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From Alfredo de Mello's
"Memoirs of Goa"
Luis de CAMOENS - 4
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 3 Pyrard wrote that "these slave girls do not dress in the fashion of Portugal, and use long pieces of silk cloth, which serve as skirts, and they have also very fine silk upper clothing which they call baju. Among these slaves one can find the most beautiful girls of all the nations of India". Pyrard informs that the slaves are obliged to bring to their lords all the licit and illicit gains, just as the Flemish merchant-traveler Johan Huighens van Lynschotten also reports, in his "Navigatio ac itinerarium" during his sojourn in 1583. This repugnant practice is also confirmed by Father Francisco de Sousa in his book "ORIENTE CONQUISTADO" ( part 6, chapters 21-22). Camoens became infatuated with a slave called Luisa Barbara. How could Camoens resist a woman who sang to him stanzas of the passionate Indian popular poetry ? One pad like the following: "I woke up thinking of you, without you there is no happiness and joy". Teófilo Braga , in his "History of Portuguese Literature: Camoens, his Life and Work" describes beautifully the magic spell of Barbara: "The poet could not remain impassive before the voluptuous flexuosity of those curves which make alive the movements that wrapped him up; neither from the languid looks of a morbidity which magnetizes and breaks the will by desire. Barbara was the type of a native girl, dark skinned; arms and neck such as a bronze sculpture of a complete correction, lewd hips by the habit of hieratical dances. which bestow all movements a feline flexuosity, wholly wrapping, completing the seduction by the maddening brilliancy of black almond shaped eyes which provoke an infinite desire, which illuminate the smile of a small mouth, bordered by extremely white teeth with which she chewed aromatic plants; a light way of walking such as a free gazelle; a primitive grace such as of a submissive animal, which offers itself at the first caress". Camoens was crazy about "this slave which has me enslaved"; Barbara had ensorcelled him. He wrote a poem called ENDECHA TO A SLAVE, WITH WHOM I HAD LOVE AFFAIRS IN INDIA, CALLED BARBARA". Endecha is a "sad melopoeia": Eu nunca vi rosa.... I never saw a rose... Em suaves mólhos.... In soft bouquets Que para meus olhos ....That for my eyes Fôsse mais formosa.... Might be more beautiful Rosto singular.... A singular face Olhos socegados.... Restful eyes Pretos e cansados.... Black and tired Mas nâo de matar.... But not of killing Pretidâo de amor.... Blackness of love Tâo doce a figura.... So sweet a figure Que a neve lhe jura.... That the snow swears to her Que trocara a côr....That it would swap its colour. Leda mansidâo.... Cheerful meekness Que o siso acompanha.... That cleverness accompanies Bem parece estranha.... She well seems strange Mas barbara nâo..... But barbarous not. A magistrate of Goa, Alberto Osorio de Castro, gives us his vivid impression on these melopoeias of Camoens: " the most enchanting poem of an European to the grace of the woman of India. An Indian woman who inspired him, undoubtedly was some graceful calumbina (Kundbi) slave, or a Calavant as the dancing girls are known in Konkani, or a Devadassi, that is slaves of the gods". Other Viceroys followed after Constantino de Bragança (1558-61), namely Francisco Coutinho (1561-64) who died in Goa and was substituted temporarily (from 29th February 1564 until September 3, 1564) by Joâo de Mendonça, who had been commander of the fortress of Chaul; then the next viceroy was Antao de Noronha (1564-68), followed by Luis de Ataide ( 1568-71). Meanwhile poor Camoens eked out a living in Goa, by being a scribe, writing letters on behalf of illiterate persons, and giving the final touches to his epic poem "OS LUSIADAS". Camoens who was critical of the behaviour of the Portuguese, thought that it was unsafe for him to remain in Goa, and sailed en route to Portugal in 1569, but was stranded in the island of Mozambique for some months, because he had no money to pay for the fare up to Lisbon. Diogo do Couto, the 16th century historian, on another voyage back to Lisbon, found "that great poet and old friend of mine" and he together with other friends, chipped in to help Camoens to return to Lisbon in their carrack. His manuscript passed the censorship of the Inquisition, and finally King Sebastian issued a decree to have the LUSIADAS printed in 1572, and quickly this mighty opus reached Spain and Italy, where at first it was more appreciated than in Portugal itself. The King gave Camoens a miserly pension of 15$000 yearly, and Camoens lived in a little house, adjoining the church of St. Anne. Somehow Barbara followed him to Lisbon, and she was ever "the gentle slave who serves and adores". in the words of Camoens. In the Book of Visitations of the church of St. Anne one can read the inventory taken in 1572 of the house of the poet, and making reference to the concubine, there appears the following sentence: "·Barbara who lives together with a person, who, for just causes, one does not mention". Faria e Sousa points out a tradition of an ambulant female seller, who was brokenhearted about the poverty of the poet: " a black woman called Barbara, knowing about his misery, gave him sometimes a dish of food, with the money that she earned from her sales and sometimes the money that she got from her sales". In the year 1859, a French writer, Guy de la Chandelle, wrote a novel called "LA VIEILLESSE DU POÈTE" ( The old age of the Poet) and in this novel, Barbara appears as the owner of a pub called BACCHO ESCARRANCHADO, which actually existed in Lisbon, and that she and the faithful Malayan servant Antonio, took care of Luis de Camoens. Antonio was a beggar, and with the proceeds of his alms, he took care of Camoens, buying charcoal during the winter, until Antonio died of the plague in 1579. Camoens died on the 10th of June 1580, when Portugal was annexed to Spain, having Philip II as King. Portugal's King Sebastiâo had died in a reckless war campaign in North Africa, against the King of Fez , where the Moors allowed the Portuguese Army to advance inland, and finally surrounded and massacred the invaders at Alcaer Kibir in 1578. Sebastiâo was single, and his uncle Cardinal Henrique became regent until his death in 1580, when Spain's King Philip II became the sole heir to the throne. For sixty years Portugal was under the Spanish yoke, and during this period Portugal´s empire in Asia, Africa and Brazil suffered severe losses from the Dutch. Lynschotten was really a spy of the Dutch, and four years after his book was published, with accurate details of the "Estado da India", the Dutch realizing the moral and physical decay of the Portuguese nation, attacked and occupied the Portuguese settlements, followed later by the English. It is fitting to point out that the Jesuit Thomas Stephens ( Padre Estevâo) , who was responsible to convert to Catholicism the people of Salcete, turned out to be a spy: his letters to friends in England depicted the riches of India, and these accounts whetted the appetite of the English merchants and adventurers who established the first factory in Surat. Faria e Sousa wrote that "King Philip II could appreciate literature, and having read Camoens' heroic Poem, had him in great esteem... When he entered Lisbon on the 26th June 1581, desiring to see him, ordered that he be brought before him, and was greatly bereaved to hear that he had died a few months before". Torquato Tasso, a contemporary of Camoens, and the greatest Italian poet of the late Renaissance wrote: "It may be that the Empire of the Indies be lost from the hands of the successors of Manuel, and the superb Lisbon may not see arriving in its port the treasures of Africa and Asia; but the first glory of its immense conquests will live forever shining in the Poem of Camoens; the most remote nations will admire in the LUSIADAS the incredible valour of a handful of men, who facing terrible dangers, enormous and never seen before, and subduing populous nations, took to the extremities of the universe their virtues and the religion of their fathers". BIBLIOGRAPHY: * Teófilo Braga: Historia da Literatura
Portuguesa: CAMOES by Alfredo de Mello concludes
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[ 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 ] 