ARMS and the Heroes, who from Lisbon's shore,
Thro' seas[2] where sail was never spread before,
Beyond where Ceylon lifts her spicy breast,
And waves her woods above the watery waste,
- ↑ The Lusiad; in the original, Os Lusiadas, The Lusiads, from the Latin name of Portugal, derived from Lusus or Lysas, the companion of Bacchus in his travels, who settled a colony in Lusitania. See Plin. I. iii. c. i.
- ↑ Thro' seas where sail was never spread before.—M. Duperron de Castera, the French translator of the Lusiad, has given a long note on this passage, which he tells us, must not be understood literally. His arguments are these: Our author, says he, could not be ignorant that the African and Indian Oceans had been navigated before the times of the Portuguese. The Phœnicians, whose fleets passed the straits of Gibraltar, made frequent voyages in these seas, though they carefully concealed the course of their navigation that
