Chapter XI (10)

His childhood was spent under the paternal roof, and even as a hoy he was conspicuous for his intelligence and acquirements. At the age of fourteen he entered the university of Salamanca. He remained there for five years, and rendered himself conspicuous by his ardour for study, and by the progress he made in the most abstruse and difficult sciences. Already also had he begun to write plays, which were acted with applause in several Spanish theatres.

[Sidenote: 1620. Ætat. 19.]

At the age of nineteen he left Salamanca. These dates are given us, but the intermediate spaces are unfilled up. We are not told whether he resided at Madrid or with his family at Toledo. His fame became established as a poet, and began to rival that of Lope, whom indeed he far transcended in the higher gifts of poetry, creative imagination, sublimity, and force.

[Sidenote: 1626. Ætat. 25.]

At the age of five and twenty he entered the military service, and served his king first in the Milanese and afterwards in Flanders, the old fields of war for Spain, whereon had fought and fallen so many heroes of both countries, and so many human beings had fallen victims to religious and political persecution. He spent ten years in this manner. Sismondi says, that his life is sprinkled with few events. How do we know this? Throughout these campaigns, during these years of youthful ardour and enterprise, how much may have occurred, what dangers he may have run--what generosity, what valour he may have displayed--how warmly he may have loved, how deeply have suffered! As a poet and a master of the passions he must have felt them all. But a blank meets us when we seek to know more of these things. A poet's life is ever a romance. That Calderon's was such we cannot doubt; but we must find its traces in the loves, the woes, the courage, and the joys of his dramatic personages: he infused his soul into these; what the events might be that called forth his own personal interest and sympathy we are totally ignorant. [Sidenote: 1637. Ætat. 36.] An order from his sovereign recalled him to court. Philip IV. was passionately fond of the theatre, and himself wrote plays. Innumerable dramas appeared under his patronage, the names of the authors being utterly unknown; and even of those of acknowledged writers few have been collected and published under the name of their author. Single plays, in pamphlets, we find in plenty, all very similar the one to the other; a better arrangement in the plot, more or less poetry or spirit in the dialogue, being almost all the difference we find among them. Several of the most entertaining are given forth as by a Wit of the Court (_un Ingenio de esta Corte_), and attributed to Philip IV. himself; though this honour has been disputed him. Moreto also, the gayest and most comic of the Spanish dramatists, flourished at this time. Lope was dead; but his place was filled up, not by one, but by many, who, under royal patronage, were eager to pay the tribute of a play to the theatre of Spain.

Philip IV. saw Calderon's dramas represented. He perceived their merit, and thought he might serve his king much better by residing in Spain and writing for the theatre, than by bearing arms in Flanders, where there were so many men who could not write plays, much more fit to be knocked on the head. He summoned Calderon to court, by a royal order, for the sake of writing a drama for a palace festival; bestowed on him also the habit of Santiago, and excusing him his military duties commanded him, instead, to furnish a play. Calderon wrote the "Certamen de Amor" (the Combat of Love), and "Zelos" (Jealousy), which were acted at the palace of Buen-Retiro. Calderon wrote as he was commanded; but, unwilling to leave the army, he obtained a commission in the company of the count-duke of Olivarez, which he followed to Catalonia, and remained till the peace, when he returned to court; when the king conferred on him the pay of thirty crowns a month in the artillery.

[Sidenote: 1650. Ætat. 49.]

On another occasion, while staying in the country with the duke of Alva, the king sent for him to celebrate the festivals that occurred on his marriage with Maria Ana of Austria.

At the age of fifty-one he quitted the military career, to which for many years he had been passionately attached, and, being ordained, he became a priest. The king, who always favoured him, made him chaplain of a royal chapel at Toledo, of which he took possession on the 19th of June of the same year. [Sidenote: 1654. Ætat. 53.] But the king, dissatisfied with his distance from court, and his consequent inability to assist properly at the royal feasts, gave him a royal chaplaincy, and recalled him to Madrid; bestowing on him besides a pension, derived from the revenues of Sicily, besides other presents and rewards, the ever-renewing recompence of his labours. Calderon now wrote a play at each celebration of the king's birth-day, not only for Madrid, but for Toledo, Seville, and Granada. As he advanced in age, he obtained other church preferments. [Sidenote: 1687. Ætat. 86.] He died on the 29th of May, 1687, at the age of eighty-six. He left the congregation of St. Peter heir to all he possessed.

In describing his character, his biographer indulges in Spanish hyperbole instead of original traits. He calls him the oracle of the court, the envy of strangers, the father of the Muses, the lynx of learning, the light of the drama. He adds, that his house was ever the shelter of the needy; that his modesty and humility were excessive; attentive in his courtesy; a sure friend, and a good man.

Calderon never collected nor published his plays. The duke of Veragua at one time addressed him a flattering letter, requesting to be furnished with a complete list of his dramas, as the booksellers were in the habit of selling the works of other writers under his name. Calderon, who was then in his eightieth year, supplied the duke with a list only of "Autos Sacramentales." He added, in a letter, that with regard to his temporal dramas, of which he had written an hundred and eleven, he felt offended, that in addition to his own faulty works, those of other authors should be ascribed to him; and besides that his writings were so altered, that he himself could not recognise even their titles. He also expressed his determination of following the example of the booksellers, and to pay as little regard to his plays as they did. He observed, that on religious grounds, he attached more importance to his "Autos."

Several collections of Calderon's plays appeared during his life; one of them being edited by his brother, and another by his friend and biographer, Don Juan de Vera Tassis y Villarroel, who published a hundred and twenty-seven plays, and ninety-five autos; but it is doubted whether all these are really his. This doubt, of course, appertains to the more mediocre ones. In the best, the stamp of Calderon's original genius cannot be doubted.

Bouterwek and Sismondi have both entered into considerable detail with regard to Calderon's plays, but we have no space to indulge in a similar analysis, although, with our admiration for this great poet, we should be glad to enter with minute detail on his merits; but we must confine ourselves to some description of his characteristics.

Schlegel is an enthusiastic admirer of Calderon; and his observations on his works are replete with truth. Other writers--among them the author of an article on the Spanish theatre, in the twenty-fifth volume of the "Quarterly Review"--are less willing to attribute high merit to him. We confess that our opinion more nearly coincides with Schlegel. He carries too far, we allow, his theory of the ideal of Calderon's morality, piety, and honour. It is true, that these are too deeply founded on the bigotry and falsehood of inquisitorial faith, and a false point of honour; but with all this, within the circle which his sentiments and belief prescribe, he is a master of the passions and the imagination. There is a wild and lofty aim in all his more romantic plays, which put barely down, despoiled of the working of the passions and the magic of poetry, seems monstrous, but which, however different from our notions of the present day, strike a chord that vibrates to the depth of the heart. We may give as an instance, that supernatural machinery is introduced into very many of Calderon's plays; and Shakespear himself cannot manage the agency of the spiritual world as Calderon has done. He enlists a sort of belief on his side, which it is difficult to describe, but impossible to withstand. It is not a mere ghost that walks the earth, but an embodying, at the same time, of the conscience and fears of the person thus visited. Thus in the "Purgatory of St. Patrick:" Ludovico Ennio, the villain of the piece, has for many years resolved to assassinate an enemy. He has travelled through many countries, nourishing the idea of vengeance, and returns to Ireland resolved to accomplish it. He wraps himself in his mantle, and thus disguised, he goes for three successive nights to the street where his enemy lives, resolved to stab him: but, at the moment that he fancies that he shall attain his aim, he is met by a man similarly disguised (_embozado_--muffled up in a cloak) who calls to him; but when he follows, the _embozado_ disappears so quickly, it seems as if the wind were in his feet. Ludovico enraged, on the fourth night lays in wait again, and takes his servant with him, that the disguised intruder may not escape. He arrives again at the street, resolved on the death of his enemy. At this moment the cloak-wrapped figure appears before him. Exasperated by his appearance, he declares that he will take two vengeances; one on his ancient enemy, the other on the intruder: the figure calls him by his name, and bids him follow. Ludovico draws on him, but pierces only the empty air; at once astonished and indignant, he still pursues till they come to a desert place, when Ludovico exclaims, "Here we are, body to body, alone, but my sword cannot injure thee: tell me, then, who thou art; art thou a man, a vision, or a dæmon! You answer not--then thus I dare throw off your mantle!" But, hidden by the cloak is a skeleton only; and aghast with terror, he exclaims, "Great God! what dreadful spectacle is this! Horrible vision!--Mortal terror! what art thou--stark corse--that crumbled into earth and dust, yet live? The figure replies, "Knowrest thou not thyself?--I am thy portraiture--I am Ludovico Ennio!" These words, this fearful sight, awaken horror and remorse in the criminal's mind; his heart perceives the truths and how his crimes, indeed, had made him but an image of death itself. He is thus prepared for the purgatory where his sins are to be expiated. Many of the plays thus turn upon visions, portions of the mind itself personified; while, at the same time, the affections and the passions find a voice all truth and poetry, that charms, agitates, and interests.

His autos are conceived in the same spirit. It is true, there is too much theological disquisition and doctrine in them, and that "God the Father plays the school-divine;" but, on the other hand, the poet often appears to open a new world before us, which we view tremblingly at first, till he leads us on by that mastery of the human imagination which he possesses--knowing so well what it can believe, and what it cannot disbelieve--and thus bringing heaven and hell palpably and feelingly before us. The auto of "Life is a dream." (_La Vida es Sueño_) more than any other, is an instance of that peculiarity, which we imperfectly endeavour to describe, of clothing in sensible and potent imagery, the thoughts of the brain, the feelings of the heart. Yet this is not done in the German style. The Germans subtilise, mystify, and cloud the real and distinct: they dissolve flesh and blood into a dream. Calderon, on the contrary, turns a dream into flesh and blood: he gives a pulse to a skeleton; he breathes passion from the lips of ghosts and spectres. Which is the greater power, others must decide. The influence of Calderon is greatest to us; he is master of a spell to which our souls own obedience.

Calderon, as a poet, is diffuse and exaggerated at times, but he is highly imaginative; and as he gives human sympathies to the impalpable and visionary, so does he inform the visible universe with a soul of beauty and feeling. A poet alone could translate Calderon. The only translation we have, is a few scenes from the "Magico Prodigioso" by Shelley. These breathe at once the Spaniard's peculiarities--his fantastic machinery--his incomparable sweetness. Justina is one of the most beautiful of his creations; a maiden, vowed to chastity, who being in vain tempted by the love of many admirers, is assailed by the seductions of hell itself. Nature--the birds, the leaves, and wandering clouds, breathe of love, and endeavour to soften and corrupt her heart.[124] The "Principe Costante" (the Constant Prince) seems to be the most popular of Calderon's plays with his critics. "La Vida es Sueño" (Life is a Dream)--not the auto, but the play--is another, full of wild strange interest, original and sublime. "The Schism of England" is among the most striking of his plays. One passage, where a cavalier describes how he fell in love with Anna Bullen, is fraught with touching sweetness and tender deep-felt passion.

Calderon is, besides, a great master of comedy. His "Gracioso" (or Clown), is different from Lope's--more poetic and fanciful, more vivacious and humorous. In the "Señora y la Criada" (the Lady and her Maid), where a country girl is carried off in mistake for her mistress, there is a comic mistake, most amusingly wrought.

It will be seen that we consider that, while Schlegel refines too much upon the perfection of the art and the sublimity of the moral of the poet, we think that the critic of the Quarterly Review rates his merits at too low a standard. We do not agree that he "cannot admit us within the gates of horror and thrilling fear." On the contrary, we think that much of his power results from his mastery over these emotions. We can scarcely allow that "the sacred source of sympathetic flows not at his command." The simply pathetic is certainly not his characteristic; but the tears may start forth in sympathy for the grandeur of soul exhibited by the Constant Prince; the heart be charmed and interested by the sweetness of Justina, and he touched by the fatherly sorrows of David, in "Los Cabellos de Absolom."

Calderon is much more readable, much more interesting than Lope. He rises higher. It is not only complexity of plot, endless variety of situations, and well sustained dialogue, there is interest of a higher kind; and, though it is true that perfect harmony is wanting in his compositions, and that he riots too much "without constraint or control," yet the colours of his poetry are so bright, and the music of his verse so grand and enthralling, that we feel as we read that he is one of the master geniuses of the world.

[Footnote 122: Fama Vida y Escritos de Don Pedro Calderon de la Barca por Don Juan de Vera Tassis y Villarroel.]

[Footnote 123: Bouterwek and Sismondi give 1600 as the date of Calderon's birth.--His Spanish biographer mentions 1601.]

[Footnote 124: Shelley's Posthumous Poems.--Translations. There is a beautiful passage, drawn from the "Purgatorio de San Patricio," introduced into this author's tragedy of the Cenci.]

THE EARLY POETS OF PORTUGAL

RIBEYRA, GIL VICENTE, SAA DE MIRANDA, FERREIRA.

The same spirit that inspired the Spanish Cancionero, and animated the people of Castile with the love of song, spread itself to the western portion of the peninsula; and; from the earliest times, Portuguese poets composed, and the population of Portugal sang, in their native dialect: and thus using it as the medium for conveying their dearest feelings, caused it to be perpetuated as a national language. Originally the Portuguese tongue was the same as the Gallician; and, had Portugal remained a province of Spain, its peculiar dialect had, like that of Arragon and of Gallicia, been driven from the fields of literature by the Castilian, and while (to use an appropriate metaphor) it might creep in tiny rivulets here and there over the country, the Castilian had flowed a mighty river, receiving all minor streams as tributaries. But at quite the close of the eleventh century Alphonso VI., a Spanish sovereign, celebrated for his victories over the Moors, gave the county of Portugal as a dowry to his daughter on her marriage with Henry of Burgundy, a prince of the royal family of France. The son of this prince, Alphonso Henriquez, was the founder of the Portuguese monarchy. He conquered all that portion of the peninsula that forms Portugal, with the exception of the Algarve. He took Lisbon, and thus became possessed of a powerful and rich capital, and he signalised his successes, by changing the appellation of what had hitherto been a province, and by naming his dominions a kingdom. From this time the Portuguese became a separate nation from the Castilian; their institutions became national, and their language asserted for itself a distinct existence.

The Portuguese were a poetic people, and the Portuguese language adapted to poetry. It is softer than the Castilian, it discards more entirely Latin consonants; but with all, there is something truncated and incomplete in its sounds, very different from the sonorous beauty of the Spanish. It did not adopt the Arabic guttural, but it acquired, no one knows whence, a nasal twang, more decided and obtrusive even than that of the French, which considerably mars its melody. Still it is expressive, it is soft, and it is harmonious; and these qualities rendered it applicable to verse: so that a poet found no difficulty in clothing his ideas and emotions in the language of his native country. Many poets flourished therefore at an early age, though we know little of their productions. Endeavours have been made to find their ancient _cancioneiro geral_[125], but they were unsuccessful, and a guess only can be made as to the nature of their contents.

The Portuguese nation was as peculiar in its pursuits and character as in its language. They were not an agricultural but a pastoral people; and at the same time, their long extent of sea shore led them to the pursuits of commerce and navigation. While the Italian republics were enriching themselves by the trade of the Mediterranean, and while Spain, under Ferdinand and Isabella was, by conquering the whole of its territory from the Moors, laying the foundation of the brief grandeur of Charles V., and the despotism and national degradation that followed, the sovereigns of Portugal were encouraging their subjects in the maritime discoveries, which in a short time changed the aspect of the civilised globe: for the very expedition of Columbus was the offspring of the Portuguese voyages. It was for the sake of discovering _another_ route to India, than the hitherto unsuccessful one along the coast of Africa, that he sailed over the illimitable Western Sea. In 1487, Bartolomeo Diaz doubled the Cape of Good Hope: many years had been previously occupied in creeping along the shores of Africa; but the moment this Cape was doubled, the navigators made a spring, and the celebrated Vasco de Gama reached the renowned and unvisited shores of India. In less than fifteen years from this time, Francisco de Almeida, and Alfonso de Albuquerque founded a Portuguese kingdom in Hindostan, of which Goa was the capital. We may imagine the spirit and enthusiasm that animated this people; they found a new world overflowing with all the precious treasures most valued in Europe; they did not content themselves with trading with the people, a people highly civilised, possessed of literature and all the appendages of an advanced state of human political association; but by their valour they conquered them and made a portion of the country their own. High notions of national importance and future national glory filled their souls; it was a period when each man could regard his native country with pride, and such a time is peculiarly favourable to the birth of genius, and, above all, to the developement of the spirit of poetry.

Bernardim Ribeyro is named the Ennius of Portugal. He was a man of an enthusiastic and tender disposition; his poems, full of passion and despair, emanated from an attachment to some unknown lady; some say the infanta Donna Beatrice, the king's daughter. His eclogues are more known than the rest of his works, and are considered the most excellent[126]; yet, though they are feeling, there is a poverty of ideas, and a want of classical correctness and compression, that speaks of the infancy of composition. But his most celebrated work is an unfinished prose romance, in which, under feigned names and obscure allusions, he narrates his own history and loves. We have not seen this work, and borrow the account of it from Bouterwek, who observes, that "such is the obscurity of the whole, that nothing can be comprehended of the circumstances without the utmost effort of attention. The monotony of incessant love complaints, renders the prolixity of the narrative still more tedious; but even amidst that monotony and prolixity, it is easy to recognise a spirit truly poetic, more remarkable however for susceptibility than energy."

Other poets succeeded to Ribeyro, who also sang of love and pastoral themes, and the poetry of Portugal as well as that of Spain, confined itself to the language of sentiment and description--instead of assuming an heroic and epic measure.

The reformation of Castilian poetry introduced into Spain by Boscan and Garcilaso, penetrated into Portugal; and, singularly enough, the poets who followed, quitted their native idiom to adopt that of the rival country. The cause of so unpatriotic an adoption can only be guessed at. Bouterwek attributes it to the more sonorous and complete sound of the Castilian. Spain, it may be observed, was the larger country and in more immediate connection with Italy; when, therefore, Italian forms of poetic composition were introduced into the peninsula, they flowed, as it were, through Spain, and arrived at the West clothed in a Spanish garb. Perceiving the superior power and charm of the Petrarchist compositions, their imitators at once adopted the very language in which they were clothed. Saa de Miranda wrote his best works, his eclogues, in Spanish, though the same spirit that led him to desert Latin, so long the favourite of educated men, also induced him to write in his native language, and Francisco Diaz names him the real founder of Portuguese poetry. Saa de Miranda was a man of strong feelings, with something too of an eccentric turn of mind. He insisted on marrying a lady neither young nor handsome, whom he had never seen; but whose reputation for discretion and goodness charmed him. He became so attached to her, that when she died some years after, he remained that most rare of all men, an inconsolable widower; giving up all the pursuits and purposes of life--neither shaving his beard nor paring his nails--and three years after following her to the grave. And Jorge de Montemayor altogether cast aside his native language, and enriched the Castilian by a new form of composition, the pastoral romance, which became a general favourite throughout Spain, imitated by every writer, but not excelled by any.

In this brief summary of the predecessors of Camoens, introduced chiefly to shew the state of national poetry when he appeared, we are unable to do full justice to any of these writers, and are obliged to omit the names of many. But we must not pass over Gil Vicente, who is styled the Portuguese Plautus. Very little is known of him--the very period of his birth only guessed at; it is supposed that he was born at the close of the fifteenth century. He was an indefatigable writer, and furnished the royal family and public with dramatic entertainments suited to the taste of the age. He wrote entirely in the old national manner. He appears to have been the inventor of _Autos_, or spiritual dramas, which raised into a regular and poetic style of play the monkish or buffoonish festive representations.

Doctor Bowring has introduced translations of several of this poet's songs; these were written in Spanish, they are characterised by a charming simplicity, and are peculiarly short; one chord of a lyre struck, as it were, one emotion of the heart breathed forth in words; without elaborate display or any attempt at imagery or metaphor beyond the one single feeling that dictates the poem.

Antonio Ferreira must be mentioned as a classic poet of Portugal. He is styled the Portuguese Horace. He was of noble family, and destined by his parents to fill some high public office in the state. He took the degree of doctor in the university of Coimbra, where he studied civil law. He was an enthusiastic lover of his native language, and resolved never to write in any other, at the same time that he founded his taste and style on the study of Horace. He admired also the excellencies of Italian poetry, and introduced the measure and structure of its verse into the Portuguese. It was the object of his ambition at once to be himself a classic poet; and to give to his native Portugal a classic style of poetry. Ferreira was nine and twenty when he published the first collection of his poetic works. He had friends who admired his genius and joined him in his pursuits. He quitted the university for the court, and filled a high place as judge, and was also appointed gentleman of the royal household; he became an oracle of criticism, and looked forward to brilliant prospects through life, when he died of the plague which raged in Lisbon in 1569, at the age of forty-one.

Ferreira, without possessing the originality of Gil Vicente, his sweetness or his genius, was eminently useful to the art of poetry in Portugal. He taught the writers of that country to aim at correctness, and to enrich their compositions by the knowledge acquired from the writings of other countries; but not, for that purpose, to adopt a foreign tongue, but to raise the Portuguese to the level of other languages, and gift it with the purest and noblest poetic measures. He is, himself, novel, however, rather in his style than in his ideas. His epistles are his best work; the sentiments he expresses are elevated, and his fancy and poetic verve graced them with a diction and imagery which raises them in the class of such compositions. The distinctive feeling however to be found in Ferreira, animating all he wrote, was patriotism. The glory, the advancement and the civilisation of Portugal, were the themes of his praise, and the objects which he furthered with his utmost endeavours. He exhorts his friends not to permit the Muses in Portugal to speak any thing but Portuguese. Of himself, he says, in very beautiful verses, that "he shall be content with the glory of loving his native land, and his countrymen." It was this enthusiasm that elevated Ferreira into a great man. He is a little misplaced here, as he was a few years younger than Camoens; but it shows the spirit that was abroad in Camoens' time--a patriotic spirit that loved to express its genuine sentiments in language warm from the heart and familiar to the tongue. In this Camoens and Ferreira were alike; they loved their native country, and were eager to adorn its literature with native flowers. In other respects they were different. Ferreira's classic pages bear no resemblance to the fire, passion, and rich fancy of Camoens, to whom we now turn as to one of the favourites of fame, though he was the neglected child of his country, and the victim of an adverse fate.

[Footnote 125: In Castilian _cancioneros general_ or general song books. _Vide_ Bouterwek; Sismondi.]

[Footnote 126: Bouterwek.]

CAMOENS

1524-1579.

Camoens and Cervantes encountered, in several respects, a similar destiny. They were both men of genius, both men of military valour; both were disregarded by their contemporaries, and suffered extreme misfortune. Camoens, indeed, has in this a sad advantage over Cervantes. The latter lived in poverty, but the former died in want. Posterity endeavoured to repair the injuries inflicted by ungrateful contemporaries. The circumstances of the life of Camoens were carefully collected. Several able native commentators wrote elaborate notes on the "Lusiad," and lastly a magnificent edition of that poem was published in 1817. Nor have the English been unmindful of the great Portuguese poet. Sir Richard Fanshaw translated the "Lusiad" as far back as Cromwell's time; but the present popular translation is by Mickle. He bestowed great pains on the work, and accompanied it by various essays relative to its subject, and a life of Camoens. His version has great merit, as will be hereafter mentioned, notwithstanding its want of fidelity and the signal defect of being written in heroic couplets, instead of eight-line stanzas, like the original. Lord Strangford appended a sketch of Camoens' life to his translation of a portion of his "Rimas;" and, lastly, Mr. Adamson has presented the English reader with an elaborate biography, attended by all sorts of valuable collateral information and embellishments.

The family of Camoens was originally of Gallicia, and possessed extensive demesnes in that province. The old Spanish name of the family was Caamaños--the etymology of which has occupied the commentators. We are told, among others, that it was derived from Cadmus. There is nothing extraordinary in this. All readers conversant with old national annals, are aware that they usually derive their immediate origin either from a son of Noah, or some well known Grecian hero: Ulysses, it was said, founded Lisbon. It was probably adopted from the castle of Cadmon, where they resided. The poet himself, however, refers it to a more imaginative source. In ancient times, in Gallicia, there existed a bird named the Camaõ, which never survived the infidelity of the wife of its lord. The moment the lady went astray, the bird sought its master, and expired at his feet. A matron of the house of Cadmon was unjustly accused of ill faith--she entrusted her defence to the cadmaõ, and the success of her appeal caused her husband, grateful for this restoration to honour and domestic felicity, to adopt the name of the saviour bird. This is a tale of romance and barbarism, of the days of ordeal and degrading suspicion; but Camoens himself alludes to it, and it derives interest from his mention.[127]

The family of Caamaños possessed a _solar_ or ancestral inheritance in Gallicia, and reigned over seventeen villages near the promontory of Finisterre. One of the lords of this family having killed a cavalier de Castros, they were obliged to migrate, and settled at a fortress called Rubianes; where Faria y Sousa tells us the family still remain, great in birth, but of diminished means.[128]

Vasco Perez de Camoens, either brother or son of this Ruy, made a second migration to Portugal in 1370. Faria y Sousa conjectures that it might be from some such same cause as occasioned the first exile, while Southey attributes it to his having sided with Pedro the Cruel against his more infamous brother Henriquez II. However that may be, Fernando, king of Portugal, received him with distinction, and gifted him with the "villas" of Sardoal, Punhete, Maraõ, and Amendao, besides making him one of the principal fidalgos of his court. Nor did the favours of Fernando stop here. Vasco Perez received various other estates in gift, and filled places of political and military importance.

After the death of Fernando, Vasco Perez became involved in a dispute for succession, and he upheld the cause of the queen of Fernando, Leonor, and his daughter, the queen of Castile. His power was great, and his aid was held of importance, whichever side he espoused. Camoens considered that his ancestor assisted the wrong cause, that of Castile against Portugal. The latter was destined to triumph, and Vasco was the sufferer. He lost all command, but retained a considerable portion of his estates. A letter has been discovered by Sarmiento, written by the marquis of Santillana, which intimates that Vasco Perez was a poet as well as a warrior.

The descendants of Vasco Perez were of account, and married into the richest and most powerful families of Portugal. His second son, Joaõ Vaz, was the great-grandfather of the poet. He acquired glory by his military services under Alfonso V., and was named his _vassal_--a title of distinction in those days. He built a house at Coimbra, and there is a marble monument erected to his memory in the chapel of the cloister of the cathedral at Coimbra. Simaõ Vaz, the grandson of Joaõ Vaz, married Dona Ana de Sa e Macedo, of noble descent, and sprung from the Macedos of Santarem. Thus, in every way, Camoens was highly descended from nobles and warriors; but, springing from the younger branch, he inherited the blood and name without the estates of his family. As he never married this branch of the family became extinct.

Coimbra and Santarem have both contended for the glory of having been his birth-place, but without foundation; for he was born at Lisbon, most probably in the district "da Mouraria," in the parish of San Sebastiaõ, where his parents resided. The date of his birth has been disputed. A friend and contemporary, Manoel Correa, gave that of 1517; but a register, in the Portuguese India House, proves that he was really born in 1524.[129] This entry also is conclusive on another point. It was long believed that Camoens lost his father while a mere child. Simon Vaz de Camoens was a mariner; nearly all the biographers of the poet agree in stating that he lost a ship, of which he was commander, on the coast of Goa, and, escaping from the wreck, died soon afterwards in that city; though some aver that he fell in the combat in which his son lost an eye. Camoens himself does not mention his father as being with him on that occasion, nor during any of his adventures. This point, therefore, is left in obscurity.

Camoens was born at Lisbon; he celebrates with fondness the parental Tagus: "My Tagus," as he sometimes names the river. But most of his early years were spent at Coimbra, where, as has been mentioned, his father had a house. He often mentions the river Mondego in his verses. To a poet, there is something in a river that engages his affections and enlivens his imagination. Water is indeed the soul, the smile, the beaming eye of a landscape; and as Camoens' only happy days were those when he nourished hopes--hopes, as he says in a letter, which he afterwards cast aside as coiners of false money--in his youth, he might well record with fondness the hours he spent in the beautiful environs of Coimbra on the banks of its lovely river. Thus, in his poems, the nymphs of Tagus and of Mondego are both addressed; and in one remarkable and most beautiful passage of the "Lusiad" he exclaims, "What, insane and rash, am I about to do without ye, O nymphs of Tagus and Mondego, through so arduous, long, and various a way? I invoke your favour, as I navigate the deep sea with so contrary a wind, that, unless ye aid me, I fear that my fragile bark must sink!" and then he goes on to describe his misfortunes in India, turning to those streams that watered his native land, and whose very names were full of blessed recollections of life's prime, to give him fortitude and help.[130]

Camoens studied in the university at Coimbra. This university was founded by king Diniz, in 1308. Camoens introduces mention of this monarch in the "Lusiad," and alludes to the establishment of the university under his fosterage:--

From Helicon the Muses wing their way: Mondego's flowery banks invite their stay, Now Coimbra shines, Minerva's proud abode; And fired with joy, Parnassus' blooming God Beholds another dear-loved Athens rise, And spread her laurels in indulgent skies.[131]

The university, however, fell off, and it was don Manuel who exerted himself for its re-establishment; and dom John, his successor, took equal pains to raise it to its former prosperity, and in the first place caused it again to be restored to Coimbra--for it had been transferred to Lisbon--and founded several new colleges. The date when Camoens entered it is uncertain. It has been supposed that he was twelve years old. In that case he must have attended it while at Lisbon; for it was only transferred in 1537[132] when Camoens was thirteen or fourteen.

Saa de Miranda had studied there, and Ferreira was also a student. He was younger than Camoens by four years, and that, at a boyish age, makes the difference of, as it were, a generation. There is no token that they were known to each other, nor, indeed, are there any traces of Camoens' life or pursuits at Coimbra, except such as we find in his poems; and these are in some sort contradictory--agreeing, however, in the love they express for the picturesque scenery in which this seat of learning was placed, and affection for its beautiful river.

Mr. Adamson quotes a canzone, in which he dwells with delight on the charms of the Mondego, and dates thence his earliest passion. Lord Strangford asserts that he had never experienced the passion of love while at Coimbra, and rests his assertion on expressions of the poet. Both of course are right, and the poet is wrong. Nor is this assertion paradoxical. When the heart of Camoens became susceptible to a master feeling, that filled it and awoke its every pulse to a sense of love, he would naturally wish to throw into the back-ground any boyish fancy; and comparing its slight and evanescent emotions with the mighty passion of which he was afterwards the prey, he might well say,--

All ignorant of love I pass'd my days, Its bow and all its mad deceits despising,

and revert to that period as the time,--

When from the bonds of love I wander'd free-- For always was I not chain'd to the oar:-- Once liberty was mine--but that is o'er. And I now dwell in bard captivity.[133]

This certainly contrasts strangely with the poem quoted by Adamson, but it is a fair poetic licence, or rather a licence of the heart, which not only would bring to its selected shrine every former emotion and immolate them there, but is jealous that any such existed, and would gladly expunge all trace of them from the page of life. The verses above mentioned form his fourth canzone, and were written on taking leave of Coimbra.[134] The following is a portion of it:--

Soft from its crystal bed of rest, Mondego's tranquil waters glide, Nor stop, till, lost on ocean's breast, They, swelling, mingle with the tide. Increasing still, as still they flow-- Ah! there commenced my endless woe. * * * * * * * * * Yet whisper'd to the murmuring stream, That winds these flowery meads among, I give affection's cheating dream, And pour in weeping truth my song; That each recounted woe may prove A lasting monument of love.

There is another sonnet, in which he takes leave of the Mondego, but its context renders it apparent that it was not written so early in life, as when he first quitted the university. As his parents had a house at Coimbra, it may be assumed that he frequently visited this place, and wrote the following sonnet in a later and sadder day:--

Mondego! thou whose waters, cold and clear, Gird those green banks, where fancy fain would stay, Fondly to muse on that departed day, When hope was kind, and friendship seem'd sincere-- Ere I had purchased knowledge with a tear.-- Mondego! though I bend my pilgrim way To other shores, where other fountains stray, And other rivers roll their proud career, Still, nor shall time, nor grief, nor stars severe, Nor widening distance e'er prevail in aught, To make thee less to this sad bosom dear; And Memory oft, by old affection taught, Shall lightly speed upon the shrines of thought, To bathe among thy waters cold and clear.[135]

There is nothing so attractive to a biographer as to complete the fragments of his hero's life; and, almost as children trace the forms of animals and landscapes in the fire, by fixing the eye on salient particles, so a few words suffice to give "local habitation and a name," to such emotions as the poet has made the subject of his verse. To do this, and by an accurate investigation of dates, and a careful sifting of concomitant circumstances to discover the veiled event, is often the art of biography--but we must not be seduced too far. Truth, absolute and unshakeable, ought to be the foundation of our assertions, or we paint a fancy head instead of an individual portrait. Truth is all in all in matters of history, for history is the chart of the world's sea; and if imaginary lands are marked, those who would wisely learn from the experience of others, are led sadly astray. Petrarch has been the mark of similar conjectures to a great extent; but his letters give a true direction to our researches. We have no such guide in the history of Camoens's attachment. He loved and was beloved; was banished, and his lady died. Such is nearly all that we absolutely know.

[Sidenote: 1545.[136] Ætat. 21.]

To return however from remark to history, Camoens left Coimbra for Lisbon and the court. He had not lost his time at the University--he was a finished scholar. He was a poet also then when poetry was held a high and divine gift. With such acquirements and accomplishments, joined to his gentlemanly qualities, his courtesy and wit, he was favoured by the highest people at court; his handsome person also gained him the favour and estimation of the ladies. His defect was his poverty, but that defect might be remedied by the friendship of some great man, or the favour of his sovereign. Asa young noble of illustrious descent, he had a right to expect advancement. As a poet full of imagination and ardour, at the very first glowing entrance to life, while (to speak metaphorically) the Aurora of hope announced the rising sun of prosperity, he might expect an ample portion of that happiness, which, while we are young, appears to us to be our just and assured inheritance.

Soon after his arrival at court he fell in love. One of his sonnets, (commented upon by an almanack,) fixes the date when he first saw the lady, as the eleventh or twelfth of April, 1545. He mentions that it was holy week, and at the time when the ceremonies that commemorate the death of our Saviour were celebrated. This sonnet is not one of his best; but we quote Lord Strangford's translation, as it is a monument of an interesting epoch--the commencement of that attachment which shed a disastrous influence over the rest of his life--for by it his early hopes were blighted, and they never flowered again:

"Sweetly was heard the anthem's choral strain, And myriads bow'd before the sainted shrine, In solemn reverence to the Sire divine, Who gave the Lamb, for guilty mortals slain; When in the midst of God's eternal fane, (Ah, little weening of his fell design!) Love bore the heart, which since has ne'er been mine, To one who seem'd of heaven's elected train! For sanctity of place or time were vain 'Gainst that blind Archer's soul-consuming power, Which scorns, and soars all circumstance above. O! Lady, since I've worn thy gentle chain, How oft have I deplored each wasted hour, When I was free and had not learn'd to love!

It is said that this occurrence took place in the church of Christ's Wounds, at Lisbon.[137] There is so much resemblance of time and place between this event and the first time when Petrarch records that he saw Laura, that we might almost suppose that the later poet imitated the earlier one; but there is no other resemblance between their attachment. The name of the lady Camoens fell in love with, was dona Caterina de Atayde, and she was a lady of the palace. Many researches have been made to discover more of her parentage and station; dom Jose Maria de Sousa made diligent search in the "Historia da Casa Real;" but he can do no more than conjecture that she was a relation of dom Antonio de Atayde, the first conde de Castanheira, a powerful favourite of John III. It is guessed that she was not more than sixteen when Camoens first saw her. She was unmarried; his attachment therefore was totally unlike the Platonic, far-off worship of the lover of Laura de Sades. Camoens loved as a youth who dedicates himself to one whom he may hope to make his own in the open face of day--with whom he might spend his life, as her protector and husband; but she was of high birth, and her relations had lofty pretensions--a pennyless, though noble and accomplished gentleman by no means suited their views. The love of Camoens was full of difficulties: his ardour was excited by them; and, while unassured of any return he was disposed to vanquish every obstacle for the sake of seeing, and endeavouring to win the heart of the beloved object.

Youth and love aided the developement of a vivid imagination. There never breathed a more genuine poet than Camoens, and now he poured forth his soul in rhymes: canzoni and sonnets are dedicated to his lady, describing her beauty, his sufferings, and the deep affection he nourished. Notwithstanding the good old proverb, commentators are fond of instituting comparisons, and the amatory poetry of Petrarch and Camoens has been compared. Camoens had doubtless read and studied Petrarch, but in no respect does he imitate him. There is more finish in the compositions of the Italian, and for this there is an obvious cause. While speaking slightingly of them, Petrarch was employed even in his last days in the correction and polishing of his Italian poetry; while the verses of Camoens, written in the first gush of inspiration, were never collected by him, or if collected, the volume was lost: and scattered over Portugal and India, it was with difficulty they were brought together, nor were they published till after his death, and some of those included in the collection are said not to be his.

There is a glow, a freshness, and a truth; a touching softness and a heart-felt eagerness, in his verses on dona Caterina, which is very winning. The language he uses does not charm the ear like Italian, but it is capable of great melody and expression. We possess translations of a small portion, but lyrics can never be translated; they have a _voice_ of their own which cannot be transfused into another language. Lord Strangford's translations have this merit, that they read like original poetry--but something of truth has been sacrificed in consequence.

It is from these poems that we gather almost all we know of Camoens' attachment. As Petrarch did, he dedicates a sonnet to an emotion--which to a lover's heart seemed an event, or in a _canzone_, dwells at length on the course of his passion. One sonnet which describes the lady, is a great favourite with the Portuguese: the translation is difficult; we quote the one given by Mr. Adamson--

"Her Eye's soft movement, radiant and benign, Yet with no casual glance; her honest smile, Cautious though free;--her gestures that combine, Light mirth with modesty, as if the while She stood all trembling o'er some doubtful bliss, Her blithe demeanour; her confiding ease, Secure in grave and virgin bashfulness, Midst every gentler virtue formed to please Her purity of soul--her innate fear Of error's stain; her temper mild, resigned; Her looks, obedience; her unclouded air, The faithful index of a spotless mind; These form a Circe, who with magic art Can fix or change each purpose of my heart."

He describes her charms in many of his poems. Dona Caterina had mild blue eyes, and hair of a golden brown, and he dwells on the softness of the former and the splendour of the latter with fond admiration; but the poem which expresses most fervently the influence of her beauty is one of which Dr. Southey has given a very exquisite translation, and which we are irresistibly tempted to quote--

"When I behold you. Lady, when my eyes Dwell on the deep enjoyment of your sight, I give my spirit to that one delight, And earth appears to me a Paradise. And when I hear you speak and see you smile, Full, satisfied, absorbed, my centred mind Deems all the world's vain hopes and joys the while, As empty as the unsubstantial wind. Lady, I feel your charms, but dare not raise To that high theme th' unequal song of praise; A power for that to language was not given: Nor marvel I when I those beauties view, Lady, that he whose power created you, Could form the stars and yonder glorious heaven."

The concluding lines of the above sonnet are conceived in the very truth of love and ardour of imagination that stamps the lyrics and sonnets of Camoens with a charm almost unequalled by any other poet.

The obstacles that were in the way of all intercourse with the lady maddened his young and impatient spirit. Dona Caterina lived in the palace, and Camoens violated some rule of decorum in endeavouring to see her, and was exiled. We are not told what his fault was. Dona Caterina was not insensible to his passion. He always speaks of her as mild and retiring--modest and gentle; he never complains of her haughtiness nor her pride: indeed, several of his sonnets speak of how oft he was happy and content, and of "past sweet delights."[138] We do not venture too far, therefore, in supposing that her relations discovered that she returned her lover's attachment; and, as they were opposed to their being married, they used their influence to get the youthful and, as they deemed, presumptuous aspirant, banished.

Lord Strangford speaks decidedly of a parting interview, when the horrors of approaching exile were softened by finding his grief and his sorrow shared by her he loved. There indeed appears foundation for this, though the noble biographer uses a few fancy tints, when, quoting the twenty-fourth sonnet, he comments on it, by saying, "On the morning of his departure his mistress relented from her wonted severity, and confessed the secret of her long concealed affection. The sighs of grief were soon lost in those of mutual delight, and the hour of parting was perhaps the sweetest of our poet's existence." This may be true. The poet speaks of "a mournful and a happy morning, overflowing with grief and pity", which he desires should for ever be remembered, and he speaks of "tears shed by other eyes than his."[139]

Camoens appears to have passed his exile at Santarem (the native place of his mother), or in its neighbourhood. He was supremely unhappy; banished from her he loved, banished from the court, where all his hopes of advancement, were centred, the gates of life were closed on him. His genius and his poetical imagination were his only resource and comfort. He wrote many of his lyrics and sonnets here, and among the rest a very beautiful elegy, in which he compares himself to Ovid banished to Pontus, and separated from the country and the friends he loved. He dwells on the Roman's misery, and proceeds--

"Thus Fancy paints me--thus like him forlorn, Condemn'd the hapless exile's fate to prove; In life-consuming pain, thus doomed to mourn The loss of all I prized--of her I love.

"Reflection paints me guiltless though opprest, Increasing thus the sources of my woe; The pang unmerited that rends the breast, But bids a tear of keener sorrow flow.

"On golden Tagus' undulating stream[140] Skim the light barks by gentlest, wishes sped Trace their still way midst many a rosy gleam That steals in blushes o'er its trembling bed.

"I see them gay, in passing beauty glide Some with fix'd sails to woo the tardy gale, While others with their oars that stream divide To which I weeping tell the Exile's tale."