Luis de CAMOENS - 2

Alfredo de Mello

[ The 1581 portrait of Luis de Camoens with the inscription in Marathi / Hindi which reads MahaKavi Camoi-ish  in other words: the Great Poet Camoens ]

Personally I feel, that Camoens belongs to Goa also, and it is a pity that the Indian Govt. took down the Luis de Camoens statue which was erected in Old Goa.  A de M
 

CAMOENS  by Alfredo de Mello : continued from page 1  

In 1550 the old Captain of Ceuta, D. Afonso de Noronha was recalled, and appointed as a new Viceroy to India, and Camoens returned with him to Lisbon, with the idea to accompany the Viceroy as a valiant cavalier to India. But he did not embark, as his beloved was still single, and he felt himself loved. He tarried in Lisbon, living in the Mouraria, that is, the ancient city quarter where the Moors lived before the conquest of Lisbon by the first King of Portugal in 1139.; he kept visiting the Court, and nourishing fond hopes, until during the Procession of Corpus Christi on June 16, 1552, there was a brawl, and Camoens wounded one Gonçalo Borges, who served the King, in charge of the royal cavalry. Camoens was sent to the jail of Tronco, where he spent eight months, and could have been condemned more severely because his action was interpreted as a case of "lèse-majesté". It was a generous lady Dona Francisca de Aragâo, an admirer of Camoens, by her influence in the Palace, who obtained the pardon of Gonçalo Borges who had recovered fully from the sword wounds, and thereby obtained the King´s pardon for Camoens. However, the King ordered Camoens to go to India for five years military service, without granting the royal mercies generally given by the King to the fidalgos who went to India.

I have dwelt with the past of Camoens rather extensively, in order to put him in a proper perspective, as he spent the next sixteen years in Goa and in the Orient. It was during this time that he composed the greater part of his famous epopee, "The Lusiadas" glorifying the deeds of the Portuguese navigators and military leaders, against the background of the early history of Portugal. This work ranks among the most renowned narrative epic poems, such as the Illiad and the Odyssey, for Camoens had a profound classical education combined with perfect mastery of his instrument and a lifetime of varied experience in sonnets, eclogues, odes and elegies.

It was in Goa also that Camoens befriended two of the most famous Portuguese men in history, the old Dr. Garcia da Orta, a botanist, a scientist of renown, and the chronicler Diogo do Couto. The former had spent thirty years in India, many of them in the Portuguese settlement of Bombay, in research of the simple medicines used in Asia, as described in his "COLOQUIES OF THE SIMPLES AND DRUGS," after verifying by observation and experience what was positive in this part of Arab and Hindu science, which influenced immediately Europe at the end of the sixteenth century, and throughout the seventeenth century. The latter, Diogo do Couto, was author of "DIALOGUE OF THE EXPERIENCED SOLDIER", which can rank as the noblest historical monument of the century. To omit these two names from the Memoirs of Goa would be a sacrilege, as Goa was the breeding ground of their masterpieces.

 Let us refer to the non-commissioned soldiers and how they fared when they reached Goa after an arduous and dangerous voyage.

Francisco Rodrigues Silveira in his "MEMOIRS OF A SOLDIER IN INDIA" narrates how disdainfully the newly arrived soldiers were treated. The rejoicing and merriment of the arrival of a carrack from Lisbon, and the tolling of bells of the many churches and cathedrals, were just a superficial excitement, because these unfortunate soldiers who had escaped from the jaws of shipwreck, scurvy, and pestilent infections, received no welcome and were abandoned after disembarking in Goa.

"These poor soldiers arrive, mostly without a single silver coin which would buy them a meal on that first day. After disembarking and being greeted by a mighty salvo of yells and infamous insults, not only from the manservants and negroes, but also from the troops of their own nation and fatherland; those who did not carry any money or a letter of recommendation to some friend or relative, would spend that first night under the eaves of the churches, or inside some vessel, anchored on the riverside, with such misery and mishap, as if with great fortune the sea had thrown them in some port or land of enemies. Thus the soldiers spend the second and third day, pawning or selling a cape and the sword that they carry, until they get disillusioned with the way of life in this land. And they go, four together or six together, living in little hovels, where they wonder, consumed by pure hunger, and thus many get sick and die. And those who are of robust nature, who are able to survive all these strife  with health, keep on going on and their miseries as best as they can, in the shade of the hopes which the experienced sailors give them about the Armada, that two or three months later ought to sail along the Malabar...".

Some of these hungry, abandoned soldiers, were fed by a rich settler, but in exchange, they became this man's private army, which in several cases, numbered twenty soldiers, until they were mustered by the Viceroy to embark on a punitive expedition against the pirates and marauders in the sea lanes controlled by Portugal. Before sailing, they received a quarter of their pay, money known as "quartel", which was generally ten xerafins, with which they could buy a shotgun. 

Camoens did not meet this fate because he had relatives in Goa; yet, when he joined in a battle campaign, he confirmed what Silveira condemned so vehemently, for the authorities would send the soldiers to war "without even resting five or six days after such a long and hazardous voyage". Camoens had as relatives the Severim family, descendants of Vasco Pires de Camoens, one Joâo Camoens, and also Gonçalo Vaz de Camoens, son of Simâo de Camoens da Camara who was Captain of Daman. Likewise one Manuel Pegado , married to Inez de Camoens, sister of the aforementioned, and Duarte Frade de Faria, likewise married within the Severim family.

The Viceroy Afonso de Noronha, who knew very well the courage of the poet, when they were together in Ceuta, took him along at the end of November 1553 in an expedition against the king of Chembé or of Pepper, who had taken certain islands of the king of Porca, whose reign consisted of several villages of fishermen and pirates. The king conspired with the Zamorin of Calicut, along with other Malabar princes, and tried to intercept the cargo of pepper, which was destined to sail from Cochin on the fleet's annual return voyage to Portugal

Soon, Camoens took part in another cruise against the piracy of the Arabs, be it in the Persian Gulf or in the straits of the Red Sea. He accompanied the son of the Viceroy Afonso de Noronha and wrote verses extolling his feats, but these eulogies instead of flattering the Viceroy, wounded Noronha unconsciously, because the poet ignored what a fraudulent administration he had practised. Camoens revealed later his deception when he learnt what was going around him.

Indeed, the Viceroys who were appointed for a three-year period indulged in the most outrageous frenzy of acquiring riches, and with such an example from the top, the whole administration thrived in extortion and embezzlement.

Silveira writes in his "MEMOIRS OF A SOLDIER IN INDIA": "it seems a shameful thing, and scandalous to see what many Viceroys profit from their three-year term; it is not known nor understood, the amount of money which they pocket. if it weren't for persons who with secret curiosity knowingly observe - the five hundred or six hundred thousand cruzados, which in exchange of so much discredit of the royal authority, blood and lives of their fellowmen, they pocket."

Fairly soon Camoens had no illusions about the administration of the Viceroys in India, while the Portuguese oriental Empire dissolved itself by a governing depredation, just forty odd years after it had begun gloriously under Afonso de Albuquerque.

This tremendous crisis is described by Camoens' friend and contemporary, Diogo do Couto: "The rents of India are not sufficient to cover ordinary expenses". And contrasting the two epochs, he adds: "in India, where there were not more than two thousand men (from Portugal); who spent their time in winter and in summer, in the Armadas monitoring the coast of India, and the Straits (of Malacca) and had no other life, than being satisfied with their pay; but now, that there are fifteen or sixteen thousand men distributed in the fortresses, cities, towns and castles of His Majesty, and other places in which they themselves settled, that is, in places of enemies, which are populated by sons and grandsons, and many live with the natives with real estate, and great rents, live negotiating their profits as bees, and for the Armadas of His Majesty there are many men to receive ( salaries) and few to serve"... Diogo do Couto points out some of these depthless pools, where the riches of India disappeared: "This poverty is caused by the many ordained Archbishops, Bishops, Inquisitors and other officials, maintenance fees of the Monasteries that exist now...".

"Advance payment of 5000 pardaus to the Captains of Chaul, Bassein and Diu... it was organized robbery within the administration"... "All the posts of Scribes, Commissioners, Judges and other officers of the Indies, are distributed for a period of three years, and must be exercised personally, it being a great favour to transfer these posts to a son-in-law as dowry of the wife".

The Flemish Linschotten mentions : "Each public official tried to make the most money possible during this term of three years. And the worst is what occurred with the government of the Viceroys, always willful and with no plan". And Diogo do Couto noticed this facet: "... so much so that every three years you can see India changed, that one doesn't know, as a man who enters in power by many figures with different costumes; because there is not a single Viceroy who wishes to conserve, and sustain what was achieved by the former".

 continued on Page 3

Alfredo de Mello
resubmitted to TGF on Aug 15 1999

 

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