Luis Vaz de Camões, Portuguese Epic Poet 1524-1580
America needs a poet like the Portuguese Camões!
By Manuel Luciano da Silva, Medical Doctor
Luis
Vaz de Camões, Portuguese Epic Poet 1524-1580
In
June 1949, when I was a student at New York University, I came, purposely, to
New England, to visit Dighton Rock, which is located only 10 miles north
of Fall River, Massachusetts,
on the left margin of the Taunton River.
More
than fifty years ago I want to be
like Saint Thomas: "See
it, to believe it". I
came from New York to verify the evidence of the Portuguese inscriptions on
Dighton Rock. It was love at first sight. I
never forgot the emotion I felt seeing engraved on Dighton Rock the name of
Miguel Corte Real, the Portuguese National Symbols, four Crosses of
the Order of Christ and the date 1511.
For
more than 50 years, I have written also
many articles in English and Portuguese, did many radio an television programs,
delivered up to now 344 illustrated lectures,
and I was able to coordinate the efforts of several Portuguese-Americans
to send three replicas in fiberglass of
the face of Dighton Rock to Portugal:
one in Lisbon, the second in
Oliveira de Azeméis
and the third
in my house-museum, in
Cavião, Vale de
Cambra.
I
have been the guide to many thousands of students to see the Dighton Rock Museum
and examined with them the face of the Dighton Rock inscriptions.
I always welcome the opportunity to show to the American youth the most important monument in America attesting that the Portuguese navigators were the first discoverers of New England, and therefore Dighton Rock is the best symbol of Day of Portugal in the United States.
June
Portuguese American Month in Massachusetts
On
Sunday, June 11, 2000, we are going
to celebrate "June Portuguese American Mont" in the State of
Massachusetts and also "Portugal Day" at the Dighton Rock Museum and
State Park.
Besides
explaining to the visitors the Portuguese inscriptions engraved on Dighton Rock,
I will also explain to them the
meaning of "Portugal Day" and why we also will be
honoring the memory of the
great Poet Luis Vaz de Camões.
I
will also explain to the visitors that the United States of America needs of a
Poet like the Portuguese Luis de Camões to sing in epic verse the great
achievements of the American People.
The American Camões
Today there are 204 nations or independent states in the world.
Of these 204 nations only Greece and Portugal, are the only
nations, that possess epic poems, describing
their history in verse.
Camões -- who was also blind in
the right eye -- wrote the
Portuguese epic poem, entitle "Os Lusíadas, which means "The Portuguese" describing
in epic verse, four centuries of the Portuguese History.
The
Portuguese poem has 8,816 verses and 55 thousand words.
If
we compare Camões with other poetic genius
of the world, we verify that the others did not choose to write about the
history of their own country.
Shakespeare wrote 39 theatrical poems , with various dramatic
protagonists, but did not write about the history of England in epic verse.
Milton, another
English poet, also blind, wrote a
poem entitled "Paradise Lost", concerning
the metaphysics of the eternity, but he did not write about the naval
victory over the Invincible
Armada!
Dante, known all over the world by his "Divine Comedy", did not write
about the achievements of the Italian people.
Napoleon, does not have an epic
poem that describes the History of
France.
The United States of America is the only nation in the world able to send
men to the moon and have them return safely to earth, with the greatest
scientific discoveries in the world, where is the American Camões
that is able to sing in epic verse, the glorious history of the United
States of America?
The
XV century is called the Portuguese Century
because the Portuguese navigators were able to discover more than two thirds of the world.
The
Americans are going to have the right of calling
the XX century --the American Century.
But
I repeat, when are the Americans going
to have an American Camões to sing in verse the great odyssey of the American
people including the conquests of the outer space?
I am doubly proud of being a Portuguese-American because I am
descendent of a nation which was the champion of
the world discoveries five centuries ago, and am also a
citizen of a nation which is the world champion of the conquest of outer space!
Camões the greatest Portuguese Emigrant
Another
message that I am going to give the visitors
is that Camões was the
greatest Portuguese emigrant. He
was an emigrant for sixteen years in Africa, India, Goa and Far East, Macao.
As
an emigrant Camões went through much
hunger, ate bread prepared by the
devil, suffered diseases and
also fell in love. As emigrant he had
to adapted himself to strange peoples, of dark
and yellow skins, and
deal with kind or hostile
peoples.
To
make his daily living, Camões as an emigrant had to do several jobs, including
digging graves in the cemetery of Macao.
As
an emigrant Camões suffered many painful
experiences. It is himself who he describes his pains in his verses,
such as : "leaving pieces of his life scattered all over,"
and also "such bad experiences
that made my soul bleed profusely...
But it was during his dramatic life of an emigrant that Camões wrote his best sonnets and wrote also The Lusíadas", which is indeed the Bible of the Portuguese people.
Emigrants the most important Portuguese
Strangely
as it may seem, when he make an
analysis of the Portuguese writers
and historians
we verify the greatest achievers were all Portuguese emigrants:
Damião de Goes, Francisco Manuel de Melo, Eça de Queiróz, António Nobre, Antero de Quental, Alexandre Herculano, Almeida Garrett, Bocage, Sá de Miranda, Ramalho Ortigão, Pedro Vaz de Caminha, Fernão Mendes Pinto, Almirante Gago Coutinho, Ferreira de Castro, Fernando Pessoa, nine years in África, and so many others. Even Santo António of Lisboa, one hundred Portuguese Saints and two Portuguese Popes were all Portuguese Emigrants!!!
There
is no doubt that the most glorious names of the Portuguese History, from
navigators, missionaries, historians, and writers, ALL were Portuguese
emigrants!
When
I go to Portugal and have occasion to speak with university professors I tell
them that Camões was the greatest Portuguese emigrant, they do not like
it. Why? Because they want Camões just for themselves.
Too
bad for the professors. They have
to learn the truth.
To be an emigrant is painful, but we became better men and more complete
men!
We even have the courage of stating that even though we live many miles away from our native homeland, we are able to sublime our sentiments to such a degree that we feel deeper the sentiment of being Portuguese.
Universal
Portuguese Emigrant's Day
We gladly accept June 10th to mean also emigrants' Day, because we are also part of the Portuguese Pilgrim Nation scattered all over the world, comprising forty per cent of the Portuguese. We make a total of four million Portuguese on this planet. Forty per cent of the Portuguese living on this planet are emigrants!!!
Dighton Rock symbol of the Emigrants
We
Portuguese-Americans should feel happy that we have in our back yard a genuine
Portuguese land marker -- The Dighton Rock -- which unites us
and at the same time gives much
us pride our Portuguese ancestry,
but at the same time is the corner stone of the American History.
As
Portuguese-Americans we should also feel very grateful to our fellow Americans
in Massachusetts who approved unanimously a Proclamation establishing annually
June as Portuguese American Month.