Book IX. Because the Portuguese next threaten to attack the town, the Zamorin promptly sends Da Gama back with a cargo of spices and gems and promises of fair treatment hereafter.  The Portuguese thereupon sail home, taking with them the faithful Moncaide, who is converted on the way and baptized as soon as they land at Lisbon.

Book X. On the homeward journey Venus, wishing to reward the brave Lusitanians for all their pains and indemnify them for their past hardships, leads them to her “Isle of Joy.”  Here she and her nymphs entertain them in the most acceptable mythological style, and a siren foretells in song all that will befall their native country between Vasco da Gama’s journey and Camoens’ time.  Venus herself guides the navigator to the top of a hill, whence she vouchsafes him a panoramic view of all the kingdoms of the earth and of the spheres which compose the universe.

In this canto we also have a synopsis of the life of St. Thomas, the Apostle of India, and see the Portuguese sail happily off with the beauteous brides they have won in Venus’ Isle of Joy.  The return home is safely effected, and our bold sailors are welcomed in Lisbon with delirious joy, for their journey has crowned Portugal with glory.  The poem concludes, as it began, with an apostrophe from the poet to the king.

The Lusiad is so smoothly written, so harmonious, and so full of similes that ever since Camoens’ day it has served as a model for Portuguese poetry and is even yet an accepted and highly prized classic in Portuguese Literature.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 14:  See the author’s “Story of the Thirteen Colonies.”]

[Footnote 15:  All the quotations in this chapter are from Mickle’s translation of the “Lusiad.”]

ITALIAN EPICS

The fact that Latin remained so long the chief literary language of Europe prevented an early development of literature in the Italian language.  Not only were all the popular European epics and romances current in Italy in Latin, but many of them were also known in Provencal in the northern part of the peninsula.  It was, therefore, chiefly imitations of the Provencal bards’ work which first appeared in Italian, in the thirteenth century, one of the best poets of that time being the Sordello with whom Dante converses in Purgatory.

Stories relating to the Charlemagne cycle found particular favor in Northern Italy, and especially at Venice.  In consequence there were many Italian versions of these old epics, as well as of the allegorical Roman de la Rose.