[1] This curious affair provoked a lengthy controversy, which is
described in "La Relation historique de ce qui s'est passe a Londres
au sujet des prophetes camisards" (_Republique des Lettres_, 1708),
in the study of M. Vesson, _Les Prophetes camisards a Londres_
(1893), and also in the book _Les Prophetes cevenols_, ch. iii.
(1861) by Alfred Dubois.
CAMOENS [CAMOES], LUIS VAZ DE (1524-1580), the prince of Portuguese
poets, sprang from an illustrious and wealthy family of Galician origin,
whose seat, called the castle of Camoens, lay near Cape Finisterre. His
ancestor, the poet Vasco Pires de Camoens, followed the party of Peter
the Cruel of Castile against Henry II., and on the defeat of the former
had to take refuge along with other Galician nobles in Portugal, where
he founded the Portuguese family of his name. King Fernando received him
well, and gave him posts of honour and estates, and though the master of
Aviz sequestered some of these and Vasco lost others after the battle of
Aljubarrota, where he fought on the Spanish side, considerable
possessions still remained to him. Antao Vaz, the grandfather of Luis,
married one of the Algarve Gamas, so that Vasco da Gama and Camoens, the
discoverer of the sea route to India and the poet who immortalized the
voyage in his _Lusiads_, were kinsmen. Antao's eldest son Simao Vaz was
born in Coimbra at the close of the 15th century, and married Anna de Sa
e Macedo, who bore him an only son, Luis Vaz de Camoens; thus the poet,
like his father and grandfather, was a _cavalleiro fidalgo_, that is, an
untitled noble.
Four cities dispute the honour of being his birthplace, though Lisbon
has the better title; and there is a like dispute about the year, which,
however, was almost certainly 1524. The poet spent his childhood in
Coimbra, where his father owned a property, and made his first studies
at the college of All Saints, designed for "honourable poor students,"
and there contracted friendships with noblemen like D. Goncalo da
Silveira and his brother D. Alvaro, who were inmates of the nobles'
college of St Michael. These colleges were offshoots from and attached
to the Augustinian monastery of Santa Cruz, an important religious and
scholastic establishment, where the poet's uncle D. Bento de Camoens, a
virtuous and very learned man, was professed. The Renaissance, though
late in penetrating into Portugal, had by this time definitely
triumphed, and the university of Coimbra, after its reform in 1537 under
the auspices of King John III., boasted the best teachers drawn from
every country, among them George Buchanan. The possession of classical
culture was regarded as the mark of a gentleman; the colleges of Santa
Cruz required conversation within the walls to be in Greek or Latin, and
the university, when it absorbed the colleges, adopted the same rule. In
these surroundings, aided by a retentive memory, Camoens steeped himself
in the literature and mythology of the ancients, as his works show, and
he was thus able in after years to perfect the Portuguese language and
to enrich it with many neologisms of classical origin. It is fortunate,
however, for his country and his fame that he never followed the fashion
of writing in Latin; on the contrary, except for his Spanish poems, he
always employed his native tongue. After completing his grammar and
rhetoric the poet entered on his university course for the degree of
bachelor of arts, which lasted for three years, from 1539 to 1542, and
during this period he met Jorge de Montemayor, the author of _Diana_,
who was then studying music. He seems to have imbibed much of that
encyclopaedic instruction to which the humanists aspired, for his
writings show a very extensive reading, and his scientific knowledge and
faculty of observation compelled the admiration of the great Humboldt.
The thoroughness of his teaching is apparent when we remember that he
wrote his epic in the fortresses of Africa and Asia, far from books, and
yet gave proof of acquaintance with universal history, geography,
astronomy, Greek and Latin literature, and the modern poetry of Italy
and Spain. Much of the credit for this learning must be attributed to
the encouragement of D. Bento, now prior of Santa Cruz, who became
chancellor of the university the very year when Camoens entered it.
There is a tradition that this uncle destined him for the church and
caused him to study theology. The poet's knowledge of dogma and the
Bible, his friendly intercourse with the Lisbon Dominicans at the end of
his life, and the share he is said to have taken in their disputations,
make the hypothesis a likely one, but he made his own choice and
preferred a lay life. We have very little verse of his Coimbra time, but
it seems that he began in the Italian manner, following the new
classical school of Sa de Miranda (q.v.), and that, though attached to
the popular muse and well acquainted with the national songs and
romances, legends and lore, his poetry in the old style (_medida velha_)
is mostly of later date. An exception may perhaps be found in his _Auto_
after the manner of Gil Vicente (q.v.), _The Amphitryons_, a Portuguese
adaptation from Plautus which was very well received. At the age of
eighteen Camoens left Coimbra, bidding adieu to the old city in verses
breathing the most tender _saudade_. Lisbon, which impressed Cervantes
so much as to draw from him a classic description in the novel _Persiles
y Sigismunda_, made an even greater impression on the youthful Camoens,
and the _Lusiads_ are full of eulogistic epithets on the city and the
Tagus.
Arriving in 1543, it has been conjectured that he became tutor to D.
Antonio de Noronha, son of the great noble D. Francisco de Noronha,
count of Linhares, who had lately returned from a French embassy to his
palace at Xabregas. The poet's birth and talents admitted him to the
society of men like D. Constantine de Braganza, the duke of Aveiro, the
marquis of Cascaes, the count of Redondo, D. Manoel de Portugal and D.
Goncalo da Silveira, son of the count of Sortelha, who died a Christian
martyr in Monomotapa. At Xabregas Camoens must have met Francisco de
Moraes (q.v.), who had served as secretary to the count of Linhares on
his embassy, and there he probably read the MS. of _Palmeirim_; this
would explain the origin of two of his roundels which are clearly
founded on passages in the romance. Camoens had had a youthful love
affair in Coimbra, but on Good Friday of the year 1544 he experienced
the passion of his life. On that day in some Lisbon church he caught
sight of D. Catherina de Ataide (daughter of D. Antonio de Lima, high
chamberlain to the infant D. Duarte), who had recently become a
lady-in-waiting to the queen. This young girl, the Nathercia of his
after songs, counted then some thirteen years, and was destined to be
his Beatrice. To see more of her, he persuaded the count of Linhares to
introduce him to the court, where his poetical gifts and culture ensured
him a ready welcome, and his fifth idyll, addressed to his patron on
this occasion, paved the way for his entrance. Though inferior to his
later compositions, it excels in harmony any verse previously written in
Portuguese. At first his suit probably met with few difficulties, and if
Catherina's family regarded it seriously, their poverty, combined with
the fact that the poet came of a good stock and had the future in his
hands, may have prevented any real opposition. It was his own imprudence
that marred his fortunes, and his consciousness of this fact gave his
muse that moving expression, truth and _saudade_, which are lacking in
the somewhat artificial productions of the sentimental Petrarch. But
while Camoens gained protectors and admirers, his temperament and
conduct ensured him envious foes, and the secret of his love got out and
became the subject of gossip. All was not smooth with the lady, who
showed herself coy; now yielding to her heart, she was kind; and then
listening to her friends, who would have preferred a better match for
her, she repelled her lover. Jealousy then seized him, and sick of court
life for the moment, he gladly accompanied his patron to the latter's
country house; but once there he recognized that Lisbon was the centre
of attraction for him and that he could not be happy at a distance. His
verses at this time reveal his parlous condition. He oscillates between
joy and depression. He passes from tender regrets to violent outbursts,
which are followed by calm and peace, while expressions of passionate
love alternate with bold desires and lofty ambitions. It is clear that
there was an understanding between him and Catherina and that they
looked forward to a happy ending, and this encouraged him in his weary
waiting and his search for a lucrative post which would enable him to
approach her family and ask for her hand. From this period date the
greater part of his roundels and sonnets, some of the odes and nearly
all the eclogues.
His fifth eclogue shows that he was seriously thinking of his patriotic
poem in 1544; and from the fourth it seems likely that the _Lusiads_
were in course of composition, and that cantos 3 and 4 were practically
completed. He had by now established his fame and was known as the
Lusitanian Virgil, but presently he had a rude awakening from his dreams
of love and glory. He had shown his affection too openly, and some
infraction of court etiquette, about which the queen was strict, caused
the tongue of scandal to wag; perhaps it was an affair with one of
Catherina's brothers, even a duel, that led to the decree which exiled
him from Lisbon.
Camoens's rashness, self-confidence and want of respect for the
authorities all contributed to the penalty, and the composition of the
play _El Rei Seleuco_ would aggravate his offence in the eyes of John
III. Produced in 1545 and derived from Plutarch, the plot was calculated
to draw attention to the relations between the king and his stepmother,
and to recall the action of D. Manoel in robbing his son John III. of
his intended bride. Camoens composed it for a wedding festivity in the
house of Estacio da Fonseca, and some of the verses refer so openly to
his passion, that if, as is likely, he spoke them himself, emphasizing
them with voice and gesture so as to publish his love to the world, this
new boldness, combined with the subject of the piece, must have rendered
his exile a certainty. All we know definitely, however, is that the
court was henceforth closed to him, and in 1546 he had to leave Lisbon,
the abode of his love and the scene of his triumph. Tradition says that
he went to the Ribatejo and spent seven or eight months with his
mother's relatives in or near Santarem, whence he poured out a number of
his finest poems, including his _Elegy of Exile_ and some magnificent
sonnets, which, in vigour of ideas and beauty of expression, exceeded
anything he had hitherto produced. Poets cannot live on bays, however,
and pressed by necessity he determined to become a soldier.
One of his best modern biographers thinks that he petitioned the king
for liberty to commute his penalty into military service in Africa; but
whether this be so, or whether he merely went there to gain his spurs,
certain it is that in the autumn of 1547 he proceeded to Ceuta. For the
next two years, the usual period of service there, he lived the routine
life of a common soldier in this famous trade emporium and outpost-town,
and he lost his right eye in a skirmish with the Moroccans, though some
writers make the incident occur on the voyage across the straits when
his ship was attacked by Sallee rovers. Elegy ii. and a couple of odes
date from his stay in Ceuta. He is full of sadness and almost in
despair, but is saved from suicide by love and memory of the past. He
has intervals of calm and resignation, even of satirical humour, and
these become more frequent as the term of his exile draws near, and in
one of them he wrote his prose letter to a "Lisbon friend." The octaves
on the _Discontent of the World_, which breathe a philosophic equanimity
and lift the reader out of the tumult of daily life, go to show that his
restless heart had found peace at last and that he had accustomed
himself to solitude.
In November 1549 the aged governor of Ceuta, D. Affonso de Noronha, was
summoned to court and created viceroy of India, and Camoens accompanied
him to Lisbon, intending to follow him to the East in the armada which
was due to sail in the spring of 1550. Reaching the capital in December,
the poet almost immediately enlisted, but when the time came for
departure he had changed his mind. His affection for Catherina and
dreams of literary glory detained him, and he lived on in the
expectation of obtaining a post on the strength of his services and
wound. But month after month passed by without result, and in his
disappointment he allied himself with a group of hot-blooded youths,
including the ex-friar Antonio Ribeiro, nicknamed "the Chiado", after
whom the main street of Lisbon takes its name, and endeavoured to forget
his troubles in their society. He took part in their extravagances and
gained the name of "Trinca-fortes" ("Crack-braves") from his bohemian
companions, while there were ladies who mocked at his disfigurement,
dubbing him "devil" and "eyeless face". In the course of his adventures
he had often to draw his sword, either as attacker or attacked, and he
boasted that he had seen the soles of the feet of many but none had seen
his. When the reply to his application came from the palace it was a
negative one, and he had now nothing further to expect. His stock of
money brought from Ceuta was certainly exhausted, and misery stared him
in the face, making him desperate. On the feast of Corpus Christi, the
16th of June 1552, he found two masked friends of his engaged in a
street fight near St Dominic's convent, and joining in the fray he
wounded one Goncalo Borges, a palace servant, with the result that he
was apprehended and lodged in gaol. This unprovoked attack upon a royal
servant on so holy a day constituted a serious offence and cost him
eight months' imprisonment. In a pathetic sonnet he describes his
terrible experiences, which made such an impression on him that years
afterwards he recurred to them in his great autobiographical Canzon 10.
When Borges' wound was completely healed, the poet's friends intervened
to assist him, and it was arranged that on his formally imploring pardon
Borges should grant it and desist from proceeding with the case. This
was effected on the 13th of February 1553, and on the 7th of March the
king, taking into consideration that Camoens was "a youth and poor and
decided to serve this year in India", confirmed the pardon. He had been
obliged to humble his pride and enlist again, but while he complained of
his troubles he recognized, in his frank, honest way, that his own
mistakes were in part the causes of them.
After bidding good-bye to Catherina for the last time, Camoens set sail
on Palm Sunday, the 24th of March 1553, in the "S. Bento", the flagship
of a fleet of four vessels, under Fernao Alvares Cabral. His last words,
he says in a letter, were those of Scipio Africanus, "Ingrata patria,
non possidebis ossa mea".
He relates some of his experiences on board and the events of the voyage
in various sonnets in Elegy iii. and in the _Lusiads_. In those days the
sailors navigated the ships, while the men-at-arms kept the day and
night watches, helped in the cleaning and, in case of necessity, at the
pumps, but the rank of Camoens doubtless saved him from manual work. He
had much time to himself in his six months' voyage and was able to lay
in a store of nautical knowledge, while tempestuous weather off the Cape
of Good Hope led him to conceive the dramatic episode of Adamastor
(_Lusiads_, canto 5). The "S. Bento", the best ship of the fleet,
weathered the Cape safely, and without touching at Mozambique, the
watering-place of ships bound for India, anchored at Goa in September.
It seems probable that the idea of the _Lusiads_ took further shape on
the voyage out, and that Camoens modified his plan; cantos 3 and 4 were
already written, but from an historical he now made it a maritime epic.
The discovery of India became the main theme, while the history of
Portugal was interlaced with it, and the poem ended with the espousals
between Portugal and the ocean, and a prophecy of the future greatness
of the fatherland.
At the time of his arrival Goa boasted 100,000 inhabitants, and with its
magnificent harbour was the commercial capital of the west of India. The
first viceroy had been content with a sea dominion, but the great
Affonso de Albuquerque saw that this was not enough to secure the
supremacy of the Portuguese; recognizing the strategic value of Goa, he
seized it and made it the capital of a land empire, and built fortresses
in every important point through the East. Since his death a succession
of remarkable victories had made the flag of Portugal predominant, but
the enervating climate, the pleasures and the plunder of Asia, began to
tell on the conquerors. Corruption was rife from the governor downwards,
because the ruling ambition was to get rich and return home, and the
hero of one day was a pirate the next. After all, it was only human
nature, for a governorship lasted but three years and Portugal was far
away, so the saying went round--"They are installed the first year, they
rob the second, and then pack up in the third to sail away." Camoens was
well received at first, owing to his talents and bravery, and he found
the life cheap and merry, but having left his country with high ideals,
the injustice and demoralization of manners he found in India soon
disgusted him. He compared Goa to Babylon, and called it "the mother of
villains and the stepmother of honest men."
His first military service in the East took place in November 1553, when
he went with a force led by the viceroy to chastise a petty king on the
Malabar coast. The expedition only lasted two or three months, and after
some trivial combats it returned to Goa. In February of the following
year Camoens accompanied the viceroy's son, D. Fernando de Menezes, who
led an armada to the mouth of the Red Sea and thence up the Arabian
coast to snap up hostile merchantmen and suppress piracy. Next the fleet
went on to Ormuz, as was the custom with these annual cruises, and then
to Bassora, where the poet helped to make some valuable prizes, and
wrote a sonnet--it was ever, with him, "in one hand the sword, in the
other the pen"! Returning to Goa in November he learnt of the deaths of
Prince John, and of his friend and pupil the young D. Antonio de
Noronha, and paid his tribute in a feeling sonnet and eclogue. In
February 1555 he sailed on another pirate hunt and spent six weary
months off Cape Guardafui, varied by a visit to Mombasa and by further
work on his epic, and only got back to Goa in the following September.
His experiences are recorded in the profound and sad 10th Canzon.
Meanwhile Francisco Barreto, an honourable and generous man, had become
governor-general of India in the June of 1555, and, his appointment
being popular, a reign of festivities began in Golden Goa to welcome his
succession, in the course of which Camoens produced his _Filodemo_, a
dramatized novel written in his court days. The same occasion probably
gave birth to the _Disparates na India_ ("Follies of India"), and
certainly to the _Satyra do Torneio_ ("Satire of the Tourney"), which
confirmed the poet's reputation as a sayer of sharp things and gave
considerable umbrage to those whom the cap fitted. However, it was not
the enmities thus aroused but military duty which compelled him to quit
Goa once more in the spring of 1556. He had enlisted in Lisbon for five
years, the usual term, and in compliance with the orders of the governor
he sailed for the Moluccas in April and there fought and versified for
two years, though nearly all is guesswork at this period of his life. He
appears to have spent the time between September 1556 and February 1557
in the island of Ternate, where he wrote Canzon 6, revealing a state of
moral depression similar to that of Canzon 10, and he perhaps visited
Banda and Amboina. In the following year he took part in the military
occupation of Macao, which the emperor of China had presented to the
Portuguese in return for their destruction of a pirate fleet which had
besieged Canton. The poet's five years' term of service was now over,
and he remained at Macao many months waiting for a ship to carry him
back to India. He had made some profit out of the _Merci de Viagem_,
granted by the governor Barreto to free him from the poverty in which he
habitually lived, and he spent his money royally. At the same time he
continued his epic, working in the grotto which still bears his name.
All seemed to be going smoothly with him until suddenly his fortunes
took a serious turn for the worse. As the result of an intrigue the
captain of the yearly ship from China to India, who acted as governor of
Macao during his stay in port, imprisoned Camoens, and took him on
board with a view of bringing him to trial in India. The ship, however,
was wrecked in October 1559 at the mouth of the Mekong river, and the
poet had to save his life and his _Lusiads_ by swimming to shore, and
though he preserved the six or seven finished cantos of the poem, he
lost everything else. While wandering about on the Cambodian coast
awaiting the monsoon and a vessel to take him to Malacca, he composed
those magnificent stanzas "By the Waters of Babylon," called by Lope de
Vega "the pearl of all poetry," in which he recalls the happy days of
his youth, sighs for Lisbon (Sion) and his love, and mourns his long
exile from home. He got somehow to Malacca, and after a short stay there
reached Goa, still as prisoner, in June 1561. He was straightway lodged
in gaol, where he heard for the first time of the death of Catherina,
and he poured out his grief in the great sonnet, _Alma Minha Gentil_.
The viceroy, D. Constantius de Braganca, had recently returned from
Jafanapatam, bringing as prize a tooth of Buddha, and Camoens approached
him with a splendid epistle in twenty octaves, after the manner of
Horace's ode to Augustus. It failed, however, to hasten the
consideration of his case, but in September the Conde de Redondo, a good
friend, came into office and immediately ordered his release from
prison. His troubles were not yet at an end, however, for one Miguel
Rodriguez Coutinho, a well-known soldier and citizen of Goa who lent
money at usurious rates, thought the opportunity a good one to obtain
repayment of a debt, and had Camoens lodged once more in gaol. As soon
as he came out the poet composed a burlesque roundel satirizing his
persecutor under the nickname of Fios Seccos ("dry threads").
Though very poor he now led an easier, even a pleasant life for a time.
He was able to see his friends D. Vasco de Ataide, D. Francisco de
Almeida, Heitor da Silveira, Joao Lopes Leitao and Francisco de Mello,
all men of family and note. One day he invited them to a banquet, at
which, instead of the usual dishes, each guest was served with a set of
witty verses, and after these had been read out and chaff had gone
round, the food came and they formed a merry party. The poet used his
interest with the viceroy to recommend to him the naturalist Garcia da
Orta, whose _Colloquies_ on the simples and drugs of the East, the first
product of the press in India, appeared in April 1563 with an ode by
Camoens. His life for the next three years is almost a blank, but we
know that he was hard at work finishing his epic, assisted by the advice
of the historian Diogo do Couto, who became its commentator, and further
that the new viceroy, his friend D. Antao de Noronha, nominated him to a
reversion of the factory of Chaul, which, however, never fell into
possession. It is clear from his writings that fourteen years in the
East had told on Camoens. His best friends were dead or scattered, and
he was overwhelmed with _saudade_. His sole ambition was to go home and
print his poem, but he had no money to pay his passage. In September
1567, however, Pedro Barreto was named captain of Mozambique, and
insisted on the poet accompanying him to Sofala, at the same time
lending him two hundred cruzades. It was part of the way home, so
Camoens accepted, but after they reached Mozambique Barreto called in
this money, and his debtor, being unable to pay, was detained there for
two whole years. Here Diogo do Couto found him "so poor that he ate at
the cost of friends, and in order that he might embark for the Kingdom
we friends collected for him the clothes he needed and some gave him to
eat, and that winter he finished perfecting the _Lusiads_ for the press
and wrote much in a book he was making, which he called _Parnaso of Luiz
de Camoes_, a book of much learning, doctrine and philosophy, which was
stolen from him." Thanks to Couto and others, Camoens was able to
liquidate his debt and set sail in November 1569 in the "Santa Clara,"
and he reached Portugal on the 7th of April 1570, after an absence of
seventeen years.
The only wealth he brought with him from India was the MS. of his great
poem, a _"Tesoro del Luso"_ in the words of Cervantes. Moreover, he
returned at an unfortunate moment--one of pest and famine. The great
plague which had killed a quarter, or, as some say, half of the
population of the capital, was declining, but a rigid quarantine
prevailed, and the ship had to lie off Cascaes until the sanitary
authorities allowed her to enter the Tagus. Camoens was welcomed by his
mother, whom he found "very old and very poor"--his father had died at
Goa about 1555--and after a visit to Catherina's tomb, which inspired
the poignant sonnet 337, he set about obtaining the royal licence to
print the _Lusiads_. This was dated the 24th of September 1571 and gave
him a ten years' copyright, and as soon as the book appeared some
friendly and influential hand, perhaps D. Manoel de Portugal, perhaps D.
Francisca de Aragao for whom he had rhymed in the happy days of his
youth, presented the national epic to King Sebastian. Shortly
afterwards, on the 28th of July 1572, the king gave the poet a pension
of fifteen milreis for the term of three years, as a reward for his
services in India and for his poem. It was relatively a considerable
sum, seeing that he had no great military record, and it seems even
generous when we remember that Magellan had only received twelve, and
had left Portugal because King Manoel would not give him a slight
increase. Many functionaries with families had less to live on, and
Camoens's subsistence was secure for the time being, and he could afford
an attendant, so that the legend of the slave Antonio may well be true.
Moreover, he was in the enjoyment of the fame his poem brought him.
Philip II. is said to have read and admired it, and the powerful
minister, Pedro de Alcacova Carneiro, echoed the general opinion when he
remarked that it had only one defect, in not being short enough to learn
by heart or long enough to have no ending. Tributes came from abroad
too. Tasso wrote and sent Camoens a sonnet in his praise, Fernando de
Herrera celebrated him, and the year 1580 saw the publication of two
Spanish versions, one at Alcala, the other at Salamanca. His pension
lapsed in 1575, but on the 2nd of August it was renewed for a further
term; owing, however, to a mistake of the treasury officials, Camoens
drew nothing for about a year and a half and fell into dire distress.
This explains the story of Ruy da Camara, who had engaged him to
translate the penitential psalms, and not receiving the version, called
on the poet, who said in excuse that he had no spirit for such work now
that he wanted for everything, and that his slave had asked him for a
penny for fuel and he could not give it.
On the 2nd of June 1578, just before his start for the expedition to
Africa which cost him his life and Portugal her independence, King
Sebastian had renewed the poet's pension for a further period. Though
Camoens had neither the health nor the means to accompany the splendid
train of nobles and courtiers who followed the last crusading monarch to
his doom, he began an epic to celebrate the enterprise, but burnt it
when he heard the news of the battle of Alcacer. Instead, he mourned the
death of his royal benefactor in a magnificent sonnet, and in Elegy x.
reproached the cowardly soldiery who contributed to the rout. On the
31st of January 1580 the cardinal king Henry died, and, foreseeing the
Spanish invasion, Camoens wrote in March to his old friend D. Francisco
de Almeida: "All will see that I so loved my country that I was content
not only to die in her but with her." A great plague had been raging in
Lisbon since the previous year, and the poet, who lay ill in his poor
cottage in the rua de Santa Anna, depressed by the calamities of his
country, fell a victim to it. He was removed to a hospital and there
passed away, unmarried and the last of his line, on the 10th of June
1580. A Carmelite, Frei Jose Indio, attended him in his last moments and
received the only recognition Camoens could give, his copy of the
_Lusiads_. He wrote afterwards: "What more grievous thing than to see so
great a genius thus unfortunate. I saw him die in a hospital in Lisbon,
without a sheet to cover him, after having triumphed in the East Indies
and sailed 5000 leagues by sea." The house of Vimioso supplied the
winding-sheet, and Camoens was buried with other victims of the plague
in a common grave in the cemetery of Santa Anna. Years later D. Goncalo
Coutinho erected in the church of that invocation an _in memoriam_ slab
of marble with an inscription, and subsequently epitaphs were added by
other admirers, but the earthquake of 1755 damaged the building, and all
traces of these last acts of homage to genius have disappeared. The
third centenary of the poet's death was made the occasion of a national
apotheosis, and on the 8th of June 1880 some remains, piously believed
to be his, were borne with those of Vasco da Gama to the national
pantheon, the Jeronymos at Belem.
The masterpiece of Camoens, the _Lusiads_, is the _epos_ of discovery.
It is written in hendecasyllabic _ottava rima_, and is divided into ten
cantos containing in all 1102 stanzas. Its argument is briefly as
follows. After an exordium proposing the subject, invoking the Tagus
muses and addressing King Sebastian, Vasco da Gama's ships are shown
sailing up the East African coast on their way to India. At a council of
the gods the fate of the fleet is discussed, and Bacchus promises to
thwart the voyage, while Venus and Mars favour the navigators. They
arrive at Mozambique, where the governor endeavours to destroy them by
stratagem, and, this failing, Bacchus tries other plots against them at
Quiloa and Mombasa which are foiled by Venus. In answer to her appeal,
Jupiter foretells the glorious feats of the Portuguese in the East, and
sends Mercury to direct the voyagers to Melinde, where they are
hospitably received and get a pilot to guide them to India. The local
ruler visits the fleet and asks Gama about his country and its history,
and in response the latter gives an account of the origin of the kingdom
of Portugal, its kings and principal achievements, ending with the
incidents of the voyage out. This recital occupies cantos 3, 4 and 5,
and includes some of the most admired and most powerful episodes in the
poem, e.g. those of Ignez de Castro, King Manoel's dream of the rivers
Ganges and Indus, the speech of the old man of Belem and the apparition
of Adamastor off the Cape of Good Hope. Canto 6 describes the crossing
of the Indian Ocean from Melinde to Calicut and a fresh hostile attempt
on the part of Bacchus. He descends to Neptune's palace, and at a
council of the sea-gods it is resolved to order Aeolus to loose the
winds against the Portuguese, but the tempest is quelled by Venus and
her nymphs in answer to Gama's prayer, and the morning light reveals the
Ghats of India. Just before the storm, occurs the night scene in which
Velloso entertains his shipmates with the story of the Twelve of
England, another of the famous episodes. Canto 7 is taken up with the
arrival at Calicut, a description of the country and the details of
Gama's reception by the raja. The governor of the city visits the fleet
and inquires about the pictures on their banners, whereupon Paulo da
Gama, Vasco's brother, tells him of the deeds of the early Portuguese
kings. Meanwhile Bacchus, not to be baulked, appears to a priest in the
guise of Mahomet, and stirs up the Moslems against the Christian
adventurers, with the result that the raja charges Gama with being a
leader of convicts and pirates. To this the captain makes a spirited
reply and gets his despatch, but he has new snares to avoid and further
difficulties to overcome before he is finally able to set sail on the
return voyage. Pitying their toils, Venus determines to give the
voyagers repose and pleasure on their way home, and directs their course
to an enchanted island, which is described in canto 9, in the longest
and perhaps the most beautiful episode in the poem. On landing they are
received by the goddess and her nymphs, and general joy ensues,
heightened by banquets and amorous play. In a prophetic song, the siren
tells of the exploits of the Portuguese viceroys, governors and captains
in India until the time of D John de Castro, after which Tethys ascends
a mountain with Gama, shows him the spheres after the system of Ptolemy
and the globe of Asia and Africa, and describes the Indian life of St
Thomas the apostle. Finally the navigators quit the island and reach
Lisbon, and an epilogue contains a patriotic exhortation to King
Sebastian and visions of glory, which ended so disastrously at the
battle of Alcacer.
Though the influence of Camoens on Portuguese has been exaggerated, it
was very considerable, and he so far fixed the written language that at
the present day it is commonly and not inaccurately called "the language
of Camoens." The _Lusiads_ is the most successful modern epic cast in
the ancient mould, and it has done much to preserve the corporate life
of the Portuguese people and to keep alive the spirit of nationality in
times of adversity like the "Spanish Captivity" and the Napoleonic
invasion. Even now it forms a powerful bond between the mother-country
and her potentially mighty daughter-nation across the Atlantic, the
United States of Brazil. The men of the Renaissance saw nothing
incongruous in that mixture of paganism and Christianity which is found
in the _Lusiads_ as in Ariosto, though some modern critics, like
Voltaire, consider it a grave artistic defect in the poem. The fact that
the _Lusiads_ is written in a little-known language, and its intensely
national and almost exclusively historical character, undoubtedly
militate against a right estimate of its value, now that Portugal, once
a world power, has long ceased to hold the East in fee or to guide the
destinies of Europe. But though political changes may and do react on
literary appreciations, the _Lusiads_ remains none the less a great
poem, breathing the purest religious fervour, love of country and spirit
of chivalry, with splendid imaginative and descriptive passages full of
the truest and deepest poetry. The structure is Virgilian, but the whole
conception is the author's own, while the style is natural and noble,
the diction nearly always correct and elegant, and the verse, as a rule,
sonorous and full of harmony.
In addition to his epic, Camoens wrote sonnets, canzons, odes, sextines,
eclogues, elegies, octaves, roundels, letters and comedies. The roundels
include _cartas, motes, voltas, cantigas, trovas, pastorals_ and
_endechas_. In the opinion of many competent judges Camoens only attains
his true stature in his lyrics; and a score of his sonnets, two or three
of the canzons, eclogues and elegies, and the Babylonian roundels will
bear comparison with any composition of the same kind that other
literatures can show. Referring to the _Lusiads_, A. von Humboldt calls
Camoens a "great maritime painter," but in his best lyrics he is a
thinker as well as a poet, and when free from the trammels of the epic
and inherited respect for classical traditions, he reveals a personality
so virile and deep, a philosophy so broad and human, a vision so wide,
and a form and style so nearly perfect, as not only to make him the
foremost of Peninsular bards but to entitle him to a place in that small
company of universal poets of the first rank.
The oldest and most authentic portrait of Camoens appeared in 1624 with
his life, by Manoel Severim de Faria. It is a kitcat and shows the poet
in armour wearing a laurel crown; his right hand holds a pen, his left
rests on a copy of the _Lusiads_, while a shield above shows the family
arms, a dragon rising from between rocks. The likeness exhibits a Gothic
or northern type, and the tradition of his red beard and blue eyes
confirms it. Except for an ode, sonnet and elegy, all Camoens's lyrics
were published posthumously.
AUTHORITIES.--The most modern and most critical biographies are those
of Dr Theophilo Braga, _Camoes, epoca e Vide_ (Oporto, 1907), and of
Dr Wilhelm Storck, _Luis de Camoes Leben_ (Paderborn, 1890), while the
most satisfactory edition of the complete works is due to the Visconde
de Juromenha (6 vols., Lisbon, 1860-1869), though it contains some
spurious matter. While rejecting without good reason many of the
traditions accepted by Juromenha in his life of the poet, Storck
embroiders on his own account, and Braga must be preferred to him. Two
volumes of Innocencio da Silva's _Diccionario Bibliographico
Portuguez_ (14 and 15) are entirely devoted to Camoens and Camoniana,
the second of them dealing fully with the tercentenary celebrations.
Among modern Portuguese studies of the national epic the most
important are perhaps _Camoes e a Renascenca em Portugal_, by Oliveira
Martins, and _Camoes e o Sentimento Nacional_, by Dr T. Braga (Oporto,
1891). The latter volume contains useful information on the various
editions of Camoens, with an account of the texts and remarks on his
plagiarists. Very few poets have been so often translated, and a list
and estimate of the English translations of the _Lusiads_ from the
time of Sir Richard Fanshawe (1655) downwards, will be found in Sir
Richard Burton's _Camoens: His Life and His Lusiads_, which,
notwithstanding some errors, is a most informing book, and the result
of a curious similarity of temperament and experience between master
and disciple. Burton translated the _Lusiads_ (2 vols., London, 1880)
and the _Lyricks_ (sonnets, canzons, odes and sextines; 2 vols.,
London, 1884), and left a version of all the minor works in MS. The
accurate and readable version of the epic by Mr J.J. Aubertin, with
the Portuguese text opposite, has gone through two editions (2nd ed.,
2 vols., London, 1884), and there is a version of seventy of the
sonnets, accompanied by the Portuguese text, by the same author
(London, 1881). (E. Pr.)