Thy worth, great chief, the pale-lipt régent cries, They waive their eager canes betipt with fire; His cold flow lingering, and impatient cries, A brother's vengeance for a brother's blood He spake; and stern the dreadful warrior stood; So feem'd the terrors of his awful nod, The monarch trembled as before a god; The treacherous Moors funk down in faint difmay, Abrupt, with out-stretch'd arms, the monarch & cries, Soft came the eastern gale on balmy wings: Reluctant ɛ Abrupt—the monarch cries-What yet may fave-Gama's declaration, that no meffage from him to the fleet could alter the orders he had already left, and his rejection of any farther treaty, have a neceffary effect in the conduct of the poem. They hasten the catastrophe, and give a verifimilitude to the abrupt and full fubmiffion of the Zamorim. h the rollers-The capftones.-The capftone is a cylindrical windlafs, worked with bars, which are moved from hole to hole as it turns round. Reluctant dragg'd, the flime-brown'd anchors raise; Some bending o'er the yard-arm's length on high The flapping fails their widening folds diftend, And measured echoing fhouts their fweaty toils attend. All these provided by the faithful Moor, All these, and India's gems, the navy bore: The round. It is used to weigh the anchors, raise mafts, &c. The name roller describes both the machine and its ufe, and it may be`prefumed, is a more poetical word than capftone. The verfification of this paffage in the original affords a most noble example of imitative harmony: Mas ja nas nuos os bons trabalhadores Volvem o cabreftante, & repartidos Pello trabalho, huns puxao pella amarra, Outros quebrao eo peito duro a barra. The Moor attends, Mozaide, whofe zealous care i To GAMA's eyes unveil'd each treach'rous fnare: Oh, favour'd African, by heaven's own light k To Gama's eyes reveal'd each treach'rous fnare. With Had this been mentioned fooner, the intereft of the catastrophe of the poem must have languifhed. Though he is not a warrior, the unexpected friend of Gama bears a much more confiderable part in the action of the Lufiad, than the faithful Achates, the friend of the hero, bears in the business of the Eneid. k There waft thou call'd to thy celeftial home.- -This exclamatory address to the Moor Monzaida, however it may appear digreffive, has a double propriety. The converfion of the eastern world is the great purpose of the expedition of Gama, and Monzaida is the firft fruits of that converfion. The good characters of the victorious heroes, however neglected by the great genius of Homer, have a fine effect in making an epic poem intereft us and please. It might have been said, that Monzaida was a traitor to his friends, and who crowned his villainy with apoftacy. Camoëns has therefore wifely drawn him with other features, worthy of the friendship of Gama. Had this been neglected, the hero of the Lufiad might have shared the fate of the wife Ulyffes of the Iliad, against whom, as Voltaire justly observes, every reader bears a fecret ill will. Nor is the poetical character of Monzaida unfupported by history. He was not an Arab Moor, fo he did not defert his countrymen. By force thefe Moors had determined on the destruction of Gama: Monzaida admired and esteemed him, and therefore generously revealed to him his danger. By his attachment to Gama he lost all his effects in India, a circumstance which his prudence and knowledge of affairs must have certainly foreseen. By the known dangers he encountered, by the lofs he thus voluntarily fustained, and by his after conftancy, his fincerity is undoubtedly proved. With ruftling found now fwell'd the steady fail; On full spread wings the navy springs away, And mix their dim blue fummits with the fky: To dare once more the dangers dearly try'd Soon to the winds are these cold fears refign'd, And all their country rushes on the mind; How sweet to view their native land, how sweet How fweet to tell what woes, what toils they bore, The We are now 1 The joy of the fleet on the homeward departure from India. come to that part of the Lufiad, which, in the conduct of the poem, is parallel to the great catastrophe of the Iliad, when on the death of Hector, Achilles thus addreffes the Grecian army, |