Epic Poets

"Sonnet in full:"

"Porém, pera cantar de vosso gesto A composição alta e milagrosa Aqui falta saber, engenho e arte."

"Mais servira, se não fora Para tão longo amor tão curta a vida."

"«Que levas, cruel Morte?» «Um claro dia». «A que horas o tomaste?» «Amanhecendo». «Entendes o que levas?» «Não o entendo». «Pois quem to faz levar?» «Quem o entendia»."

"Mudam-se os tempos, mudam-se as vontades, Muda-se o ser, muda-se a confiança; Todo o mundo é composto de mudança, Tomando sempre novas qualidades."

"Sabei que, segundo o amor tiverdes, Tereis o entendimento de meus versos."

"excelentissimo Camoes"

"Erros meus, má fortuna, amor ardente Em minha perdição se conjuraram."

"Gedoemd poëet, zwerver en banneling."

"Ed or quella del colto, e buon Luigi, Tant 'oltre stende il glorioso volo, Ch'i tuoi spalmati legni andar men lunge.'Ond'a quelli, a cui s'alza il nostro polo, Ed a chi ferma incontra i suoi vestigi, Per lui del corso tuo la fama aggiunge."

"Fortuna estrana que al ingenio aplico La vida pobre y el sepulcro rico."

"Sei, Camoens, denn mein Vorbild!"

"Black the mountains of Timor Sweeping from the sea Watched Camoëns drift ashore, Rags and misery . . . Hidden in that hollow rod Slept, like heavenly flame Titan-stolen from a god, Lusitania's flame."

"What other lessons could I possibly receive from a Portuguese who lived in the sixteenth century, who composed the Rimas and the glories, the shipwrecks and the national disenchantments in the Lusíadas, who was an absolute poetical genius, the greatest in our literature, no matter how much sorrow this causes to Fernando Pessoa, who proclaimed himself its Super Camões? No lesson would fit me, no lesson could I learn, except the simplest, which could have been offered to me by Luís Vaz de Camões in his pure humanity, for instance the proud humility of an author who goes knocking at every door looking for someone willing to publish the book he has written, thereby suffering the scorn of the ignoramuses of blood and race, the disdainful indifference of a king and of his powerful entourage, the mockery with which the world has always received the visits of poets, visionaries and fools. At least once in life, every author has been, or will have to be, Luís de Camões..."

"Camoëns, en Portugal, ouvrait une carrière toute nouvelle, et s'acquérait une réputation qui dure encore parmi ses compatriotes, qui l'appellent le Virgile portugais."

"The perfection [Vollendung] of Portuguese poetry is all the more apparent in the beautiful poems of the great Camões."

"Camoens was a master of sound and language, a man of vigour and a splendid rhetorician."

"The apparition, which in the night hovers athwart the fleet near the Cape of Good Hope, is the grandest fiction in human composition; the invention his own!"

"The fiction of the apparition of the Cape of Tempests, in sublimity and awful grandeur of imagination, stands unsurpassed in human composition."

"But for Camoens, though he has some glaring faults, he hath, doubtless, many original beauties; both of which, indeed, speak uncommon abilities. He is not correct like Virgil; but the hand of cold and sober judgment would have blotted out the novelties that surprise and delight us: these are "sublime infirmities," which will not bear the inquisition of the critic. "The epic poetry of Camoens, (says Voltaire,) is a sort of poetry unheard of before." I allow it; but not to his dishonour. The manners of the Lusiad are new and striking. And as to imagery, the apparition, hovering athwart the fleet near the Cape of Good Hope, is so grand a fiction, that it would alone set Camoens above Virgil, in point of genius. And what are the Elysian Fields to the Island of Venus!"

"Luis de Camoens, the greatest literary genius ever produced by Portugal; in martial courage, and spirit of honour, nothing inferior to her greatest heroes."

"Camoens! White Jacket, Camoens! Did you ever read him? The Lusiad, I mean? It's the man-of-war epic of the world, my lad. Give me Gama for a commodore, say I—noble Gama! ... How many great men have been sailors, White Jacket! They say Homer himself was once a tar, even as his hero, Ulysses, was both a sailor and a shipwright. I'll swear Shakspeare was once a captain of the forecastle. Do you mind the first scene in The Tempest, White Jacket? And the world-finder, Christopher Columbus, was a sailor! and so was Camoens, who went to sea with Gama, else we had never had The Lusiad, White Jacket. Yes, I've sailed over the very track that Camoens sailed—round the East Cape into the Indian Ocean. I've been in Don Jose's garden, too, in Macao, and bathed my feet in the blessed dew of the walks where Camoens wandered before me. Yes, White Jacket, and I have seen and sat in the cave at the end of the flowery, winding way, where Camoens, according to tradition, composed certain parts of his Lusiad. Ay, Camoens was a sailor once!"

"Jack [Chase,] above all things, was an ardent admirer of Camoens. Parts of The Lusiad he could recite in the original."

"For the last time, hear Camoens, boys!"

"CAMOENS (Before) Ever restless, restless, craving rest— The Imperfect toward Perfection pressed Yea, for the God demands thy best. The world with endless beauty teems, And though evokes new worlds of dreams Hunt then the flying herds of themes! And fan, still fan, thy fervid fire, Until thy crucibled gold shall show That fire can purge as well as glow. In ordered ardour, nobly strong, Flame to the height of epic song.(After) CAMOENS IN THE HOSPITAL What now avails the pageant verse, Trophies and arms with music borne? Base is the world; and some rehearse Now noblest meet ignoble scorn, Vain now thy ardour, vain thy fire, Delirium mere, unsound desire; Fate's knife hath ripped thy corded lyre. Exhausted by the exacting lay, Thou dost but fall a surer prey To wile and guile ill understood; While they who work them, fair in face, Still keep their strength in prudent place, And claim they worthier run life's race, Serving high God with useful good."

"The Rubens of verse."

"Camões soothed with it [the Sonnet] an exile's grief."

"Camoens, the author of the Lusiads, ought to be censured by all his readers, when he brings in Bacchus and Christ into the same adventure of his fable."

"SPAINE gave me noble Birth: Coimbra, Arts: LISBON, a high-plac't love, and Courtly parts: AFFRICK, a Refuge when the Court did frowne: WARRE, at an Eye's expence, a faire renowne: TRAVAYLE, experience, with noe short sight Of India, and the World; both which I write INDIA a life, which I gave there for Lost On Mecons waves (a wreck and Exile) tost To boot, this POEM, held up in one hand Whilst with the other I swam safe to land: TASSO, a sonet, and (what's greater yit) The honour to give Hints to such a witt. PHLIP a Cordiall, (the ill Fortune see!) To cure my Wants when those had new kill'd mee My Country (Nothing—yes) Immortall Prayse (so did I, Her) Beasts cannot browze on Bayes."

"Tho' fiercest tribes her galling fetters drag, Proud Spain must strike to Lusitania's flag, Whose ampler folds, in conscious triumph spread, Wave o'er her Naval Poet's laureate head. Ye Nymphs of Tagus, from your golden cell, That caught the echo of his tuneful shell, Rise, and to deck your darling's shrine provide The richest treasures that the deep may hide: From every land let grateful Commerce shower Her tribute to the Bard who sung her power; As those rich gales, from whence his Gama caught A pleasing earnest of the prize he sought, The balmy fragrance of the East dispense, So steals his Song on the delighted sense, Astonishing, with sweets unknown before, Those who ne'er tasted but of classic lore. Immortal Bard, thy name with Gama vies, Thou, like thy Hero, with propitious skies The sail of bold adventure hast unfurl'd, And in the Epic ocean found a world. 'Twas thine to blend the eagle and the dove, At once the Bard of glory and of love, Thy thankless country heard thy varying lyre, To Petrarch's softness melt, and swell to Homer's fire! Boast and lament, ungrateful land, a Name, In life, in death, thy honor and thy shame."

"Que cosa mas lastimosa que ver un tan grande ingenio mal logrado! yo lo bi morir en un hospital en Lisbon, sin tener una sauana con que cubrirse, despues de aver triunfado en la India oriental y de aver navigado 5500 leguas por mar: que auiso tan grande para los que de noche y de dia se cançan estudiando sin provecho como la araña en urdir tellas para cazar moscas."

"The greatest poet of the sixteenth century, as of all others in Portuguese poetry, is he who sang of"the renowned men, Who, from the western Lusitanian shore, Sailing through seas man never sailed before, Passed beyond Taprobane,"—Luis de Camoens, author of the national epic, "Os Lusiadas," who lived in poverty and wretchedness, died in the Lisbon hospital, and, after death, was surnamed the Great,—a title never given before, save to popes and emperors. The life of no poet is so full of vicissitude and romantic adventure as that of Camoens. In youth, he was banished from Lisbon on account of a love affair with Catharina de Attayda, a dama do paço, or lady of honour at court; he served against the Moors as a volunteer on board the fleet in the Mediterranean, and lost his right eye by a gun-shot wound in a battle off Ceuta; he returned to Lisbon, proud and poor, but found no favour at court, and no means of a livelihood in the city; he abandoned his native land for India, indignantly exclaiming with Scipio, "Ingrata patria, non possidebis ossa mea!" Three ships of the squadron were lost in a storm, he reached Goa safely in the fourth; he fought under the king of Cochin against the king of Pimenta; he fought against the Arabian corsairs in the Red Sea;he was banished from Goa to the island of Macao, where he became administrator of the effects of deceased persons, and where he wrote the greater part of the "Lusiad"; he was shipwrecked on the coast of Camboya, saving only his life and his poem, the manuscript of which he brought ashore saturated with sea-water; he was accused of malversation in office, and thrown into prison at Goa; after an absence of sixteen years, he returned in abject poverty to Lisbon, then ravaged by the plague; he lived a few years on a wretched pension granted him by King Sebastian when the "Lusiad" was published, and on the alms which a slave he had brought with him from India collected at night in the streets of Lisbon; and finally died in the hospital, exclaiming, "Who could believe that on so small a stage as that of one poor bed Fortune would choose to represent so great a tragedy?" Thus was completed the Iliad of his woes. Fifteen years afterward, a splendid monument was erected to his memory; so that, as has been said or another, "he asked for bread, and they gave him a stone.""

"By common consent, Wolfram is the greatest medieval poet before Dante."

"Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival…was where love and marriage were brought together. It was an apple of a story. That's my favorite love story."

"By the miracle of genius he created a masterpiece [Parzival], epic in scope, noble in purpose, humorous, humane, tender, and rational."

"Mîn bruodr und ich daz ist ein lîp, als ist guot man unt des guot wîp."

"Hie hânt zwei herzen einvalt Mit hazze erzeiget ir gewalt."

"Von wazzer boume sint gesaft. wazzer früht al die geschaft, der man für crêatiure giht. mit dem wazzere man gesiht. wazzer gît maneger sêle schîn, daz die engl niht liehter dorften sîn."

"Although German writers may sometimes have mispraised or overpraised their greatest mediaeval poet, it is certain that we find in Wolfram von Eschenbach qualities, which, in the thousand years between the Fall and the Renaissance of classical literature, can be found to anything like the same extent in only two known writers, the Italian Dante and the Englishman Langland; while if he is immensely Dante's inferior in poetical quality, he has at least one gift, humour, which Dante had not, and is far Langland's superior in variety and in romantic charm."

"Frou minne, ir habt ein êre, und wênc decheine mêre. frou liebe iu gît geselleschaft: anders wær vil dürkel iwer kraft."

"Der schadehafte erwarp ie spot: sælden pflihtær dem half got."

"Du hôrtst och vor dir sprechen ie, swer dem andern half daz er genas, daz er sîn vîent dâ nâch was."

"Weindiu ougn hânt süezen munt."

"Ôwê daz er niht vrâgte dô! des pin ich für in noch unvrô. wan do erz enpfienc in sîne hant, dô was er vrâgens mit ermant."

"Artûs der meienbære man, swaz man ie von dem gesprach, zeinen pfinxten daz geschach, odr in des meien bluomenzît."

"Der getriwe ist friundes êren vrô: der ungetriwe wâfenô rüefet, swenne ein liep geschiht sînem friunde und er daz siht."

"Man sol hunde umb ebers houbet gebn."

"Ir sult niemer iuch verschemn. verschamter lîp, waz touc der mêr? der wont in der mûze rêr, dâ im werdekeit entrîset."

"Swa du guotes wîbes vingerlîn mügest erwerben unt ir gruoz, daz nim: ez tuot dir kumbers buoz. du solt zir kusse gâhen und ir lîp vast umbevâhen: daz gît gelücke und hôhen muot, op si kiusche ist unde guot."

"Daz schuof iedoch ein wîse man, daz alter guot solde hân. jugent hât vil werdekeit, daz alter siuften unde leit. ez enwart nie niht als unfruot, sô alter unde armuot."