In this canto we also have a synopsis of the life of St. Thomas, the
Apostle of India, and see the Portuguese sail happily off with the
beauteous brides they have won in Venus' Isle of Joy. The return home
is safely effected, and our bold sailors are welcomed in Lisbon with
delirious joy, for their journey has crowned Portugal with glory. The
poem concludes, as it began, with an apostrophe from the poet to the
king.

The Lusiad is so smoothly written, so harmonious, and so full of
similes that ever since Camoëns' day it has served as a model for
Portuguese poetry and is even yet an accepted and highly prized
classic in Portuguese Literature.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 14: See the author's "Story of the Thirteen Colonies."]

[Footnote 15: All the quotations in this chapter are from Mickle's
translation of the "Lusiad."]




ITALIAN EPICS


The fact that Latin remained so long the chief literary language of
Europe prevented an early development of literature in the Italian
language. Not only were all the popular European epics and romances