 Section 1 of Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 8 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Larry Wilson. Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 8, Section 1 John Calvin, 159-1564 by Arthur Cushman McGifford John Calvin was born in the village of Nuyong, in northeastern France, on the 10th of July, 159. He was intended by his parents for the priesthood, for which he seemed to be particularly fitted by his naturally austere disposition, a verse to every form of sport or frivolity, and he was given an excellent education with that calling in view. But finally at the command of his father, whose plans for his son had undergone a change, he gave up his theological preparation and devoted himself to the study of law. Gifted with an extraordinary memory, rare insight, and an uncommonly keen reasoning faculty, he speedily distinguished himself in his new field, and a brilliant career was predicted for him by his teachers. His tastes, however, were more literary than legal, and his first published work, written at the age of 23, was a commentary on Seneca's Declamentia, which brought him wide repute as a classical scholar and as a clear and forceful writer. Though he had apparently renounced forever all thoughts of a clerical life, he retained even while he was engaged in the study of law and in the more congenial pursuit of literature, his early love for theology, and in 1532, under the influence of some of Luther's writings, which happened to fall into his hands, he was converted to the Protestant faith and threw in his fortunes with the little evangelical party in Paris. His intellectual attainments made him a marked man wherever he went, and he speedily became the leading spirit in the circle to which he had attached himself, compelled soon afterward by the persecuting measures of King Francis I to flee the country, he took up his residence at Vasle and settled down as he hoped to a quiet literary life. It was during his stay here that he published in 1536 the first edition of his greatest work, the Christian Institutes, in which is contained the system of theology which has for centuries borne his name, and by which he is best known to the world at large. Probably no other work written by so young a man has ever produced such a widespread, profound, and lasting influence. In its original form it is true the work was only a brief and simple introduction to the study of the scriptures, much less imposing and forbidding than the elaborate body of divinity which is now known to theologians as Calvin's Institutes. But all the substance of the last edition is to be found in the first. The theology of the one is the theology of the other. The Calvin of 1559 is the Calvin of 1536. The fact that at the age of 26 Calvin could publish a system of theology at once so original and so profound, a system moreover which with all his activity of intellect and love of truth he never had occasion to modify in any essential particular is one of the most striking phenomena in the history of the human mind and yet it is but one of many illustrations of the man's marvelous clearness and comprehensiveness of vision and of his force and decision of character. His life from beginning to end was the consistent unfolding of a single dominant principle, the unwavering pursuit of a single controlling purpose. From his earliest youth the sense of duty was all supreme with him. He lived under a constant imperative in awe of and irreverent obedience to the will of a sovereign God and his theology is but the translation into language of that experience. It's translation by one of the world's greatest masters of logical thought and of clear speech. Calvin's great work was accompanied by a dedicatory epistle addressed to King Francis I which is by common consent one of the finest specimens of courteous and convincing apology in existence. A brief extract from it will be found in the selections given below. Soon after the publication of the institutes, Calvin's plans for a quiet literary career were interrupted by a preemptory call to assist in the work of reforming the church and state of Geneva and the remainder of his life with the exception of a brief interval of exile was spent in that city at the head of a religious movement whose influence was ultimately felt throughout all Western Europe. It is true that Calvin was not the originating genius of the Reformation, that he belonged only to the second generation of reformers and that he learned the Protestant faith from Luther. But he became for the peoples of Western Europe what Luther was for Germany and he gave his own peculiar type of Protestantism, that type which was congenial to his disposition and experience, to Switzerland, to France, to the Netherlands, to Scotland and through the Dutch, the English Puritans and the Scotch Presbyterians, to large portions of the New World. Calvin to be sure is not widely popular today even in those lands which owe him most for he had little of that human sympathy which glorifies the best thought in life of the present age. But for all that he has left his mark upon the world and his influence is not likely ever to be wholly outgrown. His emphasis upon God's holiness made his followers scrupulously even sensoriously pure. His emphasis upon God's will made them stern and unyielding in the performance of what they believed to be their duty. His emphasis upon God's majesty, paradoxical though it may seem at first sight, promoted in no small degree the growth of civil and religious liberty for it dwarfed all mere human authority and made men bold to withstand the unlawful encroachments of their fellows. Thus Calvin became a mighty force in the world though he gave the world far more of law than of gospel, far more of Moses than of Christ. Calvin's career as a writer began at an early day and continued until his death. His pen was a ready one and was seldom idle in the midst of the most engrossing cares and occupations, the cares and occupations of a preacher, a pastor, a teacher of theology, a statesman, and a reformer to whom the Protestants of many lands looked for inspiration and for counsel. He found time, though he died at the early age of forty-four, to produce works that today fill more than three score volumes and all of which bear the unmistakable impress of a great mind. In addition to his institutes, theological and ethical tracts and treatises, sermons and epistles without number, he wrote commentaries upon almost all the books of the Bible, which for lucidity, for wide and accurate learning and for sound and ripe judgment have never been surpassed. Among the most characteristic and important of his briefer works are his vigorous and effective reply to Cardinal Sadele, who had endeavored after Calvin's exile from Geneva in 1539 to win back the Genovese to the Roman church. His tract on the necessity of reforming the church presented to the imperial diet at Spears, AD 1544, in the cause of all who wish with Christ to reign, an admirable statement of the conditions which had made a reformation of the church imperatively necessary and had led to the great religious and ecclesiastical revolution. Another tract on the true method of giving peace to Christendom and reforming the church marked by a beautiful Christian spirit and permeated with sound practical sense. Still another containing articles agreed upon by the faculty of sacred theology at Paris with the antidote. And finally an admonition showing the advantages which Christendom might derive from an inventory of relics. Though Calvin was from boyhood up of a most serious turn of mind and though his writings in marked contrast to the writings of Luther exhibit few of any traces of genial spontaneous humor, the last two works show that he knew how to employ satire on occasion in a very telling way for the overthrow of error and for the discomforture of his opponents. In addition to the services which Calvin rendered by his writings to the cause of Christianity and of sacred learning must be recognized the lasting obligation under which as an author he put his mother tongue. Whether he wrote in Latin or in French, his style was always chaste, elegant, clear and vigorous. His Latin compares favorably with the best models of antiquity. His French is a new creation. The latter language indeed owes almost as much to Calvin as the German language owes to Luther. He was unquestionably his greatest master in the 16th century and he did more than anyone else to fix its permanent character to give it that exactness, that lucidity, that purity and harmony of which it justly boasts. Calvin's writings bear throughout the imprint of his character. There appears in all of them the same horror of impurity and dishonor, the same stern sense of duty, the same respect for the sovereignty of the Almighty. The same severe judgment of human failings. To read them is to breathe the tonic air of snow-clad heights. But they are seldom have ever touched with the tender glow of human feeling or transfigured with the radiance of creative imagination. There is that in David, in Isaiah, in Paul, in Luther which appeals to every heart and makes their words immortal. That Calvin was neither poet nor prophet. The divine aflatus was not his, and it is not without reason that his writings, vigorous, forceful, profound, as is their context, and pure and elegant as is their style, are read today only by theologians or historians. In the Section 1. Section 2 of Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 8. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 8. Section 2. Selected Excerpts from Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin. Prefatory Address to the Institutes To Francis, King of the French, the most Christian Majesty, the most mighty and illustrious monarch, his Sovereign, John Calvin prays peace and salvation in Christ. Sire, when I first engaged in this work, nothing was further from my thoughts than to write what should afterwards be presented to your Majesty. My intention was only to furnish a kind of rudiments by which those who feel some interest in religion might be trained to true godliness. And I toiled at the task chiefly for the sake of my countrymen the French, multitudes of whom I perceived to be hungering and thirsting after Christ, while very few seemed to have been duly imbued with even a slender knowledge of him. That this was the object which I had in view is apparent from the work itself, which is written in a simple and elementary form adapted for instruction. But when I perceived that the fury of certain bad men had risen to such a height in your realm that there was no place in it for sound doctrine, I thought that it might be of service if I were in the same work both to give instruction to my countrymen and also lay before your Majesty a confession from which you may learn what the doctrine is that so inflames the rage of those madmen who are this day with fire and sword troubling your kingdom. For I fear not to declare that what I have here given may be regarded as a summary of the very doctrine which they vociferate ought to be punished with confiscation, exile, imprisonment and flames as well as exterminated by land and sea. I am aware indeed how, in order to render our cause as hateful to your Majesty as possible, they have filled your ears and mind with atrocious insinuations, but you will be pleased of your clemency to reflect that neither in word nor deed could there be any innocence were it sufficient merely to accuse. When any one, with the view of exciting prejudice, observes that this doctrine of which I am endeavouring to give your Majesty an account, has been condemned by the suffrages of all the estates, and was long ago stabbed again and again by partial sentences of courts of law, he undoubtedly says nothing more than that it has sometimes been violently oppressed by the power and faction of adversaries, and sometimes fraudulently and insidiously overwhelmed by lies, cavals and calamity. While a cause is unheard, it is violence to pass sangrenary sentences against it. It is fraud to charge it, contrary to its desserts, with sedition and mischief. That no one may suppose we are unjust in thus complaining, you yourself, most illustrious sovereign, can bear us witness with what lying calamities it is daily traduced in your presence, as aiming at nothing else than to rest the sceptres of kings out of their hands, to overturn all tribunals and seats of justice, to subvert all order and government, to disturb the peace and quiet of society, to abolish all laws, destroy the distinctions of rank and property, and in short turn all things upside down. And yet, that which you hear is but the smallest portion of what is said, for among the common people are disseminated certain horrible insinuations, insinuations which, if well founded, would justify the whole world in condemning the doctrine with its authors to a thousand fires and gibbets. Who can wonder that the popular hatred is inflamed against it when credit is given to those most iniquitous accusations? See why all ranks unite with one accord in condemning our persons and our doctrine. Carried away by this feeling, those who sit in judgment merely give utterance to the prejudices which they have imbibed at home, and think that they have duly performed their part if they do not order punishment to be inflicted on anyone until convicted, either on his own confession or on legal evidence. But of what crime convicted? Of that condemned doctrine is the answer, but with what justice condemned? The very evidence of the defense was not to abjure the doctrine itself, but to maintain its truth. On this subject, however, not a whisper is allowed. It is plain indeed that we fear God sincerely and worship Him in truth, since, whether by life or by death, we desire His name to be hallowed, and hatred herself has been forced to bear testimony to the innocence and civil integrity of some of our people, on whom death was inflicted for the very thing which deserved the highest praise. But if any, under pretext of the gospel, excite two malts, none such have as yet been detected in your realm. If any use the liberty of the grace of God as a cloak for licentiousness, I know of numbers who do, there are laws and legal punishments by which they may be punished up to the measure of their desserts. Only in the meantime let not the gospel of God be evil spoken of because of the iniquities of evil men. Sire, that you may not lend too credulous an ear to the accusations of our enemies, their virulent injustice has been set before you at sufficient length. I fear even more than sufficient, since this preface has grown almost to the bulk of a full apology. My object, however, was not to frame a defence, but only with a view to the hearing of our cause, to mollify your mind, now indeed turned away and estranged from us. I add, even inflamed against us. But whose good will we are confident we should regain, would you but once with calmness and composure read this our confession, which we desire your majesty to accept instead of a defence. But if the whispers of the malevolent so possess your ear that the accused are to have no opportunity of pleading their cause, if those vindictive furies with your connivance are always to rage with bonds, scourgings, tortures, mamings, and burnings, we indeed, like sheep doomed to slaughter, shall be reduced to every extremity, yet so that in our patience we will possess our souls and wait for the strong hand of the Lord, which doubtless will appear in its own time and show itself armed, both to rescue the poor from affliction and also take vengeance on the despisers who are now exulting so securely. Most illustrious king may the Lord, the king of kings, establish your throne in righteousness and your scepter in equity. Basil, August 1st, 1536 Election and predestination from the institutes of the Christian religion The human mind, when it hears this doctrine of election, cannot restrain its petulance, but boils and rages as if aroused by the sound of a trumpet. Many, professing a desire to defend the deity from an invidious charge, admit the doctrine of election, but deny that anyone is reprobated, Bernard in de-Escensionus, sermon 2. This they do ignorantly and childishly, since there could be no election without its opposite, reprobation. God is said to set apart those whom he adopts for salvation. It were most absurd to say that he admits others fortuitously, or that they by their industry acquire what election alone confers on a few. Those therefore whom God passes by, he reprobates, and that for no other cause, but because he is pleased to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines to his children. Nor is it possible to tolerate the petulance of men in refusing to be restrained by the word of God in regard to his incomprehensible counsel, which even angels adore. We have already been told that hardening is not less under the immediate hand of God than mercy. Paul does not, after the example of those whom I have mentioned, labor anxiously to defend God by calling in the aid of falsehood. He only reminds us that it is unlawful for the creature to quarrel with its creator. Then how will those who refuse to admit that any are reprobated by God explain the following words of Christ? Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up. Matthew 15.13 They are plainly told that all whom the heavenly Father has not been pleased to plant as sacred trees in his garden are doomed and devoted to destruction. If they deny that this is a sign of reprobation, there is nothing, however clear, that can be proved to them. But if they will still murmur, let us in the soberness of faith rest contented with the admonition of Paul that it can be no ground of complaint that God, quote, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had afore prepared unto glory, end, quote, Romans 9, 22-23. Let my readers observe that Paul, to cut off all handle for murmuring and detraction, attributes supreme sovereignty to the wrath and power of God, for it were unjust that those profound judgments which transcend all our powers of discernment should be subjected to our calculation. It is frivolous in our opponents to reply that God does not altogether reject those whom in lenity he tolerates but remains in suspense with regard to them if, per adventure, they may repent, as if Paul were representing God as patiently waiting for the conversion of those whom he describes as fitted for destruction. For Augustine, rightly expounding this passage, says that where power is united to endurance God does not permit but rules Augustine, Contra-Julian, Book 5, Chapter 5. They add also that it is not without cause the vessels of wrath are said to be fitted for destruction that God is said to have prepared the vessels of mercy because in this way the praise of salvation is claimed for God, whereas the blame of perdition is thrown upon those who, of their own accord, bring it upon themselves. But were I to concede that by the different forms of expression Paul softens the harshness of the former clause, it by no means follows that he transfers the preparation for destruction to any other cause than the secret counsel of God. This indeed is asserted in the preceding context where God is said to have raised up Pharaoh and to harden whom he will. Hence it follows that the hidden counsel of God is the cause of hardening. I at least hold with Augustine that when God makes sheep out of wolves he forms them again by his powerful influence of grace that their hardness may thus be subdued and that he does not convert the obstinate because he does not exert that more powerful grace, a grace which he has at command if he were disposed to use it. Augustine, Day Predestination Sanctum, Book 1, Chapter 2 Accordingly, when we are accosted in such terms as these, why did God from the first predestined some to death when as they were not yet in existence they could not have merited sense of death? Let us by way of reply ask in our turn what do you imagine that God owes to man if he is pleased to estimate him by his own nature? As we are all vitiated by sin we cannot but be hateful to God and that not from tyrannical cruelty but the strictest justice. But if all whom the Lord predestines to death are naturally liable to sentence of death of what injustice prey do they complain? Should all the sons of Adam come to dispute and contend with their Creator because by his eternal providence they were before their birth doomed to perpetual destruction? When God comes to reckon with them what will they be able to mutter against this defense? If all are taken from a corrupt mass it is not strange that all are subject to condemnation. Let them not therefore charge God with injustice if by his eternal judgment they are doomed to a death to which they themselves feel that whether they will or not they are drawn spontaneously by their own nature. Hence it appears how perverse is this affectation of murmuring when of set purpose they suppress the cause of condemnation which they are compelled to recognize in themselves that they may lay the blame upon God. But though I should confess a hundred times that God is the author and it is most certain that he is they do not however thereby efface their own guilt which, engraven on their own consciences is ever and a none presenting itself to their view. If God merely foresaw human events and did not also arrange and dispose of them at his pleasure there might be room for agitating the question how far his foreknowledge amounts to necessity. But since he foresees the things which are to happen simply because he has decreed that they are so to happen it is vain to debate about prescience while it is clear that all events take place by his sovereign appointment. They deny that it is ever said in distinct terms God decreed that Adam should perish by his revolt as if the same God who is declared in Scripture to do whatsoever he pleases could have made the noblest of his creatures without any special purpose. They say that, in accordance with free will he was to be the architect of his own fortune that God had decreed nothing but to treat him according to his dessert. If this frigid fiction is received where will be the omnipotence of God by which, according to his secret counsel on which everything depends, he rules over all. But whether they will allow it or not predestination is manifest in Adam's posterity. It was not owing to nature that they all lost salvation in the fault of one parent. Why should they refuse to admit with regard to one man that which against their will they admit with regard to the whole human race? Why should they, in caviling, lose their labor? Scripture proclaims that all were in the person of one made liable to eternal death. As this cannot be ascribed to nature it is plain that it is owing to the wonderful counsel of God. It is very absurd in these worthy defenders of the justice of God to strain at a nat and swallow a camel. I again ask how it is that the fall of Adam involves so many nations with their infant children in eternal death without remedy unless that it so seemed meet to God. Here the most loquacious tongues must be dumb. The decree I admit is dreadful and yet it is impossible to deny that God foreknew what the end of man was to be before he made him and foreknew because he had so ordained by his decree. Should anyone here convey against the prescience of God he does it rashly and unadvisedly. For why pray should it be made a charge against the heavenly judge that he was not ignorant of what was to happen? Thus, if there is any just or plausible complaint it must be directed against predestination. Nor odd it to seem absurd when I say that God not only foresaw the fall of the first man and in him the ruin of his posterity but also at his own pleasure arranged it. For as it belongs to his wisdom to foreknow all future events so it belongs to his power to rule and govern them by his hand. Freedom of the will from the institutes of the Christian religion. God has provided the soul of man with intellect by which he might discern good from evil just from unjust and might know what to follow or to shun reason going before with her lamp whence philosophers in reference to her directing power have called her. To this he has joined will to which choice belongs. Man excelled in these noble endowments in his primitive condition when reason, intelligence, prudence and judgment not only sufficed for the government of his earthly life but also enabled him to rise up to God and eternal happiness. Thereafter choice was added to direct the appetites and temper all the organic motions, the will being thus perfectly submissive to the authority of reason. In this upright state man possessed freedom of will by which if he chose he was able to obtain eternal life. It were here unseasonable to introduce the question concerning the secret predestination of God that we are not considering what might or might not happen but what the nature of man truly was. Adam therefore might have stood if he chose because it was only by his own will that he fell but it was because his will was pliable in either direction and he had not received constancy to persevere that he so easily fell. Still he had a free choice of good and evil and not only so but in the mind and will there was the highest rectitude and all the organic parts were duly framed to obedience until man corrupted its good properties and destroyed himself. Hence the great darkness of philosophers who have looked for a complete building in a ruin and fit arrangement in disorder. The principle they set out with was that man could not be a rational animal unless he had a free choice of good and evil. They also imagined that the distinction between virtue and vice was destroyed if man did not of his own counsel arrange his life. So far well had there been no change in man. This being unknown to them it is not surprising that they throw everything into confusion but those who, while they profess to be the disciples of Christ still seek for free will in man not withstanding of his being lost and drowned in spiritual destruction, labor under manifold delusion, making a heterogeneous mixture of inspired doctrine and philosophical opinions and so airing as to both. But it will be better to leave these things to their own place. At present it is necessary only to remember that man at his first creation was very different from all his posterity. Who, deriving their origin from him after he was corrupted, received a hereditary taint. At first every part of the soul was formed to rectitude. There was soundness of mind and freedom of will to choose the good. If any one objects that it was placed as it were in a slippery position because its power was weak I answer that the degree conferred was sufficient to take away every excuse. For surely the deity would not be tied down to this condition to make man such that he either could not or would not sin. Such a nature might have been more excellent but to expostulate with God as if he had been bound to confer this nature on man is more than unjust seeing that he had full right to determine how much or how little he would give. Why he did not sustain him by the virtue of perseverance is hidden in his counsel. It is ours to keep within the bounds of soberness. Man had received the power if he had the will but he had not the will which would have given the power for this will would have been followed by perseverance. Still after he had received so much there is no excuse for his having spontaneously brought death upon himself. No necessity was laid upon God to give him more than that intermediate and even transient will. That out of man's fall he might extract materials for his own glory. End of section 2 Section 3 of Library of the World's Best Literature Ancient and Modern, Volume 8 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Library of the World's Best Literature Ancient and Modern, Volume 8 Section 3 Biographical Note on Louise Weiss de Camões by Henry R. Lang Portuguese literature is usually divided into six periods which correspond in the main to the successive literary movements of the other Romance nations which it followed. First period, 1200 to 1385 Provençol and French influences. Soon after the founding of the Portuguese state by Henry of Burgundy and his knights in the beginning of the 12th century the nobles of Portugal and Galicia which regions form a unit in race and speech began to imitate in their native idiom the art of the Provençol troubadours who visited the courts of Leon and Castile. This quarterly lyric poetry in the Gallego Portuguese dialect which was also cultivated in the rest of the peninsula accepting the east reached its height under Alfonso X of Castile 1252-1284 himself a noted poet and patron of this art and under King Dionysus of Portugal 1279-1325 the most gifted of all these troubadours. The collections cancioneros of the works of this school preserved to us contain the names of 163 poets and some 2000 compositions inclusive of the 401 spiritual songs of Alfonso X. Of this body of verse two thirds affect the artificial style of Provençol lyrics while one third is derived from the indigenous popular poetry. This latter part contains the so-called Contrigas de Amigo songs of charming simplicity of form and naivete of spirit in which a woman addresses her lover either in a monologue or in a dialogue. It is this native poetry still echoed in the modern folk song of Galicia in Portugal that imparted to the Gallego Portuguese lyric school the decidedly original coloring and vigorous growth which assign it an independent position in the medieval literature of the Romance nations. Composition in prose also began in this period consisting chiefly in genealogies, chronicles and in translations from Latin and French dealing with religious subjects and the romantic traditions of British origin such as the Demanda do Santo Grau. It is now almost certain that the original of the Spanish version of the Amagis de Gaula 1480 was the work of a Portuguese troubadour of the 13th century, João de Lobeda. Second period, 1385, 1521 Spanish influence. Instead of the Provençol style the courtly circles now began to cultivate the native popular forms the copla and quadra and to compose in the dialect of Castile which communicated to them the influence of the Italian Renaissance with the vision and allegory of Dante and a fuller understanding of classical antiquity. These two literary currents became the formative elements of the second poetic school of an aristocratic character in Portugal at the courts of Alphonse V 1438-1481 John II, 1481-1495 and Immanuel, 1495-1521 whose works were collected by the poet Garcia de Resenji in the Cancioneiro Geral, Lisbon 1516. The prose literature of this period is rich in translations from the Latin classics and chiefly noteworthy for the great Portuguese chronicles which it produced. The most prominent writer was Fernão Lopes, 1454 the founder of Portuguese historiography and the father of Portuguese prose. Third period, 1521-1580 Italian influence. This is the classic epic of Portuguese literature born of the powerful rise of the Portuguese state during its period of discovery and conquest and of the dominant influence of the Italian Renaissance. It opens with three authors who were prominently active in the preceding literary school but whose principal influence lies in this. These are Cristóvão Falcão and Bernardin Ribeiro, the founders of the bucolic poem and the sentimental pastoral romance and Júvi Sente, a comic writer of superior talent who's called the father of the Portuguese drama and who, next to Camões, is the greatest figure of this period. Its real initiator, however, was Francisco Sá de Miranda, 1495-1557 who, on his return from a six-year study in Italy in 1521, introduced the lyric forms of Petrarch and his followers as the only true models for composition. Besides giving, by his example, a classic form to lyrics, especially to the sonnet and cultivating the pastoral poem, Sá de Miranda, the Cyrus of Breaking the Influence of Júvi Sente's dramas wrote two comedies of intrigue in the style of the Italians and of Plotus and Terence. His attempts in this direction, however, found no followers, the only exception being Ferreira's tragedy in Ace de Castro, in the antique style. The greatest poet of this period and indeed in the whole history of Portuguese literature is Luís de Camões, in whose works, epic, lyric and dramatic, the cultivation of the two literary currents of this epoch, the national and the Renaissance, attained to its highest perfection and to whom Portuguese literature chiefly owes its place in the literature of the world. Among the works in prose produced during this time are of special importance the historical writings such as the Decades of João de Barros, 1496-1570, the Livy of Portugal and the numerous romances of chivalry. Fourth period, 1580-1700s, culturalistic influence. The political decline of Portugal is accompanied by one in its literature. While some lyric poetry is still written in the spirit of Camões and the pastoral romance in the national style is cultivated by some authors, Portuguese literature on the whole is completely under the influence of the Spanish, receiving from the latter the euphoistic movement of Paternismo or Gongorismo. Many writers of talent of this time use the Spanish language in preference to their own. It is thus that the charming pastoral poem Diana by Jorge de Montemor, though composed by a Portuguese and in a vein so peculiar to his nation, is credited to Spanish literature. Fifth period, 1700-1825, pseudo-classicism. The influence of the French classic school, felt in all European literatures, became paramount in Portugal. Accepting the works of a few talented members of the society called Arcadia, little of literary interest was produced until the appearance at the end of the century of Francisco Manuel de Nascimento and Manuel Maria Barbosa do Bocage, two poets of the sighted talent who connect this period with the following. Sixth period, since 1825, Romanticism. The initiator of this movement in Portugal was Almeida Gajete, 1799-1854, with Juvisanchen Camões, one of the three great poets Portugal has produced, who revived and strengthened the sense of national life of the country by his Camões, an epic of glowing patriotism published during his exile in 1825 by his national dramas and by the collection of the popular traditions of his people, which he began and which has since been zealously continued in all parts of the country. The second influential leader of Romanticism was Alexandre Culano, 1810-1877, great especially as national historian, but also a novelist and poet of superior merit. The labors of these two men bore fruit since the middle of the century in what may be termed an intellectual renovation of Portugal, which first found expression in the so-called Coimbra School and has since been supported by such men as Teófilo Braga, Adolfo Coelho, Joaquim de Vasconcelos, Leite de Vasconcelos and others, whose life-work is devoted to the conviction that only a thorough and critical study of their country's past can inspire its literature with new life and vigor and maintain the sense of national independence. Luiz Vais de Camões, Portugal's greatest poet and patriot, was born in 1524 or 1525, most probably at Coimbra, as the son of Simão Vais de Camões and dona Anna de Macedo of Santarém. Through his father, a cavaleiro fidalgo, or untitled nobleman, who was related with Vasco da Gama, Camões descended from an ancient and once influential noble family of Galician origin. He spent his youth at Coimbra and though his name is not found in the registers of the university, which have been removed to that city in 1537 and of which his uncle, Bento de Camões, prior of the monastery of Santa Cruz, was made chancellor in 1539, it was presumably in that institution then justly famous that the highly gifted youth acquired his uncommon familiarity with the classics and with the literatures of Spain, Italy and that of his own country. In 1542, we find Camões exchanging his alma mater for the gay and brilliant court of John III, then at Lisbon, where his gentle birth, his poetic genius and his fine personal appearance brought him much favor, especially with the fair sex, while his independent bearing and indiscreet speech aroused the jealousy and enmity of his rivals. Here he woos and wins the damsels of the palace and the attendants upon the queen Dona Catarina de Ataide, whom, like patriarch, he claims to have first seen on Good Friday in church and who is celebrated in his poems under the anagram of Natersia, inspires him with a deep and enduring passion. Irritated by the intrigues employed by his enemies to mar his prospects, the impetuous youth commits intrudent acts which lead to his banishment of the city in 1546. For about a year he lives in enforced retirement on the Upper Tagus, Ribatejo, pouring out his profound passion and grief in a number of beautiful sonnets and allergies. Most likely, in consequence of some new offense, he is now exiled for two years to Ceuta in Africa, where, in a fight with Amours, he loses his right eye to the splinter. Meeting on his return to Lisbon in 1547, neither with pardon for his indiscretions nor with recognition for his services and poetic talent, he allows his keen resentment of this unjust treatment to impel him into the reckless and turbulent life of a bully. It was thus that during the Festival of Corpus Christi in 1552 he got into a quarrel with Consalo Borges, one of the king's acres in which he wounded the latter. For this, Camões was thrown into jail until March 1553 when he was released only unconditioned that he should embark to serve in India. Not quite two weeks after leaving his prison, on March 24th he sailed for India on the flagship Sao Bento bidding, as a true renaissance poet, farewell to his native land in the words of Scipio which were to come true In grata patria non possi debis o sameia After a stormy passage of six months, the Sao Bento cast anchor in the bay of Goa. Camões first took part in an expedition against the king of Pimenta and in the following year, 1554 he joined another, directed against the Moorish pirates in most of Africa. The scenes of drunkness and the soluteness which he witnessed in Goa inspired him with a number of satirical poems by which he drew upon himself much enmity and persecution. In 1556 his three years term of service expired but though ardently longing for his beloved native land he remained in Goa influenced either by his bend life or by the sad news of the death of Dona Catarina de Ataíji in that year. He was ordered to Macau in China to the lucrative post of commissary for the effects of the seized or absent Portuguese subjects. There, in the quietude of a grotto near Macau still called the Grotto of Camões the exiled poet finished the first six contos of his great epic, Thalusians. Recalled from this post in 1558 before the expiration of his term on the charge of malversation of office Camões on his return voyage to Goa was shipwrecked near the mouth of the Macaung saving nothing but his faithful Javanese slave and the manuscript of his lusiades which, swimming with one hand he held above the water with the other. In Cambodia in several months he wrote his marvelous paraphrase of the 137th Psalm contrasting under the allegory of Babel, Babylon and Siam, Zion Goa and Lisbon. Upon his return to Goa he was cast into prison but soon set free on proving his innocence by a public trial. Though receiving in 1557 another lucrative employment he finally resolved to go home burning with the desire to lay his patriotic song now almost completed before his nation and to cover with honor his injured name. He accepted a passage to Sofala offered him by Pedro Barreto who had become viceroy of Mozambique in that year. Unable to refund the amount of the passage he was once more held for debt and misery and distress in Mozambique completing and polishing during this time his great epic song and preparing the collection of his lyrics, his Parnassu. In 1559 he was released by the historian Diogo do Couto and other friends of his visiting Sofala with the expedition of Noronha and embarked on the Santa Clara for Lisbon. On the 7th of April 1570 this once more set foot on his native soil only to find the city for which he had yearned sadly changed. The government was in the hands of a brave but hair-brained and fanatic young monarch ruled by the Jesuits. The capital had been ravaged by a terrible plague which had carried off 50,000 souls and its society had no room for a man who brought with him from the Indies riches, nothing but a manuscript though in it was sung in classic verse the glory of his people. Still, through the kind offices of his warm friend Dom Manuel de Portugal, Camões obtained on the 25th of September 1571 the royal permission to print his epic. It was published in the spring of the following year March 1572. Great as was the success of the work which marked a new epic in Portuguese history the reward which the poet received for it was meager. King Sebastian granted him an annual pension of 15,000 haes $15 which then had the purchasing value of about $60 in our money which, after the poet's death was ordered by Philip II to be paid to his aged mother destitute and broken in spirit Coins lived for the last eight years of his life with his mother in a humble house near the convent of Santa Ana in the knowledge of many and in the society of few. Dom Sebastian's departure early in 1578 for the conquest in Africa once more kindled patriotic hopes in his breast with a terrible defeat at Alcazar Cuvir, August 4th on the same year in which Portugal lost her King and her army broke his heart. He died on the 10th of June 1580 at which time the army of Philip II under the command of the Duke of Alva was marching upon Lisbon he was thus spared the cruel blow of seeing though not of foreseeing the national death of his country the story that his Javanese slave Antonio used to go out at night and the pastor's by alms for his master is one of a number of touching legends which as early as 1572 popular fancy had begun to weave around the poet's life it is true however that Camões breathed his last in dire distress and isolation and was buried poorly and plebeianly in the neighboring convent of Santa Ana it was not until 16 years later that a friend of his Don Gonçalo Coutinho caused his grave to be marked with a marble slab burying the inscription here lies Luís de Camões prince of the poets of his time he died in the year 1579 this tomb was placed for him by order of Don Gonçalo Coutinho and none shall be buried in it the words he lived poor and neglected and so died which in the popular tradition form part of this inscription are apocryphal though entirely in conformity with the facts the correctness of 1580 instead of 1579 as the year of the poet's death is proven by an official document in the archives of Philip II both the memorial's lab and the convent church of Santa Ana were destroyed by the earthquake of 1755 and during the rebuilding of the convent and the identification of the remains of the great men thus rendered well-nigh impossible in 1854 however all the bones found under the floor of the convent church were placed in a coffin of Brazilwood and solemnly deposited in the convent at Belém the pantheon of King Emmanuel in 1867 a statue was erected to Camões by the city of Lisbon the Lucius Portuguese ojluzia deus a patronymic adopted by Camões in place of the usual term Luzitanos the descendants of Luzus the mythical ancestor of the Portuguese is an epic poem which as its name implies has for its subject the heroic deeds not of one hero but of the whole Portuguese nation Vasco da Gama's discovery of the way to the East Indies forms to be sure the central part of its action but around it are grouped in intimate art the heroic deeds and destinies of the other Luzitanians in this Camões work stands alone among all poems of its kind originating under conditions similar to those which are indispensable to the production of a true epic in the heroic period of the Portuguese people where national sentiment had risen to its highest point it is the only one among the modern epipes which comes near the character of epic poetry a trait which distinguishes this epic from all its predecessors is the historic truthfulness with which Camões confessedly represents heroic personages and their exploits tempering his praise with blame where blame is due and the unquestioned fidelity which he depicts natural scenes last however this adherence to historic truth should impair the vivifying element of imagination indispensable to true poetry are borrowed 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 Camões has adorned his poem which I'll only mention the powerful impersonation of the cape of storms in the giant Adam master chapter 5 an episode used by Meyerbeer in his opera Lafricaine of the Isle of Love chapter 9 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 Luzes for the metric form of his verse Camões adopted the octave rhyme of Ariosto while for his epic style he followed Virgil from whom many a simile in phrase is directly borrowed from him 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 gave his mind and heart steadfastly to the fulfillment of the lofty patriotic task he had said his genius the creation of a lasting monument to the heroic deeds of his race it is thus that through the Luzes Camões 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 Camões 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 artistic perfection the rich variety of form and the melody of his verse his lyric works fall into two main classes those written in Italian meters and those in the traditional trochaic lines and strophic forms of the Spanish peninsula contained in the Parnassu which comprises 356 sonnets 22 canzones 27 allergies 12 odes 8 octaves and 15 idylls all of which testify to the great influence of the Italian school and especially of Petrarch on our poet the second class is embodied in the canzoneiro or songbook and embraces more than 150 compositions in the national peninsular manner together these two collections form a body of lyric verse of such richness and variety as neither Petrarch and Taço nor Garcilasso de la Vega can offer unfortunately Camões never prepared in addition of his rimas in the manuscript which as Diogo Ducoto tells us he arranged during his sugerd in Mozambique from 1567 to 1569 he said to have been stolen it was not until 1595 fully 15 years after the poet's death that one of his disciples and admirers Fernão Rodrigues Lobo Soropita collected from Portugal and even from India and published in Lisbon a volume of 172 songs four of which however are not by Camões the great mass of verse we now possess has been gathered during the last three centuries more may still be discovered while on the other hand much of what is now attributed to Camões does not belong to him and the question how much of the extant material is genuine is yet to be definitely answered in his lyrics Camões has depicted with all the passion and power of his impressionable temperament the varied experiences and emotions of his eventful life in change of sentiments and situations while greatly enhancing the value of his songs by the impression of fuller truth and individuality which they produce is in so far disadvantages to a just appreciation of them as it naturally brings with it much verse of inferior poetic merit and lacks that harmony and unity of emotion which Petrarch was able to effect in his rime himself to the portraiture of a lover's soul drama in his youth most likely during his life at court between 1542 and 1546 Camões wrote three comedies of much freshness and berve in which he surpassed all the Portuguese plays in the national taste produced up to his time one Filodemo derives its plot from a medieval novel the other two King Salucas and Anfitriões from antiquity the last named a free imitation of plotuses and fitro is by far the best play of the three in these comedies we can recognize an attempt on the part of the author to fuse the imperfect play in the national taste such as it had been cultivated by Jules Vicente with the more regular but lifeless pieces of the classicists and thus to create a superior form of national comedy in this endeavor however Camões found no followers bibliography the most complete edition of the works of Camões is that by the Viscounte de Juromenha obras de Luís de Camões six volumes Lisbon 1860 to 1870 a more convenient edition is the one by Teófilo Braga in Biblioteca da Atualidade three volumes Porto 1874 the best separate edition of the text of the Lusziads is by F. A. Coelho Lisbon 1880 Camões' lyric and dramatic works Camões' lyric and dramatic works are published in his collected works no separate editions of them existing thus far in regard to the life and works of Camões in general Memoirs of the life and writings of Camões, two volumes London 1820 Teófilo Braga, História de Camões three volumes Porto 1873 to 75 Latino Coelho Luís de Camões in V Galeria de Varões Ilustris Lisbon 1880 J. Divas Concelos Bibliografia Camuniana Porto 1880 Brito Aranha, Estudos Bibliográficos Lisbon 1887 88 W. Storck, Luís de Camões Leben, Padre Abon 1890 and especially the judicious and impartial article by Mrs. Carolina Micaelis de Vasconcelos in volume 2 of Gréber's Undris de Romani-Chenfilologie Strasbourg 1894 The best translations of Camões' work are the one by W. Storck Camões' Amtliche Gedichte six volumes, Paderborn 1880-85 into German and the one by Richard Burton who has also written on the life of the poet the Lusiot's two volumes London 1880 and the Lyric's three volumes London 1884 containing only those in Italian meters into English The extracts given below are from Burton Henry Lang section 4 of Library of the World's Best Literature ancient and modern volume 8 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org library of the world's best literature ancient and modern volume 8 section 4 excerpts from the Lusiot's book canto 1 the feats of arms and famed heroic host from Occidental Lusitainian strand who o'er the waters nearby Siemens crossed, fared beyond the Taprobane land forceful in perils and in battle post with more than promised force of mortal hand and in the regions of a distant race reared a new throne so hot in pride of place to seek the kings of memory grand and glorious who hide them holy faith and reign to spread converting, conquering and in lands notorious, avric and asia devastation made nor lest the leges who by deeds mememorious break from the doom that binds the vulgar dead my song with sound or earth's extremist part were mine the genius, mine the poet's art cease the sage Grecian and the man of Troy long voyage made in bygone day cease Alexander Trojan cease to joy the fame of victories that have passed away the noble Lusians doubt or breast sing I whom Mars and Neptune dare not disobey cease all that antique muse hath sung for now a better bravery rears its bolder brow and you, my Tasian mints who have create in me new purpose with new genius firing if twas my joy while where to celebrate your fonts and streams my humble song inspiring oh lend me here a noble strain elate a style grand eloquent that flows untiring so shall Apollo for your waves ordain ye in name and fame near envy Hippocrane grant me sonorous accents fire abounding now serves ne peasant's pipe ne rustic reed but blasts of trumpet long resounding that flame of heart and hue to fiery deed grant me high strains to suit their just astounding your sons who it admires in marshal need that or the world he sung the glorious song if theme so lofty may reverse belong and thou, O goodly omen trust all dear to Lusitania's olden liberty whereon assured as parents we rear and forced to see our fair Christianity thou, O new terror to the more sphere the fated marvel of our century to govern worlds of men by God so given that the worlds best be given to God and heaven thou young, thou tender ever flourishing bow to sigh on a tree by Christ beloved more than ought that occident did ever know cesarean almost Christians dialed before look on thy excrucian and behold its show the present victory long past ages bore to which he gave and made thine own to be by him assured on a fatal tree thou, mighty sovereign or whose lofty reign the rising sun reigns earliest mile of light sees it from middle firmamental plane and cites its sinking on the breast of night thou, whom we hope to hail the blight, the bane of the dishonored Ishmaelite's night and Orient Turk and Gentoo misbeliever that drinks the liquor of the sacred river incline a while I pray that majesty which in thy tender years I see the sample in now prefiguring full maturity that shall be shrined in fame's eternal temple those wholly eyed that beam benignly bend on low earth, behold a new ensemble of hero hearts with patriot pride and flamed in numbered verses manifold proclaim it thou shalt see love of land that ne'er shall own the breast of Val-Lucra soaring towards the eternal fortisno-light ambition to be known the acclaimed herald of my nest paternal here thou shalt see the great names greater grown of Vavasores who hail the lord's supernal so shalt thou judge which were the higher station king of the world or lord of such a nation Hark! for with hauntings vain thou shalt not view fantastical fictitious lying deed plotted as strange muses do seeking their fond and foolish pride to feed thine acts so forceful are told simply true all fabled dreamy feats they far exceed exceeding Rotamont and Rogiero vane and Roland happily born of poet's brain for these I give the annuno fierce in fight who for his king and country freely bled an Aegas and a Fus vane I might for them my lay work wed for the twelve fearless peers again I cite the twelve of England by Macrikel led nay more I give the gamma's noble name who for himself claims all Aeannus' fame and if in change for royal Charles of France or rivaling Caesar's memory thou would straw the first Alfonso sea whose conquering lance lays highest post of stranger glories low see him who left his realm the inheritance fair safety born of wars that crushed the foe that other John a knight no fear deterred the fourth and fifth Alfonso and the third nor shall they silent to my song remain they who in regions there were dawns arise by acts of arms such glories toil to gain where thine unvanquished flag forever flies pal chaco brave of braves the Almeida's twain whom tagus mourns with ever weeping eyes dread Albuquerque castro starken brave with more the victors of the very grave but singing these of thee I may not sing o king sublime such theme I feign must fear take of thy drain the reins so shall my king create opposing new to mortal ear in now the mighty birthing here I ring and speed its tears over all the sphere of singular prowess wars own prodigies in afric regions and oriental seas castes on thee the more iron cold with bright in whom his coming doom he views designad the barbresh dentu sole to see thy sight yields to thy yoke the neck in now inclinin'd tithes of as her seas the sovereign right her realm in dowry hath to thee assign'd and by thy noble tender beauty one would bribe and by thee to become her son themselves thy grand sire's brights far-famed pair this clad in peacetide's angel robe of gold that crimson hued with paint of battle glare by thee they hope to see their tale twice told their lofty memories live again and there when time thy year shall end for thee they sign a seat where sorth fame's eternal shrine but sit hence ancient time slow minutes by ere ruled the peoples who desire bend on my novel rashness favoring I that these my verses may become thine own so shall thy see thine argonauts or fly yonsalti argent when they see it shone thou seest their labors on a raging sea learn even now invoked of man to be Canto 3 now my calliope to teach incline what speech great gamma for the king did frame inspire a noble song grant voice divine unto this mortal who so loves thy name thus may the god whose gift was medicine to whom thou bearest orpheus lovely dame never for Daphne Clotia Lucuta do love deny thee or in constant gro he satisfy nymph desires that in me team to sing the merits of thy lutions brave so world shall see and say that target stream rolls aga nipi's liquor brave leave flowery pinned his head in now I deem apollo baze me in that sovereign wave else must I hold it that thy gentle sprite fears thy dear orpheus fade through me from sight all stood with open ears in long array to hear what my gamma moat unfold when past in thoughtful mood a brief delay began he thus with brow high raised in bold thou bidest me o king to say my say not our grand genealogy of old thou bidest me not relate an alien story thou bidest me laud my brother lucian's glory that one praise others exploits and renown is honored custom which we all desire yet fear it is unfit to praise mine own lest praise like the suspect no trust inspire nor may I hope to make all matters known for time however long we're short yet sire as thou commandest all is owed to thee monger my will I speak and brief will be nay more what most obligeth me in fine is that no leasing in my tail may dwell for of such feats whatever boast be mine when most is told remaineth much to tell but that do order wait on the design heen as desirous thou to learn full well the widespread continent first I'll briefly trace the fierce bloody wars that waged my race low hear her present showeth noble spain of Europe's body caporial the head or whose home rule and glorious foreign reign the fatal wheel so many a whirl hath made yet nare her past or force or fraud shall stain nor Russell's fortune shall her name degrade no bonds or bellic offspring bind so tight but it shall burst them with its force of sprite there facing Tingatanya's shore she seameth to block and bar the Mediterranean wave where the known strait its name in noble with deemeth by the last labor of the to be in brave big with the burden of her tribe she teemeth circled by whelming waves that rage and rave all noble races of such valiant breast that each must justly boast itself the best her the Targanese who famed in war made I perturbed Pathanopi obey the twain Osterias and the hot Navarre twin Christian Bowers on the Muslim way hers the Gallego canny and the rare Castilian whom his star raised high to sway spain as her saviour and a signori feel Paredes, Lyon, Coronada and Castile see the head crowning Coronet is she of general Europe Lucetania's reign where endeth land and where beginneth sea and teemeth sinks to rest upon the main willed her the heavens with all just decree by wars to mar the ignoble maritan to cast him from herself nor their consent he ruined peace the fiery continent this is my happy land my home my pride where if the heavens but grant the prayer I pray for glad return in every risk defied there may my lifelight fail and fade away this was a Lucetanian name applied by Lucis or by Lysa, sons they say of Antion Prakas or his boon compeers, ick the first wellers of her eldest years here sprang the shepherd in whose name we see forecast the veral might of virtuous mead whose fame no force shall air behold in fee since fame of mighty Rome ne'er did the deed this by light heavens volatile decree that Antion Scyther who devours his seed made pussiant power in many a part to claim assuming regal rank and thus it came a king there was in Spain Alfonso Haid who waged such warfare with the Saracen that by his sanguine arms and arts and might he spoiled the lands and lives of many men when from Herculean Calpe winged her flight his fame to Cosas Mount and Caspian Glen many a night whom no blesses coveteth comes offering service to such king in death and with intrinsic love inflamed more for the true faith than honors popular they trooped gathering from each distant shore leaving their dear loved homes and lands afar when with high feats of force against the moor they proved a singular worth in holy war will it Alfonso that their mighty deeds commensurate gifts command and equal means mid them Henrique second son Mencé of a Hungarian king well known and tried by sort one Portugal which in his day nay price it was nay had fit cause for pride his strong affection stronger to display the Spanish king to creed a princely bride his only son Teresa to the Count and with her made him Signor Paramont this daughty vassal from that servile horde Hagar the handmade and seen great victories won ref the broad lands adjacent with his sword and did whatever bravery bade be done him for his exploits excellent to reward God gave in short of space a gallant son whose arm to noble and in fame was fame the war like name of Lucitanians rain once more at home this conquering Henry stood whose sacred Jerusalem had relieved his eyes had fed on Jordan's holy flood which the dear body of Lord God had labored when Godfrey left no foe to be subdued and all Judea conquered was and save it many that in his wars had done do their own lordships took the way once more but when this doubt and gallant Han attained life's fatal period age and travel spent he gave by death's necessity constrained his right to him that had that spirit lent a son of tender years alone remated to whom the sire bequeathed his bottomment with bravest braves a youth was formed to cope for from such sire such son the world may hope yet old report and know not what its weight for on such antique tale no man relies safe that the mother tain and toe the state a second optional bed did not despise her orphan son to disinherited fate she doomed declaring hers the dignities not his with seniority or all the land her spousal dowry by her sire's command now Prince Othonso whose such style had tain in pious memory of his grand sire's name seeing no part in portion in his reign all piled and plundered by the spouse and dame by Dower and daughter Mars inflamed a mane privily plots his heritage to claim he weighs the causes in his own conceit to affirm resolve its fit effect shall greet of Gimaren's the field already flowed with floods of civil warfare's bloody tide where she who little of the mother showed to her own bowels love and land denied fronting the child in fight the parent stood nor saw her depth of sin that soul of pride against her god against maternal love her sensual passion rose all power above all magical media all progny dire if your own babes and vengeance dared ye kill for alien crimes and injuries of the sire look ye, Teresa's deed was darker still foul greed of gain incontinent desire were the main causes of such bitter ill Skyler her aged sire for one did slay for both Teresa did her son betray write soon that noble prince clear victory won from his harsh mother and her fairy and dig in briefest time the land obeyed the son though first to fight him did the folk incline but reft of reason and by rage undone he bound the mother in the biting chain off soonce avenged her grief the hands of god such veneration is to parents owed lo, the superb Castilian jins prepare his power to avenge Teresa's injuries against the Lucian land in men so rare whereon nay toil nay trouble heavy lies their breasts the cruel battle grandly dare aid the good cause angelic potencies on wrecking might unequal still they strive nay more their dreadful foe to flight they drive passeth no tedious time before the great war passeth no tedious time before the great prince of der siege by passing power for to mend his state came the fell enemy full of grief and greed but when committed life to direful fate Egas the faithful guardian he was freed who had in any other way been lost all unprepared against that welling host but when the loyal vassal hath well known how weak his monarch's arm to front such fight son's order wending to the Spanish phone his sovereign's homage he does pledge in plight straight from the horrid siege the invader flown trusted the word in honor of the night Egas monnets but now the noble breast of the brave youth disdainous strange behest already came the plighted time and tide when the Castilian dawns to the night to see before his power the prince spent low his pride yielding the promised obitian sea Egas who views his nightly word while still Castile believes him true to be sweet love resolves to the winds to throw nor live with valorous taint of faithless vow he with his child in his wife to parteth to keep his promise with a faith immense unchot and strippid while their plight imparteth far more of pity than of vengeance if mighty monarch still thy spirit smarteth to wreak vengeance on my rash confidence behold I come with life to save my pledge mind I the honors word I gave I bring thou seeest here life's innocent of wife of sinless children dying to die if breasts of generous bold and excellent accept such weaklings woeful destiny thou seeest these hands this tongue inconsequent here on alone the fierce experiment try of torments death and doom that pass in full sinus or even paralysis brazen bull as shifted right the hangman stands before in life still draining bitter draught of death lays throat on block and of all hope for lore expects the blighting blow with baited breath so in the prince's presence angry sore aghast stood firm to keep his plighted faith when the king marveling at such wondrous truth feels anger melt and merge in royal truth the great porting gal fidelity of vassal self-devote to doom so dread what did the Persian moor the loyalty whose gallant hand his face and nostrils shred when great Darius mourn so grievously that he a thousand times deep sighing said far he preferred his opera sound again than lord of twenty babelons to reign but Prince Alfonso now prepared his band of happy lutions proud to front the foes those haughty moors that held the glorious land yon side where clear delicious tagus flows now on orique field was pitched and planned the royal camp met fierce and bellicose facing the hostile host of Saracen though there are so many here so few there been confident yet would he in not confide saving his god that holds of heaven the throne so few baptised stood their king beside there were a hundred moors for every one judge any sober judgment and decide to his deed of rations or by bravery done to fall on forces whose exceeding might a century showed to a single night order five moorish kings the hostile host of whom ishmar so called command doth claim all of long warfare large experience boast wherein may mortals win in mortal fame and gallant dames the knights they loved the most company like that brave and beauteous dame who to beleaguered Troy such agents gave with women troops that drain through modern's wave the coolness serene and early morning's pride now pale to sparkling stars about the pole when Mary's son appearing crucified in vision strengthened king Alfonso's soul but he adoring such appearance cried fired with a frenzied faith beyond control to the infidel oh lord to the infidel not lord to me who know thy power so well such gracious marvel in such manner sent flame delusion spirit fierce and high toward their natural king that excellent prince unto whom love boom none could deny aligned to front the foeman proponent they shouted resonance slogan to the sky and fierce the alarm rose real real for high Alfonso king of Portugal accomplished his act of arms victorious home to resolution realm Alfonso's fed to gain from peacetime triumphs great and glorious as those he gained in wars and battles dread when the sad chance on history's page memorials which can unsepulchre the sheeted dead befell that ill-starred milleral dame who folly slain a thrown at queen became thou only thou pure love whose cruel might obliges human hearts to wheel and woe thou only thou didst wreak such foul despite as though she were some foul perfidious foe thy burning thirst fierce love they say all right may not be quenched by saddest tears may not flow nay more thy sprite of harsh tyrantic mood would see thine altars bathed with human blood he placed thee in soft retreat culling the first fruits of thy sweet young years in that delicious dream that dear deceit whose long endurance fortune hates and fears hard by mondigos yearn for meese thy seat where linger flowing still those lovely tears until free and shrub confessed the name of him deep writ within thy breast there in thy prince awoke responsive wise dear thoughts of thee which soul deep ever lay which brought thy beauty's form before his eyes when ere those eye of thine were far away night fled in falsest sweetest fantasies in fleeting flying reveries sped the day and all in fine he saw or cared to see were memories of his love his joys his thee of many a dainty dame and damsel the coveted nuptial couches he rejected for not can ere pure love thy care dispel when one enchanting shape thy heart subjecteth these whims of passion to despair compel the sire whose old man's wisdom I respecteth his subjects murmuring at his son's delay to bless the nation with a bridal day to wrench ignez from life he doth design better his captured son from her to wrench deeming that only blood of death in dine the living low of such true love can quench what fury wilted that the steel so fine which from the mighty weight would never flinch of the dead more man should be drawn in hate to work that hapless delicate ladies fate the horrible hangman hurried her before the king now moved to spare her innocence but still her cruel mother urged the more the people swayed by fierce and false pretense she with her pleadings pitiful and sore that told her sorrows in her care immense for her prince spouse and babes whom more to leave than her own death the mother's heart did grieve and heavenwards to the clear and crystalline skies writhing her eye with piteous tears bestaineth her eye because her hands with cruel ties one of the wicked ministers constraineth and gazing on her babes in wistful guise whose pretty form she loved with love unfainted whose orphaned lot the mother filled with dread until their cruel grandsire thus she said if the brutal creatures which from natal day on cruel ways by nature's will were bent or fair were birds whose only thought his prey upon aerial rapine all intent if men such savage being have seen display to little children loving sentiment eonest and inest mother did we fall and to the twain who reared the Roman wall O thou who bearest of man the just and breast and it be man like thus to draw the sword on a weak girl because her love impressed his heart who took her heart and love and ward respect for these her babes preserve at least since it may not her obscure death retard moved be thy pitying soul for them and me although my faultless fault unmoved thou see and if thou knowest to deal in direful fight the doom of brand and blade to moorish host know also thou to deal of life the light to one who ne'er deserved her life be lost but and thou which mine innocence thus requite place me for I on sad exiled coast in city and sleet on seething libyan shore with lifelong tears to linger evermore place me more beast with fiercest rage abound lions tigers there ah let me find if in their hearts of flint be pity found denied to me by heart of humankind therewith intrinsic love and will so fond for him whose love is death there will I tend these tender pledges whom thou seeest and so shall the sad mother cool her burning woe inclined to pardon her the king benign moved by this sad lament to melting mood but the rude people and fate's dirt design that will it thus refuse the pardon sued they draw their swords of steely temper fine they who proclaim as just such deeds of blood against a lady can't if felon whites who showed thee here brute beasts or noble knights thus on plexa that beauty is made last solace of her mother's age and care when dooming to die by fierce achilles shade the cruel pyrus hasted brand to bear but she a patient lamb by deathway laid with the calm graces with serene the air casts on her mother mad with and silent waits that awesome sacrifice thus dealt with verigness the murderous crew in the alabra string neck that did sustain the charms whereby could love the love subdued of him who crowned her after his death his queen bathing their blades the flowers of snowy hue which often watered by her eye had been our blood died and they burned with blinding hate reckless of tortures dored for them by fate well mightiest shorn of rays o sun appear to fiends like these on day so dark and dire as when theresties ate the meals that were his seed whom a true astrew to spite their sire and you will hollow valleys doomed to hear her latest cry from stiffening lips expire her Pedro's name did catch that mournful sound whose echoes bore it far and far around even as daisy sheen that hath been shorn in time untimely florid fresh and fair and by untender hand of maiden torn to deck the chaplet for her wreathed hair gone is its odor and its colors mourn so pale and faded lay that lady there dry other roses of her cheek and fled the white live color with her dear life dead one day goes daughter nymphs the death obscure wept many a year with wails of woe exceeding and for long memory changed who found impure the floods of grief their eyes were ever feeding the name they gave it which doth still endure revived Ignez whose mirthur'd love lies bleeding see yawn fresh fountain flowing mid the flowers tears are its waters and its name Amoras time ran not long a Pedro saw the day of vengeance dawn for wounds that ever bled who when he took in hand the king Lee's way it took the murders whose rage had fled them a more cruel Pedro did betray for both if human life the fulmin' dread made concert savage endure packed unjust as levities made with Anthony and Augustus end of section four recording by Todd section five of library of the world's best literature ancient and modern volume eight this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Thomas Peter library of the world's best literature ancient and modern volume eight section five the Kenzon of Life and Adieu to Coimbra by Louise Vaz de Comont the Kenzon of Life one come here my confidential secretary of the complaints in which my days are rife paper whereon I gar my griefs or flow tell we we twain unreasons which in life deal me inexorable contrary destiny sir to prayer and tearful woe dash we some water drops on much shall low fire we with outcry storm of rage so rare that we strange to mortal memory such misery tell we to God and man and eek and fine to air where to so many times did I confide my tale and vainly told as I now tell but Ian's air was my birth tide lot that this be one of many doubt I not and as to hit the butt so far I fail Ian if I sinned her cease day to child within my only refuge will I bide to speak and faultless sin with free intent sad he so scanty mercies must content too long I've unlearned me that complaint of dole brings cure of dolers but a whiten pain to greet is forcid and the grief be great I will out greet but weak my voice and vain to express the sorrows which oppress my soul for nor with greeting shall my dole abate who then shall grant me to relieve my weight of sorrow flowing tears and infinite size equal those miseries my sprite or a power but who at any hour can measure miseries with his tears or cries I'll tell and fine the love from me designed by wrath and woe and all their sovereigns for other dole hath qualities harder, sterner draw near and hear me each despairing learner and fly the many fed on aspirants or whites who fancy hope will prove her kind for love and fortune willed with single mind to leave them hopeful so they comprehend what they end 3 when from man's primal grave the mother's womb new eyes on earth I hoped my hapless star to mar my fortunes gain his will and force and freedom free will given me to debar I learned a thousand times it was my doom to know the better and to work the worse coming tormentized to curse my course of coming years when cast I round a boyish high glance with a gentle zest it was my star as behest a boy born blind should deal me life long wound infantine teardrops welled out the deep with vague enamored longings nameless pine my wailing accents from my cradle sound already sounded me love sighing sound thus age and destiny had like design for when perante rocking me to sleep they sung me love songs were in lover's weep atonce by nature's will asleep I fell so melancholy witched me with her spell 4 my nurse some fear oh was fate kneeled approved by any woman such a name be tain who gave me breast nor seemed it suitable thus was I suckled that my lips in drain in from my childhood venom draft of love whereof in later years I drained my fill till by long custom fail the draft to kill that an ideal semblin struck my glance of that fear human decked with charms and poison sweet with the suavist poison who nourished me with paps of Esperance till later saw my eyes the original which of my wildest, maddest appetite make sinful air sovereign and superb me seems as human form had came to stir but scintillating spirits divine slight so graceful gate such port imperial were hers unwheel being gloried self wheel when in her sight whose lively sheen and shade exceeded art and all things nature made 5 what new unkindly kind of human pain had love not only doled for me to dre, but eek on me was wholly execute implacable harshness cooling fervency of love desire thoughts very might and main, drave me far distant from my settled suit vexed and self-shamed to sight its own pursuit hence somber shades fantastic born and bread of trifles promising rascist Esperance while boons of happy chance were likewise fainted and infigured but her despise all wrought me such dismay that made my fancy frenzy word incline turning to disconcert the guiling lure hear mine to us to divine and hold for sure that all was truest truth I could divine and straight away all I said in shame to unsay to see what so I saw in contrare way and fine just reasons seek for jealousy yet were the unreasons either far to see 6 I know not how she knew that fared she stealing raise mine inner man which flew her ward with subtlest passage to the iron little by little all for me she drew eonest from rain wet canopy exhaling the subtle humours sucks the hot sunshine the pure transparent jest and mean and fine wherefore inadequate were and lacking sense beautyous and bell were words without an weight and passionate eye glance that held the spirit in suspense such were the magic herbs the heavens all wise drave me a draught to drain and for long years to other being my shape and form transmute and this transforming with such joy I viewed that in my sorrow snared I with its snares and like the doom at man I veiled mine eyes to hide an evil crescent in such guise like one caress it and on flattery fed of love for whom his being was born and bred 7 then who mine absent life hath power to paint with discontent of all I bore in view that bide so far from where she had her bide speaking which even what I spake I knew, wending with all unseeing where I went sighing weedless for what cause I sighed then as those torments last endurance tried that dreadful dollar which from tartarous waves shot up on earth and racketh more than all where from shell off to the fall it turned a gentle yearning rage that raves then with repine full fury fever high wishing yet wishing not for love's sucease shifting to other side for vengeance desires deprived of their aspirants what now could ever change such ills as these then the fond yearnings for the things gone by pure torment sweet in bitter faculty which from these fiery furious could distill sweet tears of love with pine the soul to thrill 8 for what excuses lone with self I sought when my suave love forfended me to find fault in the thing beloved and so love it such were the fainted cures that forged my mind in fear of torments that for ever taught life to support itself by snares approve it thus through a goodly part of life I rove it wherein if I ever joyed I ought content short lived, immodest, flawful, without heed it was nothing save the seed that bare me bitter tortures long unspent this course continuous dooming to distress these wandering steps that strayed or every road so wrought they quenched for me the flamey thirst I suffered grow in sprite in soul I nursed with thoughts enamoured for my daily food whereby was fed my nature's tenderness and this by habits long an aspirous stress which might of mortals never resist was turned to pleasure taste of being trist. Nine thus spared I life with other interchanging I know but destiny showing fear and love yet even thus for other near I change me for my dear love patrionide she drove over the broad and boisterous ocean ranging where life so often saw her extreme range attempting rages rare and missiles strange of mart she willered that my eyes should see and hands should touch the bitter fruit he'd died that on this shield they sight and painted semblance fire of enemy then for forth driven vagrant, peregrine seeing strange nations customs, tongues costumes various heavens qualities different only to follow passing diligent the jiglet fortune whose fierce will consumes man's age a building I before his eye a hope with semblance of the diamonds shine but when it falleth out of hand we know to a fragile glass that showed so glorious show. Ten failed me the roof of man I decried friends to unfriendly change it and contrar in my first peril and I lack at ground whelmed by the second where my feet could fare ere for my breathing was my lot denied time failed me in fine and failed me life's dull round what darkling secret mystery profound this birth to life while life is doomed with hold world contained for life to use yet never life to lose though it was already lost time's manifold in brief my fortune could no horror make nay, certain danger, nay an insipitous case injustice dealt by men whom wild confused misrule that rites of olden days abused or neighbourment appraised a power in place I bore not to the sturdy stake of my long suffering which my heart would break with import tuning persecuting harms dashed to a thousand bits by forceful arms eleven number I not so numerous ills as he who escaped the weathering wind and furious flood and happy harbor tells his travel tale yet now, in now my fortunes wavering mood to so much misery oblige of me that even to pace one forward pace I quail no more shirk I what evils may assail no more to falsing welfare I pretend for human cunning not can gar me gain and fine on sovereign strain of providence divine I now depend this thought this prospect is at times I greet my soul consolar for dead hopes and fears but human weakness when it's iron a light upon the things that fleet and can but cite the sadding memories of the long past years what bread such times I break what drink I drain are bitter tear floods I can near refrain save by upbuilding castles based on air fantastic painter fair and false as fair twelve for an it possible that time and tide could bend them backward and like memory view the faded footprints of life's earlier day and web of olden story weaving you in sweetest air could my footsteps guide a mid bloom of flowers where I want my youth to stray and with the memories of the long sad way deal me a larger store of life content viewing fair converse and glad company where this and other key she had for opening hearts to new intent the fields the frequent stroll the lovely show the view the snow the rose the former sure the soft and gracious means so gravely gay the singular friendship casting clean away all villain longings earthly and impure as one whose I can never see vain vain memories wither leading me with this weak heart that still must toil and tire to tame as tame it should your vain desire lawn boy no more can zone no more for I could pray to science comp a thousand years and if the fall blame to thine over large and long drawn strain I shall see as sure who blames contain an ocean water packed in vase so small nursing I delicate lines and softest tone for gust of praise my song to man makes known pure truth wherewith my own experience teams what God they were the stuff that builds our dreams I'd hear the Coimbra sweet lucent waters of ego stream of my remembrance restful to his sons where far-fetched lingering traitorous Esperons long while misled me in a blinding dream for you I pot yay still I'll never misdeem that long drawn memories with your charms and hence forbidden me changing end in every chance in as I farther speed I nearer seem well may my fortunes hail this instrument of soul or new strange regions wide and side offered to wins and watery element but hence my spirit by you accompanied born on the nimble wings that reverie lent flies home and bathes her waters in your tide end of section 5