Luís de Camões e Os Lusíadas // Aprende português

Hi everyone and welcome back to Portuguese With Leo! As many of you know, on this channel I make videos for anyone learning Portuguese or simply for those interested in knowing more about the Portuguese language, history and culture. As this channel is mainly focused on European Portuguese and Portugal, today's episode had to be about the 10th of June holiday: the Day of Portugal, Camões and the Portuguese Communities.

The date of June 10th was chosen in 1880, by royal decree of King Luís I, to celebrate that year, 1880, 300 years since the death of Luís Vaz de Camões, considered the greatest Portuguese language writer, who died on June 10th 1580, exactly 441 years ago. Camões is so important to Portugal that the Portuguese language is known by many as the language of Camões, and it is precisely Camões that I want to talk about in today's episode. I'll start by talking about his life, a very interesting life full of adventures, and then about his masterpiece, the epic poem Os Lusíadas, which is considered the most important book in Portuguese literature.

The life of Camões Luís Vaz de Camões is born in 1524 in Lisbon, into a family of low nobility. When Camões is only 3 years old, his family moves to Coimbra to escape the plague that ravishes Lisbon. Camões grows up in Coimbra, where, from his uncle Bento, the chancellor of the University of Coimbra, he receives a classical education, learning Latin and History among other subjects, and reading the great authors of classical and modern literature.

Modern for the century. XVI, obviously! He returns to Lisbon at the age of 20, where, thanks to his family's noble status, he's admitted into the court of King John III.

Camões was a man of culture and an intellectual, and it is during these times that he begins his career in poetry. However, he was also an adventurer who lived a bohemian and promiscuous life, filled with alcohol and women. Such a man gets bored easily and can't stay in the same place for long, and so, after a short time in Lisbon, Camões joins the military and serves in Ceuta, in the North of Africa, for 2 years, where he famously loses his right eye in a naval battle.

Back in Lisbon, Camões returns to his bohemian life, which often sees him involved in street fights in the Portuguese capital. On one of these occasions, Camões is unlucky enough to injure an employee of the Royal Palace, which lands him in prison. Thanks to his contacts in the nobility, Camões was eventually pardoned by the king and released from prison, but with the obligation to serve Portugal in India.

Camões leaves for India in 1553 in the fleet of Fernão Álvares Cabral, who is the son of Pedro Álvares Cabral, the Portuguese to whom the discovery of Brazil had been attributed, just half a century earlier. If you want to know more about the Discovery of Brazil by the Portuguese, I remind you that I also have a video on the subject, the link is in the description and up here. After a difficult journey across Africa, following in the footsteps of Vasco da Gama, who had discovered the sea route to India half a century earlier, Camões arrives in Goa in 1554.

Camões was already considered one of the best poets of his time before leaving for India, but it is believed that the around 15 years he spent in the East were fundamental to his development as a writer and poet, making him the best Portuguese writer of all time. On the one hand, in his youth Camões had had access to an excellent formal education in one of the best and oldest universities in Europe, the University of Coimbra, and on the other hand, the poet was one of the first European writers to see with his own eyes (or in his case, with his own eye) the exotic lands of the Orient, which had a tropical climate that was completely different from what he was used to, an exuberant flora and fauna, completely new flavors and smells, and people with entirely novel clothes, customs and traditions and of completely different ethnicities. It is believed that this mixture of influences was crucial to inspire Camões, who during these times spent in the East wrote his masterpiece, Os Lusíadas, which, as I said, is considered the most important Portuguese literary work ever.

Camões spends his first 8 years in Goa, fighting in military expeditions and also writing several literary works, having also written an anonymous satire criticizing the corruption of the local government, which lands him, once again, in prison. Once again Camões is released from prison thanks to having friends in high places, and is sent to Macau with a small position of local administration, where he stays for 2 years. Legend has it that Camões wrote a large part of Os Lusíadas in Macau, in a cave, where a statue of his bust is currently placed.

Another well-known legend is that, on the return journey from Macau to Goa, his boat sinks in the Mekong River in Cambodia. Camões survives the shipwreck, not only saving himself but also saving the original manuscript of Os Lusíadas, which he carries in one hand above his head, while with the other arm he swims to the shore. Now imagine doing this with just one eye!

After the shipwreck, Camões is rescued and taken to Malacca, in present-day Malaysia, where for the third time he spends more time in prison, accused of theft and fraud during his time in Macau. Once again he is released and returns to Goa, where he spends another year or two, before deciding to return to Portugal in 1567. Unfortunately for our Camões, the captain of the ship he is embarking on deceives him, and instead of arriving in Lisbon, Camões can only go as far as the Sofala province, in current-day Mozambique, where he ends up staying for about 2 years, somewhat abandoned and in conditions of great poverty.

Once again it is Camões' friends who help him out, this time a certain Diogo do Couto, who finds him in Mozambique, pays a debt of 200 cruzados that prevented Camões from traveling, and takes him to Portugal, where he arrives on April 7th 1570, about 17 years after he left for the East. In Lisbon, Camões finally finishes writing Os Lusíadas and presents the work to King Sebastian, who likes it so much that he decides that it will be published in 1572, and grants Camões an annual pension of 15,000 reis. Despite this pension, Camões lives in conditions of relative poverty and unfortunately lives long enough to know about the battle of Alcácer-Quibir, in 1578, in which King Sebastian disappears.

After the king's disappearance, Portugal enters a succession crisis that is only resolved 2 years later, in 1580, which is the year of Camões' death and is also the year in which Portugal loses its independence, becoming part of the Spanish Empire and ruled by King Philip II of Spain. In my opinion, there is a tragic and poetic beauty in the fact that Portugal ceases to be an independent kingdom in the same year that its greatest poet and the writer of the most important national work dies. Portuguese is the language of Camões, and when Camões died, Portugal literally ceased to exist.

Fortunately, Portugal regained its independence 60 years later, and to see how that happened, I suggest you go watch the video I made on the subject, the link is in the description and also up here. Now that we've talked about Camões' interesting life, it's time to talk about his most important work, Os Lusíadas. So what are The Lusiads?

Os Lusíadas is an epic poem, which, as the name indicates, tells the deeds of the Lusos or Lusitanians, which is a way of referring to the Portuguese. Regarding the structure of the work, it is composed of ten cantos, 1102 stanzas and 8816 verses. Each stanza is organized in decasyllabic octaves, that is, each stanza has 8 verses, each verse with 10 metric syllables, the 6th and 10th syllables always being stressed, and this throughout the entire work.

All stanzas, throughout the entire book, are subject to the same rhyme scheme, known as ottava rima, or Camões' rhyme, since it was often used by Camões, whose rhyme scheme was AB AB AB CC. What does this mean? Let's analyze the first stanza of Os Lusíadas to understand: The feats of Arms, and famed heroick Host, from occidental Lusitanian strand, who o'er the waters ne'er by seaman crost, farèd beyond the Taprobáne-land, forceful in perils and in battle-post, with more than promised force of mortal hand; and in the regions of a distant race rear'd a new throne so haught in Pride of Place Let's see now how the book is divided and what the story is.

The work is divided into 4 parts, which are the following: The Proposition, in which the story is introduced and the subject matter and heroes are presented; The Invocation, in which the poet invokes the Tagus River nymphs, the Tágides, asking them for inspiration to write; The Dedication, in which the poet dedicates the work to King Sebastião, who was the king at the time Camões wrote Os Lusíadas; And finally, the Narration, which is the story itself, that concludes with an epilogue. And what is the story of Os Lusíadas? Being an epic, Os Lusíadas follows a hero, which in this case is the entire Portuguese nation which, although a small nation, is a pioneer in discovering new worlds.

We cannot forget that Camões wrote Os Lusíadas at a time when Portugal was one of the greatest empires in the world, together with the Spanish Empire. And it is precisely about the expansion of this Portuguese Empire that Camões speaks in Os Lusíadas. The main plot of the book is the journey of the discovery of the sea route to India by Vasco da Gama and his sailors, which took place about 75 years before the publication of the work.

Throughout the account of the adventure lived by Vasco da Gama, Camões alludes to other glorious moments in the History of Portugal, mixing history with mythology, with the gods of Mount Olympus themselves intervening and following the deeds of the Portuguese. The entire work is a sort of love letter to Portugal and to the glory of the Portuguese, and as you may have noticed, it is influenced by Camões' own life, who himself followed Vasco da Gama's route to India and spent a great part of his life in the Portuguese territories in the East. And to conclude, a question: Does it make sense to read Os Lusíadas nowadays, almost half a *millennium* later?

For the Portuguese who are watching, I think the answer is yes. As I have said several times throughout this episode, Os Lusíadas is the most important work in Portuguese literature, and I think that if there is a book that every Portuguese should read at least once in their life, it is Os Lusíadas. And the truth is that all those who went through the 9th year of the Portuguese school system have already read at least some parts of the work, so why not read the whole thing?

As for native Portuguese speakers from other countries, I still think it is a book worth reading. I imagine that Os Lusíadas does not have the same meaning for Portuguese speakers from other countries as it does for the Portuguese, however, it remains the greatest epic poem in the Portuguese language and its author the greatest writer in the Portuguese speaking world. As for non-native Portuguese speakers, I think it is a personal choice that depends a lot on your tastes and goals with the Portuguese language.

A 16th century poem will not be the most useful thing for you to learn 21st century Portuguese, however it is one of the great classics of world literature, and so, for those interested in Portuguese literature and culture, I think it can be an interesting challenge to read Os Lusiadas. The only advice I give you is that you buy an edition with annotations and explanations of the different verses so that it's easier to understand the whole story. I hope you enjoyed this episode and learned a little more about the Prince of Poets and his masterpiece.

If you became excited about Os Lusíadas and want me to read and analyze some of its stanzas in the future, let me know in the comments, and if you want to read the entire work, it is available on the website oslusiadas. org. The link is in the description.

Wikipedia itself also has an excellent summary of the story of the entire book, canto by canto, the link is also in the description. Thank you very much and I'll see you next week!