Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
King Manuel dubbed da Gama “Admiral of the Sea of India” and sent him out again,
this time to subdue the Indian people, establish more trade outposts, and again return
home to wealth and honor. Da Gama died on Christmas Eve 1524, in India. His memory
lives on due to the tribute of two men: Manuel, who built this large church, and Luís de
Camões (honored opposite Vasco), who turned da Gama's history-making voyage into an
epic poem.
Memorial to Luís de Camões:
Camões (kah-MOISH, 1524-1580) is Portugal's
Shakespeare and Casanova rolled into one, an adventurer and writer whose heroic poems
glorifying the nation's sailing exploits live on today. It was Camões who described Por-
tugal as the place “where land ends and the sea begins.”
After college at Coimbra, Camões was banished from the court (1546) for flirting with
the noble lady Dona Caterina. He lost an eye soldiering in Morocco (he's always por-
trayed squinting), served jail time for brawling with a bureaucrat, and then caught a ship
to India and China, surviving a shipwreck on the way. While serving as a colonial admin-
istrator in India, he plugged away at the epic poem that would become his masterpiece.
Returning to Portugal, he published
The Lusiads
(
Os Lusíadas,
1572), winning minor re-
cognition and a small pension.
The long poem describes Vasco da Gama's first voyage to India in heroic terms, on the
scale of Homer's
Odyssey. The Lusiads
begins:
Arms and the heroes, from Lisbon's shore,
sailed through seas never dared before,
with awesome courage, forging their way
to the glorious kingdoms of the rising day.
The poem goes on to recite many events in Portuguese history, from the time of the
Lusiads (the original pre-Roman natives) onward. Even today, Camões' words are quoted
by modern Portuguese politicians in search of a heroic sound bite. And Portugal's nation-
al holiday, June 10, is known as Camões Day, remembering the day in 1580 when the
great poet died. The stone monument here—with literary rather than maritime motifs—is
a cenotaph (his actual burial spot is unknown).
