FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 13:  All the quotations in this chapter are taken from translation, of “The Cid” by Ormsby.]

PORTUGUESE EPICS

Portuguese literature, owing to its late birth, shows little originality.  Besides, its earliest poems are of a purely lyrical and not of an epical type.  Then, too, its reigning family being of Burgundian extraction, it borrowed its main ideas and literary material from France.  In that way Charlemagne, the Arthurian romances, and the story of the Holy Grail became popular in Portugal, where it is even claimed that Amadis de Gaule originated, although it received its finished form in Spain.

The national epic of Portugal is the work of Luis de Camoens, who, inspired by patriotic fervor, sang in Os Lusiades of the discovery of the eagerly sought maritime road to India.  Of course, Vasco da Gama is the hero of this epic, which is described in extenso further on.

In imitation of Camoens, sundry other Portuguese poets attempted epics on historical themes, but none of their works possess sufficient merits to keep their memory green.

During the sixteenth century, many versions of the prose epics or romances of chivalry were rife, Amadis de Gaule and its sequel, Palmerina d’Inglaterra, being the most popular of all.

Later on Meneses composed, according to strict classic rules, a tedious epic entitled Henriqueida, in praise of the monarch Henry, and de Macedo left O Oriente, an epical composition which:  enjoyed a passing popularity.

THE LUSIAD

Introduction. The author of the Portuguese epic, Luis de Camoens, was born at Lisbon in 1524.  Although his father, commander of a warship, was lost at sea during his infancy, his mother contrived to give him a good education, and even sent him to the University at Coimbra, where he began to write poetry.  After graduating Camoens served at court, and there incurred royal displeasure by falling in love with a lady his majesty chose to honor with his attentions.  During a period of banishment at Santarem, Camoens began the Lusiad, Os Lusiades, an epic poem celebrating Vasco da Gama’s journey to India in 1497[14] and rehearsing with patriotic enthusiasm the glories of Portuguese history.  Owing to its theme, this epic, which a great authority claims should be termed “the Portugade,” is also known as the Epic of Commerce or the Epic of Patriotism.

After his banishment Camoens obtained permission to join the forces directed against the Moors, and shortly after lost an eye in an engagement in the Strait of Gibraltar.  Although he distinguished himself as a warrior, Camoens did not even then neglect the muse, for he reports he wielded the pen with one hand and the sword with the other.

After this campaign Camoens returned to court, but, incensed by the treatment he received at the hands of jealous courtiers, he soon vowed his ungrateful country should not even possess his bones, and sailed for India, in 1553, in a fleet of four vessels, only one of which was to arrive at its destination, Goa.