Camões: Poet and Hero in ‘Os Lusíadas’

Run without a candle

and without a rudder

the disordered time…

– Camões

It is no coincidence that we Portuguese chose a poet as a symbol of our identity. In other cases we find heroes, warriors, mythical symbols, but not poets, people of flesh and blood, with their talent, their anguish and doubts.

Camões, Poet, Hero in Os Lusíadas (Ink from China) by Helena Buescu constitutes a magnificent reflection on the unique character of Camões, as a symbol of a creative and fruitful culture, starting from Keats, who speaks to us, of negative capacity, corresponding in great authors, such as Shakespeare, to the description of a contradictory world, involving at the same time, glorification and confusion.

As Virgil, the master of EneidaCamões’ inspiration, he proclaims in his greatest poem the importance of fame, and it is up to him not only to praise the event he praises, but also to consider himself as a participant in this unique moment. The epic therefore stands alongside Gama himself upon his arrival in India, thus participating in this pioneering moment in the History of Humanity. The poet is not just a narrator, with the task of participating, notably alongside other notable characters, such as Velho do Restelo or Adamastor, as the creative voice of the poem.

Jorge de Sena said, therefore, that the vate transforms into the characters “that he introduces, speaking according to the quality of each one and the materials”. And Helder Macedo confesses that The Lusíadas perhaps it is “the epic poem where the author’s personalized speech is most vividly felt”.

In this way, Keats’s negative capacity is illustrated: “Epic (but also lyrical) poetry, to assert itself as such, needs to manifest its capacity to celebrate song and to criticize evil and confusion, simultaneously.”

The case of Velho do Restelo is of special importance. He is the alter ego of the poet, and even a spokesperson for Francisco Sá de Miranda or the poet’s special friend, Diogo do Couto. There is a warning about the risk of smoke from India and the influence of merchants and missionaries. Oh glory of commanding, oh vain greed… Camões becomes an active participant, with sword and pen, as an interrogator of the course of events.

In fact, glory does not assert itself without confusion, and the perpetuity of The Lusíadas comes from the poet’s ability to put us in front of reality. Glory and bewilderment are not opposite realities. What is it about The Lusíadas It is an interrogation about our own existence, at a crucial moment in our History.

Therefore, the Camonian text is one of the highest moments (if not the highest) of our historical and symbolic memory, shaped in literary terms. And Camões is someone who adds his judgment to events, representing the relevant voices of necessary introspection.

Eduardo Lourenço will say: “No European boat is more full of the past than ours. Perhaps because it was the first to leave the European dock and the last to return. (…) But none of (the other) nations or rather, cultures-nations, lives with the past like ours. Symbolically, no people live in the past, particularly in the one to which we owe our unique profile – like Portugal…”

Premonitory, the great Camões intuits this same awareness, refusing to see only the glorious side without fully assuming the confusion.