TE19 Iberian Adventure

Passing Time in Portugal

another famous son.

A member of the old aristocracy, Camões studied at Coimbra where he injured a royal cavalryman in a duel. He was pardoned by John III but sent to the East, forced to exchange the vanity of court life for the rigours of military campaign. His piquant prose plumbs the depths of sorrow; Camões personified the profound anguish of exile.

“A yearning fraught with loneliness, I burnt myself at many flames.” Pedro recited.

The constant feeling of absence and distance, a persistent melancholy defines the Portuguese psyche. Saudade harks back to the Portuguesegoldenageof conquest anddiscoveries, chivalry and valour, beauty, and honour. It captures the bitter sweetness of great triumphs and the anguish of lovers separated by war. Perhaps ‘missingness’ comes closest to capturing the nostalgia for what never was, a haunting sadness, a distance gaze, the delicious cocktail of sadness, sorrow, and love. Camoes’ epic ‘Lusiads’ recalls his own perilous journey around the Cape en route to Goa. He was shipwrecked in the Mekong Delta but managed to swimashore, holding his manuscript above the water. “From his Macau exile Camões’ eulogy of the dangerous life recountsVascodaGama’s journeyaroundthecapeandsubsequent discovery of the sea route to India.” In Grecian myth the Ten Titans were defeated by the gods and 187