The story
Os Lusiadas (The Lusiads) is an epic poem by the Portuguese poet Luis de Camoes, published in Lisbon in 1572. It is made up of ten cantos in 1,102 stanzas of eight lines each. Its central story is Vasco da Gama's voyage around Africa to India in 1497 and 1498, but the poem also recounts the history of Portugal from its origins and uses classical gods, who argue over the fate of the expedition, as characters. The title means the sons of Lusus, the legendary founder of Lusitania.
Camoes, who had lost an eye in military service in North Africa and later spent years in Goa and elsewhere in Asia, modeled the poem on Virgil's Aeneid and on the Italian Renaissance epics of Ariosto and Tasso. Portugal had built a sea empire through the fifteenth and sixteenth century voyages begun under Prince Henry, and the poem turns that achievement into myth. It was dedicated to the young King Sebastian, who died at Alcacer Quibir in 1578, two years before Camoes. The poem is also notable for the figure of Adamastor, a giant spirit of the Cape of Good Hope, and for its sense of both pride and cost.
Why it mattered
- The poem became Portugal's national epic, and Camoes became its national poet, honored on 10 June, Portugal Day.
- It remains the major literary record of the Portuguese voyages that opened the sea route to Asia.
- Its giant Adamastor, who warns sailors of the dangers of the Cape, became one of the best-known figures of Portuguese literature.
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