The Lusiads (Penguin Classics)

"The Lusiads" is the Portuguese national epic, and its author, Luís Vaz de Camões, is a national hero throughout Portugal. When you travel in Portugal and see a painting or statue of a man in medieval armor with one eye closed, you can pretty much count on it being a painting or statue of Camões, who lost an eye as a Portuguese soldier. "The Lusiads" tells a story of Vasco da Gama successfully making his way around Cape Horn and voyaging to India to begin the creation of Portugal's overseas colonial empire. In Camões's vision of the Da Gama expedition, the explorer achieves this success for Portugal and Christianity in spite of bitter opposition from Muslim warlords and rulers in both East Africa and India. As for Camões's attitude toward Islam, suffice it to say that pretty much every Muslim in the book is evil and treacherous, except for one decent and honorable Muslim who ends up helping Da Gama and converting to Christianity! In other words, this book is not going to receive an Interfaith Award for Ecumenical Understanding anytime soon. It is also interesting to note that, because Camões seems to have wished to display his classical education, pre-Christian deities of ancient Rome, like Bacchus and Venus, play a prominent role in mortal doings the same way they do in the works of Homer and Virgil - rather jarring in a book that makes so much of its commitment to Roman Catholic Christianity. Bacchus in particular is quite an antagonist of Da Gama and crew, constantly stirring up the Muslims of various kingdoms to try to destroy the Portuguese Christian heroes of the book. Not an easy read by any means, but an interesting insight into the self-image of Portugal just as that small Iberian nation was entering what is still called its Golden Age.

A bit heavy going. But necessary to understand and appreciate Portuguese history. Stick with it. The seamen of Portugal discovered large portions of the world unknown to Europeans.

Book was as described and arrived promptly. Thank you!

I was at first attracted by the beautiful cover showing an a map from 1555. Like all Penguin editions, there is a helpful introduction to put the Lusiads in context.I knew very little Portuguese history before reading this delightful work. I now have a firm grasp of the basics and a better knowledge of geography, especially in India. (I had to look up many of the port cities)I enjoyed the way Camoes imitated the format of Homer and Virgil, with gods working for and against the protagonist. I appreciated how he used the opinion of Pliny that Lusitania, the ancient name for Portugal, was derived from Lusus, son of Bacchus. Hence, the Lusiads.The work is militantly Catholic, but not to the degree of the Song of Roland or the Song of my Cid. It is evident how very religious Camoes, like so many of the explorers and missionaries, was.

Does a nation crown its own bard, or does the positive verdict of outsiders and time compel it to rally behind its received representative? In either case, Portugal claims Camoes. His curriculum vitae was certainly up to the task, perhaps having more first hand experience of war's travails, foreign locales, and acquaintance with diverse peoples than any other epic writer before him. Some however, might use his case to question Thoreau's dictum: "standing up to live before sitting down to write" might not be sufficient.Camoes, like Vergil, had deathbed pangs of literary humility, and did not want his work to see the light of day. Thankfully, also like Vergil, he was in communion with others who had high enough artistic sensibilities to think otherwise. There is much to appreciate in "The Lusiads." Camoes, by all appearances as dedicated to God as to the Muses, does a masterful balancing act with the cosmos, building an orthodox Catholic compatible framework of heaven and earth where the Olympian gods can play out their classically enchanting roles without sacrificing expression or offending papal authority. An unexpected antagonist is found in Dionysus, and Venus serves her (well-practiced) guiding role for the hero. This creates a strange polarization of the sensual gods, and it works. Sometimes myth, religion, and modern geography meld beautifully: the convocation of the Nereids, Adamastor guarding the cape of Good Hope, and the "locus amoenus" episode on the Island of Samoa breathe original new life into myth as well as the very best of Renaissance literature.There is a lot of direct and lengthy exhortation to what Camoens implies are lazy compatriots lacking the zeal even to seek wealth and fame, if killing treacherous Muslims and spreading the glory of the crown and cross were not motivation enough. ("The Lusiads" incidentally offers a significant quantity of Islamophobia. No "infidel" is trustworthy, and refuge is sooner to be found with pagan peoples, the likes of which the hero De Gama and other Conquistadors spared no violence.) And those heavy-handed exhortations are what ultimately brands Camoes as a second rate bard: the tale of the epic proper cannot rise to Vergilian, let alone Homeric heights in his hands, and cannot reach people on the merit of its art alone. His boasts that the Portuguese have bested Roman valor in foreign conquest and Phoenecian seafaring in spreading trade could well be true, but epic is - at its essence - not history, and he has great trouble separating the two. It is unclear how the oftentimes petty Portuguese feudal nobility, (whom we read about in a bloated ecphrasis at the reception of dignitaries at port in India,) produce such an unwaveringly brave warrior class, and there are hints of rising imperial competition from England and France. Camoes' patriotism is insecure, never allowing his readers to experience a mythical past of heroes who transcend human boundaries and provide a timeless inspiration. He strikes a devil's bargain by stressing the historicity of De Gama's and Portugal's achievements to justify their epic-worthiness, and the unflattering or insipid elements of real life tarnish the final product.Atkinson states in his introduction (after making the usual apologies about the difficulties of translation) that he has little use for the poetic vehicle of "The Lusiads." In his own words, this version aims to offer a "service to the living, not a pious tribute to the dead." I don't know just what "service" Atkinson thinks the living seek out when they pick up this crown jewel of Portuguese poetry. I should be clear that this is a fine prose translation, but I suspect that there is probably more to be appreciated when "The Lusiads" is set even to English verse, let alone kept in the original.

Important work in Portuguese-Brazilian culture. Quick response from Amazon with an excellent Penguin translation.

The epic is a strange mixture of delightful lyricism and tedious geographical lists. This prose translation has clarity, but flat when it deals with poetic passages. The author is no Homer or Virgil, but he was talented and knew his mythology. I may try a poetic translation in spite of William Atkinson's caveats!

Interesting view into the glory years of Portuguese travel around the globe