[In this excerpt, Hart considers the political and financial pressures that influenced Camões while writing The Lusiads. He also briefly discusses Camões career and reputation immediately following the publication of the epic, in addition to the changing political situation in Portugal.]

To serve thee with arm well trained in war,
Mind devoted to the Muse.

—Camoëns, Lusiads, X, 155

Evidently, as soon as possible after his return to Portugal Camoëns turned his energies to the difficult task of having his Lusiads recognized and published. With his ardent love of country and his concern for what he perceived of her social and moral deterioration, as revealed in many of his verses, it would seem that he desired it to be published and widely read as much for the purpose of arousing his fellow countrymen from their apathy to some vigorous action as for the gratification of his own personal ambition to see his work in print.

The approval of the book by the King was essential to give it the necessary publicity, and Luis turned successfully to the only one of his old friends who had access to the throne, D. Manuel de Portugal, who, we can believe, had pity on the man who had suffered so many hardships through nought but youthful folly, and, a poet himself, he probably recognized the genius of the younger man. Knowing that Sebastian, vain, headstrong, and deeply impressed with his own importance, could be won by flattery, he suggested that since the remains of John III, Sebastian's grandfather, were to be transferred to the Monastery of the Jeronymos at Belem, just outside Lisbon, where King Manuel was also interred, Luis write a sonnet on the late King which he, D. Manuel, would contrive to have read before Sebastian on the occasion.

The poet consented, though he surely bore a deep resentment against John, who, with Catharine, had ordered his exile, but he was far wiser in the ways of the world than on that far-off day of the performance of King Seleucus. Fortunately, the sonnet received the King's approval. D. Manuel next suggested that before The Lusiads was presented to the King some stanzas directly applicable to Sebastian should be inserted in it. D. Manuel was wise enough to realize that the King, a willful, abnormal young man, would never be patient enough to listen to a reading of the entire poem or even a substantial part of it, yet he was confident that if Sebastian could be induced to listen to the opening stanzas, especially if they exalted him and appealed to his vanity, his approval and patronage would be given the work. Though Camoëns knew of the vacillating, fanatical, and unstable character of Sebastian and undoubtedly revolted at prostituting his talents by flattering such an unworthy occupant of the throne, he must have understood that there was no other likely way of gaining his desired end, so thirteen stanzas lauding the King and his high destiny were inserted in the first canto of the epic.¹

In these verses Luis apostrophized the King as

Thou, the high-born champion
Of ancient Lusitanian liberties,
Thou, the new terror of the Moorish lance,
The wonder foretold of this our present age,
Given the world by God, to rule it all.

And further:

Mighty sovereign whose high domain
The sun in his course doth first behold.

And then, before he launched into the body of the poem,² he offered his book to Sebastian thus:

And while these heroes—but not thee—I sing
—For King sublime, I dare not so high aspire—
Take thou in hands the reins of this, thy state,
And create deeds for still another song
As yet unsung.
          …
Thy favor grant to this, my daring song,
That these my verses, may be thine.

Camoëns' honesty of spirit must have cringed within him as he wrote these lines, but his experience in the court of King John III had taught him that such fawning adulation was demanded of a courtier by such a king as Sebastian.

The work was finished, the last touches given the bulky manuscript to which he had devoted more than half his life, on land and on sea, from the farthest confines of China to Portugal, and now it was to pass from his hands, to be approved or rejected at the whim of a witless king. He could do no more; he had to rely entirely upon the discretion of D. Manuel de Portugal.

The date was the twenty-fourth of September, 1571. Luis had probably been impatient, like all authors awaiting approval of their work, but on that day he received a document bearing the royal seal:

I, the King, make known to those who may read this decree that it please me to grant authorization to Luis de Camoëns to cause to be printed in this city of Lisbon a work in outava [sic] rima entitled Os Lusíadas, which contains ten excellent cantos in which in poetic fashion are set forth in verse the principal exploits of the Portuguese in the regions of India since the sea road to them was discovered by order of the King, D. Manuel, my great-grandfather (may he be in saintly glory). And this is with the privilege that for the period of ten years, beginning on the day when the printing of the book is completed and thereafter, it may not be printed or sold in my kingdom or dominions nor be taken beyond them, nor from the said parts of India to be sold without the license of the said Luis de Camoëns, or by any person to whom the power may be deputed by him, under the penalty, in violation hereof, of fifty cruzados and the confiscation of the volumes so printed or sold, one-half [to go] to the said Luis de Camoëns, and the other half to him who brings the charge—and before the said volume is printed it is to be submitted to and examined by the Board of the Holy Office of the Inquisition that it may receive its permission to be printed, and if the said Luis de Camoëns should increase [the work] with any additional cantos, they are also to be printed, obtaining therefore the license of the Holy Office as above stated. And this my decree is to be printed in the front of the said work and will have the same force and effect as though it were a letter made in my name, signed by me and passed by my chancellor. …

Drawn up by Gaspar de Seixas in Lisbon the twenty-fourth day of September, 1571. Written by Jorge da Costa.

The King had given his permission for the printing of the epic. Joyously, Luis expressed his gratitude to D. Manuel in an ode.

There was another—and very important—step to be taken before the manuscript could be confided to the printer. The royal decree had specifically stated that the imprimatur of the Board of the Holy Office of the Inquisition was necessary before anything further could be done. Luis was presented to Frei Bartolameu Ferreira, chief censor of the Board, who had the last word in the matter. Frei Bartolameu and the poet must have discovered kindred souls in one another, for Camoëns' reception was most friendly. Then followed the reading of the poem, with questions and answers, for the censor's duty was to assure the Holy Office that there was nothing sacrilegious or contrary to the Faith in any book approved by it. Luis, fearful lest the number of pagan and mythological references throughout The Lusiads arouse insurmountable objections on the part of the censor, had inserted an additional stanza in the last canto.³ Frei Bartolameu (who probably realized that it would be bad policy to withhold his consent to the publication of a book whose printing the King clearly desired) ignored the extravagant tales of Adamastor and the erotic episode of the “Isle of Loves,” for doubtless the interpolated stanza calmed any doubts he may have had. It was all over in a matter of minutes. The scratching of quill on paper, sand shaken on the page, and Luis possessed the last precious document necessary to set the press in motion to turn out his book:

By order of the Holy and Universal Inquisition I have examined these ten cantos of The Lusiads of Luis de Camoëns, concerning the valorous exploits in arms which the Portuguese performed in Asia and Europe, and I find in it nothing scandalous or contrary either to the Faith or to good morals. Only it is necessary for me to warn readers that the author, in order to impress them with the difficulties of the Portuguese in finding the route and the entrance into India, has made a fictional use of the gods of the Gentiles.—Nevertheless, since this is a poem and pretense, and the author, as a poet, intends no more than to ornament his poetic style, we do not find it improper to introduce this fable of the gods into the work, recognizing it as such, and without detriment to the truth of our Holy Faith, that all the gods of the Gentiles are “demons.” And for this reason the book appears to me worthy of printing, and the author shows in it much talent and much learning in the humane sciences. In testimony whereof I affix my signature hereto.

Frei Bartolameu Ferreira

All the preliminary obstacles had been overcome; Luis now had to find a printer who would be willing to undertake the work. He was forthcoming in the person of Antonio Gonçalves, who had already published a number of volumes and who foresaw that with the patronage of the King and the protection of the Holy Office he might expect many sales and a good profit. His shop, however, was full of work, and Camoëns was forced to wait his turn—a protracted delay, for the volume did not come from Gonçalves' press until the summer of the following year.⁴

At last the first copy of the book was in his hands:

The Lusiads of Luis de Camoëns, with the royal grant or copyright, printed in Lisbon with the authority of the Holy Inquisition and of the Bishop of the diocese, in the house of Antonio Gonçalves, printer, 1572.

The title-page was well arranged and dignified, and so were the leaves (there were 186 of them), but the book was full of grave errors in printing and the type was not always as regularly set or as clear as one would have liked. However, many of the Portuguese books of the day were full of such mistakes, and Gonçalves' publishing house (which had been chosen because it offered the best terms) was notorious for its defective typography and the carelessness of its proofreaders.

What joy it must have been for Luis to walk on the Rua Nova, where he could see his volume stacked in neat, clean piles in the book stalls! What excitement when he could, from some corner, watch a passer-by stop, thumb through the pages, take out his purse, and buy a book written by him, the poor, half-blind outcast, Luis de Camoëns! We may easily imagine the scene.

The small first edition of The Lusiads was soon sold. Favorable comments were heard on every side, and men began to quote from its verses. When reports of the success of the work reached the King, he made inquiries about Camoëns and upon learning of the poet's pitiable condition granted Luis a pension. But Sebastian, lavish as he was in some ways, was extremely parsimonious in others, and the most he would give the poverty-stricken poet was the annual sum of 15,000 reis ($150.00).

Accordingly, on July 28, 1572, a rescript from the royal chancellery was delivered to Luis:

I, the King, make known to those who may see this document that, having respect for the services which Luis de Camoëns, knight of my household, has rendered me in the parts of India for many years, and for those which I hope he will perform for me in the future, and because of the knowledge which I have of his genius and cleverness, and the ability which he has shown in the book which he wrote concerning the affairs of India, it is my will and pleasure to grant him an annual pension of 15,000 reis for the period of three years, beginning the twelfth day of March of this present year 1572; that award is granted and will be paid him by my chief treasurer or by whomsoever's duty it may be for each of the said three years. …

Drawn up in Lisbon July 28, 1572. And I, Duarte, caused it to be written.

The smallness of the pension was almost an insult, for it was barely enough to hold body and soul together, let alone sufficient to relieve the poet from want and worry, but in his condition anything must have been acceptable.

Meanwhile, the book was selling and Camoëns was becoming known through it. He may have had hopes that the rich and powerful Gama family, whose ancestor he had made the protagonist of his epic and whose name and fame he had sung throughout its stanzas, might come to his assistance, but in this, too, it appears that he was bitterly disappointed. They accepted the praise of the great admiral, in whose reflected glory they shone, but there is no record of their having moved to recompense the man whose verses had immortalized Vasco and his discovery of the sea road to the Indies.

Even though the monetary reward was negligible, the book had created a sensation among many discerning readers, who realized that The Lusiads was great literature, towering far above anything ever before produced by a Portuguese. The sweetest praise, probably, that Luis received was in conversation with Count Pedro da Alcaçova Carneiro. In discussing his book the poet asked Carneiro what he considered the greatest mistake he had found in it. “The error is a very great and grave one,” answered the Count, smiling. “It is that your poem is not short enough to be learned by heart and not so long that one need never cease reading it.”

Immediately upon its publication, the book was bitterly attacked by the poets of Lisbon, who showed their petty natures and envy in their carping, adverse criticisms, claiming that Camoëns had invented words theretofore unknown in Portuguese and that he had employed expressions foreign to the language. For months there raged a battle between these critics and those who, recognizing the grandeur of the work, defended it with might and main.

The advances on the small edition of The Lusiads were soon consumed, and Luis was compelled to do hack work—prologues, dedicatory poems, and other bits—for aspiring individuals unable to versify for themselves. Fortunately, however, through Frei Bartolameu he met the monks of São Domingos and became very friendly with them. They made every effort to assist him, sending him persons in need of literary services and inviting him to share meals with them—when he would otherwise often have gone hungry.

From the day Camoëns landed after the subsidence of the plague, one misfortune after another befell his country. With the disappearance of the pestilence, financial difficulties became even greater, the price of copper fell, and inflation set in. Sebastian was called upon for aid by Charles IX, the boy king of France, who, under the influence of his mother, Catherine de Medici, had declared war against the Turks and Lutherans. In answer to the summons, and not heeding his own country's pressing needs, Sebastian gathered a fleet of thirty vessels. He borrowed money from nobles and high dignitaries of the Church, confiscated funds, and seized ships, pardoning large numbers of convicts to man them. In August of 1572 all was ready, but before the fleet could sail, Nature stepped in and ended the adventure: a great storm swept in from the Atlantic and wrested from their anchorage all thirty vessels, strewing their hopeless wreckage on the shores of the Tagus estuary.

Wise men could discern the rapid disintegration of the state. Her people were not traders by nature, and she had no middle class versed in business and banking. Moreover, by the discovery of the sea road to India and their greed for empire the Portuguese had disorganized the centuries-old land and sea trade routes between Asia and Europe and had failed to import Oriental cargoes in sufficient quantity either to satisfy market demands or to make spices cheaper. Gradually, shrewd and experienced bankers and middlemen from Venice and other Italian commercial centers, from Germany and the Low Countries, had forced their way into the Indian trade, and by advancing funds to the Crown and money to Portuguese merchants they were channeling the profits of Eastern commerce from Lisbon to their own cities. Those who loved their country saw, with a deepening sadness and a growing feeling of helplessness, that all the exploits of their countrymen had been performed in vain. Portugal was rapidly mortgaging itself and its future, and there was no apparent way by which, under the rule of a Sebastian, it could redeem the pledge.

In 1572, Lisbon was visited by a most destructive flood. Camoëns must have escaped this, for though the Mouraria was an area far from desirable for decent living, it was on a steep hillside, well out of reach of the greedy waters of the Tagus.

In February of the next year Pope Gregory XIII—he who in 1582 revised the calendar—sent as a gift to King Sebastian one of the arrows which supposedly had slain the martyred St. Sebastian.⁵ Conveyed personally by the Papal Secretary, it was presented to the King, who was sojourning at Almeirim. Enthused by the gift of the relic, which still bore the stains of the blood of his patron saint, Sebastian ordered its reception by the highest church dignitaries and decreed that it be carried in procession, that all his people might behold and venerate it. The streets were crowded, and it was with difficulty that the cortege made its way through the narrow thoroughfares. The arrow, wrapped in a transparent veil of crimson silk, lay in a coffer of silver lined with vermilion cloth, while over it was borne an ornate canopy, the poles of which were carried by the King, Cardinal Henry, the Ambassador of Castile, and the highest officials of the court.

The arrival of the arrow seems to have aroused Camoëns to perceive in it a plan by which he could obtain the extension of his pension. He therefore wrote nine stanzas of oitavas, flattering Sebastian as though he were the world's greatest monarch, the poem opening with these lines:

Most mighty king, to whom the Heavens have given
The name, august and most sublime,
Of the knight who in his death for Christ
Was by a thousand arrows slain.(6)

Knowing of the King's desire and ambition to lead a new crusade against the Moors, Camoëns continued by declaring:

We have sure forecast and hope most clear
That yours will be an arm supreme in strength
Against the boastful Mauritanian sword.

His plan succeeded. The poem was read to Sebastian, whose weak nature could resist no flattery, and the pension was forthwith renewed for another three years.

It was during this period that Camoëns met and became very friendly with Manuel Correa, curate of the Church of San Sebastian, not far from the poet's home in the Mouraria. Correa was a learned man, a barrister as well as a priest, and one well versed in literature. At the time, he was translating Tacitus⁷ and carrying on a lively correspondence with the famous Flemish Latinist, Justus Lipsius.⁸ During one of their discussions, Camoëns suggested that the priest edit and annotate his Lusiads; Correa consented with alacrity and forthwith worked on the project.⁹

During these same years, however, Luis met with great difficulty in earning a living. He suffered still more because of the irregularity with which he received his pension, often being turned away from the Treasury with some flimsy excuse. His irritation was constant, and one day he exploded with: “Such a niggardly amount, and so much trouble to get it that I'm tempted to petition His Majesty to commute the fifteen thousand reis into fifteen thousand lashes on those fellows' [the bureaucrats'] backs!” Many times in the few years left to him he was heard to complain about the payment of the sums due him, for although the pension was again renewed in 1578, he always had difficulty in collecting it.

With the passing of the months the poet's health began to fail, the inevitable result of his hard life in India and his ill-nourished poverty at home, and he became ever more querulous, even with those who sought to give him employment. One day Ruy Diaz da Camara, a fidalgo well known in Lisbon, called on Luis to make a verse translation of the Penitential Psalms. He accepted the commission but kept putting off the work for many months, until finally Camara angrily upbraided him for his failure to keep his promise, “being such a great poet and having composed such a famous poem. Camoëns drew himself up to his full height and answered proudly, yet pathetically: “When I wrote those cantos I was a young man, living in the lap of luxury, loved, sought after and honored, and loaded down with the multitude of favors and gifts of friends and of women—those things which added fuel to my poetic fire. Now I have neither my heart nor contentment in anything, for all these fail me.”¹⁰ Whereupon he turned away, and Camara departed without his verses.

Meanwhile Portugal was assailed by one calamity after another. In 1573 the dowager Queen, D. Catharine, who to the very last had done her best to dissuade her grandson from his wild idea of a new crusade against the Moors of North Africa, died. The next year, a famine swept the land, and in June, 1575, a tremendous earthquake wrought far-reaching destruction. Again Luis and his mother were spared, as they were, likewise, in a great fire which shortly afterward demolished whole districts of the city. As though these catastrophes were not enough, terrible rainstorms brought on floods in the winter of the same year—deluges that swept away large portions of the streets—and on every side people shook their heads and, in fear of the outcome, recalled an old proverb: Nadando vem a fome a Portugal.¹¹ The threatened famine followed swiftly on the heels of the flood; starving people swarmed into the capital, seeking succor, and the streets were crowded with beggars, many of them lepers. The influx of country people brought many diseases, some of them spreading into almost epidemic proportions.

In 1576, Camoëns was again called upon to write an introductory poem, this time for a serious work in prose. Although he had been neglected by the court circle and the nobility, for whom The Lusiads was written (for the mass, even of the reading public, could not know or enjoy his countless classical references), he had earned the respect and high esteem of the men of literary worth in Portugal, among them Pedro de Magalhaes de Gandavo, a resident of Braga. Gandavo had been a great admirer of the poet, and in his colloquy (written in 1574) on the superiority of his language over Spanish, a Portuguese declares proudly to a Castilian: “And if it appears to you that you outstrip us in heroic verse, just look at the works of our famous poet Luis de Camoëns, over whose renown time will never triumph.”

Gandavo had just finished a short history of Brazil (called, for some years after its discovery, Santa Cruz) and, desiring an introduction by a prominent literary figure, sought Luis' assistance, requesting him to write two dedicatory poems for the work. The first, to D. Leonis Pereira, late governor of Malacca, consisted of an elegy, in tercets, opening with the lines:

Since Magellan wove his brief historic tale
Which told of Santa Cruz, then scarcely known. …(12)

This poem of 110 lines was followed by a sonnet dedicated to Pereira as victor in a fierce battle against the ruler of the kingdom of Achin in Sumatra.¹³

Gradually Luis drew more and more within himself, seeing but a small circle of close friends and the friars of São Domingos.¹⁴ These companions, realizing Luis' condition, urged him to gather and arrange his lyrics for publication. He consented and began the task, writing a poem which he planned as an introduction to the volume. In this sonnet he seemed to forget the tortures, disappointments, and failures of love and entrusted his poems to the tender and understanding hands of those who themselves had been the victims of Cupid:

Since Fortune has so willed
That I have some portion of repose,
The inclination of both mind and pen
Has led me to tell of loving—and of being loved.
Yet, fearing that I may betray his confidence,
The god beclouds my art in use of words.
O you whom Love bends to his will
In ways diverse,
When you read in one small book
These pure truths—and I speak in simple way—
Whosoever and wheresoever you may be,
Remember that only as you love and know of love,
Can you understand the meaning of my verse.(15)

The project of bringing his scattered poems together was never completed during his lifetime.

Notes

1. Lusiads, I, 6-18.

2. Stanza 19.

3. This stanza (X, 82) declares that the gods are all fabulous and are introduced as mere fantasy to render the poem more harmonious.

4. The exact date is unknown, and there are two editions dated 1572, with numerous variations in type ornaments, in the text and elsewhere. One of these may be a pirated edition.

5. One of Portugal's churches already possessed one of the Saint's arms, which has now vanished.

6. Oitava “Mui alto Rei, a quem os Ceús, em sorte.”

7. This exists in manuscript only.

8. Justus Lipsius—the Latinized form of Joest Lips (1547-1606).

9. Correa's annotated edition was published in Lisbon in 1613, thirty-three years after the poet's death. Although the “Address to the Reader” gives a few paragraphs on Camoëns' life, the information is both scanty and unreliable.

10. From Pedro de Mariz, cited by Storck.

11. “Famine comes swimming into Portugal.”

12. Elegia “Despois que Magalhães teve tecida.”

13. Soneto “Vós, ninfas da gangetica espossura.”

14. Couto had returned to India, depriving the poet of this prized friendship.

15. Soneto “Emquanto quis Fortuna que tivesse.”

Bibliography

The Works of Luis de Camoëns

70 Sonnets of Camoës. English trans. by J. J. Aubertin. London, 1881.

Os Lusíadas. Ed. by Manuel Correa. Lisboa, 1613.

Other References

Gandavo, Pedro Macalhães de. Dialogo Em Defesa Da Lingua Portuguesa. Lisboa, 1574.

———. Historia da Provincia Sancta Cruz. Lisboa, 1576.

Storck, Wilhelm. Hundert Altportugiesische Lieder. Paderborn, 1885.

———. Luis de Camoens Buch der Lieder und Briefe. 5 vols. Paderborn, 1880.

———. Luis de Camoens Leben. Paderborn, 1890.

———. Vida e Obras de Luis de Camões, Primeira Parte. Portuguese trans. by Carolina Michaelis de Vasconcellos. Lisboa, 1897.