Bibliography

60.  Camoens, 6 vols. 1 and 2, the Lusiads. 1880. 3 and 4, Life of Camoens and Commentary. 1882. 5 and 6, The Lyrics. 1884. 61.  The Kasidah. 1880. 62.  Visit to Lissa and Pelagoza. 1880. 63.  A Glance at the Passion Play. 1881. 64.  How to deal with the Slave Trade in Egypt. 1881. 65.  Thermae of Montfalcone. 1881.

98.  The Lusiads.

Burton had brought with him to Egypt his translation of The Lusiads, which had been commenced as early as 1847, and at which, as we have seen, he had, from that time onward, intermittently laboured.  At Cairo he gave his work the finishing touches, and on his return to Trieste in May it was ready for the press.  There have been many English translators of Camoens, from Fanshawe, the first, to Burton and Aubertin; and Burton likens them to the Simoniacal Popes in Dante’s Malebolge-pit—­each one struggling to trample down his elder brother.[FN#322] Burton’s work, which appeared in 1882, was presently followed by two other volumes consisting of a Life of Camoens and a Commentary on The Lusiads, but his version of The Lyrics did not appear till 1884.

Regarded as a faithful rendering, the book was a success, for Burton had drunk The Lusiads till he was super-saturated with it.  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.  Regarded, however, as poetry, the book was a failure, and for the simple reason that Burton was not a poet.  Like his Kasidah, it contains noble lines, but on every page we are reminded of the translator’s defective ear, annoyed by the unnecessary use of obsolete words, and disappointed by his lack of what Poe called “ethericity.”  The following stanza, which expresses ideas that Burton heartily endorsed, may be regarded as a fair sample of the whole: 

   “Elegant Phormion’s philosophick store
      see how the practised Hannibal derided
      when lectured he with wealth of bellick lore
      and on big words and books himself he prided. 
      Senhor! the soldier’s discipline is more
      than men may learn by mother-fancy guided;
    Not musing, dreaming, reading what they write;
    ’tis seeing, doing, fighting; teach to fight."[FN#323]

The first six lines contain nothing remarkable, still, they are workmanlike and pleasant to read; but the two concluding lines are atrocious, and almost every stanza has similar blemishes.  A little more labour, even without much poetic skill, could easily have produced a better result.  But Burton was a Hannibal, not a Phormion, and no man can be both.  He is happiest, perhaps, in the stanzas containing the legend of St. Thomas,[FN#324] or Thome, as he calls him,