Camoens
LUIS DE (kam'ō-ens), a Portuguese poet; born in Lisbon, probably in 1524 or 1525. Disappointed in love, he became a soldier, and served in the fleet which the Portuguese sent against Morocco, losing his right eye in a naval engagement before Ceuta. An affray into which he was drawn was the cause of his embarking in 1553 for India. He landed at Goa, but, being unfavorably impressed with the life led by the ruling Portuguese there, wrote a satire which caused his banishment to Macao (1556). Here, however, he was appointed to an honorable position as administrator of the property of absentee and deceased Portuguese, and here, too, in what were the quietest and most prosperous years of his life, he wrote the earlier cantos of his great poem, the "Lusiad." Returning to Goa in 1561, he was shipwrecked and lost all his property except his precious manuscript. After much misfortune Camoens in 1570 arrived once more in his native land, poor and without influence, as he had left it. The "Lusiad" was now CAMORRA printed at Lisbon (1572), and celebrating ing as it did the glories of the Portuguese conquests in India, acquired at once a wide popularity. The king himself accepted the dedication of the poem, but the only reward Camoens obtained was a pittance insufficient to save him from poverty; and it is said that his faithful Javanese servant had often to beg food for them both in the streets.
The "Lusiad" is an epic poem in 10 cantos. Its subject is the voyage of Vasco da Gama to the East Indies; but many other events in the history of Portugal are also introduced. The other works of Camoens consist of sonnets, songs, epigrams, dramas, etc. He died June 18, 1579. or CAMOMILE,