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　　SELECTIONS FROM THE LUSIAD.

　　INEZ DE CASTRO.

　　During the reign of Alfonso the Brave, his son Don Pedro secretly wedded a beautiful maiden of the court, Inez de Castro. The courtiers, jealous because Inez was a Castilian, betrayed Pedro's secret to the king, who, in the absence of his son, had Inez brought before him and slain by hired ruffians.

　　While glory, thus, Alonzo's name adorn'd,

　　To Lisbon's shores the happy chief return'd,

　　In glorious peace and well-deserv'd repose,

　　His course of fame, and honor'd age to close.

　　When now, O king, a damsel's fate severe,

　　A fate which ever claims the woful tear,

　　Disgraced his honors—On the nymph's 'lorn head

　　Relentless rage its bitterest rancor shed:

　　Yet, such the zeal her princely lover bore,

　　Her breathless corse the crown of Lisbon wore.

　　'Twas thou, O Love, whose dreaded shafts control

　　The hind's rude heart, and tear the hero's soul;

　　Thou, ruthless power, with bloodshed never cloy'd,

　　'Twas thou thy lovely votary destroy'd.

　　Thy thirst still burning for a deeper woe,

　　In vain to thee the tears of beauty flow;

　　The breast that feels thy purest flames divine,

　　With spouting gore must bathe thy cruel shrine.

　　Such thy dire triumphs!—Thou, O nymph, the while,

　　Prophetic of the god's unpitying guile,

　　In tender scenes by love-sick fancy wrought,

　　By fear oft shifted, as by fancy brought,

　　In sweet Mondego's ever-verdant bowers,

　　Languish'd away the slow and lonely hours:

　　While now, as terror wak'd thy boding fears,

　　The conscious stream receiv'd thy pearly tears;

　　And now, as hope reviv'd the brighter flame,

　　Each echo sigh'd thy princely lover's name.

　　Nor less could absence from thy prince remove

　　The dear remembrance of his distant love:

　　Thy looks, thy smiles, before him ever glow,

　　And o'er his melting heart endearing flow:

　　By night his slumbers bring thee to his arms,

　　By day his thoughts still wander o'er thy charms:

　　By night, by day, each thought thy loves employ,

　　Each thought the memory, or the hope, of joy.

　　Though fairest princely dames invok'd his love,

　　No princely dame his constant faith could move:

　　For thee, alone, his constant passion burn'd,

　　For thee the proffer'd royal maids he scorn'd.

　　Ah, hope of bliss too high—the princely dames

　　Refus'd, dread rage the father's breast inflames;

　　He, with an old man's wintry eye, surveys

　　The youth's fond love, and coldly with it weighs

　　The people's murmurs of his son's delay

　　To bless the nation with his nuptial day.

　　(Alas, the nuptial day was past unknown,

　　Which, but when crown'd, the prince could dare to own.)

　　And, with the fair one's blood, the vengeful sire

　　Resolves to quench his Pedro's faithful fire.

　　Oh, thou dread sword, oft stain'd with heroes' gore,

　　Thou awful terror of the prostrate Moor,

　　What rage could aim thee at a female breast,

　　Unarm'd, by softness and by love possess'd!

　　Dragg'd from her bower, by murd'rous ruffian hands,

　　Before the frowning king fair Inez stands;

　　Her tears of artless innocence, her air

　　So mild, so lovely, and her face so fair,

　　Mov'd the stern monarch; when, with eager zeal,

　　Her fierce destroyers urg'd the public weal;

　　Dread rage again the tyrant's soul possess'd,

　　And his dark brow his cruel thoughts confess'd;

　　O'er her fair face a sudden paleness spread,

　　Her throbbing heart with gen'rous anguish bled,

　　Anguish to view her lover's hopeless woes,

　　And all the mother in her bosom rose.

　　Her beauteous eyes, in trembling tear-drops drown'd,

　　To heaven she lifted (for her hands were bound);

　　Then, on her infants turn'd the piteous glance,

　　The look of bleeding woe; the babes advance,

　　Smiling in innocence of infant age,

　　Unaw'd, unconscious of their grandsire's rage;

　　To whom, as bursting sorrow gave the flow,

　　The native heart-sprung eloquence of woe,

　　The lovely captive thus:—"O monarch, hear,

　　If e'er to thee the name of man was dear,

　　If prowling tigers, or the wolf's wild brood

　　(Inspired by nature with the lust of blood),

　　Have yet been mov'd the weeping babe to spare,

　　Nor left, but tended with a nurse's care,

　　As Rome's great founders to the world were given;

　　Shall thou, who wear'st the sacred stamp of Heaven

　　The human form divine, shalt thou deny

　　That aid, that pity, which e'en beasts supply!

　　Oh, that thy heart were, as thy looks declare,

　　Of human mould, superfluous were my prayer;

　　Thou couldst not, then, a helpless damsel slay,

　　Whose sole offence in fond affection lay,

　　In faith to him who first his love confess'd,

　　Who first to love allur'd her virgin breast.

　　In these my babes shalt thou thine image see,

　　And, still tremendous, hurl thy rage on me?

　　Me, for their sakes, if yet thou wilt not spare,

　　Oh, let these infants prove thy pious care!

　　Yet, Pity's lenient current ever flows

　　From that brave breast where genuine valor glows;

　　That thou art brave, let vanquish'd Afric tell,

　　Then let thy pity o'er my anguish swell;

　　Ah, let my woes, unconscious of a crime,

　　Procure mine exile to some barb'rous clime:

　　Give me to wander o'er the burning plains

　　Of Libya's deserts, or the wild domains

　　Of Scythia's snow-clad rocks, and frozen shore;

　　There let me, hopeless of return, deplore:

　　Where ghastly horror fills the dreary vale,

　　Where shrieks and howlings die on every gale,

　　The lion's roaring, and the tiger's yell,

　　There with my infant race, consigned to dwell,

　　There let me try that piety to find,

　　In vain by me implor'd from human kind:

　　There, in some dreary cavern's rocky womb,

　　Amid the horrors of sepulchral gloom,

　　For him whose love I mourn, my love shall glow,

　　The sigh shall murmur, and the tear shall flow:

　　All my fond wish, and all my hope, to rear

　　These infant pledges of a love so dear,

　　Amidst my griefs a soothing glad employ,

　　Amidst my fears a woful, hopeless joy."

　　In tears she utter'd—as the frozen snow

　　Touch'd by the spring's mild ray, begins to flow,

　　So just began to melt his stubborn soul,

　　As mild-ray'd Pity o'er the tyrant stole;

　　But destiny forbade: with eager zeal

　　(Again pretended for the public weal),

　　Her fierce accusers urg'd her speedy doom;

　　Again, dark rage diffus'd its horrid gloom

　　O'er stern Alonzo's brow: swift at the sign,

　　Their swords, unsheath'd, around her brandish'd shine.

　　O foul disgrace, of knighthood lasting stain,

　　By men of arms a helpless lady slain!

　　Thus Pyrrhus, burning with unmanly ire,

　　Fulfilled the mandate of his furious sire;

　　Disdainful of the frantic matron's prayer,

　　On fair Polyxena, her last fond care,

　　He rush'd, his blade yet warm with Priam's gore,

　　And dash'd the daughter on the sacred floor;

　　While mildly she her raving mother eyed,

　　Resigned her bosom to the sword, and died.

　　Thus Inez, while her eyes to heaven appeal,

　　Resigns her bosom to the murd'ring steel:

　　That snowy neck, whose matchless form sustain'd

　　The loveliest face, where all the graces reign'd,

　　Whose charms so long the gallant prince enflam'd,

　　That her pale corse was Lisbon's queen proclaim'd,

　　That snowy neck was stain'd with spouting gore,

　　Another sword her lovely bosom tore.

　　The flowers that glisten'd with her tears bedew'd,

　　Now shrunk and languished with her blood embru'd.

　　As when a rose ere-while of bloom so gay,

　　Thrown from the careless virgin's breast away,

　　Lies faded on the plain, the living red,

　　The snowy white, and all its fragrance fled;

　　So from her cheeks the roses died away,

　　And pale in death the beauteous Inez lay:

　　With dreadful smiles, and crimson'd with her blood,

　　Round the wan victim the stern murd'rers stood,

　　Unmindful of the sure, though future hour,

　　Sacred to vengeance and her lover's power.

　　O Sun, couldst thou so foul a crime behold,

　　Nor veil thine head in darkness, as of old

　　A sudden night unwonted horror cast

　　O'er that dire banquet, where the sire's repast

　　The son's torn limbs supplied!—Yet you, ye vales!

　　Ye distant forests, and ye flow'ry dales!

　　When pale and sinking to the dreadful fall,

　　You heard her quiv'ring lips on Pedro call;

　　Your faithful echoes caught the parting sound,

　　And Pedro! Pedro! mournful, sigh'd around.

　　Nor less the wood-nymphs of Mondego's groves

　　Bewail'd the memory of her hapless loves:

　　Her griefs they wept, and, to a plaintive rill

　　Transform'd their tears, which weeps and murmurs still.

　　To give immortal pity to her woe

　　They taught the riv'let through her bowers to flow,

　　And still, through violet-beds, the fountain pours

　　Its plaintive wailing, and is named Amours.

　　Nor long her blood for vengeance cried in vain:

　　Her gallant lord begins his awful reign,

　　In vain her murderers for refuge fly,

　　Spain's wildest hills no place of rest supply.

　　The injur'd lover's and the monarch's ire,

　　And stern-brow'd Justice in their doom conspire:

　　In hissing flames they die, and yield their souls in fire.

　　Mickle's Translation, Canto III. National Epics