BOOKS.

THE LUSIADS OF CAMOENS.*

THE author of this new translation of the Lusiads—or as English- men prefer to say (it would seem erroneously) the Lusiad—of Camoens, is a sanguine man. He admits, and he could scarcely help admitting, that the Portuguese language has hitherto been very little studied in this country, but he believes it to be now fast gaining ground. This idea is perhaps not altogether un- natural, as coming from one who is a Knight Officer of the Brazilian Order of the Rose, as well as the translator of the great- est work of Portugal's greatest poet, but it seems to US that with Mr. Aubertin the wish is father to the thought. It seems to us also that the greatest poet of Portugal can in no case be reckoned among the world's greatest poets at all. Had Lord Macaulay carried out his intention of reading the Lusiad in the original, he would have had no difficulty, we believe, in telling us why the world in general had pronounced it dull. We can, therefore, offer Mr. Aubertin but scanty hopes that his translation will have the effect of making Camoens popular in England. All the more it behoves us to give this translation unmeasured and unstinted praise. It is nearly always elegant and pleasing, and it is close and faithful to a degree which is almost unparal- leled. If, indeed, the Lusiad should remain, as we fancy it will, • The Lusk& of Camoens. Translated Into English Verse. By J. J. Aubertin. London: C. Hagen Paul sad Co. 1878. "caviare to the general," no atom of blame can rest upon Mr. Aubertin. He has the truest conception of a translator's duties, and he is so highly gifted as to have been able to carry out that conception to the uttermost. But we sorely fear that so far as his intention of making Camoens popular amongst us is con- cerned, his labours will have been in vain. None the less do we thank him heartily for the honest piece of literary work which he has produced, and congratulate him upon the complete success which has crowned his efforts as a translator. It would be super- fluous to say a word more on this head ; and English students of Portuguese literature will turn again and again with gratitude to a translation which has done for them the same good service which Llayward's Faust and Dr. Carlyle's Inferno have done for students of German and Italian literature. So much at least the merest justice requires that we should say of Mr. Aubertin ; and if in the introduction, and here and there, perhaps, in the notes, a captious reader may find something to object to on the score of ultra-naive simplicity, we are sure that a generous one will be amused rather than displeased with this amiable writer's old- world ways.

A generous reader, too, will doubtless be able to extend some of the indulgence which he will be ready to grant to Mr. Aubertin to Camoens himself. But a critic can hardly afford to be so lenient. It is probable enough that Voltaire never read the Lusiad, which he abused so contemptuously, and it is certain that if the flenriade is a great poem, the Lusiad is a magnificent one ; but in the main, we are inclined to side with Voltaire in this matter. Every dog, it is said, has his day, and Camoens has had his. A host of better bards have pushed him from his stool, and the "Apollo Portuguez," the prince of the poets of Spain, the great Luis de Camoens, has gone over to the majority in a figu- rative as well as in a literal sense. The Lusiad, we mean, has come to be ranked with the unread poems of the world, with the Punica of Silius Italicus, for instance, and the Thebais of Statius. Something of this neglect, no doubt, is owing to the language in which it is written ; and there was a good deal of truth in Southey's remark that "the delight which we take in Spenser and in the sweeter parts of Daniel, a Portuguese feels in the Lusiad." But who at the present day takes delight in the sweeter parts of Daniel? And if it may seem unfair to compare a Daniel or a Statius with one whose fame at least is European, how few com- paratively are the readers whom the Pharsalia of Lucan attracts, or the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius ! Yet we should not hesitate to prefer either of these poems, and the first very much so, to the Lusiad.

It would be tedious and unnecessary to attempt any analysis of this celebrated poem. The proverbial schoolboy knows, or ought to know, that its leading incident is the famous voyage of Vasco da Gama. Mr. Aubertin somewhat fondly thinks that because "the course of events has long since, and lately more than ever, re-established England's path to India through that portion of the globe from which Vasco da Gama by his discovery withdrew it," this poem, therefore, "may be found to possess some living interest belonging to the present hour, while treating of a great event which came to pass nearly four hundred years ago." This view might or might not meet with acceptance from Mr. Glad- stone, but colloquially speaking, we should say that the Suez Canal has put the Cape of Good Hope's nose out of joint. We certainly feel very strongly that we would much rather read a plain, unvarnished life of Vasco da Gama than study the Lusiad. It is difficult and perhaps impossible to lay down any hard-and- fast rule as to what events or series of events will or will not lend themselves to an epic treatment, but we have neither space nor inclination to dwell upon this threadbare topic. We shall content ourselves with saying that the subject which Camoens selected lay much too near the time at which he wrote, and that his well- meant efforts to place it further off by means of an antiquated mythological apparatus were precisely the causes of his failure. Milton, as is well known, made an entirely different mistake. He selected a subject which, chronologically speaking, was unim- peachable, but failed to see the danger of putting the wit of the conventicle into the month of the Prince of Darkness, and the language of seventeenth-century theology into the mouth of Jehovah.

Of Camoens himself we have little or nothing to say. Neither from Mr. Aubertin, nor from Adamson, nor from Mickle, have we been able to gain any such notion of the man as will enable us to say that we admire, or love, or even pity him intelligently. Our old friend the schoolboy knows that Camoens was a most unfor- tunate man, and that is about the sum and substance of our own knowledge. He got into trouble about some lady of the Court,

how or why, we know not, and he left Europe in consequence, to seek his fortunes in India. "Ingrate patria, non possidebis ossa uses !" was the key-note which he struck as he left his native shores ; but why Portugal was ungrateful because Camoens was imprudent or unsuccessful, or both, in love, is what we have never been able clearly to make out. No doubt, the end of such a man was sad enough, and it would be ungracious and cynical for us to confess that we are quite unmoved by it. But after all, he seems to have done the best that nature had given him the power to do—we mean, of course, as a poet—and his career does not fill us with that abiding sense of sorrowful regret with which we regard the wasted lives of a Byron or a Burns.

It is very possible that from want of sympathy with the man himself we have somewhat underrated his poem, and very pro- bable that from want of sympathy with the poem we have some- what underrated the man. For the latter error, we have no excuse to make, and no defence. We cannot help caring much about Cervantes, and we cannot help caring very little about Camoens. But we can at least do his poem the justice of quoting from it a few of the stanzas which we have liked the best, and if the reader should be led by them to despise our judgment, and to study Camoens, we shall be very glad. He certainly might do worse. Our first quotation is the following description of a water-spout :—

" I certainly beheld (nor do suppose

My eight deceived me aught) that in the air A fume or vapour thin and subtle rose, And by the wind began revolving there ; Thence to the topmost clouds a tube it throws, But of a substance so exceeding rare, That scarce the naked eye its form could see ; It seemed as like the clouds composed to be.

Little by little it still larger grew, Passing a large mast's thickness in degree ; Here narrowing, here enlarging, as it drew Vast quantities of water from the sea ; It oscillated with the waves to view; A-top, a dark thick cloud hung heavily, Becoming yet more laden and enlarged, With the vast waters' weight wherewith 'twos charged.

E'en as we see the red leech that takes hold Upon the cattle's lips (who beedlesswise Have caught it, drinking in the fountain cold), How with their blood its thirst it satisfies ; Still sucking, more and more its parts unfold, And fill themselves to an enormous size ; So the great column, filling, substance gains, And feeds the sable cloud which it sustains.

But when it was quite gorged, it then withdrew The foot that on the sea beneath had grown, And o'er the heavens, in fine, it raining flew, The jacent waters watering with its own ; W' th' waves it took the waves it doth renew ; But the salt savour has entirely flown : Now let our scientific writers see What mighty secrets these of nature be !"

Highly as we have praised Mr. Aubertin's translation, a com- parison of the above passage with the original, which Mr. Aubertin has very properly as well as boldly printed side by side with his own version throughout, will make it clear that the language of Camoens, like that of all other poets, loses much of its peculiar beauties by evaporation. But there is no help, we fear, for this. The reputation of Camoens must be taken on trust, so far as his native language is concerned, for even if Portuguese were a far more perfect instrument of thought than it appears to us to be, Portuguese literature itself is bed-ridden and effete. The Portuguese language, we mean, is not worth studying, except by a professed philologist, for its own sake; and the literature of Portugal is not so rich that it would be worth the while of any one else to study the language for the sake of reading the works of Camoens and a few other writers in the original. To such a language and to such a literature we may apply the warning, "From him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he bath."

"La decouverte," says Montesquieu, "de Mozambique, de Mande, et de Calecut a ete chantke par le Camoens, dont le poeme fait sentir quelque chose des charmes de l'Odyssee, et de la magnificence de l'Eneide." We are inclined to let this verdict stand. " Quelque chose" is an elastic phrase, and we are quite willing to give Camoens the benefit of it. We should be puzzled, we confess, to produce from the Lusiad many lines which would make " quelque chose " very significative; so we will conclude with a passage which at the preseat hour admits of a pleasant application, and will be read with pleasure by the modern supporters of "Peter's successors ":- "Behold the Germans ! like a flock, all pride. Who over such vast plains extended feed. Peter's successors, rebels, they deride,

Inventing novel shepherd, sect, and creed ; Behold them ! in foul battles occupied, Nor in blind error happy or agreed ! Not 'gainst the o'erbearing Ottoman they fight, But to shake off the sovereign yoke of right ;"

and if the reader would like to see a specimen of the language which we have so churlishly depreciated, he may compare the following couplet,—

Melhor be exprimental-o, que julgal-o ; 3Ias jalgue-o, quoin edo pode exprimental-o,"

with Mr. Aubertin's translation,— "Better to realise, than theorise; Bat theorise, who cannot realise."