The Portugal of Camões and the America of today

Today we have a guest contributor, Eliot Davila. Eliot's knowledge of literature and the great works of history never ceases to amaze me. I hope you'll enjoy this post as much as I do. --West

Without further ado:

Those who have read the epic poem Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads) written by Luís Vaz de Camões will likely recognize the following excerpt from Canto X. Reading it today, it almost seems as if Camões was talking not just about Portugal in the 16th century, but also about America in the 21st:

10.145
Nô mais, Musa, nô mais, que a Lira tenho
Destemperada e a voz enrouquecida,
E não do canto, mas de ver que venho
Cantar a gente surda e endurecida.
O favor com que mais se acende o engenho
Não no dá a pátria, não, que está metida
No gosto da cobiça e na rudeza
Düa austera, apagada e vil tristeza.

146
E não sei por que influxo de Destino
Não tem um ledo orgulho e geral gosto,
Que os ânimos levanta de contino
A ter pera trabalhos ledo o rosto.

Roughly translated:

No more, Muse, no more, my lyre
Is out of tune and my throat hoarse,
Not from singing but from wasting song
On a deaf and coarsened people.
Those rewards which encourage genius
My country ignores, being given over
To avarice and philistinism,
Heartlessness and degrading pessimism.

I do not know by what twist of fate
It has lost that pride, that zest for life,
Which lifts the spirits unfailingly
And welcomes work with a smiling face.

We, as Objectivists, may be a bit more perceptive than Camões, since we know by what "twist of fate" America has lost "that zest for life", but we may also often feel as if we are "wasting song / On a deaf and coarsened people." Luckily, great writers like Camões, Homer, Vergil, Milton, Hugo, and Rand "encourage genius" by fueling our souls with great art "which lifts the spirits unfailingly" and drives us to happily "welcome work with a smiling face."

Consider, for instance, the final lines of Milton's Paradise Lost. The evil deed done, and the Fall of Man confirmed, God sends the angel Michael to escort Adam and Eve from Paradise. Michael first tells Adam that if he acts virtuously, then he may "leave this Paradise, but shalt possess / A Paradise within thee, happier farr." (XII. 586-87). With that glimmer of hope, the angel then escorts Adam and Eve from Paradise:

High in Front advanc't,
The brandisht Sword of God before them blaz'd
Fierce as a Comet; which with torrid heat,
And vapour as the Libyan Air adust, [ 635 ]
Began to parch that temperate Clime; whereat
In either hand the hastning Angel caught
Our lingring Parents, and to th' Eastern Gate
Led them direct, and down the Cliff as fast
To the subjected Plaine; then disappeer'd. [ 640 ]
They looking back, all th' Eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late thir happie seat,
Wav'd over by that flaming Brand, the Gate
With dreadful Faces throng'd and fierie Armes:
Som natural tears they drop'd, but wip'd them soon; [ 645 ]
The World was all before them, where to choose
Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:
They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,
Through Eden took thir solitarie way.

Despite losing their "happie seat" in Paradise, Adam and Eve soon "wip'd" their tears. Rather than looking back and lamenting over what had been lost, "our lingring Parents" looked forward and realized that "the World was all before them." Thus, the realization of that they were free to "choose / thir place of rest" led them to "welcome work with a smiling face."

Milton has unfailingly lifted my spirit. What of yours?