SOURCE: “The Political Significance of Women in Canto III of the Lusiads,” in Luso-Brazilian Review, Vol. 17, No. 2, Winter 1980, pp. 187-97.

In this essay, Rabassa examines Camões' treatment of the major female characters of Canto III of the Lusiads,—Teresa, mother of Afonso Henriques; Maria, daughter of Afonso IV; Inês; and Leonor, wife of Fernando. According to Rabassa, Camões “lifts his poem to sublimer heights by raising these women to the level of immortality, where they share the artistic and inspirational strength of classical and biblical figures with whom they are constantly cross-referenced.”

Despite the fact that Camões writes his epic to celebrate “as armas e os barões assinalados” of Portugal,¹ critics agree that the Lusiads would hardly merit the fame it has acquired over the past four centuries without the feminine figures that participate on various historical and mythic planes. There are those...