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(From The Lusiad)
Translated by W. J. Mickle
FROM Leo now, the lordly star of day, | |
| Intensely blazing, shot his fiercest ray; | |
| When, slowly gliding from our wishful eyes, | |
| The Lusian mountains mingled with the skies; | |
| Tago’s loved stream, and Cintra’s mountains cold | 5 |
| Dim fading now, we now no more behold; | |
| And, still with yearning hearts our eyes explore, | |
| Till one dim speck of land appears no more. | |
| Our native soil now far behind, we ply | |
| The lonely, dreary waste of seas, and boundless sky. | 10 |
| Through the wild deep our venturous navy bore, | |
| Where but our Henry ploughed the wave before; | |
| The verdant islands, first by him descried, | |
| We passed; and, now in prospect opening wide, | |
| Far to the left, increasing on the view, | 15 |
| Rose Mauritania’s hills of paly blue: | |
| Far to the right the restless ocean roared, | |
| Whose bounding surges never keel explored: | |
| If bounding shore (as reason deems) divide | |
| The vast Atlantic from the Indian tide. | 20 |
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| Named from her woods, with fragrant bowers adorned, | |
| From fair Madeira’s purple coast we turned: | |
| Cyprus and Paphos’ vales the smiling loves | |
| Might leave with joy for fair Madeira’s groves; | |
| A shore so flowery, and so sweet an air, | 25 |
| Venus might build her dearest temple there. | |
| Onward we pass Massilia’s barren strand, | |
| A waste of withered grass and burning sand; | |
| Where his thin herds the meagre native leads, | |
| Where not a rivulet laves the doleful meads; | 30 |
| Nor herds nor fruitage deck the woodland maze; | |
| O’er the wild waste the stupid ostrich strays, | |
| In devious search to pick her scanty meal, | |
| Whose fierce digestion gnaws the tempered steel. | |
| From the green verge, where Tigitania ends, | 35 |
| To Ethiopia’s line the dreary wild extends. | |
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| Now, past the limit which his course divides, | |
| When to the north the sun’s bright chariot rides, | |
| We leave the winding bays and swarthy shores, | |
| Where Senegal’s black wave impetuous roars; | 40 |
| A flood, whose course a thousand tribes surveys, | |
| The tribes who blackened in the fiery blaze | |
| When Phaeton, devious from the solar height, | |
| Gave Afric’s sons the sable hue of night. | |
| And now, from far the Libyan cape is seen, | 45 |
| Now by my mandate named the Cape of Green; | |
| Where, midst the billows of the ocean, smiles | |
| A flowery sister-train, the Happy Isles, | |
| Our onward prows the murmuring surges lave; | |
| And now, our vessels plough the gentle wave, | 50 |
| Where the blue islands, named of Hesper old, | |
| Their fruitful bosoms to the deep unfold. | |
| Here, changeful Nature shows her various face, | |
| And frolics o’er the slopes with wildest grace: | |
| Here, our bold fleet their ponderous anchors threw, | 55 |
| The sickly cherish, and our stores renew. | |
| From him, the warlike guardian power of Spain, | |
| Whose spear’s dread lightning o’er the embattled plain | |
| Has oft o’erwhelmed the Moors in dire dismay, | |
| And fixed the fortune of the doubtful day; | 60 |
| From him we name our station of repair, | |
| And Jago’s name that isle shall ever bear. | |
| The northern winds now curled the blackening main, | |
| Our sails unfurled, we plough the tide again: | |
| Round Afric’s coast our winding course we steer, | 65 |
| Where, bending to the east, the shores appear. | |
| Here, Jalofo its wide extent displays, | |
| And vast Mandinga shows its numerous bays; | |
| Whose mountains’ sides, though parched and barren, hold, | |
| In copious store, the seeds of beamy gold. | 70 |
| The Gambia here his serpent-journey takes, | |
| And through the lawns a thousand windings makes; | |
| A thousand swarthy tribes his current laves | |
| Ere mix his waters with the Atlantic waves. | |
| The Gorgades we passed, that hated shore, | 75 |
| Famed for its terrors by the bards of yore; | |
| Where but one eye by Phorcus’ daughters shared, | |
| The ’lorn beholders into marble stared; | |
| Three dreadful sisters! down whose temples rolled | |
| Their hair of snakes in many a hissing fold, | 80 |
| And, scattering horror o’er the dreary strand, | |
| With swarms of vipers sowed the burning sand. | |
| Still to the south our pointed keels we guide, | |
| And through the austral gulf still onward ride: | |
| Her palmy forests mingling with the skies, | 85 |
| Leona’s rugged steep behind us flies; | |
| The Cape of Palms that jutting land we name, | |
| Already conscious of our nation’s fame. | |
| Where the vexed wave’s against our bulwarks roar, | |
| And Lusian towers o’erlook the bending shore: | 90 |
| Our sails wide swelling to the constant blast, | |
| Now by the isle from Thomas named we passed; | |
| And Congo’s spacious realm before us rose, | |
| Where copious Layra’s limpid billow flows; | |
| A flood by ancient hero never seen, | 95 |
| Where many a temple o’er the banks of green, | |
| Reared by the Lusian heroes, through the night | |
| Of pagan darkness, pours the mental light. | |
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| O’er the wild waves, as southward thus we stray, | |
| Our port unknown, unknown the watery way, | 100 |
| Each night we see, impressed with solemn awe, | |
| Our guiding stars, and native skies withdraw, | |
| In the wide void we lose their cheering beams, | |
| Lower and lower still the pole-star gleams. | |
| Till past the limit, where the car of day | 105 |
| Rolled o’er our heads, and poured the downward ray: | |
| We now disprove the faith of ancient lore; | |
| Boötes’ shining car appears no more. | |
| For here we saw Calisto’s star retire | |
| Beneath the waves, unawed by Juno’s ire. | 110 |
| Here, while the sun his polar journeys takes, | |
| His visit doubled, double season makes; | |
| Stern winter twice deforms the changeful year, | |
| And twice the spring’s gay flowers their honors rear. | |
| Now, pressing onward, past the burning zone, | 115 |
| Beneath another heaven and stars unknown, | |
| Unknown to heroes and to sages old, | |
| With southward prows our pathless course we hold: | |
| Here, gloomy night assumes a darker reign, | |
| And fewer stars emblaze the heavenly plain; | 120 |
| Fewer than those that gild the northern pole, | |
| And o’er our seas their glittering chariots roll; | |
| While nightly thus, the lonely seas we brave, | |
| Another pole-star rises o’er the wave: | |
| Full to the south a shining cross appears, | 125 |
| Our heaving breasts the blissful omen cheers: | |
| Seven radiant stars compose the hallowed sign | |
| That rose still higher o’er the wavy brine. | |
| Beneath this southern axle of the world | |
| Never, with daring search, was flag unfurled; | 130 |
| Nor pilot knows if bounding shores are placed, | |
| Or, if one dreary sea o’erflow the lonely waste. | |
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| While thus our keels still onward boldly strayed, | |
| Now tossed by tempests, now by calms delayed, | |
| To tell the terrors of the deep untried, | 135 |
| What toils we suffered, and what storms defied; | |
| What rattling deluges the black clouds poured, | |
| What dreary weeks of solid darkness lowered; | |
| What mountain-surges mountain-surges lashed, | |
| What sudden hurricanes the canvas dashed; | 140 |
| What bursting lightnings, with incessant flare, | |
| Kindled, in one wide flame, the burning air; | |
| What roaring thunders bellowed o’er our head, | |
| And seemed to shake the reeling ocean’s bed: | |
| To tell each horror on the deep revealed, | 145 |
| Would ask an iron throat with tenfold vigor steeled: | |
| Those dreadful wonders of the deep I saw, | |
| Which filled the sailor’s breast with sacred awe; | |
| And which the sages, of their learning vain, | |
| Esteem the phantoms of the dreamful brain: | 150 |
| That living fire, by seamen held divine, | |
| Of Heaven’s own care in storms the holy sign, | |
| Which, midst the horrors of the tempest plays, | |
| And on the blast’s dark wings will gayly blaze; | |
| These eyes distinct have seen that living fire | 155 |
| Glide through the storm, and round my sails aspire. | |
| And oft, while wonder thrilled my breast, mine eyes | |
| To heaven have seen the watery columns rise. | |
| Slender, at first, the subtle fume appears, | |
| And writhing round and round its volume rears; | 160 |
| Thick as a mast the vapor swells its size, | |
| A curling whirlwind lifts it to the skies; | |
| The tube now straightens, now in width extends, | |
| And, in a hovering cloud, its summit ends: | |
| Still, gulp on gulp, in sucks the rising tide, | 165 |
| And now the cloud, with cumbrous weight supplied, | |
| Full-gorged, and blackening, spreads and moves more slow, | |
| And, waving, trembles to the waves below. * * * * * | |
| And now, their ensigns blazing o’er the tide, | |
| On India’s shore the Lusian heroes ride. | 170 |
| 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, | 175 |
| With joyful shouts, a fleet of boats attends: | |
| Joyful, their nets they leave, and finny prey, | |
| And, crowding round the Lusians, point the way. | |
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