets of that age, to render justice to the preponderating genius of the author of the Lusiad, is now, in spite of all his piety, accused of gross plagiarism on that author. The writer of a general history of modern poetry and eloquence has, however, no occasion to take part in the controversy respecting these problematic works; for none of the disputed poems are of a kind which was new in Portuguese literature; and among the miscellaneous remains of Camoens are many pieces of similar species, the authenticity of which is undisputed.167
But the miscellaneous poems of Camoens, are calculated to involve the literary historian in another kind of embarrassment. They are, if not extremely numerous, at least sufficiently various; and among the number are many so poetically conceived, and admirably executed, that to give merely to one of each class of these minor poems that kind of detailed consideration which it has been thought necessary to bestow on the Lusiad, would be to incur the risk of converting the history of Portuguese poetry into a compendium of the history of the poetic works of Camoens. In every species of poetic composition then practised in Portugal, Camoens has left specimens of no common merit; and in some of those species his example has formed and fixed the favourite style for his native country. Indeed a careful perusal of the various productions of the author of the Lusiad, is alone sufficient to afford a summary notion of the whole range of Portuguese poetry in the sixteenth century. This will account for the preponderating authority still conceded to the works of this poet in the polite literature of his country. To that authority Portuguese critics and writers are always disposed to defer in discussing the merits of any poem; and when they wish to select a model in any particular kind of poetic composition, they invariably turn first to the works of Camoens. The predilection of the Portuguese for the greatest of their poets, has rendered them unjust towards the merits of others who have not chosen to compose in his manner. But in the poetry of Camoens the national style is combined with correctness and elegance, precisely in the manner which suited the taste of his country: and Portuguese taste has never risen above the degree of cultivation to which Camoens attained.
In sonnets the fancy of Camoens was particularly prolific. Like Tasso, he seems throughout the whole of his life to have made it a rule to compose sonnets as long as he could compose verse. The number of his sonnets which have been preserved is three hundred and one. Some appear to be occasional sonnets; and of these several are written in fictitious names. It is known that, in India, Camoens was frequently applied to for poetic aid in affairs of the heart; for according to the spirit of the age a lover could not more elegantly recommend himself to the good graces of a fair lady than by the composition of a tender sonnet; and a poet, like Camoens, who was himself so often poetically occupied with his amatory feelings, would find but little difficulty in celebrating another lady besides his own mistress. Most of his sonnets have love for their theme, and they are of very unequal merit: some are full of Petrarchic tenderness and grace, and moulded with classic correctness; others are impetuous and romantic, or disfigured by false learning, or full of tedious pictures of the conflicts of passion with reason. Upon the whole, however, no Portuguese poet has so correctly seized the character of the sonnet as Camoens. Without apparent effort, merely by the ingenious contrast of the first eight with the six last fines, he knew how to make these little effusions convey a poetic unity of ideas and impressions, after the model of the best Italian sonnets, in so natural a manner, that the first lines or quartets of the sonnet excite a soft expectation, which is harmoniously fulfilled by the tercets or six last lines.168 In this way he has occasionally imparted a romantically beautiful effect to well known stories in the sonnet form, by the introduction of a single tender idea at the close.169 Among these sonnets there are likewise some of a moral and religious character.
In the series of the minor poems of Camoens, the sonnets are succeeded by seventeen Canções (songs) written on the model of Petrarch’s canzoni. These compositions more particularly prove how deeply Camoens was penetrated with the spirit of the Petrarchic poetry. They also display the utmost elegance of language, combined with the soft harmony of the Italian verse.170 In these canções, as well as in the other poems of Camoens, the painting of natural scenery, wherever the lyric picture embraces it, presents a character of lively perception, which never could be imitated in the closet by any laboured exercise of the imagination.171
The canções are followed by twelve compositions styled odes. In their essential characteristics, these pieces are but little distinguished from the canções, though the object of the poet seems to have been that they should approximate more nearly to the ancient style. The structure of the verse corresponds with that which Ferreira and the Spanish poets, since the time of Luis de Leon, selected for this class of lyric composition. The bold fancy of Pindar, or the energy of Horace, is not to be expected in these any more than other Portuguese and Spanish odes. But Camoens never limited his poetry merely to sonorous language. The first ode is particularly distinguished for its beauty. It is addressed to the moon. The idea is mythological, like all the lofty ideas of Camoens. But in none of his other odes has the poet so well succeeded in combining the grace of antiquity with a romantic tenderness of feeling free from every trace of affectation. The commencement is in the pure ode style. The poet invokes his muse to stem “the current of lovers’ tears, and attired in a rich and gay robe to do homage to the goddess who converts night into day.” He then addresses the goddess of the moon herself, she “whose silver beam penetrates the thick clouds, and prevents night from obscuring the image which love traces and re-traces in his heart; she whose pure forehead is crowned and encircled with stars; she who strews the plains with roses and with flowers, created by spring through her heavenly influence.”172 But a still finer passage occurs at the conclusion of the ode, where the poet bids farewell to night, “the silent friend whom he obeys; and, that she may listen to his complaints, presents to her roses and fresh amaranth still wet with the tears of the fair bride of the jealous Titan.”173
The odes are followed by some Sextinas, the artificial beauty of which Camoens has not failed to render pleasing. His one-and-twenty elegies are, however, more worthy of particular attention. Next to the Lusiad these compositions may in general be numbered among the longer poems of the author, and also among those in which the poet is most frequently represented in his real character as a man. Camoens had, however, no correct notion of the elegiac style. Like Ferreira, he blended it with the epistolary. But such a junction is no less detrimental to the tenderness than to the unity of the elegiac character, and in general deprives elegy of half its poetic interest. Were the language less copious and facund, this method of confounding the boundaries of the elegiac and the epistolary styles, would be still more striking. But the harmonious softness and rich flow of the expression, even where it approaches to prolixity, establish, at least, in a certain degree, a unity of character among the heterogeneous ingredients of which the elegy of Camoens is composed.174 The feeble and tedious passages are readily overlooked, as they are amply counterbalanced by others possessing real elegiac beauty:175 and the occasional deficiencies of these elegies in the poetry appropriate to their class, are compensated by the inappropriate, in which the poetic character of Camoens is every where prominent. The romantic soul of the unfortunate poet is completely unveiled in his elegiac compositions. His earliest productions in this class were written in his youth, when he was exiled to Belem; the others are expressive of the feelings which he experienced in his oriental voyages and adventures. There he fondly cherished recollections of the tranquil happiness which he persuaded himself he had enjoyed in his native country, though he had indignantly abandoned it as a place to existence in which he could not be reconciled. The common fate of humanity, which, independently of his personal circumstances, he always viewed profoundly and poetically, was in India more than ever present to his imagination; and in his elegies he has poured forth, without restraint, all the feelings of his heart. Thus is sympathy more powerfully excited by these compositions than by many of the same class, the beauties of which are of a less prosaic character. No other works of the poet so irresistibly command the reader’s regret for his misfortunes, and love for him as a man.
A few poems, widely differing from each other in character, are printed under the common title of estancias, (stanzas) because they are all composed in Italian octaves. Camoens seems to have felt that in Portuguese, as in Italian, this measure was, in universality of application, nearly equivalent to the Greek hexameter, because it was capable of being united and blended with most of the romantic poetic forms, in the same manner as that hexameter with the different styles of ancient poetry. The three first poems which occur under the title of estancias, are truly poetic epistles, and at the same time faithful mirrors of the character and principles of the poet. Through them Camoens, in a spirit of fervent loyalty, but with a no less honest zeal for truth and justice, addresses useful advice to his sovereign. The estancias which immediately succeed these epistles, are glosses in the Spanish manner on two of the author’s own sonnets. A tender epistle addressed to a lady, is the subject of the next: and the last estancias form an epic legend, which, with some alterations, also appears among the works of Bernardes. It is founded on the history of St. Ursula. Whether this epic legend be really the production of Camoens, or of his admirer Bernardes, it far excels Ferreira’s similar talc of St. Colomba, though the materials are less poetic.
Among the miscellaneous poems of Camoens, the eclogues occupy a considerable space, particularly if we include those of which Bernardes claimed to be the author. Much care appears to have been taken to give them an elegant polish. By the Portuguese they are regarded as models; and according to the received idea of the modern eclogue, particularly in Spain and Portugal, they certainly deserve that distinction. But with all their unquestionable merits, they do not reach the pure eclogue style of Saa de Miranda. The rural character which they ought to possess, is besides much impaired, in consequence of Camoens having, like Ferreira, employed the bucolic form merely to give a poetic interest to events borrowed from real life. This indeed was a custom which had been more or less followed in Portuguese poetry since the time of Ribeyro, and of which even Saa de Miranda did not disdain to avail himself. But those Portuguese poets who endeavoured to form their eclogue style after Saa de Miranda, were in general content with pastoral names and pastoral scenes, when they wished to throw a bucolic disguise over known characters and events; and thus the spirit of pastoral poetry often entirely vanished in those compositions in which its form was most ostentatiously displayed. The eclogues of Camoens partake of this essential fault. Still, however, they are sufficiently pleasing even without the aid of the historical key, with which the reader would doubtless willingly dispense. The descriptive passages are in general the best. In the expression of sentiment these eclogues perfectly resemble the sonnets, canções, and similar poems with which in reality they constitute one species. Passages in the Spanish language are occasionally interspersed.
In the collected works of Camoens, a separation is made of his poems in the Italian style and the Italian syllabic measure, from those which are composed in redondilhas, and which afford examples of an improved national style. In this style also he has enriched every species of poetic composition practised in Portugal and Spain. Much and justly celebrated are the redondilhas in which he poured forth the inmost feelings of his soul, on his return from Macao to Goa, after he had narrowly escaped death by shipwreck.176 The number of his smaller poems, in all the possible forms of the old lyric style, proves how much, as a poet, he was attached to his native country. Romantic, gallant and comic plays of fancy and wit, glossed mottos in the Spanish style, voltas177 in the genuine Portuguese manner, and other poetic trifles in the Portuguese and Spanish languages, appear to have been dealt out at every opportunity with a profuse hand by Camoens. In these compositions he paid no rigid attention to the correctness and elegance of the ideas, and indeed no mental sport of this kind seems to have been too homely for him. He even composed in honour of a lady, a romantic mythological a b c in redondilhas, in which, in correspondence with the initial letters, the names Artemisia, Cleopatra, Dido, Eurydice, Phædra, (spelt Fedra, according to the Italianized orthography of Camoens) Galatæa, &c. are played on in succession. But in some of these compositions, the simplicity and amenity of the old lyric style are combined with a peculiar grace, which alternately defies178 and disarms179 the severity of criticism.
The same national spirit which prevented the patriotic Camoens from rejecting the old lyric forms of the Portuguese poetry, induced him to write several dramas, and thus to leave no kind of poetic composition unattempted. It is not known at what period of his life these dramatic works were produced; but it is probable that they were written previously to his departure for India. They belong more completely to the age of Camoens than to the poet himself. They are, however, highly deserving of attention, though they should be merely considered as the last proofs of the poetic versatility and plastic genius of an author who comprised his whole age within himself, as far as a Portuguese national poet could accommodate himself to his age. Camoens was too much a poet to wish to supplant the national drama of his native country, however rude it then might be, by a prosaically modelled imitation of the ancient drama. He adhered to the party formed by the Spanish dramatist Naharro, and his ingenious countryman Gil Vicente. But his determination to dramatic poetry was not sufficiently decided to enable him to fix, by his productions, the taste of the Portuguese nation. Had the genius which animates the Lusiad, taken a dramatic direction, Camoens would have been the Calderon of Portugal, before a Lope de Vega had arisen in Spain. But Camoens in the composition of his dramas contented himself with slightly overstepping the bounds of Gil Vicente’s manner, and with refining, also, only in a slight degree, the construction of the plot and the language. The rudest of the three dramas, which are now attached as a supplement to the other works of the author, is, El Rey Seleuco, (King Seleucus) a singular production, founded on the well known anecdote of the history of that monarch, who resigned his wife Stratonice to his son Antiochus, lest the youth should fall a sacrifice to the passion of love. Camoens seems to have had no idea of treating this delicate subject in a sentimental way. The burlesque prelude or prologue, as it is called, in prose, is calculated to raise the expectation of a farce rather then of a serious drama. The theatrical manager, a lad who acts as his servant, a man of condition, who presents himself as a spectator, and his escudeiro, (attendant) are the characters in this prologue. The manager’s servant is the gracioso of the piece, and his jokes are at least so far useful that they afford an idea of the kind of wit which was at that time relished by the fashionable world in Lisbon. The drama itself, to which this prologue is the introduction, is entitled a comedy in the Spanish acceptation of the term, and is likewise denominated an auto, probably because royal personages are brought upon the scene, a circumstance which according to the Portuguese notions of poetry in that age elevated the piece above a mere comedy. The historical material is moulded according to the romantic forms; the composition is not only inartificial but trivial; and in the execution the ludicrous is quite as prevalent as the comic. The king and queen first enter, to converse on the melancholy state of the prince, and the king takes the opportunity of lamenting that he is no longer young enough for so fair a consort. The prince next appears attended by his pages, to whom he complains of his passion, but without naming the beloved object. The king and queen in vain endeavour to ascertain the cause of the prince’s grief, and orders are given to prepare a bed for him. A bed is introduced on the stage, and a chamber-maid who is engaged in making it, is surprised by her lover in disguise, who is a porteiro (usher) of the castle. This scene is altogether an interlude in the romantic style. The prince again enters, and after many tender complaints betakes himself to bed. A band of music arrives to sooth him while he reposes. One of the musicians named Alexander de Fonseca, enters into conversation with the usher and a page, concerning the melancholy of the prince. With the consent of the prince the usher sings a romance, and the queen again enters with an attendant. Various scenes thus succeed each other, until the physician by feeling the prince’s pulse, discovers the secret. The catastrophe is merely a representation of the dose of the anecdote, without any reference to the queen, who is resigned by the father to the son, like an article of household furniture. The physician in this comedy is a Spaniard. He is made a native of Castile in order that one of the characters might speak Spanish, and thus introduce a variety into the dialogue which it appears was agreeable to a Lisbon audience. The dialogue is in other respects natural, and the versification in redondilhas is pleasing and not devoid of elegance. But there is not a single excellent scene to compensate for the grotesque frivolity of the composition. It is impossible to consider this work as any thing else than a mere juvenile essay of such a poet as Camoens.
The second comedy of Camoens, Os Amphitryões, (the Amphitryons), was, however, a valuable contribution to the dramatic literature of Portugal. The merit of the invention of this purely comic piece, belongs indeed to Plautus, whose Amphitryon Camoens has freely imitated. But even the imitation must have marked an epoch in the history of the dramatic literature of Portugal, had the public been inclined to favour so happy a combination of the national and ancient forms. Any one unacquainted with the Amphitryon of Plautus would regard the Portuguese comedy as an original. The whole story of the piece is modernized without weakening the comic force of the situations. Jupiter indeed remains unchanged; but Mercury who attends him in his disguise, performs the servant in the true Portuguese style. Amphitryon is a sea captain, according to the Portuguese idea of that character. The servant of Amphitryon is converted into a perfect gracioso, who speaks Spanish, but still retains the name of Sosia. The humour of the burlesque scenes in which Sosia appears, is heightened by making Mercury, who converses with Jupiter in Portuguese, always speak Spanish, when he plays his part as the pseudo Sosia. It would be worth while to ascertain whether this pleasant comedy is ever performed in Lisbon.
Filodemo, the third comedy of Camoens, is one of those dramatized novels, of which the Spanish theatre afterwards afforded many examples. It is not a drama of intrigue, but a variegated collection of grave and half comic scenes, which are combined together as a whole by their common reference to the result of a singular event. That event is the saving of two twins, a boy and a girl, whose mother is a princess of Denmark. A shepherd finds the twins and brings them up. Shepherds and shepherdesses, gentlemen and ladies, a waiting woman, a hunter, and other characters of a similar kind, form the romantic groupe. The scene is sometimes in town in the open streets, or within a house; sometimes in the country, and among barren mountains. The denouement is the most trivial part of the whole composition. It is brought about by a shepherd initiated in the art of magic, who, by his necromantic skill, discovers the parentage of the twins, and by this discovery removes the obstacles which impede the happy issue of two parallel love stories. In this drama Camoens has interspersed, and evidently not without design, scenes in prose among scenes in verse. In conformity with his inclination to unite all manners, he was desirous of approximating to the party, which on the pretext of adhering strictly to nature endeavoured to banish verse from Portuguese comedy. He accordingly gives the dialogue in prose where the conversation is entirely of a popular character; and whenever the style becomes somewhat elevated, redondilhas are again introduced. Some of the shepherds speak Spanish, and among them a lad who is the bobo (buffoon) of the piece. Thus it would appear that Camoens in all his dramas, sought to exercise the right of retaliation upon the Spanish poets, who were fond of making their gracioso, or buffoon, express himself in Galician or Portuguese. The jokes in the Spanish language which Camoens has in this instance put into the mouth of his gracioso, would be sufficiently unpolished even if they were less broad and spiritless.180
MONTEMAYOR.
From Camoens, whose name now becomes a waymark for the whole domain of Portuguese poetry, the historian of that poetry cannot properly revert to the classic school of Ferreira, without previously reviving the recollection of Jorge de Montemayor, who was a contemporary of Camoens and Ferreira. The history of the life and writings of this excellent poet, belongs indeed rather to the literature of Spain than to that of Portugal.181 But the spirit of the pastoral romance of Diana, by which Montemayor gained immortal fame, is in fact the spirit of Portuguese poetry transfused into the Spanish language. Without being an imitator of Ribeyro,182 Montemayor followed in the same path with the same kind of susceptibility to impressions. But the cultivated delicacy of his feeling, and the romantic enthusiasm of his imagination, rendered him the first poet who enlarged and dignified the plain antiquated form of the Portuguese pastoral romance. He renewed and riveted the old link of connection between the Spanish and the Portuguese poetry. Had he confined himself to writing in his native tongue, he would probably have been succeeded by a Portuguese Gil Polo;183 and the romantic pastoral poetry of the Portuguese would then have remained single in its kind. But Montemayor composed verses in the Portuguese language only for the sake of variety, and not with the view of extending the sphere of Portuguese poetry.184
CLASSICAL SCHOOL OF SAA DE MIRANDA AND ANTONIO FERREIRA.
The comparatively correct style of poetry introduced into Portuguese literature by Saa de Miranda, and the still more coldly correct style of Antonio de Ferreira, though favoured by that portion of the polite world which valued a reputation for learning, were but little esteemed by the great bulk of the public. The poets of this sect may fairly be said to constitute a classical school, without thereby admitting them to an equal rank with the incorrect men of genius whose irregular effusions could scarcely fail to possess more poetic character, than other works which are now to be noticed; such, for example, as the poems of Andrade Caminha, who formed himself entirely on the model of Ferreira. The efforts made by the poets of this classic school to attain the correctness of the ancients seem to have checked their powers of fancy, and it may be presumed that imaginations which were so easily repressed, could not be very creative and energetic. Those who, like some modern German writers would, in defiance of every rule of language, render genius the measure of classic excellence, must find a new term to designate that poetry, the greatest merit of which is the elegant perfection and pure rounding of poetic forms after the example of the ancients. This, which is in other respects an inferior style of poetry, is nevertheless held in consideration by all cultivated nations. To reject it as altogether worthless would indeed be very unjust, since it serves to shew how judgment, talent, and taste, can by the study of ancient models, produce, even without the aid of genius, a certain kind of poetic beauty, which is not unmeritorious, though it frequently presents scarcely a shadow of that pure and sublime beauty which is the offspring of real genius. Poetry of this kind is therefore styled classical, merely in reference to a certain degree of affinity which its forms bear to the classical forms of Greek and Roman art.
ANDRADE CAMINHA.
One of the warmest friends, admirers and imitators of Ferreira, was Pedro de Andrade Caminha, Camareiro (gentleman of the chamber) at the court of the Infante Dom Duarte, brother to King John III. He survived his friend Ferreira six-and-twenty years. During his life his poems seem rather to have been esteemed by a small circle of connoisseurs and dilettanti, than to have been favourites with the public. Thus it happened that at that period they were only circulated in manuscript, and that afterwards, with the exception of a few which had been admitted into spiritual collections, they totally disappeared; they have, however, been recently discovered, and have been printed at the expense of the Portuguese Royal Society.185 Andrade Caminha seems to have had no notion of any thing more perfect in poetic composition than the works of his friend Ferreira, who, however, barely avoided the dangerous boundary where poetry ends and versified prose begins. Caminha’s compositions in elegant verse are, however, still more deficient in genuine poetry, than the works of Ferreira, and indeed they can scarcely be termed poems. His eclogues are cold, and their coldness is the more striking, as they are intended to express forcibly the language of romantic love. His epistles are better deserving of attention. They possess just about as much poetic warmth as is necessary to maintain the character of didactic poems. In these epistles Caminha, as a painter of manners and a moralist, alternately describes and reasons energetically and without pedantry in the style of Ferreira, and his unassuming manner gives more effect to the agreeable colouring of that style.186 But Andrade Caminha is by no means so rich in ideas as Ferreira. He limits the circle of his free reflections, by constant reference to the relations in which he lived. In the epistles to his brother, and in those to Ferreira, he, however, indulges in a more unconstrained expression of feeling.187 Of all these epistles, the seventeenth, in which he inveighs against impertinent critics, possesses most didactic merit.188 Andrade Caminha seems to have supposed that he possessed a particular talent for elegiac poetry. Twenty of the elegies he composed are still preserved, exclusive of many songs of complaining love in redondilhas, to which the title of elegies is likewise given. But the sorrow for the death of the royal personages and ingenious friends, which is lavished in the first half of Caminha’s elegies, and the tender anguish occasioned by the inexorableness of his beloved Phyllis, which appears in the second half, seldom rouses any poetic sympathy in the reader, notwithstanding the beauty of language with which the sorrow and anguish are expressed. In some of the elegies to Phyllis, the descriptions of natural scenery possess considerable merit.189
But the most remarkable of all Caminha’s works are his epitaphs and epigrams, of which no Portuguese poet has bequeathed so many to posterity. His Epitafios which amount to eighty-one, and his Epigrammas which exceed two hundred and fifty in number, are almost all written in octave verse. In these little pictures of reflection and sentiment, which derive so much of their value from correctness and elegance, a limited fancy aided by solid taste is capable of rising above the level of prose. The labour which Andrade Caminha bestowed on the composition of his epitaphs and epigrams, sufficiently proves that he felt what was his proper vocation at the foot of Parnassus. But even there he could not travel without a guide, and the spirit of his age induced him to choose Ausonius for his conductor. He had, like Ausonius, sufficient talent for the proper keeping of the tenderness, precision and energy which distinguish the serious epigram of the Greeks; but in his imitation of the style of the Greek epigram, he missed the refined correctness of Ausonius by confounding poetic with prosaic simplicity. Of the eighty-one epitaphs which Caminha composed in honour of celebrated and exalted individuals, not one can claim an equal rank with the best ancient productions of the same kind. In most of them the reader finds only dry encomiums accompanied by trivial reflections.190 In others the ideas rise but very little above the level of the commonest observation.191 In Caminha’s epitaphs the result of the epigrammatic compound of the ideas, where he wishes to be uncommon, has sometimes a singularly frigid effect; as, for example, when speaking of the hero Affonso d’Albuquerque, he pompously says: “He sprang from kings, he honoured kings, and he subdued kings.”192 Even the language of powerful feeling sinks, as in the epitaph on Ferreira, beneath the common place of the reflections.193 The serious epigrams are more ingenious, though even they are, for the most part, merely agreeable plays of fancy.194 In some the formality of the diction produces a very happy effect; in others the epigrammatic expression of feeling displays an astonishing degree of romantic intensity;195 a few are truly excellent.196 To this last class, however, the comic epigrams of Caminha do not belong. A truly comic turn of thought is scarcely ever to be found in them, and it is only occasionally that they betray a poignant conceit.197 But it must be acknowledged that a poet of more fertile fancy would find it difficult to write nineteen strictly comic epigrams on an ugly face, (a uma feissima.)
BERNARDES.
Diogo Bernardes was the friend of Andrade Caminha, and like him an admirer and disciple of Ferreira. He was capable of receiving more lively impressions than Caminha, and he passed less tranquilly through life. At first he only endeavoured to distinguish himself as a poet, and he succeeded in gaining a degree of celebrity in his native town Ponte de Lima, whence he is called the poet of Lima. He then wished to become the historian of his native country, but in this undertaking he did not experience the support on which he had calculated. It is probable that he became intimately acquainted with Ferreira at the court of Lisbon. Desirous of entering upon a life of active occupation, he visited the court of Philip II. at Madrid, where he resided for some time in quality of secretary to the Portuguese embassy. Fate at length involved him in the unfortunate expedition of King Sebastian. After fighting valiantly in the battle of Alcacer Seguer in Africa, he was made prisoner by the victorious Moors. During his captivity he composed several elegies and spiritual songs. On recovering his freedom he returned to his native country where he lived until the year 1596. Since his death he has been the object of severe animadversion, owing particularly to the supposition, which has already been noticed, of his having appropriated to himself some poems of Camoens. But were there no reason to doubt the fact of this plagiarism, Bernardes has sufficiently suffered for it in the esteem of posterity, by the unjust depreciation of his poetic talent in the critical writings of some Portuguese authors of the seventeenth century, more particularly in those of Manoel de Faria e Sousa, with whom this tone of criticism originated. In the eighteenth century, however, justice was rendered both to him and to Ferreira.198 Without striking out a new course in poetry, and indeed without paying any rigid regard to the distinction between poetry and prose, Bernardes evinces a far greater share of poetic feeling than Ferreira; and, as a poet, if not as an elegant versifier, he is far superior to Andrade Caminha. His spiritual poems are among the very best in the class to which they belong. The title which he gave them, namely:—“Miscellaneous poems to the good Jesus, and the glorious Virgin his mother, &c.”199 is quite in the spirit of the poetry of the catholic religion. But Bernardes was not capable of viewing catholic Christianity on its only true poetic side, that is to say, the bold character of a miraculous working faith. He confined himself to the representation of the inconceivable grace of the Saviour, of the anguish of heart which the sinner should feel in the deep consciousness of his unworthiness, and of similar dogmata, which certainly may be expressed in poetic phrases, but which unavoidably fetter the imagination, and convert even hymns into litanies.200 It is only through a pious childishness of feeling, to which catholic Christianity gives birth, that some portion of poetic life has been imparted to the spiritual songs, sonnets, and estancias of Bernardes. That feeling led him to introduce into his sonnets to the holy virgin, a mixture of romantic love; for example, when the poet complains to the virgin that he loves something beside herself;201 or, when he admires her beauty in a picture, and reflects how beautiful she herself must be. The spiritual songs in the popular style, which are included among the works of Bernardes, are written in Spanish. The temporal songs, elegies, and sonnets of this poet, have the same soft and infantine character, and are therefore not inappropriately presented to the public as an appendix to his pictures of spiritual feeling.202 A few elegies which he composed during his captivity among the Moors,203 and some endechas in the old national style,204 belong to this class. Bernardes has also left behind him eclogues, epistles, and numerous sonnets. His epistles shew the veneration he entertained for the critical judgment of Ferreira, whose cold style, however, certainly could not please him.205 Many of his sonnets are expressive of the homage with which he submitted his poetry to the judgment of Ferreira, as he did his faith to the doctrines of the church. The elegy in which he laments the death of Ferreira may, therefore, be numbered among his sincerest effusions of the heart.206
CORTEREAL.
In the same school of correct poetry with Andrade Caminha and Bernardes, arose the ingenious Jeronymo Cortereal, another of those chivalrous spirits of the sixteenth century, for whom every ordinary sphere of life was too limited. Ambitious of doing honour to his country and his distinguished family, he served in the Portuguese army against the infidels in Asia and Africa. He afterwards settled on his estate near Evora. In his residence, which was situated on a hill, and surrounded by rude precipices, and which commanded an extensive view of the surrounding country, he devoted himself to poetic composition; and sometimes, for the sake of variety, turned his attention to music and painting. This romantic abode of the muses charmed even the cold-hearted Philip II. of Spain, when he visited his kingdom of Portugal. Cortereal, who on that occasion, rendered homage to the new sovereign in verse, had previously often been unfaithful to his native tongue. He is included in the number of those Spanish poets, who indefatigably but vainly vied with each other to convert historical art into epic art, and to produce a Spanish national epopee.207—He related in Spanish verse and in a poem of fifteen cantos, the history of the battle of Lepanto, which has given occasion to so much Spanish poetry of every description. In the Portuguese language, he wrote two poems of a similar kind, which, at the time of their production were very much esteemed. The subject of one is the siege of the Portuguese garrison of Diu in India, which was valiantly defended by the Governor, Mascarenhas. In the other of these works Cortereal relates in the same style, the hapless story of Manoel de Souza and his wife, who on their return from India were shipwrecked on the coast of Africa, and who after wandering about for a considerable time, perished among the savages. To impart poetic decoration to prosaic events of this kind, borrowed from the history of the period, was the prevailing fashion of the day in Spain and Portugal; and to banish such narrations from the region of poetry, was an idea that never suggested itself to any poet, still less to the public.208
OTHER PORTUGUESE POETS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY—FERREIRA DE VASCONCELLOS; RODRIGUEZ DE CASTRO; LOBO DE SOROPITA; &c.
Unconnected with this classical school, which became extinct about the close of the sixteenth century, several Portuguese poets pursued their own course, nearly in the same manner as Camoens, though not with the same success. Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcellos, for example, a man of considerable acquirements, who held a distinguished post in Lisbon, rendered himself celebrated as the writer of several comedies which were much esteemed. He was also the author of a new romance of the Round Table.209
At a somewhat later period lived Estevam Rodriguez de Castro, a poet, and at the same time a learned physician, who was invited to Italy by the grand duke of Tuscany. He is the author of various sonnets, odes and eclogues.
Fernando Rodriguez Lobo de Soropita, the publisher of the miscellaneous poems of Camoens, likewise belongs to this age. Besides his juridical works, he was the author of various pieces of humour in verse.
The present opportunity may be taken to mention the latin verses, which were at this period still current in Portugal, and by the composition of which, men of education, and even men in office of the first rank, endeavoured to obtain a place near the ancient classics, without interfering with the poets who adhered to their vernacular tongue. The learned statesman Miguel de Cabedo de Vasconcellos, who resided for several years in France, was particularly distinguished as a writer of latin verse. Ancient literature seems, at this time, to have had a powerful influence on the education of the Portuguese nobility; and as, at this period, all the most celebrated Portuguese poets belonged to noble families, it cannot be doubted that, the invisible link between the Portuguese and latin poetry, was then much stronger than the visible one, which never can be mistaken in the works of these poets.
To enumerate the remaining names of the Portuguese poets of the age of Camoens, is a task which must be resigned to the writer, whose object it may be to pursue more minutely the details of this particular department of literature. Another Portuguese classic of the sixteenth century, must, however, be included among the number of those poets, who, in a general history of modern poetry and eloquence, are the more worthy to be placed in a conspicuous light, in proportion as they are little celebrated beyond the confines of their native land.