Some, blindly wand'ring, holy faith disclaim,1
And, fierce through all, wild rages civil flame.
High sound the titles of the English crown,
"King of Jerusalem, "2 his old renown!
Alas, delighted with an airy name,
The thin, dim shadow of departed fame,
England's stern monarch, sunk in soft repose,
Luxurious riots mid his northern snows:
Or, if the starting burst of rage succeed,
His brethren are his foes, and Christians bleed;
While Hagar's brutal race his titles stain,
En weeping Salem unmolested reign,

3

5

And with their rites impure her holy shrines profane.
And thou, O Gaul, with gaudy trophies plum'd.
"Most Christian nam'd; alas, in vain assum'd!
What impious lust of empire steels thy breast
From their just lords the Christian lands to wrest!
While holy faith's hereditary foes
Possess the treasures where Cynifio flows;
And all secure, behold their harvests smile
In waving gold along the banks of Nile.
And thou, O lost to glory, lost to fame,
Thou dark oblivion of thy ancient name,

6

1 Some blindly wand'ring, holy faith disclaim.-At the time when Camoëns wrote, the German empire was plunged into all the miseries of a religious war, the Catholics using every endeavour to rivet the chains of Popery, the adherents of Luther as strenuously endeavouring to shake them off.

2

High sound the titles of the English crown,
King of Jerusalem.—

The title of "King of Jerusalem" was never assumed by the kings of
England. Robert, duke of Normandy, son of William the Conqueror,
was elected King of Jerusalem by the army in Syria, but declined it
in hope of ascending the throne of England. Henry VIII. filled the
throne of England when our author wrote: his luxury and conjugal
brutality amply deserved the censure of the honest poet.

3 France.

What impious lust of empire steels thy breast.-The French translator very cordially agrees with the Portuguese poet in the strictures upon Germany, England, and Italy.

5 The Mohammedans.

Where Cynifio flows.-A river in Africa, near Tripoli.-VIRGIL, Georg. iii. 311.-Ed.

By every vicious luxury debas'd,

Each noble passion from thy breast eras'd,
Nerveless in sloth, enfeebling arts thy boast,
O Italy, how fall'n, how low, how lost!1
In vain, to thee, the call of glory sounds,
Thy sword alone thy own soft bosom wounds.

Ah, Europe's sons, ye brother-powers, in you
The fables old of Cadmus 2 now are true;

10 Italy! how fall'n, how low, how lost!--However these severe reflections on modern Italy may displease the admirers of Italian manners, the picture on the whole is too just to admit of confutation. Never did the history of any court afford such instances of villainy and all the baseness of intrigue as that of the pope's. That this view of the lower ranks in the pope's dominions is just, we have the indubitable testimony of Addison. Our poet is justifiable in his censures, for he only follows the severe reflections of the greatest of the Italian poets. It were easy to give fifty instances; two or three, however, shall suffice. Dante, in his sixth canto, del Purg.

Ahi, serva Italia, di dolore ostello,

Nave senza nocchiero in gran tempesta,

Non donna di provincie, bordello.

"Ah, slavish Italy, the inn of dolour, a ship without a pilot in a horrid tempest:-not the mistress of provinces, but a brothel!" Ariosto, canto 17:

O d'ogni vitio fetida sentina

Dormi Italia imbriaco.

"O inebriated Italy, thou sleepest the sink of every filthy vice!"
And Petrarch :-

Del' empia Babilonia, ond' è fuggita
Ogni vergogna, ond' ogni bene è fuori,
Albergo di dolor, madre d' errori

Son fuggit' io per allungar la vita.

"From the impious Babylon (the Papal Court) from whence all shame and all good are fled, the inn of dolour, the mother of errors, have I hastened away to prolong my life."

2 The fables old of Cadmus.-Cadmus having slain the dragon which guarded the fountain of Dirce, in Boeotia, sowed the teeth of the monster. A number of armed men immediately sprang up, and surrounded Cadmus, in order to kill him. By the counsel of Minerva he threw a precious stone among them, in striving for which they slew one another. Only five survived, who afterwards assisted him to build the city of Thebes.-Vid. Ovid. Met. iv.

Terrigenæ pereunt per mutua vulnera fratres.

battly Muslims

Fierce rose the brothers from the dragon teeth,
And each fell, crimson'd with a brother's death.
So, fall the bravest of the Christian name,
While dogs unclean Messiah's lore blaspheme,
And howl their curses o'er the holy tomb,
While to the sword the Christian race they doom.
From age to age, from shore to distant shore,
By various princes led, their legions pour;
United all in one determin'd aim,

From ev'ry land to blot the Christian name.
Then wake, ye brother-powers, combin'd awake,
And, from the foe the great example take.
If empire tempt ye, lo, the East expands,
Fair and immense, her summer-garden lands:
There, boastful Wealth displays her radiant store;
Pactol and Hermus' streams, o'er golden ore,
Roll their long way; but, not for you they flow,
Their treasures blaze on the stern sultan's brow:
For him Assyria plies the loom of gold,

8

And Afric's sons their deepest mines unfold
To build his haughty throne. Ye western powers,
To throw the mimic bolt of Jove is yours,
Yours all the art to wield the arms of fire,
Then, bid the thunders of the dreadful tire
Against the walls of dread Byzantium & roar,
Till, headlong driven from Europe's ravish'd shore
To their cold Scythian wilds, and dreary dens,
By Caspian mountains, and uncultur'd fens,
(Their fathers' seats beyond the Wolgian Lake,1)
The barb'rous race of Saracen betake.
And hark, to you the woful Greek exclaims;
The Georgian fathers and th' Armenian dames,

1 So fall the bravest of the Christian name,
While dogs unclean.—

Imitated from a fine passage in Lucan, beginning

Quis furor, O Cives! quæ tanta licentia ferri,
Gentibus invisis Latium præbere cruorem?

2 The Mohammedans.

3 Constantinople.

Beyond the Wolgian Lake.-The Caspian Sea, so called from the large river Volga, or Wolga, which empties itself into it.

Their fairest offspring from their bosoms torn,
(A dreadful tribute !)1 loud imploring mourn.
Alas, in vain their offspring captive led,
In Hagar's sons' unhallow'd temples bred,
To rapine train'd, arise a brutal host,
The Christian terror, and the Turkish boast.

2

crits Europe

VIP Defenders of the farth

Yet sleep, ye powers of Europe, careless sleep,
To you in vain your eastern brethren weep;
Yet, not in vain their woe-wrung tears shall sue,
Though small the Lusian realms, her legions few,
The guardian oft by Heav'n ordain'd before,
The Lusian race shall guard Messiah's lore.
When Heav'n decreed to crush the Moorish foe
Heav'n gave the Lusian spear to strike the blow.
When Heav'n's own laws o'er Afric's shores were heard,
The sacred shrines the Lusian heroes rear'd;
Nor shall their zeal in Asia's bounds expire,
Asia, subdu'd, shall fume with hallow'd fire.
When the red sun the Lusian shore forsakes,
And on the lap of deepest west * awakes,
O'er the wild plains, beneath unincens'd skies
The sun shall view the Lusian altars rise.
And, could new worlds by human step be trod,
Those worlds should tremble at the Lusian nod."

8

1 Their fairest offspring from their bosoms torn,
(A dreadful tribute!)—

66

By this barbarous policy the tyranny of the Ottomans was long
sustained. The troops of the Turkish infantry and cavalry, known by
the name of Janissaries and Spahis, were thus supported.
"The sons
of Christians-and those the most completely furnished by nature-
were taken in their childhood from their parents by a levy made every
five years, or oftener, as occasion required."-SANDYS.

2 Mohammedans.

3 O'er Afric's shores

The sacred shrines the Lusian heroes rear'd.

See the note on book v. p. 137.

Of deepest west.-Alludes to the discovery and conquest of the Brazils by the Portuguese.

5 The poet, having brought his heroes to the shore of India, indulges himself with a review of the state of the western and eastern worlds; the latter of which is now, by the labour of his heroes,

And now, their ensigns blazing o'er the tide,
On India's shore the Lusian heroes ride.
High to the fleecy clouds resplendent far
Appear the regal towers of Malabar,
Imperial Calicut,' the lordly seat

Of the first monarch of the Indian state.
Right to the port the valiant GAMA bends,
With joyful shouts, a fleet of boats attends:
Joyful, their nets they leave and finny prey,
And, crowding round the Lusians, point the way.
A herald now, by Vasco's high command
Sent to the monarch, treads the Indian strand;
The sacred staff he bears, in gold he shines,
And tells his office by majestic signs.
As, to and fro, recumbent to the gale,
The harvest waves along the yellow dale,

The

rendered accessible to the former. The purpose of his poem is also strictly kept in view. The west and the east he considers as two great empires; the one of the true religion, the other of a false. professors of the true, disunited and destroying one another; the professors of the false one, all combined to extirpate the other. He upbraids the professors of the true religion for their vices, particularly for their disunion, and for deserting the interests of holy faith. His countrymen, however, he boasts, have been its defenders and planters, and, without the assistance of their brother powers, will plant it in Asia.

"The Crusaders," according to Voltaire, “ were a band of vagabond thieves, who had agreed to ramble from the heart of Europe in order to desolate a country they had no right to, and massacre, in cold blood, a venerable prince, more than fourscore years old, and his whole people, against whom they had no pretence of complaint."

To prove that the Crusades were neither so unjustifiable, so impolitic, nor so unhappy in their consequences as superficial readers of history are accustomed to regard them, would not be difficult.

Upon the whole, it will be found that the Portuguese poet talks of the political reasons of a Crusade with an accuracy in the philosophy of history as superior to that of Voltaire, as the poetical merit of the Lusiad surpasses that of the Henriade. And the critic in poetry must allow, that, to suppose the discovery of GAMA the completion of all the endeavours to overthrow the great enemies of the true religion, gives a dignity to the poem, and an importance to the hero, similar to that which Voltaire, on the same supposition, allows to the subject of the Jerusalem of Tasso.

1 Calicut is the name of a famous sea-port town in the province of Malabar.