He would soon catch
abundance
of
oysters, nor would the storms frighten him.
oysters, nor would the storms frighten him.
Camoes - Lusiades
As fear,
however, is always jealous, he imagined they were leading him as a
victim to slaughter. No sooner did he come near the ships, than he
called aloud for assistance. Coello's boat immediately set off for his
rescue. The Africans fled to the woods; and now esteeming the Portuguese
as a band of lawless plunderers, they provided themselves with arms, and
lay in ambush. Their weapons were javelins, headed with short pieces of
horn, which they throw with great dexterity. Soon after, while GAMA and
some of his officers were on the shore taking the altitude of the sun by
the astrolabe, they were suddenly and with great fury attacked by the
ambush from the woods. Several were much wounded, _multos convulnerant,
inter quos Gama in pede vulnus accepit_, and GAMA received a wound in
the foot. The admiral made a speedy retreat to the fleet, prudently
choosing rather to leave the negroes the honour of the victory, than to
risk the life of one man in a quarrel so foreign to the destination of
his expedition, and where, to impress the terror of his arms could be of
no service to his interest. When he came nearer to the East Indies he
acted in a different manner. He then made himself dreaded whenever the
treachery of the natives provoked his resentment. --_Collected from_
Faria and Osorius.
[360] The critics have vehemently declaimed against the least mixture of
the comic, with the dignity of the epic poem. It is needless to enter
into any defence of this passage of Camoens, farther than to observe
that Homer, Virgil, and Milton have offended the critics in the same
manner, and that this piece of raillery in the Lusiad is by much the
politest, and the least reprehensible, of anything of the kind in the
four poets. In Homer are several strokes of low raillery. Patroclus
having killed Hector's charioteer, puns thus on his sudden fall: _It is
a pity he is not nearer the sea!
He would soon catch abundance of
oysters, nor would the storms frighten him. See how he dives from his
chariot down to the sand! What excellent divers are the Trojans! _
Virgil, the most judicious of all poets, descends even to burlesque,
where the commander of a galley tumbles the pilot into the sea:--
----_Segnemque Menoeten
In mare praecipitem puppi deturbat ab alta.
At gravis ut sundo vix tandem redditus imo est
Jam senior, madidaque fluens in veste Menoetes,
Summa petit scopuli siccaque in rupe resedit.
Illum et labentem Teucri, et risere natantem;
Et salsos rident revomentem pectore fluctus. _
And, though the character of the speakers, the ingenious defence which
has been offered for Milton, may, in some measure, vindicate the
raillery which he puts into the mouths of Satan and Belial, the lowness
of it, when compared with that of Camoens, must still be acknowledged.
Talking of the execution of the diabolical artillery among the good
angels, they, says Satan--
"Flew off, and into strange vagaries fell
As they would dance, yet for a dance they seem'd
Somewhat extravagant and wild, perhaps
For joy of offer'd peace. ----
To whom thus Belial, in like gamesome mood.
Leader, the terms we sent were terms of weight,
Of hard contents, and full of force urg'd home,
Such as we might perceive amus'd them all,
And stumbled many----
----this gift they have beside,
They show us when our foes walk not upright. "
[361] The translator in reply to the critics will venture the assertion,
that the fiction of the apparition of the Cape of Tempests, in sublimity
and awful grandeur of imagination, stands unsurpassed in human
composition.
[362] _The next proud fleet. _--On the return of GAMA to Portugal, a
fleet of thirteen sail, under the command of Pedro Alvarez Cabral, was
sent out on the second voyage to India, where the admiral with only six
ships arrived. The rest were mostly destroyed by a terrible tempest at
the Cape of Good Hope, which lasted twenty days. "The daytime," says
Faria, "was so dark that the sailors could scarcely see each other, or
hear what was said for the horrid noise of the winds. " Among those who
perished was the celebrated Bartholomew Diaz, who was the first modern
discoverer of the Cape of Good Hope, which he named the Cape of
Tempests.
however, is always jealous, he imagined they were leading him as a
victim to slaughter. No sooner did he come near the ships, than he
called aloud for assistance. Coello's boat immediately set off for his
rescue. The Africans fled to the woods; and now esteeming the Portuguese
as a band of lawless plunderers, they provided themselves with arms, and
lay in ambush. Their weapons were javelins, headed with short pieces of
horn, which they throw with great dexterity. Soon after, while GAMA and
some of his officers were on the shore taking the altitude of the sun by
the astrolabe, they were suddenly and with great fury attacked by the
ambush from the woods. Several were much wounded, _multos convulnerant,
inter quos Gama in pede vulnus accepit_, and GAMA received a wound in
the foot. The admiral made a speedy retreat to the fleet, prudently
choosing rather to leave the negroes the honour of the victory, than to
risk the life of one man in a quarrel so foreign to the destination of
his expedition, and where, to impress the terror of his arms could be of
no service to his interest. When he came nearer to the East Indies he
acted in a different manner. He then made himself dreaded whenever the
treachery of the natives provoked his resentment. --_Collected from_
Faria and Osorius.
[360] The critics have vehemently declaimed against the least mixture of
the comic, with the dignity of the epic poem. It is needless to enter
into any defence of this passage of Camoens, farther than to observe
that Homer, Virgil, and Milton have offended the critics in the same
manner, and that this piece of raillery in the Lusiad is by much the
politest, and the least reprehensible, of anything of the kind in the
four poets. In Homer are several strokes of low raillery. Patroclus
having killed Hector's charioteer, puns thus on his sudden fall: _It is
a pity he is not nearer the sea!
He would soon catch abundance of
oysters, nor would the storms frighten him. See how he dives from his
chariot down to the sand! What excellent divers are the Trojans! _
Virgil, the most judicious of all poets, descends even to burlesque,
where the commander of a galley tumbles the pilot into the sea:--
----_Segnemque Menoeten
In mare praecipitem puppi deturbat ab alta.
At gravis ut sundo vix tandem redditus imo est
Jam senior, madidaque fluens in veste Menoetes,
Summa petit scopuli siccaque in rupe resedit.
Illum et labentem Teucri, et risere natantem;
Et salsos rident revomentem pectore fluctus. _
And, though the character of the speakers, the ingenious defence which
has been offered for Milton, may, in some measure, vindicate the
raillery which he puts into the mouths of Satan and Belial, the lowness
of it, when compared with that of Camoens, must still be acknowledged.
Talking of the execution of the diabolical artillery among the good
angels, they, says Satan--
"Flew off, and into strange vagaries fell
As they would dance, yet for a dance they seem'd
Somewhat extravagant and wild, perhaps
For joy of offer'd peace. ----
To whom thus Belial, in like gamesome mood.
Leader, the terms we sent were terms of weight,
Of hard contents, and full of force urg'd home,
Such as we might perceive amus'd them all,
And stumbled many----
----this gift they have beside,
They show us when our foes walk not upright. "
[361] The translator in reply to the critics will venture the assertion,
that the fiction of the apparition of the Cape of Tempests, in sublimity
and awful grandeur of imagination, stands unsurpassed in human
composition.
[362] _The next proud fleet. _--On the return of GAMA to Portugal, a
fleet of thirteen sail, under the command of Pedro Alvarez Cabral, was
sent out on the second voyage to India, where the admiral with only six
ships arrived. The rest were mostly destroyed by a terrible tempest at
the Cape of Good Hope, which lasted twenty days. "The daytime," says
Faria, "was so dark that the sailors could scarcely see each other, or
hear what was said for the horrid noise of the winds. " Among those who
perished was the celebrated Bartholomew Diaz, who was the first modern
discoverer of the Cape of Good Hope, which he named the Cape of
Tempests.
