Poets From Portugal

"Vistes que, com grandíssima ousadia, Foram já cometer o Céu supremo; Vistes aquela insana fantasia De tentarem o mar com vela e remo; Vistes, e ainda vemos cada dia, Soberbas e insolências tais, que temo Que do Mar e do Céu, em poucos anos, Venham Deuses a ser, e nós, humanos."

"Numa mão sempre a espada, e noutra a pena."

"Veja agora o juízo curioso Quanto no rico, assim como no pobre, Pode o vil interesse e sede inimiga Do dinheiro, que a tudo nos obriga."

"Ó que famintos beijos na floresta, E que mimoso choro que soava! Que afagos tão suaves, que ira honesta, Que em risinhos alegres se tornava! O que mais passam na manhã, e na sesta, Que Vénus com prazeres inflamava, Melhor é experimentá-lo que julgá-lo, Mas julgue-o quem não pode experimentá-lo."

"Porque essas honras vãs, esse ouro puro Verdadeiro valor não dão à gente: Melhor é, merecê-los sem os ter, Que possuí-los sem os merecer."

"Vão os anos decendo, e já do Estio Há pouco que passar até o Outono; A Fortuna me faz o engenho frio, Do qual já não me jacto nem me abono; Os desgostos me vão levando ao rio Do negro esquecimento e eterno sono..."

"Quem faz injúria vil e sem razão, Com forças e poder em que está posto, Não vence; que a vitória verdadeira É saber ter justiça nua e inteira."

"Nô mais, Musa, nô mais, que a Lira tenho Destemperada e a voz enrouquecida, E não do canto, mas de ver que venho Cantar a gente surda e endurecida. O favor com que mais se acende o engenho Não no dá a pátria, não, que está metida No gosto da cobiça e na rudeza Dũa austera, apagada e vil tristeza."

"Fazei, Senhor, que nunca os admirados Alemães, Galos, Ítalos e Ingleses, Possam dizer que são pera mandados, Mais que pera mandar, os Portugueses. Tomai conselho só d'exprimentados Que viram largos anos, largos meses, Que, posto que em cientes muito cabe, Mais em particular o experto sabe."

"Nem me falta na vida honesto estudo, Com longa experiência misturado, Nem engenho, que aqui vereis presente, Cousas que juntas se acham raramente."

"Pera servir-vos, braço às armas feito, Pera cantar-vos, mente às Musas dada."

"Fico que em todo o mundo de vós cante, De sorte que Alexandro em vós se veja, Sem à dita de Aquiles ter enveja."

"As derradeiras palavras que na náu disse foram as de Scipião Africano: Ingrata patria, non possidebis ossa mea!"

"Quem ouviu dizer que em tão pequeno teatro como o de um pobre leito, quizesse a fortuna representar tão grandes desventuras? E eu, como se elas não bastassem, me ponho ainda da sua parte; porque procurar resistir a tantos males pareceria espécie de desavergonhamento."

"Enfim acabarei a vida e verão todos que fui tão afeiçoado à minha Pátria que não só me contentei de morrer nela, mas com ela."

"Com Amor a rosa, Que tão fresca, &c."

"Aqui jaz Luís de Camões Príncipe dos poetas do seu tempo; viveu pobre e miseravelmente e assi morreu."

"We look for something new in a literature unknown to us; we do not go to Lisbon to gaze into shop-windows which we can see in Paris. But the fact is that in Camões' lyrics we enter an enchanted country. They have a peculiar glow and magic which one seeks in vain elsewhere."

"I can read Camoes, etc., pretty well now, and he—his sonnets—are superb—as good as any in English, certainly."

"His sonnets...are full of Petrarchic tenderness and grace, and moulded with classic correctness."

"He might well claim to be a Portuguese Virgil."

"He is a Humanist even in his contradictions, in his association of a Pagan mythology with a Christian outlook, in his conflicting feelings about war and empire, in his love of home and his desire for adventure, in his appreciation of pleasure and the demands of his heroic outlook. But he is above all a Humanist in his devotion to the classical ideal and in his conviction that this was the living force in the imaginative life of Europe in his time. ... His poem covers a wide range of experience because it was written by a man who was open to many kinds of impression and had a generous appreciation of human nature. ... His conception of manhood is fuller and more various than Virgil's. He has indeed something of Homer's pleasure in the variegated human scene and, like Homer, he knows that there can be more than one kind of noble manhood."

"And this morning, as I sat alone within the inner chamber With the great saloon beyond it, lost in pleasant thought serene— For I had been reading Camoëns—that poem you remember, Which his lady's eyes are praised in, as the sweetest ever seen."

"Camoens, with that look he had, Compelling India's Genius sad From the wave through the Lusiad, With murmurs of a purple ocean Indrawn in vibrative emotion Along the verse!"

"The most pleasing literary labour of my life has been to translate "The Lusiads"...of my master, Camoens."

"[Camoens is] the perfection of a traveller's study... A wayfarer and voyager from his youth; a soldier, somewhat turbulent withal, wounded and blamed for his wounds; ... a doughty Sword and yet doughtier Pen; a type of the chivalrous age; a patriot of the purest water, so jealous of his Country's good fame that nothing would satisfy him but to see the world bow before her perfections; a genius, the first and foremost of his day, who died in the direst poverty and distress."

"During how many hopeless days and sleepless nights Camoens was my companion, my consoler, my friend;—on board raft and canoe; sailer and steamer; on the camel and the mule; under the tent and the jungle-tree; upon the fire-peak and the snow-peak; on the Prairie, the Campo, the Steppe, the Desert!"

"He was in sooth a genuine bard; His was no faint, fictitious flame. Like his, may love be thy reward, But not thy hapless fate the same."

"[Camões] alone, of all the lyric race, ... Can look a common soldier in the face: I find a comrade where I sought a master."

"Through fire and shipwreck, pestilence and loss, Led by the ignis fatuus of duty To a dog's death—yet of his sorrows king— He shouldered high his voluntary Cross, Wrestled his hardships into forms of beauty, And taught his gorgon destinies to sing."

"[Camões] is the soldier's poet par excellence."

"excelentissimo Camoes"

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

"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.""

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

"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!"

"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."

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

"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!"

"The Rubens of verse."

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

"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..."

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