United States or Guinea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Now you can see whether I am imposing on you," he continued, indignantly. "And what's the name of this book?" asked the Major, as he took it from his hand. "The LUSIADES, an admirable epic, which " "The LUSIADES!" exclaimed Glenarvan. "Yes, my friend, the LUSIADES of the great Camoens, neither more nor less."
After dinner we went for a walk. One of the things we saw during our stroll was the fine statue of Luiz de Camoens, specially interesting to us, as we had so recently seen the place where he passed many of the weary years of his exile. Rolling Motion Square was as giddy as ever.
Alone among the translators, he had visited every spot alluded to in the poem, and his geographical and other studies had enabled him to elucidate many passages that had baffled his predecessors. Then, too, he had the assistance of Aubertin, Da Cunha and other able Portuguese scholars and Camoens enthusiasts.
Two old engravings, one of the poet Camoens and the other of Catarina de Atayde, his beloved, who died of grief at his banishment, hung on the wall; the rest of the furnishings was of that cosmopolitan character which is sure to collect in the home of a European resident in the far East. "Can't you see me Robert?" said a laughing voice of great sweetness from a corner of the study.
We have prepared two eclogues, one by the famous poet Garcilasso, the other by the most excellent Camoens, in its own Portuguese tongue, but we have not as yet acted them.
Amid these high dreams and simple occupations, time seemed to glide away like a brimming stream, and the only events that marked the passing of the years were wayfarings through the country-side, sojournings in strange, slumbrous native towns, expeditions of wider range to old white ports of Malabar still dreaming of the forgotten heroes whose story Camoens sang.
But quite invariably, the materials of the story will have an unmistakable air of actuality; that is, they come profoundly out of human experience, whether they declare legendary heroism, as in Homer and Virgil, or myth, as in Beowulf and Paradise Lost, or actual history, as in Lucan and Camoens and Tasso.
His manners were easy and free; none of the boisterousness, so common to tars; and he had a polite, courteous way of saluting you, if it were only to borrow your knife. Jack had read all the verses of Byron, and all the romances of Scott. He talked of Rob Roy, Don Juan, and Pelham; Macbeth and Ulysses; but, above all things, was an ardent admirer of Camoens.
There was an awakening of interest in art and letters. A school of poets had arisen of which Camoens was to be the crown. The court, mindful of the duties of patronage, was building new churches and convents and decorating the old ones with religious pictures, and in Portugal religious feeling has always been peculiarly strong. Many of these pictures are still preserved.
And the world-finder, Christopher Columbus, was a sailor! and so was Camoens, who went to sea with Gama, else we had never had the Lusiad, White-Jacket. Yes, I've sailed over the very track that Camoens sailed round the East Cape into the Indian Ocean. I've been in Don Jose's garden, too, in Macao, and bathed my feet in the blessed dew of the walks where Camoens wandered before me.
Word Of The Day