The most pleasing literary labour of my life has been to translate “ The Lusiads .” One of my highest aims has been to produce a translation which shall associate my name, not unpleasantly, with that of “my master, Camões.”
Those who favour me by reading this version are spared the long recital of why, how, and when Portugal’s Maro became to me the perfection of a traveller’s study. The first and chiefest charm was, doubtless, that of the Man. A wayfarer and voyager from his youth; a soldier, somewhat turbulent withal, wounded and blamed for his wounds; a moralist, a humourist, a satirist, and, consequently, no favourite with King Demos; a reverent and religious spirit after his own fashion (somewhat “Renaissance,” poetic, and Pagan), by no means after the fashion of others; an outspoken, truth-telling, lucre-despising writer; a public servant whose motto was—strange to say— Honour, not Honours ; a doughty Sword and yet doughtier Pen; a type of the chivalrous age; a patriot of the purest water, so jealous of his Country’s good fame that nothing would satisfy him but to see the world bow before her perfections; a genius, the first and foremost of his day, who died in the direst poverty and distress; such in merest outline was the Man, and such was the Life which won the fondest and liveliest sympathies of the translator.
Poetas por poetas sejam lidos; Sejam só por poetas explicadas Suas obras divinas;
(Still by the Poets be the Poets read Only be render’d by the Poet’s tongue Their works divine);
writes Manuel Corrêa. Mickle expresses the sentiment with more brevity and equal point: None but a poet can translate a poet; and Coleridge