What Begins at the Water, the Portugual Edition

I often have thoughts.  Recently a lot of them seem to be about S., as you may have guessed.  And the other day it occurred to me that the phrase "what begins at the water..." might be a variation of the old chestnut, "where the world ends and the sea begins..."  So I started looking.  For a phrase that seems so cliche, it was pretty hard to pin down in literature.  So far I've been only able to find two references, but one has an interesting link.

In Portugual, the westernmost point is called Cabo da Roca.  Formerly known as the Rock of Lisbon, the cape is associated with one of the most important poets in Portugual, Luis de Camoes.

Here, where the land ends and the sea begins...

De Camoes commemorates Portuguese voyages of exploration in The Lusiads from which the line above is taken. Camoes, highly revered in Portugual, spent several years traveling and living abroad.  He is said to have written The Lusiads in a grotto in the Orient.  On the return trip to Portugual, the ship he was on sank and he reputedly swam with his epic above his head to save it from destruction.  De Camoes was able to publish it two years later in 1572.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning had Camoes in mind when she titled her volume of poems, Sonnets from the Portuguese at Robert Browning's suggestion.

According to wikipedia, the Portuguese were the leaders of sea exploration and had mapped the coasts of Africa, Brazil, and Asia, eventually making it to Japan in 1542.  Columbus was probably in part inspired by Portuguese sailing successes.

Under the Mongol Empire's hegemony over Asia (the Pax Mongolica, or Mongol peace), Europeans had long enjoyed a safe land passage, the Silk Road to China and India, which were sources of valuable goods such as silk, spices, and opiates. With the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the land route to Asia became much more difficult and dangerous.

Portuguese navigators, under the leadership of King John II, sought to reach Asia by sailing around Africa. Major progress in this quest was achieved in 1488, when Bartolomeu Dias reached the Cape of Good Hope, in what is now South Africa. Meanwhile, in the 1480s, the Columbus brothers had developed a different plan to reach the Indies (then construed roughly as all of south and east Asia) by sailing west across the "Ocean Sea", i.e., the Atlantic.

So you might be wondering why I bring up Columbus at this point.  On his return from his first voyage in 1492, storms forced him to stop at Lisbon for a short period before returning home to Spain.  And if you re-arrange the numbers in 1492, you get 19 and you get 42.

De Camoes' poem was the first poem.  The second is by Algernon Charles Swinburne from his volume A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems which brings us back again to the sea.  As I pull threads, there may be more to come on Swinburne, but for now I leave you with the verse by him.

ON THE VERGE.

Here begins the sea that ends not till the world’s end. Where we stand,

Could we know the next high sea-mark set beyond these waves that gleam,

We should know what never man hath known, nor eye of man hath scanned.

Nought beyond these coiling clouds that melt like fume of shrines that steam

Breaks or stays the strength of waters till they pass our bounds of dream.

Where the waste Land’s End leans westward, all the seas it watches roll

32 Find their border fixed beyond them, and a worldwide shore’s control:

These whereby we stand no shore beyond us limits: these are free.

Gazing hence, we see the water that grows iron round the Pole,

From the shore that hath no shore beyond it set in all the sea.

Sail on sail along the sea-line fades and flashes; here on land

Flash and fade the wheeling wings on wings of mews that plunge and scream.

Hour on hour along the line of life and time’s evasive strand

Shines and darkens, wanes and waxes, slays and dies: and scarce they seem

33 More than motes that thronged and trembled in the brief noon’s breath and beam.

Some with crying and wailing, some with notes like sound of bells that toll,

Some with sighing and laughing, some with words that blessed and made us whole,

Passed, and left us, and we know not what they were, nor what were we.

Would we know, being mortal? Never breath of answering whisper stole

From the shore that hath no shore beyond it set in all the sea.

Shadows, would we question darkness? Ere our eyes and brows be fanned

Round with airs of twilight, washed with dews from sleep’s eternal stream,

34 Would we know sleep’s guarded secret? Ere the fire consume the brand,

Would it know if yet its ashes may requicken? yet we deem

Surely man may know, or ever night unyoke her starry team,

What the dawn shall be, or if the dawn shall be not, yea, the scroll

Would we read of sleep’s dark scripture, pledge of peace or doom of dole.

Ah, but here man’s heart leaps, yearning toward the gloom with venturous glee,

Though his pilot eye behold nor bay nor harbour, rock nor shoal,

From the shore that hath no shore beyond it set in all the sea.

35 Friend, who knows if death indeed have life or life have death for goal?

Day nor night can tell us, nor may seas declare nor skies unroll

What has been from everlasting, or if aught shall always be.

Silence answering only strikes response reverberate on the soul

From the shore that hath no shore beyond it set in all the sea.

(8/17/14 edited for grammar and tags added)