Dia de Camoes

Camões and the Lusiads

Thursday, June 10, was the Day of Portugal, the day that the Portuguese
celebrate their epic poet, Luís Vasco de Camões.
Born of a noble family from Galiza, a Portuguese speaking area of Northern
Spain, Camões wrote The Lusiads. This he did to honor the Portuguese who
ventured to India and the Far East in the Age of Discovery.
The Lusiads, after the epic tradition of the Odyssey (Iliad), is a praise to
the Portuguese as the descendents of the Lusitanian, the Celtic group of
people who, for their courage and bravery, kept Rome at bay for quite a long
time, and only after Rome paid traitor money, did it fall to its dominion.
Being a distant relative of Vasco da Gama, Camões takes to heart this
journey into India singing, with a rapture that equals that of Homer and
Dante, all the Portuguese feats in the Age of Discovery; calling out for the
Gods in mythology and making comparisons that place the Portuguese along
with the classic heroes of the past.
Highly talented, beside this epic work, he wrote sonnets, ballads, odes and
pastoral poems, and with such lyrical power as to eclipse the famed lyricism
of the Portuguese balladeers and minstrel singers of the Portuguese and
Spanish courts of the past whose fame went beyond the Portuguese and Spanish
courts*. It was from this source lyricism that Elizabeth Browning herself
drew the inspiration for her famous Sonnets of the Portuguese.
Then besides being the poet and playwright (Camões also wrote prose and
three plays), he was an ardent wooer, a feisty warrior, a free thinker, one
who spoke his mind, and branded his sword whenever he thought justice was on
his side.
His impatient and rebellious nature led him into problems with the people of
the court, and especially with the Queen and King themselves. More than once
he landed in jail. At one point, as a form of punishment, he was sent to
North Africa to fight the Moors < Portugal was in control of two very
important cities there. Portugal had from the onset of the Age of Discovery
meant to expand to North Africa and annex all of that area. It was in one
of those skirmishes with the enemy that Camões lost one of his eyes and had
to, from that time on, wear a patch over his eye.
Soon after this incident, he did return to Portugal, but again for
non-conformance to court and Church, and due to his temperamental and
impulsive nature, was sent to India and finally Macao, where he held a
government position. It was there that he worked on his famous epic, the
Lusiads.
At one point he decides to travel back home. On one stretch of his voyage
off the coast of Cambodia, he suffered a shipwreck. He lost everything he
had, and had to struggle with his very life to reclaim his Lusiads from the
fury of the waves.
Followed by a slave woman that he had fallen in love with, he left the Asian
coast until he reached Mozambique. Unable to finance his voyage back to
Portugal, he stayed sometime until some of his friends came upon him and
helped him with the money he needed to get back to Lisbon. In 1470, he
returned, a broken man, to the country which he had turn into song.
Back in Lisbon, he was confronted with the reality of a city and a society
much different from the idealized image he had kept of it. He found Lisbon
and the Portuguese society one of petty people, a corrupt and spoiled
society that he was quick to rebuke.
After much effort, he was allowed to read his Lusiads to the Young King, Don
Sebastião, who was in the very preparations to attack North Africa, meaning
to once and for all annex that whole region for Portugal. Before he left,
he did agree to pay Camões a yearly stipend, which barely met his immediate
needs. Disillusioned and ailing, Camões was looked after by a slave boy,
who went around asking for alms, so that both could survive in the
supercilious, arrogant society that was Lisbon¹s.
Camões died shortly after in the year 1579. This after Don Sebastião¹s own
death in the battle at Alcácer-Quibir, in North Africa in the year 1578.
Some even say that Camões died with the Mother Country, since soon
afterwards, Portugal fell to the Spanish King, Don Felipe, and all the glory
that it had been for about two hundred years, (1357-1578) came to an end.
Portugal¹s territories all over the globe were either absorbed by Spain or
lost to its enemies the Dutch, the French and the English. The very
Portuguese armada became part of the ill-fated Spanish Armada that was
completely wiped out by the English. After Don Sebastião¹s death Portugal
would never again regain its formal power and glory. Portugal¹s golden age
had come to an end.
In terms of lyricism, there was no one before or after Camões that could
equal him. He is looked at as Portugal¹s national bard and many of his
sonnets, odes and songs have been put to music, especially the fado.
The sixth most spoken language in the world and the third European Language
of world-wide-span, Camões is looked at as a Hero of the Portuguese
Language. A ballad singer, an epic poet, a soldier, a hero, he became what
many Portuguese have become, a world wanderer, an adventurer, a man at home
in any part of the world, but his own country.

Silverio Gabriel de Melo
Juncal, Terceira, Açores