The holy man next made the damsel see,
That save in God there was no true content,
And proved all other hope was transitory,
Fleeting, of little worth, and quickly spent;
And urged withal so earnestly his plea,
He changed her ill and obstinate intent;
And made her, for the rest of life, desire
To live devoted to her heavenly sire.
Not that she would her mighty love forbear
For her dead lord, nor yet his relics slight;
These, did she halt or journey, everywhere
Would Isabel have with her, day and night.
The hermit therefore seconding her care,
Who, for his age, was sound and full of might,
They on his mournful horse Zerbino placed,
And traversed many a day that woodland waste.
* * * * *
He thought to bear her to Provence, where, near
The city of Marseilles, a borough stood,
Which had a sumptuous monastery; here
Of ladies was a holy sisterhood.
_Rose's Translation, Canto XXIV_.
THE LUSIAD.
"The discovery of Mozambique, of Melinda, and of Calcutta has been sung by
Camoens, whose poem has something of the charm of the Odyssey and of the
magnificence of the Aeneid."
MONTESQUIEU.
The Portuguese epic, the Lusiad, so-called from Lusitania, the Latin name
for Portugal, was written by Luis de Camoens.
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