Luís de Camões

Luís de Camões (Lisbon, 1524 - Lisbon, 10 June 1580) was a Portuguese poet, generally regarded as the greatest writer in the Portuguese language. He lived during the Renaissance and wrote mainly in Portuguese, though he also composed a few sonnets in Spanish. His epic The Lusiads turned him into one of the most powerful symbols of Portuguese identity, and the day of his death, 10 June, is now Portugal's national day.

Little is known for certain about his early years, and much of what is repeated about him is probably folklore that tends to gather around famous figures. His family on his father's side had Galician roots: an ancestor, Vasco Pires de Camões, a troubadour and nobleman, moved to Portugal in 1370 and left behind nationalist poetry. Relatives included seafarers, merchants and an uncle, Bento, who became an Augustinian friar at the Monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra. Where and when he was born remains debated. Lisbon, Coimbra, Santarém and Alenquer have all been proposed, and although early biographers gave 1517, later records point to 1524 in Lisbon. Modern scholars still treat both place and date as uncertain.

His uncle is believed to have looked after him and sent him to study in Coimbra, although his name does not appear in university records. His works, full of learned quotations, show a solid classical education in Latin, history and ancient and modern literature. Around the age of twenty he settled in Lisbon and moved in the court of King John III, where he began writing lyric poetry. Tradition credits him with a restless, bohemian life and several love affairs, though some of the women named in later accounts are now thought to be later additions to his legend. After a disappointed love, he is said to have enlisted as a soldier in Ceuta, where he spent two years and lost his right eye in a naval battle in the Strait of Gibraltar. Back in Lisbon he resumed his turbulent life. In 1553 he was imprisoned for wounding a palace employee during a religious procession, and soon afterwards he was freed on condition that he sail for India.

That same year he boarded the São Bento, part of Fernão Álvares Cabral's fleet. After a storm off the Cape of Good Hope he reached Goa in 1554 and took part in several military campaigns, including one against the king of Chembé. He spent time in Ormuz and by then had probably begun The Lusiads. In Goa he wrote the Auto de Filodemo for governor Francisco Barreto, but he also faced arrests, possibly over debts or an anonymous satire attributed to him. Later he was given responsibility for the estates of the dead and missing in Macau, where, according to tradition, he wrote part of his poem in a grotto that now bears his name. On the return journey his ship was wrecked near the mouth of the Mekong, and tradition holds that only he and the manuscript of his poem survived.

Back in Portugal he published The Lusiads, an epic on Vasco da Gama's voyage that blends national history, mythology and reflection. King Sebastian I granted him a modest pension, but his last years were marked by poverty and bitter complaints about the neglect of his work. Shortly after his death the anthology Rimas appeared, gathering his lyric poems. Camões renewed the Portuguese language and set a model that lasted for centuries. His name became a reference point for the whole Portuguese-speaking world, his work has been translated into many languages, and it remains a subject of constant study.