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Os Lusíadas, pron. , or, in English, The Lusiads, by Luís Vaz de Camões (sometimes spelled Camoens in English), is a Portuguese epic poem. It is one of the most important works in Portuguese literature, sometimes being considered the most important one, and compared to the Aeneid. It was first printed in 1572, three years after the author returned from the Orient. It has ten cantos, with a variable number of strophes, written in decasyllabic octaves, with the rhyme scheme ABABABCC – octave rhyme. Written in Homeric fashion, this epic poem focuses mainly on a fantastical interpretation of the Portuguese discoveries movement, in the 15th and 16th centuries. It is often regarded as Portugal's national epic, much in the same way as Virgil's Aeneid is for the Romans. The hero The heroes of the epic are, as the title says, the Lusiads (Lusíadas), or the sons of Lusus, in other words, the Portuguese. If we look at the initial strophes of Jupiter's speech in the Consílio dos Deuses Olímpicos (Olympian Gods Council), that opens the narrative part, we can easily understand the laudatory orientation of the author. In these strophes Camões tells us that since Viriathus and Sertorius, the people of Lusus are a people predestined by the Fados to accomplish great deeds. Jupiter says that their history proves it, because, being already marked by successive and victorious fights against the Moors and Castilians, it also shows us how such a small nation discovers new worlds to the World and imposes its law in the concert of the nations. At the end of the poem, on Love Island, a fictional finale of the glorious Portuguese walk throughout history, Camões writes that the fear once expressed by Bacchus has been confirmed, that the Portuguese would become gods. The extraordinary Portuguese discoveries and the "new kingdom that they exalted so much" ("novo reino que tanto sublimaram") in the East, and certainly the recent and extraordinary deeds of "strong Castro" ("Castro forte", the viceroy D.João de Castro), who had died some years before the poet's arrival to Indian lands, were the determining stimulus for Camões to finally achieve this task, and, as he longed for so much, to write the Portuguese epic. Camões dedicated his masterpiece to King Sebastian of Portugal. The crusade against the Moors The poem can be read in a perspective that was already ancient, but to which recent facts had given an update, the perspective of the crusade against the Moors. The fights in the East would be the continuation of the ones fought in Portugal and North Africa, dominating or destroying the power of the Islam. In fact, in 1571, the arrogance of the Turkish Sultan that threatened Europe, had been destroyed at Lepanto. And the commander of the Christian forces had been D. John of Austria, illegitimate son of Carlos V, the grandfather of Sebastião of Portugal. It was possibly in this context of exaltation that the poet incited the young Portuguese king to go to Africa in conquest, with the disastrous effects that happened after. The epic and its internal structure The most genuine epic poem is the song of the construction of a nation with the help of God or the gods. Os Lusíadas, like the Aeneid, are a modern epic, where the marvellous is nothing more than a necessary ornament, but only literary. So despite the modern context of the Counter-Reformation, the gods of the Greek and Roman mythology command, from the heights of Mt. Olympus or from the bottom of the sea, the action of the Portuguese sailors, that used the astrolabe and cannons. And still, the presence of the gods has a very important part in the poem, since, with their schemes and intrigues, they give the bigger contribution to the unity of their dispersed action. Considering the internal structure, we can see that the poem has an introduction (proposition - presentation of the theme and heroes of the poem; invocation – a prayer to the Tágides; and a dedicatory - to D. Sebastião), the narration – the epic itself; and an epilogue – final strophes, starting from number 145 of canto X. As the narration goes on, we see a variety of episodes: war, mythological, historical, symbolic, lyrical and naturalist episodes. The narrators and their speeches Os Lusíadas are a narrative work, but its narrators are almost always orators that make grandiloquent speeches: the main narrator, that opens in big style and makes speeches on various occasions; Vasco da Gama, recognized as "eloquent captain" ("facundo capitão"); Paulo da Gama; Thetis... The Siren (canto X), that foretells at the sound of music. When the poet asks the Tágides (nymphs of the river Tagus) "a tall and sublimated sound,/ a grandiloquent and current style" ("um som alto e sublimado, / Um estilo grandíloco e corrente"), in contrast to the style of lyric poetry, of "humble verse" ("verso humilde"), he is thinking about this exciting tone of oratory. There are in the poem some brief but notable speeches (Jupiter’s, Velho do Restelo’s...) There are excellent descriptions, like the description of the palaces of Neptune and the Samorim of Calicute, the locus amoenus of Love Island (canto IX), the dinner in the palace of Thetis (canto X), Gama’s cloth (end of canto II)... Sometimes, these descriptions are like a slide show: the things that are described are there and there is someone who shows them (geographic start of Gama’s speech to the king of Melinde, certain sculptures of the palaces of Neptune and the Samorim, the speech of Paulo da Gama to the Catual, the Machine of the World (Máquina do Mundo)...) Examples of dynamic descriptions include the "battle" of the island of Mozambique, the battles of Ourique and Aljubarrota, the storm... Camões is a master in these descriptions, marked by the verbs of movement, the abundance of visual and acoustic sensations, and expressive alliterations. There are in Os Lusíadas many lyric moments. Those texts are normally narrative-descriptive. This is the case of the initial part of the episode of the Beautiful Inês, of the final part of the episode of the Adamastor, of the encounter in Love Island (canto IX). All these cases resemble eclogues. Many are the occasions in which the poet assumes a tone of lament. See the end of canto I, part of the speech of the Velho do Restelo, the end of canto V, the beginning and end of canto VII, and the almost final strophes of the poem. They all make us remember other lyrical lamentations. Virgil called his hero "pious Aeneas". Many times, in difficult moments, Gama bursts into oration: in Mombasa (canto II), in the apparition of Adamastor, in the middle of the terror of the storm... The poet’s invocations to the Tágides, to Calliope (beginning of canto III), to the Nymphs of Tagus and Mondego (canto VII), again to Calliope (canto X), in typological terms, are also orations. Each one of these types of speech shows stylistical particularities. External structure of Os Lusíadas The book is composed of ten parts, called cantos. Each canto has a variable number of strophes (on average 110). The longest canto is the tenth with 156 strophes. The strophes are octaves, that is, composed of eight verses. Each verse is composed of ten metric syllables, mostly heroics (accentuated in the sixth and tenth syllables). The rhyme scheme is the same in every strophe of the work, this is, cross rhyme in the first six verses and paired up in the last two (AB-AB-AB-CC). The theme plans of the work are the Journey Plan (Plano da Viagem), the History of Portugal Plan (Plano da História de Portugal), the Poet Plan (Plano do Poeta), and the Mythology Plan (Plano da Mitologia). Canto III After an invocation of the poet to Calliope, Vasco da Gama starts the narrative of the History of Portugal. He starts by referring the situation of Portugal in Europe and the legendary story from Lusus to Viriathus. This is followed by the formation of Portuguese nationality and then by the enumeration of the warrior deeds of the 1st Dynasty kings, from D. Afonso Henriques to D. Fernando. Episodes that stand out are Egas Moniz and the Battle of Ourique in D. Afonso Henriques’s reign, Formosíssima Maria (Beautiful Maria) in the Battle of Salado, and Inês de Castro in D. Afonso IV’s reign. Canto IV Vasco da Gama continues the narrative of the history of Portugal. He tells the story of the 2nd Dynasty, since the revolution of 1383-85, until that moment during the reign of D. Manuel I, in which the armada of Vasco da Gama sails to India. The narrative of the Revolution of 1383-85, that focuses mainly in the figure of Nuno Álvares Pereira and the Battle of Aljubarrota, are followed by the events of the reigns of D. João II, especially the ones related to the expansion into Africa. This is where the narration of the arrangements of the journey to India appears, a wish that D. João II did not accomplish during his life, and that would become true with D. Manuel, to whom the rivers Indus and Ganges appeared in dreams, foretelling the future glories of the Orient. This canto ends with the sailing of the Armada, whose sailors are surprised by the prophetically pessimist words of an old man that was on the beach, among the crowd. This is the episode of the Velho do Restelo. Canto V Vasco da Gama continues his narrative to the King of Melinde, telling the journey of the Armada, from Lisbon to Melinde. It is the narrative of the great maritime adventure, in which the sailors saw, marvelled or anxious, the Southern Cross, St. Elmo’s Fire or the Maritime Whirlwind, and faced huge dangers and obstacles, like the hostility of natives in the episode of Fernão Veloso, the fury of a monster in the episode of the Giant Adamastor, and the disease and death caused by scurvy. The canto ends with the poet’s censure of his contemporaries that despise poetry. Canto VI After Vasco da Gama’s narrative, the armada sails from Melinde guided by a pilot to teach them the way to Calicut. Bacchus, seeing that the Portuguese are about to get to India, asks for help to Neptune, who convokes a Concílio dos Deuses Marinhos (Maritime Gods Council) whose decision is to support Bacchus and free the winds to sink the Armada. Then, while the sailors are listening to Fernão Veloso telling the legendary and chivalrous episode of Os Doze de Inglaterra (The Twelve of England), a storm strikes. Vasco da Gama, seeing his caravels almost lost, makes a prayer to God, but it is Venus who helps the Portuguese, sending the Nymphs to seduce the winds and calm them down. After the storm, the armada sees Calicut and Vasco da Gama gives thanks to God. The canto ends with considerations of the poet about the value of the fame and glory reached through great deeds. The Council of the Olympic Gods This episode, that comes right after the first strophe of the narration (no.19 of canto I) and that gives us the epic entry of the caravan of carracks in the poem, sailing into the unknown upon the sheet of white foam of the Indian Ocean, has a huge significance in the organization of the poem. The gods of the four corners of the world are reunited to talk about "the future things of the Orient" ("as cousas futuras do Oriente"); in fact, what they are going to decide is if the Portuguese will be allowed to reach India and what will happen next. That the entire Universe is reunited for this one purpose means an unlimited glory to the people of Lusus. The gods are periphrastically described by Jupiter as residents of the "shiny, / starry Pole and bright Seat" ("luzente, estelífero Pólo e claro Assento"); this shiny, starry Pole and bright Seat or Olympus had already been described before as "luminous"; in the way to the assembly, the gods walk on the "beautiful crystalline sky" ("cristalino céu fermoso"), to the Milky Way. In strophes 22 and 23, already in assembly, they shine. Jupiter, described as the "Father" ("Padre" - archaic Portuguese for father) that "vibrates the fierce rays of Vulcan" ("vibra os feros raios de Vulcano"), presides from a "crystalline seat of stars" ("assento de estrelas cristalino"), carrying "a gleaming crown and sceptre/of another rock clearer than diamond" ("hua coroa e ceptro rutilante / de outra pedra mais clara que diamante". If Jupiter’s chair is a crystalline seat of stars, the rest of the Olympian furniture is also astonishing: "In shiny seats, enamelled/of gold and pearls, under there were/ the other gods (...)" ("Em luzentes assentos, marchetados / de ouro e perlas, mais abaixo estavam / os outros Deuses (...)"). During the council, the behaviour of the gods is described as disgraceful. It starts as "Reason and Order demanded" "a Razão e a Ordem concertavam", but it ends in revolting insubordination, to which Mars brutally puts an end. Jupiter, after the end of his speech, entirely neglects the guidance of the reunion; so two parties are formed, the party of Venus, favourable to the Portuguese, and the party of Bacchus, defending the interests of this god, who wanted to stop the Portuguese from reaching their goal. The council ends by accepting the point of view earlier expressed by Jupiter. (Bacchus will not accept this, thus his later interventions.) The speech that Jupiter uses to start the reunion is a finished piece of oratory. It opens with the inevitable exordium (1st strophe), in which, after an original welcome, Jupiter briefly defines the subject. This is followed, in the ancient rhetorical fashion, by the narration (the past shows that the intention of the Fados is the same one that the orator presented). There is then a confirmation that, with present facts, corroborates what in its own way the narration had proved (4th strophe). It is ended with two strophes of peroration, where Jupiter appeals to the benevolence of the gods concerning the sons of Lusus – actually the decision of the Fados will thoroughly come true. Against all odds, Jupiter's speech eventually settles the debate. A lyric-tragic episode The episode, usually known as "of Inês de Castro", is one of the most famous of Os Lusíadas. The reader shouldn’t lose from his/her sight its integration into the poem, via the elocution of Vasco da Gama to the king of Melinde. It is normal to classify it as lyric, thus mostly distinguishing it from the more common war episodes. A quick analysis of the episode allows us to find, with some degree of clarity, tragic elements like destiny, that leads the action to its tragic end; a turn off; even something close to the coir (apostrophes). The moral and social nobility of the characters is also emphasised, in a way to create in the reader feelings of terror and pity when disgrace comes upon the protagonist (catastrophe). When Inês fears orphaning of her children more than losing her own life, when she begs for the commutation of capital punishment for an exile in Siberia (Cítia) or in Libya, among "all the ferocity" ("toda a feridade"), only to have an opportunity to raise the children of her love, when she is compared with "the young beautiful Policena, / extreme consolation of the old mother", when the reader listens to all of strophe 134 and even strophe 135, the tunes of pity are being played. On the other hand, the initial verses of strophe 124, the apostrophe that ends 130 (and before the second half of 123) and the strophe 133 are used to suggest tragic terror. The Adamastor We can consider three parts in the episode of the Adamastor: the first, a theophany, goes from strophe 37 to 40; the second, that in chronologic-narrative terms ia a prolepsis, occupies strophes 41 to 48; finally, the third part, a marine eclogue, with some points of contact with Écloga III of Camões, ends in strophe 59. The vigorous theophany that the first part describes is in the following verses: "Chill the flesh and the hairs/ to me and all the others only by listening and seeing him" ("Arrepiam-se as carnes e os cabelos / a mi e a todos só de ouvi-lo e vê-lo"). If we give it its rightful value, this is intended to convey pure fear, the imminent threat of annihilation physically felt: the flesh wrinkles, the hairs crinkle. The spectacle is presented as involving, great, terrifying. This evil demigod is preceded by a black cloud, which appears above the heads of the sailors. Even more surprising is the orchestration that the sea makes with this airborne element: "Roaring, the sea from far away shouts, / as if he hit in vain in some rock" ("Bramindo, o mar de longe brada, / como se desse em vão nalgum rochedo"). To express to us all the strength of the surprise he experiences, Gama quotes himself: "Oh divine power – I said – sublimated, / what divine threat or what secret / this clime and this sea presents to us / that seems a bigger thing than a storm?" ("Ó potestade – disse - sublimada, / que ameaço divino ou que segredo / este clima e este mar nos apresenta, / que mor cousa parece que tormenta?") Disorientation is born at the look of the "strange Colossus" ("estranhíssimo Colosso"): "Rude son of the Earth" ("Filho aspérrimo da Terra"), the Adamastor is only one foot away from the original chaos, connected to the dark inside of his mother: "huge stature", "squalid beard", "earthy colour", "full of earth and crinkle the hairs / blacken the mouth, yellow the teeth"("disforme estatura", "barba esquálida", "cor terrena", "cheios de terra e crespos os cabelos / a boca negra, os dentes, amarelos"). Camões also emphasizes the amazing side of the appearance of the Adamastor making all this spectacle of deformity and gigantism contrast with the preceding scenery, where are expressed the delights of a night of the “seas of the South” ("mares do Sul"): "(...) / the winds blowing favorably / when one night, being careless/ in the cutting bow watching, / (...)" ("(...) / prosperamente os ventos assoprando, / quando hua noite, estando descuidados / na cortadora proa vigiando, / (...)"). The final marine eclogue conforms to a pattern that is common to many of Camões' lyrical compositions: falling in love, forced separation, grieving over the frustrated dream. Note the resemblance to Canção IX. The eclogue of the Island of Love a) The locus amoenus: the strophes that come after strophe 52 of canto IX, and some of the main parts that appear from strophe 68 to 95 describe the scenery where the love encounter between the Nautas and the Nymphs. This is the typical locus amoenus, with is soft grass floors, clean and singing waters, thick woods and even a lake. The poet also talks about the nice fauna that live there and fruits produced instantly. It is a paradisiac scenery, idyllic, of eclogue. b) The allegory: in the second part of canto IX, Camões describes, with an unexpected boldness for a mannerist, the scene between the Nautas and the Nymphs that were expecting them, prepared by Venus. Camões gives it an allegoric sense. Therefore, he insists: "That the Nymphs of the Ocean, so beautiful, / Tethys and the angelic Island painted, / Are none other than the delightful / Honours that make life sublimated" ("Que as Ninfas do Oceano, tão fermosas, / Tethys e a Ilha angélica pintada, / Outra cousa não é que as deleitosas / Honras que a vida fazem sublimada") (strophe 89). Ending the canto, talking to the reader, the poet remembers: "Impossible things do not do, / Who wanted always could: and numerated / You will be between the famous heroes / And in this Isle of Venus received." («Impossibilidades não façais, / Que quem quis sempre pôde: e numerados / Sereis entre os heróis esclarecidos / E nesta Ilha de Vénus recebidos.»). c) Leonardo: Camões, an indisputable singer of love, didn’t want to, and maybe couldn’t, avoid that love reflected in Os Lusíadas. If the unsuccessful loves of the Adamastor let us see the poet’s real life, Leonardo, here, represents the consummation of his dream. See that the complaints of this sailor make us remember the ones of the poet in Lírica. See also how delicate and beautiful they are. The Machine of the World The Sirene invites Gama to the spectacle of the Machine of the World (Máquina do Mundo) with these words: "Makes you this favour, baron, the Sapience / Supreme of, with the corporeal eyes, / see what cannot see the vain science / of the wrong and miserable mortals» («Faz-te mercê, barão, a sapiência / Suprema de, cos olhos corporais, / veres o que não pode a vã ciência / dos errados e míseros mortais»). The Machine of the World is presented as the spectacle unique, divine, seen by "corporeal eyes". In the words of António José Saraiva, "it is one of the supreme successes of Camões", "the spheres are transparent, luminous, all of them are seen at the same time with equal clarity; they move, and the movement is perceptible, although the visible surface is always the same. To be able to translate this by the "painting that talks" is to achieve one of the highest points in universal literature." Os Lusíadas and mathematics As Os Lusíadas is a Renaissance text, it follows the Greek aesthetic that gave great significance to the Golden ratio. Therefore, the most important part of Os Lusíadas, the arrival in India, was placed in the point that divides the work in the golden proportion (the beginning of Canto VII). Modern adaptations Os Lusíadas 2500 is a futuristic comic version of the Lusiads by Laílson de Holanda Cavalcanti, a Brazilian from Pernambuco state. Camões' work is not altered but the comic uses fantastic gods and scarier sea-monsters; the caravels are transformed into spaceships and the sea to outer space, to draw youngsters to the Portuguese language's most important literary work. Sources Os Lusíadas, by Luís Vaz de Camões Specific existing foreign versions of Os Lusíadas | |||||||
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