Luís de Camões

Luís Vaz de Camões (or de Camoens) (c. 1524 – June 10 1580) is considered the national poet of Portugal and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. He wrote a considerable amount of lyrical poetry and drama, but is best remembered for his epic work Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads), the influence of which is so profound that Portuguese is sometimes called the "language of Camões".

Quotes

Lyric poetry

Sonnets

Enquanto quis Fortuna que tivesse

Sabei que, segundo o amor tiverdes,
Tereis o entendimento de meus versos.
- Once you experience love, I'm persuaded
  you'll know what I'm on about in my verses.
- As translated by Landeg White in The Collected Lyric Poems of Luis de Camoes (2016), p. 25
Sonnet in full:
- As long as Fortune wanted me
  to keep on hoping for happiness
  I took pleasure in amorous thoughts
  and wrote down how they made me feel.
  But Love, afraid that what I write
  might serve free hearts as a warning,
  clouded my inspiration with torment
  to keep his deceits from coming to light.
  O you whom Love has made the slaves
  of various passions! When you read
  in one small book such varied cases
  know that they're pure truths, not tales,
  and that your own experience in love
  will lead you through my verses' meaning.
  - Richard Zenith, Sonnets and Other Poems (2009)

Eu cantarei de amor tão docemente

Eu cantarei de amor tão docemente,
Por uns termos em si tão concertados,
Que dois mil acidentes namorados
Faça sentir ao peito que não sente.
- I'll sing a song of love so sweet, so blessed
  with harmonious sounds, so true to the name
  of love (with two thousand examples), it will enflame
  even those with dead hearts in their chest.
- Selected Sonnets: A Bilingual Edition (2008), ed. William Baer, p. 128

Porém, pera cantar de vosso gesto
A composição alta e milagrosa
Aqui falta saber, engenho e arte.
- [But] to sing of your face, a composition
  in itself sublime and marvelous,
  I lack knowledge, Lady, and wit and art.
- The Collected Lyric Poems of Luis de Camoes (2016), trans. Landeg White, p. 25

Não pode tirar-me as esperanças

[Ah o amor...] que nasce não sei onde,
Vem não sei como, e dói não sei porquê.
- [Ah, Love...] which formed I don't know where,
  That came I don't know how, and hurts I don't know why.
- Poets of Portugal (2006), p. 141

Amor é fogo que arde sem se ver

Love is a fire that burns unseen,
A wound that aches yet isn't felt,
An always discontent contentment,
A pain that rages without hurting,
A longing for nothing but to long,
A loneliness in the midst of people,
A never feeling pleased when pleased,
A passion that gains when lost in thought.

Amor é um fogo qu'arde sem se ver,
É ferida que dói, e não se sente,
É um contentamento descontente,
É dor que desatina sem doer.
É um não querer mais que bem querer,
É um andar solitário entre a gente,
É nunca contentar-se de contente,
É um cuidar que ganha em se perder.
É querer estar preso por vontade,
É servir a quem vence o vencedor
É ter com quem nos mata lealdade.
Mas como causar pode seu favor
Nos corações humanos amizade,
Se tão contrário a si é o mesmo Amor?
- Love is a fire that burns unseen,
  A wound that aches yet isn't felt,
  An always discontent contentment,
  A pain that rages without hurting,
  A longing for nothing but to long,
  A loneliness in the midst of people,
  A never feeling pleased when pleased,
  A passion that gains when lost in thought.
  It's being enslaved of your own free will;
  It's counting your defeat a victory;
  It's staying loyal to your killer.
  But if it's so self-contradictory,
  How can Love, when Love chooses,
  Bring human hearts into sympathy?
- Rimas, Sonnet 81 (as translated by Richard Zenith)
  - (Listen to the poem in Portuguese)

Sete anos de pastor Jacob servia

Sete anos de pastor Jacob servia
Labão, pai de Raquel, serrana bela;
Mas não servia o pai, servia a ela,
E a ela só por prémio pretendia.
- Seven years Jacob served as a shepherd
  for Laban, lovely Rachel's father,
  laboring not for the father but
  anxious only for her as his reward.
  - (tr. Landeg White)

Mais servira, se não fora
Para tão longo amor tão curta a vida.
- That more would he serve, if life
  Were not so short for love so long.
  - (tr. Norwood Andrews)

Aquela triste e leda madrugada

Aquela triste e leda madrugada,
Cheia toda de mágoa e de piedade,
Enquanto houver no mundo saudade,
Quero que seja sempre celebrada.
- That sad and joyful dawn,
  light full of pity and grief,
  while the world wakes in loneliness
  I'll praise it and remember it.
  - (tr. David Wevill)

Ela viu as palavras magoadas,
Que puderam tornar o fogo frio,
E dar descanso as almas condenadas.
- [She] heard the bitter, heartsick words
  that made the fires of Hell burn cold
  and soothed the lost spirits under the world.
  - (tr. David Wevill)

Quem vê, Senhora, claro e manifesto

As translated by Richard Zenith (in Sonnets and Other Poems)

Quem vê, Senhora, claro e manifesto
o lindo ser de vossos olhos belos,
se não perder a vista só em vê-los,
já não paga o que deve a vosso gesto.
- Whoever, Lady, sees plain and clear
  the lovely essence of your fair eyes
  and doesn't from seeing them go blind
  hasn't paid your looks their due.

Porque é tamanha bem-aventurança
o dar-vos quanto tenho e quanto posso,
quanto mais vos pago, mais vos devo.
- Since it gives me so much bliss
  to give you everything I can
  The more I pay you, the more I owe.
  - Quoted by Elizabeth Bishop in the dedication of Questions of Travel (1965) to Lota de Macedo Soares, her Brazilian lover.

Ah! minha Dinamene! Assim deixaste

Luis de Camoens and the epic of the Lusiads. (1. ed.), Henry Hersch Hart (1962), p. 327

Ah! minha Dinamene! Assim deixaste
Quem não deixara nunca de querer-te!
Ah! Ninfa minha, já não posso ver-te,
Tão asinha esta vida desprezaste!
Como já pera sempre te apartaste
De quem tão longe estava de perder-te?
Puderam estas ondas defender-te
Que não visses quem tanto magoaste?
Nem falar-te somente a dura Morte
Me deixou, que tão cedo o negro manto
Em teus olhos deitado consentiste!
Oh mar! oh céu! oh minha escura sorte!
Que pena sentirei que valha tanto,
Que inda tenha por pouco viver triste?
- Ah, Dinamene,
  Thou hast forsaken him
  Whose love for thee has never ceased,
  And no more will he behold thee on this earth!
  How early didst thou deem life of little worth!
  I found thee
  — Alas, to lose thee all too soon!
  How strong, how cruel the waves!
  Thou canst not ever know
  My longing and my grief!
  Did cold death still thy voice
  Or didst thou of thyself
  Draw the sable veil before thy lovely face?
  O sea, O sky, O fate obscure!
  To live without thee, Dinamene, avails me not.

Alma Minha Gentil, que te Partiste

Alma minha gentil, que te partiste
Tão cedo desta vida descontente,
Repousa lá no Céu eternamente,
E viva eu cá na terra sempre triste.
- Go, gentle spirit! now supremely blest,
  From scenes of pain and struggling virtue go:
  From thy immortal seat of heavenly rest
  Behold us lingering in a world of woe!
  - (anonymous translation)
- Meek spirit, who so early didst depart,
  Thou art at rest in Heaven! I linger here,
  And feed the lonely anguish of my heart;
  Thinking of all that made existence dear.
  - (tr. Robert Southey)
- My gentle spirit! thou who hast departed
  So early, of this life in discontent,
  Rest thou there ever, in Heaven's firmament,
  While I live here on earth all broken-hearted.
  - tr. John James Aubertin, in Seventy Sonnets of Camoens (1881), p. 17
- Dear gentle soul, you that departed
  this life so soon and reluctantly,
  rest in heaven eternally
  while I remain here, broken-hearted.
  - tr. Langed White, in The Collected Lyric Poems of Luis de Camoes (2016), p. 357

Transforma-se o amador na cousa amada

As translated by Richard Zenith.

Transforma-se o amador na cousa amada,
Por virtude do muito imaginar;
Não tenho, logo, mais que desejar,
Pois em mim tenho a parte desejada.
- The lover becomes the thing he loves
  By virtue of much imagining;
  Since what I long for is already in me,
  The act of longing should be enough.

Mudam-se os tempos, mudam-se as vontades

Mudam-se os tempos, mudam-se as vontades,
Muda-se o ser, muda-se a confiança;
Todo o mundo é composto de mudança,
Tomando sempre novas qualidades.
- Time changes, and our desires change. What we
  believe—even what we are—is ever-
  changing. The world is change, which forever
  takes on new qualities.
- Selected Sonnets: A Bilingual Edition (2008), ed. William Baer, p. 70

Erros meus, má fortuna, amor ardente

Erros meus, má fortuna, amor ardente
Em minha perdição se conjuraram.
- My sins, my wild loves, and Fate herself
  have all conspired against me.
- Selected Sonnets: A Bilingual Edition (2008), ed. William Baer, p. 99

Songs (redondilhas)

Perdigão perdeu a pena
Não há mal que lhe não venha.
Perdigão que o pensamento
Subiu a um alto lugar,
Perde a pena do voar,
Ganha a pena do tormento.
Não tem no ar nem no vento
Asas com que se sustenha:
Não há mal que lhe não venha.
Quis voar a üa alta torre,
Mas achou-se desasado;
E, vendo-se depenado,
De puro penado morre.
Se a queixumes se socorre,
Lança no fogo mais lenha:
Não há mal que lhe não venha.
- To this old song:
  Partridge lost his quill,
  there's no harm won't befall him.
  Partridge, whose winged fancy
  aspired to a high estate,
  lost a feather in his flight
  and won the pen of despondency.
  He finds in the breeze no buoyancy
  for his pennants to haul him:
  there's no harm won't befall him.
  He wished to soar to a high tower
  but found his plumage clipped,
  and, observing himself plucked,
  pines away in despair.
  If he cries out for succor,
  stoke the fire to forestall him:
  there's no harm won't befall him.
  - "Perdigão que o pensamento", tr. Landeg White in The Collected Lyric Poems of Luis de Camoes (2016), p. 251
    - (Listen to the poem in Portuguese)

Nem no campo flores,
Nem no céu estrelas
Me parecem belas
Como os meus amores.
- No star from above
  nor flower in the field
  seems to me as fair
  as the one I love.
- "Aquela cativa" (trans. Richard Zenith)

Os bons vi sempre passar
No mundo graves tormentos;
E para mais me espantar,
Os maus vi sempre nadar
Em mar de contentamentos.
- Ever in this world saw I
  Good men suffer grave torments,
  But even more—
  Enough to terrify—
  Men who live out evil lives
  Reveling in pleasure and in content.
  - "Esparsa ao Desconcerto do Mundo", translation from Luís de Camões and the Epic of the Lusiads (1962) by Henry Hersch Hart, p. 111

Hymns (canções)

Já me desenganei que de queixar-me
não se alcança remédio; mas, quem pena,
forçado lhe é gritar, se a dor é grande.
Gritarei; mas é débil e pequena
a voz para poder desabafar-me,
porque nem com gritar a dor se abrande.
- I was long ago undeceived that protesting
  could bring redress. But whoever suffers
  is bound to complain if the pain is great.
  So I did! But the cry that could offer
  relief is itself feeble and exhausted,
  and it is not through weeping that pain abates.
- "Vinde cá, meu tão certo secretário", trans. by Landeg White in The Collected Lyric Poems of Luis de Camoes (2016), p. 297

Nem eu delicadezas vou cantando
Co'o gosto do louvor, mas explicando
Puras verdades já por mim passadas.
Oxalá foram fábulas sonhadas!
- Nor do I sing for courtesy's sake
  with a taste for praising, but to make
  pure truths known about my former times.
  Would to God they were mere dreams.
- "Vinde cá, meu tão certo secretário", trans. by Landeg White in The Collected Lyric Poems of Luis de Camoes (2016), p. 303

Sestina

Foge-me pouco a pouco a curta vida
(se por caso é verdade que inda vivo);
vai-se-me o breve tempo d'ante os olhos;
choro pelo passado e quando falo,
se me passam os dias passo e passo,
vai-se-me, enfim, a idade e fica a pena.
- Little by little it ebbs, this life,
  if by any chance I am still alive;
  my brief time passes before my eyes.
  I mourn the past in whatever I say;
  as each day passes, step by step
  my youth deserts me—what persists is pain.
- "Foge-me pouco a pouco a curta vida", tr. Landeg White in The Collected Lyric Poems of Luis de Camoes (2016), p. 330

Epic poetry

Os Lusíadas (1572)

Main article: Os Lusíadas

Canto I

As armas e os Barões assinalados
Que da Ocidental praia Lusitana
Por mares nunca de antes navegados
Passaram ainda além da Taprobana,
Em perigos e guerras esforçados
Mais do que prometia a força humana,
E entre gente remota edificaram
Novo Reino, que tanto sublimaram.
- Arms and the Heroes, who from Lisbon's shore,
  Through Seas where sail was never spread before,
  Beyond where Ceylon lifts her spicy breast,
  And waves her woods above the watery waste,
  With prowess more than human forced their way
  To the fair kingdoms of the rising day:
  What wars they waged, what seas, what dangers passed,
  What glorious empire crowned their toils at last!
- Stanza 1 (as translated by William Julius Mickle, 1776)

Cantando espalharei por toda parte,
Se a tanto me ajudar o engenho e arte.
- My song shall spread where ever there are men,
  If wit and art will so much guide my pen.
- Stanza 2, lines 7–8 (tr. Richard Fanshawe, 1655)

Cesse tudo o que a Musa antiga canta,
Que outro valor mais alto se alevanta.
- Cease all, whose actions ancient bards expressed:
  A brighter valour rises in the West.
- Stanza 3, lines 7–8 (tr. Richard Fanshawe). Compare:
  - Cedite Romani scriptores, cedite Grai!
    Nescioquid maius nascitur Iliade.
    - Make way, you Roman writers, make way, Greeks!
      Something greater than the Iliad is born.
    - Sextus Propertius, Elegies, II, xxxiv, 65–66

E vós, Tágides minhas, pois criado
Tendes em mi um novo engenho ardente,
Se sempre em verso humilde celebrado
Foi de mi vosso rio alegremente,
Dai-me agora um som alto e sublimado,
Um estilo grandíloco e corrente,
Por que de vossas águas Febo ordene
Que não tenham enveja às de Hipocrene.
- And you, fair nymphs of Tagus, parent stream,
  If ever your meadows were my pastoral theme,
  O come auspicious, and the song inspire
  With all the boldness of your hero's fire:
  Deep and majestic let the numbers flow,
  And, rapt to heaven, with ardent fury glow.
- Stanza 5 (tr. William Julius Mickle)

Já no largo Oceano navegavam...
- They now went sailing in the ocean vast...
- Stanza 19, line 1 (tr. Richard Fanshawe)

The moon, full orbed, forsakes her watery cave,
And lifts her lovely head above the wave.

Da Lua os claros raios rutilavam...
- The moon, full orbed, forsakes her watery cave,
  And lifts her lovely head above the wave...
- Stanza 58 line 1 (as translated by William Julius Mickle). Compare:
  - As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
    Over heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light...
    - Homer, The Iliad, VIII. 551–555 (tr. Alexander Pope)

É fraqueza entre ovelhas ser leão.
- To be a lion among sheep, 'tis poor.
- Stanza 68, line 8 (tr. Richard Fanshawe)

Ó grandes e gravíssimos perigos!
Ó caminho de vida nunca certo!
- O piteous lot of man's uncertain state!
  What woes on Life's unhappy journey wait!
- Stanza 105, lines 1–2 (tr. William Julius Mickle)

Onde pode acolher-se um fraco humano,
Onde terá segura a curta vida,
Que não se arme, e se indigne o Céu sereno
Contra um bicho da terra tão pequeno?
- Ah! where shall weary man take sanctuary,
  where live his little span of life secure?
  and 'scape of Heaven serene th' indignant storms
  that launch their thunders at us earthen worms?
- Stanza 106, lines 5–8 (tr. Richard Francis Burton)

Canto II

Quem poderá do mal aparelhado
Livrar-se sem perigo sabiamente,
Se lá de cima a Guarda soberana
Não acudir à fraca força humana?
- What care, what wisdom, is of suffisance
  The stroke of secret mischief to prevent,
  Unless the Sovereign Guardian from on high
  Supply the strength of frail Humanity?
- Stanza 30, lines 5–8 (tr. Richard Fanshawe)

Canto III

Eis aqui, quase cume da cabeça
De Europa toda, o Reino Lusitano,
Onde a terra se acaba e o mar começa.
- Proud over the rest, with splendid wealth arrayed,
  As crown on, Europe's head
  The Lusitania reign,
  Where the land ends and seas begins.
- Stanza 20, lines 1–3 (tr. William Julius Mickle)

Esta é a ditosa pátria minha amada.
- This is my happy land, my home, my pride.
- Stanza 21, line 1 (tr. Richard Francis Burton)

O caso triste, e dino da memória,
Que do sepulcro os homens desenterra,
Aconteceu da mísera e mesquinha
Que depois de ser morta foi Rainha.
- A sad event and worthy of Memory,
  Who draws forth men from their (closed) sepulchres,
  Befell that piteous maid, and pitiful
  Who, after she was dead was (crowned) queen.
- Stanza 118, lines 5–8 (tr. Ezra Pound); of Inês de Castro.

Tu só, tu, puro Amor...
- Thou, only thou, pure Love...
- Stanza 119, line 1 (tr. Richard Francis Burton)

Contra uma dama, ó peitos carniceiros,
Feros vos amostrais, e cavaleiros?
- O foul disgrace, of knighthood lasting stain,
  By men of arms a helpless lady slain!
- Stanza 130, lines 7–8 (tr. William Julius Mickle); the death of Inês de Castro.

Assim como a bonina, que cortada
Antes do tempo foi, cândida e bela,
Sendo das mãos lascivas maltratada
Da menina que a trouxe na capela,
O cheiro traz perdido e a cor murchada:
Tal está morta a pálida donzela,
Secas do rosto as rosas, e perdida
A branca e viva cor, co'a doce vida.
- As when a rose, ere-while of bloom so gay,
  Thrown from the careless virgin's breast away,
  Lies faded on the plain, the living red,
  The snowy white, and all its fragrance fled;
  So from her cheeks the roses died away,
  And pale in death the beauteous Inez lay.
- Stanza 134 (tr. William Julius Mickle)

Um fraco Rei faz fraca a forte gente.
- A soft king makes a valiant people soft.
- Stanza 138, line 8 (tr. Richard Fanshawe)

Canto IV

Ó Rei subido,
Aventurar-me a ferro, a fogo, a neve
É tão pouco por vós, que mais me pena
Ser esta vida cousa tão pequena.
- O Mighty King! The perils of the sword,
  Or fire, or frost, I nothing estimate;
  But much I grieve that life must circumscribe
  The limits of my zeal.
- Stanza 79, lines 5–8 (tr. Thomas Moore Musgrave)

Mas um velho d'aspeito venerando,
Que ficava nas praias, entre a gente,
Postos em nós os olhos, meneando
Três vezes a cabeça, descontente,
A voz pesada um pouco alevantando,
Que nós no mar ouvimos claramente,
C'um saber só de experiências feito,
Tais palavras tirou do experto peito:
Ó glória de mandar! Ó vã cobiça
Desta vaidade, a quem chamamos Fama!
O glory of commanding! O vain thirst
Of that same empty nothing we call fame!
- But an old man of venerable look
  (Standing upon the shore amongst the crowds)
  His eyes fixed upon us (on ship-board), shook
  His head three times, overcast with sorrow's clouds:
  And (straining his voice more, than well could brook
  His aged lungs: it rattled in our shrouds)
  Out of a science, practice did attest,
  Let fly these words from an oraculous breast:
  O glory of commanding! O vain thirst
  Of that same empty nothing we call fame!
- Stanzas 94–95 (tr. Richard Fanshawe); the Old Man of Restelo.

Canto V

Não acabava, quando uma figura
Se nos mostra no ar, robusta e válida,
De disforme e grandíssima estatura,
O rosto carregado, a barba esquálida,
Os olhos encovados, e a postura
Medonha e má, e a cor terrena e pálida,
Cheios de terra e crespos os cabelos,
A boca negra, os dentes amarelos.
Tão grande era de membros, que bem posso
Certificar-te, que este era o segundo
De Rodes estranhíssimo Colosso,
Que um dos sete milagres foi do mundo:
Com um tom de voz nos fala horrendo e grosso,
Que pareceu sair do mar profundo:
Arrepiam-se as carnes e o cabelo
A mi e a todos, só de ouvi-lo e vê-lo.
I spoke, when rising through the darkened air,
Appalled, we saw a hideous phantom glare...
- I spoke, when rising through the darkened air,
  Appalled, we saw a hideous phantom glare;
  High and enormous over the flood he towered,
  And thwart our way with sullen aspect lowered.
  An earthy paleness over his cheeks was spread,
  Erect uprose his hairs of withered red;
  Writhing to speak, his sable lips disclose,
  Sharp and disjoined, his gnashing teeth's blue rows;
  His haggard beard flowed quivering on the wind,
  Revenge and horror in his mien combined;
  His clouded front, by withering lightnings scared,
  The inward anguish of his soul declared.
  His red eyes, glowing from their dusky caves,
  Shot livid fires: far echoing over the waves
  His voice resounded, as the caverned shore
  With hollow groan repeats the tempest's roar.
  Cold gliding horrors thrilled each hero's breast,
  Our bristling hair and tottering knees confessed
  Wild dread, the while with visage ghastly wan,
  His black lips trembling, thus the fiend began...
- Stanzas 39–40 (tr. William Julius Mickle); description of Adamastor, the "Spirit of the Cape".

How sweet is praise, and justly purchased glory
By one's own actions, when to Heaven they soar!

Quão doce é o louvor e a justa glória
Dos próprios feitos, quando são soados!
Qualquer nobre trabalha que em memória
Vença ou iguale os grandes já passados.
As invejas da ilustre e alheia história
Fazem mil vezes feitos sublimados.
Quem valerosas obras exercita,
Louvor alheio muito o esperta e incita.
- How sweet is praise, and justly purchased glory,
  By one's own actions, when to Heaven they soar!
  Each nobler soul will strain, to have his story,
  Match, if not darken, all that went before.
  Envy of other's fame, not transitory,
  Screws up illustrious actions more, and more.
  Such, as contend in honorable deeds,
  The spur of high applause incites their speeds.
- Stanza 92 (tr. Richard Fanshawe)

Sem vergonha o não digo, que a razão
De algum não ser por versos excelente,
É não se ver prezado o verso e rima,
Porque quem não sabe arte, não na estima.
- I speak it to our shame; the cause no grand
  Poets adorn our country, is the small
  Encouragement to such: for how can he
  esteem, that understands not poetry?
- Stanza 97, lines 5–8 (tr. Richard Fanshawe)

Canto VI

Vistes que, com grandíssima ousadia,
Foram já cometer o Céu supremo;
Vistes aquela insana fantasia
De tentarem o mar com vela e remo;
Vistes, e ainda vemos cada dia,
Soberbas e insolências tais, que temo
Que do Mar e do Céu, em poucos anos,
Venham Deuses a ser, e nós, humanos.
- You saw, with what unheard of insolence
  The highest heavens they did invade of yore:
  You saw, how (against reason, against sense)
  They did invade the sea with sail and oar:
  Actions so proud, so daring, so immense,
  You saw; and we see daily more, and more:
  That in few years (I fear) of heaven and sea,
  Men, will be called gods; and but men, we.
- Stanza 29 (tr. Richard Fanshawe); council of the sea gods.

Canto VII

Numa mão sempre a espada, e noutra a pena.
- My pen in this, my sword in that hand hold.
- Stanza 79, line 8 (tr. Richard Fanshawe)

Canto VIII

Veja agora o juízo curioso
Quanto no rico, assim como no pobre,
Pode o vil interesse e sede inimiga
Do dinheiro, que a tudo nos obriga.
- Now let the judging reader mark what rex
  The idol gold (which all the world adoreth)
  Plays both in poor and rich: by money's thurst
  All laws and ties (divine, and human) burst.
- Stanza 96, lines 5–8 (tr. Richard Fanshawe)

Canto IX

Porque essas honras vãs, esse ouro puro
Verdadeiro valor não dão à gente:
Melhor é, merecê-los sem os ter,
Que possuí-los sem os merecer.
- For these vain honours, this false gold, give price
  (Unless he have it in himself) to none,
  Better deserve them, and to go without;
  Than have them undeserved, without doubt.
- Stanza 93, lines 5–8 (tr. Richard Fanshawe)

Canto X

Vão os anos decendo, e já do Estio
Há pouco que passar até o Outono;
A Fortuna me faz o engenho frio,
Do qual já não me jacto nem me abono;
Os desgostos me vão levando ao rio
Do negro esquecimento e eterno sono...
- No more the summer of my life remains,
  My autumn's lengthening evenings chill my veins;
  Down the black stream of years by woes on woes
  Winged on, I hasten to the tomb's repose...
- Stanza 9, lines 1–6 (tr. William Julius Mickle)

Quem faz injúria vil e sem razão,
Com forças e poder em que está posto,
Não vence; que a vitória verdadeira
É saber ter justiça nua e inteira.
- He who inflicts a vile and unjust harm by using the power and the force with which he is invested, does not conquer; the true victory is to have on one's side Right naked and entire.
- Stanza 58, lines 5–8 (tr. Joaquim Nabuco)

Nô mais, Musa, nô mais, que a Lira tenho
Destemperada e a voz enrouquecida,
E não do canto, mas de ver que venho
Cantar a gente surda e endurecida.
O favor com que mais se acende o engenho
Não no dá a pátria, não, que está metida
No gosto da cobiça e na rudeza
Dũa austera, apagada e vil tristeza.
- Enough, my muse, thy wearied wing no more
  Must to the seat of Jove triumphant soar.
  Chilled by my nation's cold neglect, thy fires
  Glow bold no more, and all thy rage expires.
- Stanza 145 (tr. William Julius Mickle)

Fazei, Senhor, que nunca os admirados
Alemães, Galos, Ítalos e Ingleses,
Possam dizer que são pera mandados,
Mais que pera mandar, os Portugueses.
Tomai conselho só d'exprimentados
Que viram largos anos, largos meses,
Que, posto que em cientes muito cabe,
Mais em particular o experto sabe.
- Great Sir, let never the astonished Gall
  The English, German, and Italian,
  Have cause to say, the fainting Portugal
  Could not advance the great work he began.
  Let your advisers be experienced all,
  Such as have seen the world, and studied man.
  For, though in science much contained be,
  In special cases practice more doth see.
- Stanza 152 (tr. Richard Fanshawe); the poet advising King Sebastian of Portugal, then eighteen years of age.

Nem me falta na vida honesto estudo,
Com longa experiência misturado,
Nem engenho, que aqui vereis presente,
Cousas que juntas se acham raramente.
- Right honest studies my career can show
  with long experience blent as best beseems,
  and genius here presented for thy view;—
  gifts, that conjoined appertain to few.
- Stanza 154, lines 5–8 (tr. Richard Francis Burton)

Pera servir-vos, braço às armas feito,
Pera cantar-vos, mente às Musas dada.
- For serving thee an arm to arms addressed;
  for singing thee a soul the Muses raise.
- Stanza 155, line 1–2 (tr. Richard Francis Burton)

Fico que em todo o mundo de vós cante,
De sorte que Alexandro em vós se veja,
Sem à dita de Aquiles ter enveja.
- I, then inspired, the wondering world should see
  Great Ammon's warlike son revived in thee;
  Revived unenvious of the Muse's flame
  That over the world resounds Pelides' name.
- Stanza 156, line 6–8 (tr. William Julius Mickle); hear the last lines [in Portuguese]

Letters

As derradeiras palavras que na náu disse foram as de Scipião Africano: Ingrata patria, non possidebis ossa mea!
- The last words which I uttered on board of the vessel were those of Scipio—'Ungrateful country! thou shalt not even possess my bones'.
- Letter written from India (1553) to a friend at Lisbon, as quoted in Poems, from the Portuguese of Luis de Camoens (1808) by Percy Smythe, pp. 16–17

Quem ouviu dizer que em tão pequeno teatro como o de um pobre leito, quizesse a fortuna representar tão grandes desventuras? E eu, como se elas não bastassem, me ponho ainda da sua parte; porque procurar resistir a tantos males pareceria espécie de desavergonhamento.
- Who has seen on so small a theatre as my poor bed, such a representation of the disappointments of fortune? And I, as if she could not herself subdue me, I have yielded and become of her party; for it were wild audacity to hope to surmount such accumulated evils.
- Letter "written a little before his death", as quoted in The Lusiad; Or, The Discovery of India: An Epic Poem (1776) by William Julius Mickle, p. cxvi

Enfim acabarei a vida e verão todos que fui tão afeiçoado à minha Pátria que não só me contentei de morrer nela, mas com ela.
- I am ending the course of my life, but the world will bear witness how I have loved my country; I have returned not only to die on her bosom, but to die with her!
- Letter to Don Francisco de Almeyda, 1579; written after "the disaster of Alcácer-Kebir when the mad King Sebastião's mammoth invasion of Morocco ended in his death and the destruction or enslavement of all but one hundred of his army of over 20,000. [Camões] died on 10 June 1580, just before the throne passed to Philip II of Spain", as reported by Landeg White in The Lusiads (Oxford World's Classics, 2001), p. x; quoted as Camões' last words in The Yale Literary Magazine, Vol. VIII (January, 1843), No. 3, "Luis de Camoëns", p. 115.

Attributed

Com Amor a rosa,
Que tão fresca, &c.
- Just like Love is yonder rose.
- Rondeau in Poems, from the Portuguese of Luis de Camoens (1803) by Percy Smythe, 6th Viscount Strangford, p. 47; original source unclear.

Quotes about Camões

See also: Quotes about Os Lusíadas

Here lies Luis de Camoens:
he excelled all the poets of his time.
He lived poor and miserable;
and he died so.
~ Gonçalo Coutinho (1569)

Strange fortune that to so much wit and learning gave a life of poverty and a rich sepulcher.
~ Lope de Vega (1630)

Camoens, the greatest literary genius ever produced by Portugal; in martial courage, and spirit of honour, nothing inferior to her greatest heroes.
~ William Julius Mickle (1776)

An absolute poetical genius, the greatest in our literature.
~ José Saramago (1998)

Aqui jaz Luís de Camões
Príncipe
dos poetas do seu tempo;
viveu pobre e miseravelmente
e assi morreu.
- Here lies Luis de Camoens:
  he excelled all the poets of his time.
  He lived poor and miserable;
  and he died so.
- Inscription placed over Camões' grave by Gonçalo Coutinho, as quoted in Poems, from the Portuguese of Luis de Camoens: with Remarks on his Life and Writings; Notes, &c. &c. by Lord Viscount Strangford (1803), p. 22.

We look for something new in a literature unknown to us; we do not go to Lisbon to gaze into shop-windows which we can see in Paris. But the fact is that in Camões' lyrics we enter an enchanted country. They have a peculiar glow and magic which one seeks in vain elsewhere.
- Aubrey F. G. Bell, Luis de Camões (1923), pp. 98–99.

I can read Camoes, etc., pretty well now, and he—his sonnets—are superb—as good as any in English, certainly.
- Elizabeth Bishop, letter to Robert Lowell (28 July 1953), in Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell (2008), ed. Thomas Travisano with Saskia Hamilton, p. 142

His sonnets...are full of Petrarchic tenderness and grace, and moulded with classic correctness.
- Friedrich Bouterwek, as quoted in Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries by Henry Hallam, Vol. I (1848), p. 340.

He might well claim to be a Portuguese Virgil.
- Maurice Bowra, "Camoes and the Epic of Portugal", in From Virgil to Milton (1945).

He is a Humanist even in his contradictions, in his association of a Pagan mythology with a Christian outlook, in his conflicting feelings about war and empire, in his love of home and his desire for adventure, in his appreciation of pleasure and the demands of his heroic outlook. But he is above all a Humanist in his devotion to the classical ideal and in his conviction that this was the living force in the imaginative life of Europe in his time. ... His poem covers a wide range of experience because it was written by a man who was open to many kinds of impression and had a generous appreciation of human nature. ... His conception of manhood is fuller and more various than Virgil's. He has indeed something of Homer's pleasure in the variegated human scene and, like Homer, he knows that there can be more than one kind of noble manhood.
- Maurice Bowra, "Camoes and the Epic of Portugal".

And this morning, as I sat alone within the inner chamber
With the great saloon beyond it, lost in pleasant thought serene—
For I had been reading Camoëns—that poem you remember,
Which his lady's eyes are praised in, as the sweetest ever seen.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "Lady Geraldine's Courtship", in Poems, Vol. I (1844), p. 232

Camoens, with that look he had,
Compelling India's Genius sad
From the wave through the Lusiad,
With murmurs of a purple ocean
Indrawn in vibrative emotion
Along the verse!
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "A Vision of Poets", in Poems, Vol. II (1844), pp. 23–24

The most pleasing literary labour of my life has been to translate "The Lusiads"...of my master, Camoens.
- Richard Francis Burton, The Lusiads (1880), Preface, p. xi

[Camoens is] the perfection of a traveller's study... A wayfarer and voyager from his youth; a soldier, somewhat turbulent withal, wounded and blamed for his wounds; ... a doughty Sword and yet doughtier Pen; a type of the chivalrous age; a patriot of the purest water, so jealous of his Country's good fame that nothing would satisfy him but to see the world bow before her perfections; a genius, the first and foremost of his day, who died in the direst poverty and distress.
- Richard Francis Burton, The Lusiads (1880), Preface, pp. xi–xii

During how many hopeless days and sleepless nights Camoens was my companion, my consoler, my friend;—on board raft and canoe; sailer and steamer; on the camel and the mule; under the tent and the jungle-tree; upon the fire-peak and the snow-peak; on the Prairie, the Campo, the Steppe, the Desert!
- Richard Francis Burton, The Lusiads (1880), Preface, p. xiv

He was in sooth a genuine bard;
His was no faint, fictitious flame.
Like his, may love be thy reward,
But not thy hapless fate the same.
- Lord Byron, "Stanzas To A Lady, With The Poems Of Camoens", in The Works of Lord Byron, Including His Suppressed Poems (1827), p. 3

[Camões] alone, of all the lyric race, ...
Can look a common soldier in the face:
I find a comrade where I sought a master.
- Roy Campbell, Talking Bronco (1946), sonnet "Luís de Camões"

Through fire and shipwreck, pestilence and loss,
Led by the ignis fatuus of duty
To a dog's death—yet of his sorrows king—
He shouldered high his voluntary Cross,
Wrestled his hardships into forms of beauty,
And taught his gorgon destinies to sing.
- Roy Campbell, Talking Bronco (1946), sonnet "Luís de Camões"

[Camões] is the soldier's poet par excellence.
- Roy Campbell, Portugal (1957), p. 142

excelentissimo Camoes
- the most excellent Camoens
  - Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part Two (1615), p. 222

Camoens, the author of the Lusiads, ought to be censured by all his readers, when he brings in Bacchus and Christ into the same adventure of his fable.
- John Dryden, 'The Preface' to The State of Innocence (1674)

SPAINE gave me noble Birth: Coimbra, Arts:
LISBON, a high-plac't love, and Courtly parts:
AFFRICK, a Refuge when the Court did frowne:
WARRE, at an Eye's expence, a faire renowne:
TRAVAYLE, experience, with noe short sight
Of India, and the World; both which I write
INDIA a life, which I gave there for Lost
On Mecons waves (a wreck and Exile) tost
To boot, this POEM, held up in one hand
Whilst with the other I swam safe to land:
TASSO, a sonet, and (what's greater yit)
The honour to give Hints to such a witt.
PHLIP a Cordiall, (the ill Fortune see!)
To cure my Wants when those had new kill'd mee
My Country (Nothing—yes) Immortall Prayse
(so did I, Her) Beasts cannot browze on Bayes.
- Richard Fanshawe, The Lusiad (1655), prefatory poem

Tho' fiercest tribes her galling fetters drag,
Proud Spain must strike to Lusitania's flag,
Whose ampler folds, in conscious triumph spread,
Wave o'er her Naval Poet's laureate head.
Ye Nymphs of Tagus, from your golden cell,
That caught the echo of his tuneful shell,
Rise, and to deck your darling's shrine provide
The richest treasures that the deep may hide:
From every land let grateful Commerce shower
Her tribute to the Bard who sung her power;
As those rich gales, from whence his Gama caught
A pleasing earnest of the prize he sought,
The balmy fragrance of the East dispense,
So steals his Song on the delighted sense,
Astonishing, with sweets unknown before,
Those who ne'er tasted but of classic lore.
Immortal Bard, thy name with Gama vies,
Thou, like thy Hero, with propitious skies
The sail of bold adventure hast unfurl'd,
And in the Epic ocean found a world.
'Twas thine to blend the eagle and the dove,
At once the Bard of glory and of love,
Thy thankless country heard thy varying lyre,
To Petrarch's softness melt, and swell to Homer's fire!
Boast and lament, ungrateful land, a Name,
In life, in death, thy honor and thy shame.
- William Hayley, An Essay on Painting (1781), Epistle 3, pp. 57–58, lines 259–284

Que cosa mas lastimosa que ver un tan grande ingenio mal logrado! yo lo bi morir en un hospital en Lisbon, sin tener una sauana con que cubrirse, despues de aver triunfado en la India oriental y de aver navigado 5500 leguas por mar: que auiso tan grande para los que de noche y de dia se cançan estudiando sin provecho como la araña en urdir tellas para cazar moscas.
- What can be a more lamentable thing than to see so great a genius ill rewarded! I saw him die in a hospital at Lisbon, without having a winding sheet to cover him, after having triumphed in India, and sailed 5500 leagues by sea. What a great lesson for those who weary themselves day and night in studying without profit, as a spider is weaving its web to catch flies!
  - F. Josepe Judio, note written in the first edition of the Lusiad, as quoted in "Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Luis de Camoens" by John Adamson, in The Quarterly Review (April, 1822), p. 13.

The greatest poet of the sixteenth century, as of all others in Portuguese poetry, is he who sang of
"the renowned men,
Who, from the western Lusitanian shore,
Sailing through seas man never sailed before,
Passed beyond Taprobane,"—
Luis de Camoens, author of the national epic, "Os Lusiadas," who lived in poverty and wretchedness, died in the Lisbon hospital, and, after death, was surnamed the Great,—a title never given before, save to popes and emperors. The life of no poet is so full of vicissitude and romantic adventure as that of Camoens. In youth, he was banished from Lisbon on account of a love affair with Catharina de Attayda, a dama do paço, or lady of honour at court; he served against the Moors as a volunteer on board the fleet in the Mediterranean, and lost his right eye by a gun-shot wound in a battle off Ceuta; he returned to Lisbon, proud and poor, but found no favour at court, and no means of a livelihood in the city; he abandoned his native land for India, indignantly exclaiming with Scipio, "Ingrata patria, non possidebis ossa mea!" Three ships of the squadron were lost in a storm, he reached Goa safely in the fourth; he fought under the king of Cochin against the king of Pimenta; he fought against the Arabian corsairs in the Red Sea;he was banished from Goa to the island of Macao, where he became administrator of the effects of deceased persons, and where he wrote the greater part of the "Lusiad"; he was shipwrecked on the coast of Camboya, saving only his life and his poem, the manuscript of which he brought ashore saturated with sea-water; he was accused of malversation in office, and thrown into prison at Goa; after an absence of sixteen years, he returned in abject poverty to Lisbon, then ravaged by the plague; he lived a few years on a wretched pension granted him by King Sebastian when the "Lusiad" was published, and on the alms which a slave he had brought with him from India collected at night in the streets of Lisbon; and finally died in the hospital, exclaiming, "Who could believe that on so small a stage as that of one poor bed Fortune would choose to represent so great a tragedy?" Thus was completed the Iliad of his woes. Fifteen years afterward, a splendid monument was erected to his memory; so that, as has been said or another, "he asked for bread, and they gave him a stone."
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Poets and Poetry of Europa (1845), p. 731

Jack [Chase,] above all things, was an ardent admirer of Camoens. Parts of The Lusiad he could recite in the original.
- Herman Melville, White-Jacket (1850), Ch. IV.

Camoens! White Jacket, Camoens! Did you ever read him? The Lusiad, I mean? It's the man-of-war epic of the world, my lad. Give me Gama for a commodore, say I—noble Gama! ... How many great men have been sailors, White Jacket! They say Homer himself was once a tar, even as his hero, Ulysses, was both a sailor and a shipwright. I'll swear Shakspeare was once a captain of the forecastle. Do you mind the first scene in The Tempest, White Jacket? And the world-finder, Christopher Columbus, was a sailor! and so was Camoens, who went to sea with Gama, else we had never had The Lusiad, White Jacket. Yes, I've sailed over the very track that Camoens sailed—round the East Cape into the Indian Ocean. I've been in Don Jose's garden, too, in Macao, and bathed my feet in the blessed dew of the walks where Camoens wandered before me. Yes, White Jacket, and I have seen and sat in the cave at the end of the flowery, winding way, where Camoens, according to tradition, composed certain parts of his Lusiad. Ay, Camoens was a sailor once!
- Herman Melville, White-Jacket (1850), Ch. LXV.

For the last time, hear Camoens, boys!
- Herman Melville, White-Jacket (1850), Ch. XCIII.

CAMOENS
(Before)
Ever restless, restless, craving rest—
The Imperfect toward Perfection pressed
Yea, for the God demands thy best.
The world with endless beauty teems,
And though evokes new worlds of dreams
Hunt then the flying herds of themes!
And fan, still fan, thy fervid fire,
Until thy crucibled gold shall show
That fire can purge as well as glow.
In ordered ardour, nobly strong,
Flame to the height of epic song.
(After)
CAMOENS IN THE HOSPITAL
What now avails the pageant verse,
Trophies and arms with music borne?
Base is the world; and some rehearse
Now noblest meet ignoble scorn,
Vain now thy ardour, vain thy fire,
Delirium mere, unsound desire;
Fate's knife hath ripped thy corded lyre.
Exhausted by the exacting lay,
Thou dost but fall a surer prey
To wile and guile ill understood;
While they who work them, fair in face,
Still keep their strength in prudent place,
And claim they worthier run life's race,
Serving high God with useful good.
- Herman Melville, paired sonnets published in The Works of Herman Melville (1924), p. 414

Luis de Camoens, the greatest literary genius ever produced by Portugal; in martial courage, and spirit of honour, nothing inferior to her greatest heroes.
- William Julius Mickle, The Lusiad; Or, The Discovery of India: an Epic Poem (1776), Introduction, p. cxvi

The apparition, which in the night hovers athwart the fleet near the Cape of Good Hope, is the grandest fiction in human composition; the invention his own!
- William Julius Mickle, The Lusiad (1776), Introduction, p. cxlvi

The fiction of the apparition of the Cape of Tempests, in sublimity and awful grandeur of imagination, stands unsurpassed in human composition.
- William Julius Mickle, The Lusiad (1776), Book V, footnote on p. 206

But for Camoens, though he has some glaring faults, he hath, doubtless, many original beauties; both of which, indeed, speak uncommon abilities. He is not correct like Virgil; but the hand of cold and sober judgment would have blotted out the novelties that surprise and delight us: these are "sublime infirmities," which will not bear the inquisition of the critic. "The epic poetry of Camoens, (says Voltaire,) is a sort of poetry unheard of before." I allow it; but not to his dishonour. The manners of the Lusiad are new and striking. And as to imagery, the apparition, hovering athwart the fleet near the Cape of Good Hope, is so grand a fiction, that it would alone set Camoens above Virgil, in point of genius. And what are the Elysian Fields to the Island of Venus!
- Richard Polwhele, Discourses on Different Subjects, 2nd edition (1791), as quoted in The Critical Review, Vol. II (1791), pp. 369–370

The Rubens of verse.
- Ezra Pound, The Spirit of Romance (1910), p. 216.

Camoens was a master of sound and language, a man of vigour and a splendid rhetorician.
- Ezra Pound, The Spirit of Romance (1910), p. 220.

Black the mountains of Timor
Sweeping from the sea
Watched Camoëns drift ashore,
Rags and misery . . .
Hidden in that hollow rod
Slept, like heavenly flame
Titan-stolen from a god,
Lusitania's flame.
- Enoch Powell, Poem VI, 'Os Lusíadas', Dancer's End, as reported in Tom Nairn: "Enoch Powell: The New Right", New Left Review I/61, May-June 1970, and quoted in The Break-up of Britain (2003) by Tom Nairn, p. 271.

What other lessons could I possibly receive from a Portuguese who lived in the sixteenth century, who composed the Rimas and the glories, the shipwrecks and the national disenchantments in the Lusíadas, who was an absolute poetical genius, the greatest in our literature, no matter how much sorrow this causes to Fernando Pessoa, who proclaimed himself its Super Camões? No lesson would fit me, no lesson could I learn, except the simplest, which could have been offered to me by Luís Vaz de Camões in his pure humanity, for instance the proud humility of an author who goes knocking at every door looking for someone willing to publish the book he has written, thereby suffering the scorn of the ignoramuses of blood and race, the disdainful indifference of a king and of his powerful entourage, the mockery with which the world has always received the visits of poets, visionaries and fools. At least once in life, every author has been, or will have to be, Luís de Camões...
- José Saramago, Nobel Lecture (7 December 1998)

The perfection [Vollendung] of Portuguese poetry is all the more apparent in the beautiful poems of the great Camões.
- Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, Dichtkunst (1803) [Portuguese Poetry], as quoted in Twilight Of The Literary: Figures Of Thought In The Age Of Print (2005) by Terry Cochran, p. 121.

Sei, Camoens, denn mein Vorbild!
- Thus, Camoes, be my model!
  - Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, Dichtergarten (1807), sonnet "An Camoens".

Gedoemd poëet, zwerver en banneling.
- Doomed poet, wanderer and exile.
  - J. Slauerhoff, Oost-Azië (1928), "Camoës"

Ed or quella del colto, e buon Luigi,
Tant 'oltre stende il glorioso volo,
Ch'i tuoi spalmati legni andar men lunge.
Ond'a quelli, a cui s'alza il nostro polo,
Ed a chi ferma incontra i suoi vestigi,
Per lui del corso tuo la fama aggiunge.
- Great as thou art, and peerless in renown,
  Yet thou to Camoens ow'st thy noblest fame;
  Farther than thou didst sail, his deathless song
  Shall bear the dazzling splendour of thy name;
  And under many a sky thy actions crown,
  While Time and Fame together glide along.
  - Torquato Tasso, Sonnet to Camoens (written in 1580), as translated by William Julius Mickle in The Lusiad; Or, The Discovery of India: An Epic Poem (1776), p. cxlviii. Note: John Black dates this sonnet to 1586 in his Life of Torquato Tasso, Vol. I (1810), p. 391.

Fortuna estrana que al ingenio aplico
La vida pobre y el sepulcro rico.
- Strange fortune that to so much wit and learning gave a life of poverty and a rich sepulcher.
  - Lope de Vega, Laurel de Apolo (1630); translation from The Spell of China (1917) by Archie Bell, p. 81.

Camoëns, en Portugal, ouvrait une carrière toute nouvelle, et s'acquérait une réputation qui dure encore parmi ses compatriotes, qui l'appellent le Virgile portugais.
- Camoens in Portugal steered a new course, and acquired a reputation which lasts still among his countrymen, who pay as much respect to his memory as the English to Milton.
  - Voltaire, An Essay on Epic Poetry (1727), 'Camouens'. Note: "Virgile portugais" translates as "Portuguese Virgil".

Camões soothed with it [the Sonnet] an exile's grief.
- William Wordsworth, Scorn Not the Sonnet (1827), line 6.

External links

Encyclopedic article on Luís de Camões on Wikipedia

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