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Updated: June 28, 2025
Upon tablets set in the four sides of the pedestal are inscribed appropriate verses from his poem the Lusiad; whilst in another place upon a stone set in the rock, is an epitaph in the French language, but the most appropriate sentiment was expressed in this couplet pencilled on the side of the grotto: "Sad poet! 'twas thy fate, alas, to be Not less the child of fame than misery."
I amused myself on the voyage to Calcutta with learning Portuguese, and made myself almost as well acquainted with it as I care to be. I read the Lusiad, and am now reading it a second time. I own that I am disappointed in Camoens; but I have so often found my first impressions wrong on such subjects that I still hope to be able to join my voice to that of the great body of critics.
Perhaps a subject which would furnish materials for as rich a production as Camoen's Lusiad, and which would adorn the pen of a Hayley or a Cowper, may hereafter call forth the genius of some poet of the stronger sex. The Royal Society of London could not lose such a member of their body as Captain Cook, without being anxious to honour his name and memory by a particular mark of respect.
Parts of the Lusiad, he could recite in the original. Where he had obtained his wonderful accomplishments, it is not for me, his humble subordinate, to say. Enough, that those accomplishments were so various; the languages he could converse in, so numerous; that he more than furnished an example of that saying of Charles the Fifth he who speaks five languages is as good as five men.
Milton was the third epic poet. For if the title of epic in its highest sense be refused to the Aneid still less can it be conceded to the Orlando Furioso, the Gerusalemme Liberata, the Lusiad, or the Fairy Queen.
There are some puerile hyperboles, for which I know not whether he or Camoens is responsible; such as The mountain echoes catch the big swoln sighs. The yellow sands with tears are silver'd o'er. Johnson told him that he had once intended to translate the Lusiad.
The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are the most important and sublime creations of Hindu literature, and the most colossal epic poems to be found in the literature of the world. They surpass in magnitude the Iliad and Odyssey, the Jerusalem Delivered and the Lusiad, as the pyramids of Egypt tower above the temples of Greece.
As scholars know, the "Lusiad" was first published in 1572, is in ten cantos and 1102 stanzas, and is translated into most modern languages. Important American and English libraries possess it by at least four translators, each being more or less a standard. The life of the great poet is underlaid with romance and sadness.
For in 1498, when Buonarotti was at his prime, Raphael, fifteen years old, had just taken his seat at the paternal easel, and the scenes of the Lusiad were in progress, "barrels were first grooved at Venice." Who grooved them we are not told. The name of that artist has not survived, though we still remember his contemporary townsman, Titian.
His 'Lusiad, which was shortly after published, brought him much fame, but no money. But for his old Indian slave Antonio, who begged for his master in the streets, Camoens must have perished. As it was, he died in a public almshouse, worn out by disease and hardship.
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