poetry. A trait which distinguishes this
epic from all its predecessors is the historic truthfulness with which
Camoens confessedly--"_A verdade_ que eu conto nua e pura Vence toda a
grandiloqua escriptura"--represents his heroic personages and their
exploits, tempering his praise with blame where blame is due, and the
unquestioned fidelity and exactness with which he depicts natural
scenes. Lest, however, this adherence to historic truth should impair
the vivifying element of imagination indispensable to true poetry, our
bard, combining in the true spirit of the Renaissance myth and
miracle, threw around his narrative the allegorical drapery of pagan
mythology, introducing the gods and goddesses of Olympus as siding
with or against the Portuguese heroes, and thus calling the
imagination of the reader into more active play. Among the many
beautiful inventions of his own creative fancy with which Camoens has
adorned his poem, we shall only mention the powerful impersonation of
the Cape of Storms in the Giant Adamastor (c. v.), an episode used by
Meyerbeer in his opera 'L'Africaine,' and the enchanting scene of the
Isle of Love (c. ix.), as characteristic of the poet's delicacy of
touch as it is of his Portuguese temperament, in which Venus provides
for the merited reward and the continuance of the brave sons of Lusus.
For the metric form of his verse, Camoens adopted the octave rhyme of
Ariosto, while for his epic style he followed Virgil, from whom many a
simile and phrase is directly borrowed. His poem, justly admired for
the elegant simplicity, the purity and harmony of its diction, bears
throughout the deep imprint of his own powerful and noble personality,
that independence and magnanimity of spirit, that fortitude of soul,
that genuine and glowing patriotism which alone, amid all the
disappointments and dangers, the dire distress and the foibles and
faults of his life, could enable him to give his mind and heart
steadfastly to the fulfillment of the lofty patriotic task he had set
his genius,--the creation of a lasting monument to the heroic deeds of
his race. It is thus that through 'The Lusiads' Camoens became the
moral bond of the national individuality of his people, and inspired
it with the energy to rise free once more out of Spanish subjection.

Lyrics. Here, Camoens is hardly less great than as an epic poet,
whether we consider the nobility, depth, and fervor of the sentiments
filling his songs, or the arti