Camoens - The Lyrics part 1 - Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890)

14 LYRICKS OF CAMOENS.the task may be left to him who shall comment uponThe LusiadaP* But what may here be said is thatour Poet carried out so literally and so completelythe Obligations of the Epos, that if it did not seemArrogance we might assign to him a Seat hard bythat occupied by Virgilius ; for in the Grandeur, theGravity, and the Harmony of the Words; in theTracing and the Discursus of the Work, and in theSublimity of the Subject, he everywhere followedVirgiliushis footsteps. And in all his Fictions andAllegories, without which there can be no HeroickPoem (agreeably to the opinion of Aristotle as quotedby Rhodiginus in the same Lib. iv. Cap. 4 ;and tothe writings of Plutarchus, who in the place abovereferred to reprehends Empedocles, Parmenides, Nicandrosand Theognides for usurping the name of Poet,because they wrote verses rich only in Learning butunaccompanied by Imagination), in this matter, I say,he showed a genius so admirable as well nigh to rivalHomeros. Would that he had been able to abasehis Grandeur in some of his Eclogues by conformingthem more with the style BucolickfAnd although our Poet lack not Detractors tocalumniate his Works, yet doth Detraction by nomeans obscure their Desarts* For both Virgilius andHomeros underwent this trial, which naturally awaitsall rare and seld-seen Genius. So true it is that theGrammarian Carvilius^ writ a whole book upon theErrors of Virgilius : also Caligula, the Cc&sar, daredaffirm that the Poet had neither Ability nor Erudi-