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[571] _And Fame--a giant goddess. _--This passage affords a striking
instance of the judgment of Camoens. Virgil's celebrated description of
Fame is in his eye, but he copies it, as Virgil, in his best imitations,
copies after Homer. He adopts some circumstances, but, by adding others,
he makes a new picture, which justly may be called his own.

[572] _The wat'ry gods. _--To mention the gods in the masculine gender,
and immediately to apply to them--

"O peito feminil, que levemente
Muda quaysquer propositos tomados. "--

The ease with which the female breast changes its resolutions, may to
the hypercritical appear reprehensible. The expression, however, is
classical, and therefore retained. Virgil uses it, where AEneas is
conducted by Venus through the flames of Troy:--

"Descendo, ac ducente _Deo_, flammam inter et hostes
Expedior. "

This is in the manner of the Greek poets, who use the word ? ? ? ? for god
or goddess.

[573] _White as her swans.
_--A distant fleet compared to swans on a lake
is certainly a happy thought. The allusion to the pomp of Venus, whose
agency is immediately concerned, gives it besides a peculiar propriety.
This simile, however, is not in the original. It is adopted from an
uncommon liberty taken by Fanshaw:--

"The pregnant _sails_ on Neptune's surface creep,
Like her own _swans_, in _gate_, _out-chest_, and _fether_. "


[574] _Soon as the floating verdure caught their sight. _--As the
departure of GAMA from India was abrupt, he put into one of the
beautiful islands of Anchediva for fresh water. "While he was here
careening his ships," says Faria, "a pirate named Timoja, attacked him
with eight small vessels, so linked together and covered with boughs,
that they formed the appearance of a floating island. " This, says
Castera, afforded the fiction of the floating island of Venus. "The
fictions of Camoens," says he, "are the more marvellous, because they
are all founded in history. It is not difficult to find why he makes his
island of Anchediva to wander on the waves; it is an allusion to a
singular event related by Barros. " He then proceeds to the story of
Timoja, as if the genius of Camoens stood in need of so weak an
assistance.

[575] _In friendly pity of Latona's woes. _--Latona, pregnant by Jupiter,
was persecuted by Juno, who sent the serpent Python in pursuit of her.
Neptune, in pity of her distress, raised the island of Delos for her
refuge, where she was delivered of Apollo and Diana. --OVID, Met.

[576] _Form'd in a crystal lake the waters blend.