[VOL III] THE GROTTO OF CAMOENS, MACAO

THE GROTTO OF CAMOENS, MACAO

Cover Image: The Grotto of Camoens, Macao / Macau China / From a Drawing in the possession of Sir Geo. Staunton, Bart Drawn by T. Allom Engraved by S. Bradshaw – ALAMY Image ID:2WXT7F6

*This famous historical site in Macau is located in the White Pigeon Nest Garden on the western part of the Macau Peninsula. In the mid-16th century, the renowned Portuguese poet Luis de Camões (1524~1580) resided in Macau for two years and completed the final portion of his epic poem “The Lusiads” in this cave. Nearly 290 years after Camões’ departure from Macau, Manuel Pereira, a wealthy Portuguese merchant in Macau, sought to commemorate Camões. He spent 600 francs to commission a half-body bronze statue of Camões, which was placed in the cave in 1849 (the 29th year of the Qing Dynasty’s Daoguang era). / From a Drawing in the possession of Sir Geo. Staunton, Bart.

“He was in sooth a genuine bard;
His was no faint, fictitious flame.
Like his, my love, be thy reward,
But not thy hapless fate the same.”

BYRON – Stanzas, with the Poems of Camöens.

AMONGST the many interesting memorials in the vicinity of Macao, is the cave or grotto of Camöens, the most celebrated poet of the Portuguese. It is a rudely-constructed temple, standing on the brink of a precipice, and commanding a most glorious prospect over the peninsula, and the sea that embraces it, and the mountains that rise rapidly on the opposite side of the roadstead. Visitors are led to the pleasure-grounds of a private seat, “the Casa,” with no inconsiderable degree of vanity, and thence to the little pavilion on the rock, where a bust of the poet is preserved. Should they, by any accident of education or defect of memory, be unacquainted at the moment with the chief labours of the poet, they are exultingly informed that “here Camöens wrote the greater portion of his Lusiad.” (*Lord Clarendon wrote much of his History in an alcove in the grounds of York House at Twickenham.)

Louis de Camöens is an illustration of those great men whose merit was first apparent in after-times, while their own age abandoned them to want; one of those whose tomb was honoured with the laurel-wreath that should have adorned his temples. The son of a ship-captain, and born at Lisbon about the year 1524, he was placed at the college of Coimbra; from which he returned, after passing the required time, to his native city. Here he fell passionately in love with a lady of the palace, Catherine d’Atayde, and was banished to Santarem, as the result of a dispute in which his luckless attachment had involved him. Strong passions are frequently found united with eminent talents; and the ardent lover of Lisbon, was now the delightful poet of Santarem. It was here that he poured forth his spirit of poetry, that he bewailed the pangs of broken hopes, in numbers which are compared to the lyrics of Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, and Tasso; and, inspired with the most noble sense of patriotism, that he attuned his harp to lays more mournful—the wrongs of his country. Despair preying on a mind so sensitive, he now became a soldier, and serving in the expedition which the Portuguese sent against Morocco, he composed poetry in the midst of battles. Danger kindled genius—genius animated courage. An arrow having deprived him of his right eye at the siege of Ceuta, he hoped that his wounds would receive a recompense which was denied to his talents; but in this expectation also he was deceived, owing solely to the machinations of envy. Filled with indignation at this studied neglect, he embarked for India in the year 1553, and landed at Goa, near to the spot where his father perished by shipwreck only three years after. At first he was incited to deeds of glorly by the prospect of obtaining high India, and exercised his powerful imagination in celebrating them, praise in a lengthened epic poem. The vivacity of the poet and the creator’s mind however, is not without difficulty restrained by that moderation which a state of dependence exacts; and Camõens, disgusted with many acts of cruelty and perfidy in the government of India, wrote a satire upon the authors, which caused his banishment to the settlement of Macao. His appointment of judge at this place was but an honourable name for exile; and here he had, during several years, no other society than that of nature, which poured around him in abundance all the charms of the East.

Leisure was found at length for the embodiment of his great conceptions, and, selecting Vasco de Gama’s Indian expedition as the subject, Camõens devoted the palmy years of his life to the composition of the “Lusiad.” The most celebrated passages in this immortal performance, are the episodes of Inez de Castro, and the appearance of Adamastre, who, by means of his power over the storms, endeavours to stop Gama when he is about to double the Cape of Good Hope. The poet is hardly responsible for the mixture of Christianity with mythological fable of which he has been guilty, for such was the prevailing taste of the times. To this taste also is to be attributed that imitation of the works of classical antiquity, which is employed in conjunction with the splendour of poetic description, so bright, so completely original, as to cause regret that fashion should have moulded the features of his genius in any respect. The versification of the Lusiad is so charming and harmonious, that not only the minds of the cultivated, but of the common people, in Portugal, are enraptured by its magic, and learn by heart, and sing favourite stanzas from it. Genuine patriotism pervades every line of this great poem, and the national glory of the Portuguese is emblazoned in every form, in all the colours which invention was capable of lending. It is for these reasons that the poetry of Camõens must ever be read with enthusiasm by his own countrymen, and remembered with all the tenacity of which memory is capable.

And now, when youth had ‘shed its bloom, and even the vigour of manhood was beginning to decay, for the first time envy suspended its malignant operation, and the poet and patriot, of whom Portugal was yet to boast, was recalled from

“His root-built cave, by far-extended rocks

Around embosomed, where they soothed his soul.”

Sailing for Europe, the destiny of Camöens followed him, and at the mouth of the river Mechoon, in Cochin-China, he suffered shipwreck, saving himself from his brave father’s fate, by swimming to the shore. The only treasure which he reserved from the wreck was the MS. of his poem; this he held above his head with one hand, buffeting the billows with the other, as Julius Caesar did, when he swam with his inestimable Commentaries from Alexandria to his galley that was lying in the harbour. Reaching Goa after this narrow escape from a watery grave, new griefs awaited him: and here he encountered renewed persecutions, being imprisoned for debt, and only released on the responsibility of his friends, who felt for the agonies he had endured by an exile so lengthened and unmerited. At the moment when he experienced the refreshment of liberty, he was encouraged by the patronage of royalty; the youthful monarch, Sebastian, manifesting an admiration of his poems, and taking an interest in the poet. An expedition against the Moors in Africa being about to sail, the king, who conducted it in person, desired the Lusiad to be dedicated to himself ; and, feeling more sensibly than others had done, the genius and adventurous spirit of the writer, carried him along with him to the field of glory. Sebastian indeed attained his object, falling gloriously in the battle before the city of Alcagar, in 1578; but Camõens, in losing his prince, lost every thing: for, with his death, the royal family, and the real independence of Portugal, were extinct. Returning to his native country, friendless, impoverished, envied, he saw that every source of supply was dried up, every avenue of succour closed, every ray of hope extinguished—and for ever. A prey to poverty and suffering, a slave alone remained faithful to him in his misfortunes; and this humble friend actually supported his master by alms which he begged in the public streets. In this situation he yet wrote lyric poems, some of which contain the most moving complaints of the neglect of literary worth, and the ingratitude of mankind to public benefactors. Unwilling to survive his royal patron, and his Indian slave being no longer able to provide for him the necessaries of existence, or relieve his infirmities, he obtained admission into the chief hospital of Lisbon ; and there, this great ornament of his country—this honour of Portuguese and of European literature—miserably expired in the sixty-second year of his age; just one year after the last Sebastian had passed away from the world. Fifteen years afterwards, a splendid monument was erected to his memory ; and his works have since been translated into every European language.